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REESE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 I ■iAccessiQii'No. Y(oO 3 ^ ■ CloisNo. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/educationasmeansOOellirich 
 
\ 
 

 EDUCATION 
 
 AS A MEANS OF 
 
 PREVENTINa DESTITUTION: 
 
 WITH 
 
 EXEMPLIFICATIONS FROM THE TEACHING OF THE 
 
 CONDITIONS OF WELL-BEINQ AND THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 AND APPLICATIONS OF ECONOMICAL SCIENCE 
 
 AT THE 
 
 BIEKBECK SCHOOLS. 
 
 PREFACED BY A LETTER 
 
 TO THE 
 
 EIGHT HON. LOKD JOHN EUSSELL, M.P. 
 
 By WILLIAM ELLIS, 
 
 Author of the "Outlines op Social Economy," etc. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. 
 
 1851. 
 
l3^^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ik 
 
 y^ 30 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PBINTED BY STKWAKT AND MUERAT, 
 
 OLD BAILEY. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letter to the Right Honourable Lord John Russell, M.P. 1 
 
 I. 
 
 Thoughts upon Education as a means of Preventing or Dimin- 
 ishing Destitution 9 
 
 II. 
 
 The Conditions of Well-being as taught in the Birkbeck 
 Schools, and as they ought to be taught everywhere 33 
 
 III. 
 
 The Morality of Expenditure, or of the disposal of Wealth in 
 general 63 
 
 IV. 
 
 What is Competition? 93 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 V. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Not over-population, but under-education, the cause of Des- 
 titution ; not more Emigration, but more Education, and of 
 better quality, the remedy for Destitution 115 
 
 VI. 
 
 Reasons for insisting that Instruction in Economical Science 
 shall no longer be excluded from our Schools 131 
 
EDUCATION 
 
 AS A MEAXS OF 
 
 PREYENTINa DESTITUTION. 
 
 TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD JOHN RUSSELL, M.P. 
 
 My Lord, 
 
 I AM aware that it must be matter of more than 
 ordinary importance, which alone can justify an ob- 
 scure individual in trespassing upon your time and 
 attention. When I state that the subject upon which 
 I would trouble you is " Education," I think I may 
 flatter myself, that you will not disdain to spare a few 
 minutes for the consideration of what I would now 
 venture to bring under your notice — especially if I 
 add, what is well known to many in this metropolis 
 and elsewhere, that I am not merely a talker or writer, 
 but an actual worker in the great Educational harvest- 
 field. 
 
 There is, I believe, among all who are taking an 
 active part in the diffusion and improvement of Edu- 
 cation, a common feeling of regret, for the deficiency, 
 both in quality and quantity, of the Education acces- 
 
sible to the masses of the people, and also for the 
 backwardness and inability of parents to avail them- 
 selves, in behalf of their children, of the indifferent 
 education offered for their acceptance. 
 
 No greater difficulty presents itself to the Educa- 
 tional philanthropist than this parental inability. It 
 was dwelt upon at the late annual meeting of the 
 British and Foreign School Society, presided over by 
 your Lordship, and drew forth from you some obser- 
 vations far too valuable to be allowed to pass into 
 oblivion, and which I beg to introduce here as reported 
 in the Tz/we^ newspaper of the following morning (13th 
 May). 
 
 " It has been said by some who have spoken to-day, 
 and with great truth, that a parent is responsible for 
 his children, and he should be called on to see that no 
 son or daughter of his was ignorant of the truth of 
 religion, nor of their duty to God and man. But, on 
 the other hand, I think it might be said with great 
 justice that the parent has had some excuse who was 
 unable, without the aid of his children, to obtain suffi- 
 cient bread for his family, or a home to shelter them 
 from the inclemency of the weather, or clothes to dress 
 them. These are wants which a parent might justly 
 allege as grounds why he could not afford to give his 
 children that education which they might otherwise 
 reasonably demand. But I trust and hope, that as 
 comforts are increasing, and I believe the means of 
 the great mass of the people are greater than they 
 have been, of providing for their necessaries and com- 
 forts of life — I trust and hope that you will perceive 
 them more anxious for education. I think that there 
 is not wanting in the people of this country the desire 
 
of all moral and spiritual good, and that they will be 
 anxious, when they have the means, to confer those 
 blessings upon their children." 
 
