as in the shop or the mill. Meantime, it is well that a clearance has been made of a depressed, apathetic, low-minded order of labourers, corrupted or disheartened by the operation of laws now abolished. They or their children have found a good field of labour in the colonies; and they are not present here to keep up bad traditions about parish help, poaching, and all the old corruptions.
But the new labourers must be of a higher order. The new agricultural machinery could not have been wielded by the peasantry of the time of George IV. Are we attending to this? Are we looking to the training of the cottage children of our time?
We may see great promise in this direction too. There are complaints all over the land of the badness of our cottage accommodation: and this complaint shows that something better is desired,—which is the same thing in this country aa { being intended. As the law of settlement is relaxed, the inducement to bring labourers near to their work strengthens; and as the men’s faces brighten and their minds grow stirring, their masters perceive that it is good economy to provide for their health and domestic comfort. Hence the cottage-building movement, and the popular cry in favour of dwellings with not less than three bedrooms.
Then, there is the stir about the schools, and the endless discussion of the difficulty of the children being taken from school before they have learned to read and write and cast accounts. The country is covered with schools; and there never before was such a provision of qualified teachers: but the children are out in the fields, earning something towards the family expenses, instead of coming to school with their pence in their hands. Here, however, a bright prospect opens. Parents would spare their children for half the day, if that would do: and now it appears that half the day will do,—and better than the whole. Mr. Paget, M.P. for Nottingham, told us long ago how he had succeeded on his farm and in his school by having two sets of boys, to take the farm work and schooling in turn: and now Mr. Chadwick has supplied us with abundant proof that children of all ranks in life, and of both sexes, learn at least as much in four hours of every day in school as in eight. The study of the human brain and of children’s ways might teach us beforehand that young minds cannot profitably apply to book study for any large proportion of every day; but we see the fact in all directions as soon as we begin to look for it. Factory children learn as much in half-time, when properly taught, as whole-day scholars. Girls who sew all the afternoons, read and write and cipher as well as boys who study both morning and afternoon. This is now so clear that the practice of drill, and various other muscular exercises are introduced into boys’ schools where the necessity for labour does not exist. Labourers’ boys can therefore use their muscles in earning a part of their living, and get all the good they are capable of from school at the same time. Their parents are becoming so thoroughly aware of the value of intelligence in labourers who are to be employed on or with machinery henceforth that there will be less and less trouble in getting our rural schools filled; and especially if, by a change in our system, we secure more effective teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic. If we remember how badly these main things have been taught hitherto, how many boys have sat for years together on school-benches to little purpose, while they might have been learning their business from their fathers in the field; and how many girls have come out at last unable to read a book pleasantly, or write a letter correctly, while they are helpless with the cows and the chickens, and unable to cook the family dinner, we shall not wonder that there has been some prejudice to get over about schooling. But the desire for reading and writing is still strong; and when it is once seen that these can be thoroughly gained (and much besides), while half the day remains for work at home, there will be a brighter prospect before the next generation of rural labourers than there ever was before their forefathers.
If that class of our people is already more disposed to save money than any other order of labourers, as appears to be the case, they are likely to save more henceforth continually; for fresh encouragements are ever offered to them. We see the allotment in one case, and the pig in another: we find a labourer here and there living in a cottage of his own, obtained by subscription to a soundly-managed building-society; and a considerable proportion of our peasantry are members of some benefit-club. We are better pleased to be told of the large aggregate amount of their deposits in the saving-banks throughout the country, because many building-societies and benefit-clubs are ignorantly founded and badly managed. But the grandest step yet is the institution of the Post-office Savings Banks, which will answer every purpose of the day-labourer who desires the welfare of his family and the security of his own old age. In the safe bank which is open every day at the Post-office (and which will be, in course of time, at every Post-office) he can lay by a shilling or more, as often as he can spare it, without anybody knowing, and with liberty to draw it out when he wants it. His deposit will gather interest and compound interest as it lies; and by paying in without delay whatever he can spare he saves himself from many a temptation to waste or foolish indulgence. Persons who wish well to the order should turn tract-distributors for once, and give away to all they know the little penny publication which has just issued from the Victoria Press, called “Post office Savings Banks: A Few Words Concerning Them.” At present we have only an instalment of open offices, but the immediate success of the experiment promises that the institution will extend till every post-office will be engaged in it.
All these hopeful signs must not blind us to the discouragements which still exist. We may still see country public-houses where wretched labourers, stupified with drugged beer, are lying under the benches, while their wives outside try in vain to get at them, or coax them home. We still have farm-servants who admit that they spend two shillings a week in tobacco; and some to whom we can prove that their pipe has cost them thirty pounds in a dozen years, while they have been
