The Bee-Hive. — 1874-05-09 (London, England)

EDUCATION AND PAUPERISM.  Our present rulers have made daring and decided exhibition or trial of their strength. As Mr. Forster left matters in the Education Office, it was demanded of the children of the poorest of parents, that is, receiving outdoor relief from the poor's rate, that they s:lould continue at school until able to pass Standard Three in the established Code, Mr. Disraeli and his colleagues had not been many weeks,  or even days, in office, when they authorised Lord Bandon to make this backward movement in the education policy of the State as they found it established by their predecessors.  The attention of the House of Commons having been called to the audacious alteration by Mr. Kay-Shuttleworth, who has hereditary desires for the moral elevation of the humblest and poorest, Lord Sandon, in a tone approaching contempt for the sincere advocates of universal instruction, defended the hostile measure, contending that it is quite enough for "the class of children concerned." It affects some quarter of million of children, whom, as one Member said, it would dismiss from school with " a shallow veneering, a certain amount of varnish," hardly, in plain words, able to read. Perhaps the real reasons or palpable policy of this reversing of the education engine peeps through Mr. Sclater-Booth's observations on it. From him we learn that it was "pressed upon" Lord Sandon by the Cabinet, and upon the Cabinet by their friends the beards of guardians in the rural parishes. This class of men, parson,s, proprietors, and tenant-farmers, have a fixed opinion that the less the peer know the better, and the longer wages for adult labour are kept down to a low point the more it conduces to agricultural prosperity. "They found," quoth Mr. &laterBooth, "the greatest desire expressed by poor. law guardians for this alteration, because parents were discharging themselves from relief rather than submit to the law. The guardians were in the greatest anxiety about the matter, finding, on the one hand, that parents were discharging themselves from relief in order that they might still enjoy the earnings of their children; while, on the other hand, they complained of the great expense which would be cast on the ratepayers if parents were deprived of those earnings." _ _  The measure, in fact, has been conceded to the ignorant opponents of popular instruction by a party who like it best when given to the people in the smallest and mildest doses. It may edify gullible old ladies to see county members turning up the whites of their eyes and vowing they will "never be parties to blaming the children of poor parents for occupying the first years of their growing strength in relieving the necessities of their parents;" but the shame is, that those necessities should not be provided for by a fair day's wages for a fair day's work doue by the father. As Mr. Pease, whose conduct as an employer in the North entitles him to speak, well observed, the standard was low enough already, and, being lowered, will but multiply paupers instead of bringing up useful and intelligent citizens. Lord Saudon threw in the faces of the Oppositi#n the remark, that "the feeling in favour of education is not now half so strong as it was."  Mr. Forster, however, views the reactionary step as an invitation, consciously .or unconsciously given, to boards of guardians to "press upon" him more and more in the same direction. To him, as author of the cancelled Minute, it was" alarming " to be told that the parents did not want their children to he educated, and he believed his alarm would be shared by the ratepayers. He, like all other men, knows the difficulty attendant upon compulsory feeding of minds dwelling in unfed bodies; but, since they come from untaught homer, they must at least learn something that can never be wholly forgotten, or it were vain to teach them anything at ; and. what about children dismissed from school at Standard Three, and remaining idle, without either teaching or work Mr. Read, however, as a representative of the bucolic mind, maintaina that "the first duty of a pauper child is to earn his living; in asserting which, he discloses the long-suspected fact, that those who teach in rural parishes, not merely do not, but "cannot teach up to Standard Five!"  Mr. Lowe might well twit this gentleman with hesitation to give the poor any education at all. As the late Home Secretary clearly showed, it was Lord Sandon's duty, in his office, to promote a real anti thorough education for the people, by every means in his power to uphold the standard, and to make the money the means, not only of maintaining, but of elevating it all over the country. What did  Parliament mean when it made eduoatioa compulsory? Lid it mean that to be a formality? Was not Parliament aware of all that had been urged as to the hardship of taking ohilaren away from work? Pftrfia meat looked that in the face, and was too wise,and at that time too liberal, to take awa) children for any other purpose than that they should receive in exchange a real andthorough education. It was, indeed, a cruel thing to deprive a poor person of a portion of his income by taking his child from work, unless they gave the child a real and solid benefit. The question was, would they under the Minute of the noble lord get this real and solid benefit? The Third Standard was a mere milestone on the way, and no one dreamed of stopping there. To do so, would be to strike a deadly blow at national education.  Fie, Mr. Lowe, the Govtitiameall_. wish, believe the Chanoellor of the Exchequer, is to "make it real." it w.es a fine conclusion to the debate when Mr. Kay-Shuttleworth reminded both sides that the Fourth Standard, one degree at least above the reactignary Minute,. was positively" fixed by the Agricultural Children's Act." Ministers have got a majority of sixty-three, but it is a first attempt at suicide, and rather desperate.