 If it had been compatible with the narrow limits 
 within which you were obliged to compress your re- 
 marks, you would, I dare say, have drawn a distinction 
 between the parents of the present and the parents of 
 the future. At all events, I entertain little doubt that 
 you will agree with me that, among the parents of the 
 present, most of those who are unable to do their duty 
 by their children are the victims of neglected, in- 
 different, or mistaken education, as are the vagrants 
 and criminals of society. They are, as your obser- 
 vations indirectly imply, deserving of the deepest 
 commiseration from all right-minded people. Never- 
 theless, it is our duty to use every effort to circum- 
 scribe the misery which must result to society from 
 the misconduct of these several parties. We appre- 
 hend vagrants, we confine criminals, we extend the 
 hand of charity to unprotected children, and while 
 smarting under the suffering thus inflicted upon us, 
 and which we can do no more than mitigate in the 
 present, ought we not to take precautions against the 
 recurrence of similar suffering in the future ? 
 
 As the existence of parents unable adequately to 
 perform the parental duties is mostly a consequence of 
 insufficient teaching and training, so a succession of im- 
 proved parents can only be looked for after the means of 
 education shall have been both improved and extended. 
 I am not insensible to the difficulties that surround this 
 question of the extension of education — the jealousies 
 of the different religious denominations, and the dislike 
 prevalent among most of them of seeing the secular 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 separated from the religious portion of education. 
 But, surely, there ought to be no disinclination any- 
 where so to improve the secular portion of education 
 as to make it as conducive as possible to the dimi- 
 nution, if not to the prevention, of destitution. The 
 purpose of the following pages is to direct attention 
 to what must be embraced by education, to make it 
 effective for this work of circumscribing or preventing 
 destitution. 
 
 A topic of minor importance to that of parental 
 forethought, and yet not to be overlooked with im- 
 punity, is incidentally referred to in your speech. 
 You remark that " the means of the great mass of the 
 people are greater than they have been." Granted. 
 We have had three abundant harvests in succession ; 
 but bad harvests await us. Potato rots, even, are to 
 be looked for again. When these causes of com- 
 parative scarcity visit our land, are the masses of the 
 people to be badly off — to be unable to fulfil their 
 duties as parents? — or are they to be prepared for 
 these inevitable alternations of good and bad seasons, 
 by saving from the superabundance of good seasons to 
 supply the deficiencies of the bad ones, and thus feel 
 themselves shielded from suffering, and competent to 
 fulfil their duties as parents? What the answers 
 must be to these questions greatly depends upon the 
 character of the secular portion of Education — upon the 
 general prevalence among the people of a knowledge 
 of what they ought to do, how they ought to conduct 
 themselves, and upon an equally prevalent disposition 
 to make their conduct conform with their knowledge. 
 
 You have assisted largely in removing the shackles 
 from industry ; and for this effort your name will be 
 
honourably recorded in history among the benefactors 
 of mankind. But to guarantee and advertise to the 
 world that the rewards of industry, of knowledge, and 
 of other social virtues, shall no longer be intercepted 
 from the people by legislation, does not confer the 
 virtues by which these rewards must be earned. This 
 is the province of education — not of any kind of 
 education, but of an education specially adapted to 
 impart the knowledge and form the habits to qualify 
 them for earning those rewards. And I readily con- 
 fess it would be a source of pride and satisfaction to 
 me if I could prevail upon you to fix your attention, 
 and attract that of others, to the importance of intro- 
 ducing into all educational establishments the improve- 
 ments requisite to attain an end alike, I trust, longed 
 for by all — the prevention or diminution of destitution. 
 
 The statesman, legislator, or administrator, com- 
 petent and disposed to say or do what is needful in 
 this important matter of Education, has not up to this 
 time been forthcoming. The records of Parliament, 
 and the minutes of the Committee of Council on 
 Education, establish this but too clearly. Let me, 
 then, implore you to step forth, while there is yet an 
 opportunity, and not to delay and thus leave it to 
 others, to supply a want which must ere long be 
 supplied by some " man in authority," and which, 
 unsupplied, obstructs every other effort, however 
 wisely directed, for the elevation of the people. 
 
 You at this moment occupy a position among your 
 countrymen which causes every recommendation — 
 nay, hint from you, especially if in harmony with our 
 higher intelligences and aspirations, to command a 
 hearing, to sway opinion, and to influence conduct. 
 
Again, I say, let me implore you to vouchsafe a little 
 serious attention to what I am making bold to submit 
 to you. Should you, though only partially, agree 
 with me, speak but the word, and make known to the 
 public what in your opinion must no longer be 
 excluded from Education, if it is to be efficacious in 
 warding off destitution. 
 
 The glory of carrying a comprehensive Educational 
 measure, it may be, will not be yours, nor even the 
 gratification of conciliating a preponderating amount 
 of Educational opinion, but your words will impart 
 courage and vitality to those active spirits which are 
 ever at work to help up the masses from one step in 
 civilization to another. And when, in the natural 
 course of events, relieved from the anxieties of office 
 and in the enjoyment of a well-earned and peaceful 
 retirement, you may be led to indulge in the retrospect 
 of your efforts during a long and arduous public life, 
 I much doubt whether any single effort will be dwelt 
 upon with more heartfelt satisfaction than those spoken 
 words of yours — those tidings of great joy to ignorant 
 and destitute thousands. 
 
 It has ever been my habit not to solicit, directly or 
 indirectly, man or boy to say what / think, or to act 
 upon my convictions, but rather to think and form con- 
 victions for himself and act faithfully and vigorously upon 
 them. Neither do I depart from this habit now. Self- 
 respect and respect for your lordship alike forbid it. 
 The utmost extent of my demand is, that you will put 
 these few plain questions to yourself: — 
 
 Is it possible to diminish the pauperism and destitu- 
 tion prevailing in this country ? 
 
UNIVEBSITY 
 
 Must Education form part of the means to be em- 
 ployed for warding off destitution ? 
 
 Would religious Education, or Education with all 
 the secular portion eliminated, suffice for the 
 purpose ? 
 
 And if not, what ought to be included in a complete 
 course of secular Education ? 
 
 These are questions which no man — assuredly no 
 statesman — ought to turn aside from. Failing to 
 answer them, he ought to abandon statesmanship. 
 Finding answers and neglecting to act up to them, or 
 mistrusting his ability to obtain that concurrence with- 
 out which legislative action is impossible, and stifling 
 his convictions, resorting to conventional fallacies 
 culled from the Noodle's oration, or sheltering himself 
 in ignominious silence — it is not for me to characterize 
 the feelings that such conduct must arouse among 
 enlightened and high-minded contemporaries, or to 
 anticipate the stern and unanimous verdict of our more 
 enlightened and high-minded posterity. 
 
 I am, &c. &c. 
 
 William Ellis. 
 
 London f August 1851. 
 
I. 
 
 THOUGHTS UPON EDUCATION AS A MEANS OF PREVENT- 
 ING OR DIMINISHING DESTITUTION. 
 
 In this world of mingled pleasure and pain, hope and 
 fear, good and bad, love and hatred, peace and strife, 
 truth and falsehood, knowledge and ignorance, it is 
 gratifying to feel a conviction that the better elements ' 
 of the mixture are daily gaining a preponderance. 
 Everywhere around us we see things better done, 
 well-being better provided for than, as far as we can 
 learn from historical records, they were in former 
 times. And when travellers and navigators return 
 from foreign and distant lands, and narrate to us what 
 they have seen and heard, we learn nothing to shake 
 this cheerful conviction of ours, or to mortify us with 
 the reflection that we are falling behind other nations 
 of the earth in our progressive civilization. 
 
 Turning from the comparison of our present state of 
 semi-civilization with the previous barbarism out of 
 which we are but emerging, and resting our thoughts 
 upon the conflicting elements of barbarism and civili- 
 zation in the midst of which we find ourselves afloat, 
 sadder and soberer reflections are awakened within us. 
 Those of us whose lot is cast among the more bar- 
 
10 
 
 b^rous elements, cannot but feel our privation and 
 suffering to be somewhat embittered by the sight and 
 contact of contemporary abundance and enjoyment. 
 Others of us, again, who are floating amid the more 
 civilized elements, unless utterly unworthy, cannot 
 but feel a pang in contemplating the victims of a yet 
 unextinguished barbarism. 
 
 As our sense of existing misery checks any tendency 
 to boastful exuberance of joy that might possess us 
 while we contemplate our evident progress, comparing 
 the present with the past, so our consciousness of this 
 growing preponderance of good must protect us against 
 despair or despondency while we fix our attention upon 
 the still wide-spread misery around us. What has 
 caused the diminution of misery which we seem to 
 admit? What is likely to favour the continuance of 
 such diminution in the future ? The answers that will 
 . / be generally given to these two questions are — " In- 
 crease of knowledge, and improvement in habits." 
 And if it be asked, how increase of knowledge and 
 improved habits can best be promoted by those who 
 are inclined to engage in the work, the answer will no 
 less generally be, " by Education." 
 
 If there be one sign of our times more hopeful than 
 another, it is the unanimity with which Education is 
 \j relied upon as the principal means for stifling the 
 barbarism yet unextinguished, and for extending the 
 civilization yet too circumscribed among us. What a 
 contrast is presented by two systems for the preven- 
 tion of evil, in the first of which the main effort is to 
 avert it by removing its causes ; in the other, to cope 
 with it only when these causes have been embodied 
 \/ in effects. Education deals with causes — Punishment 
 
11 
 
 with effects. And till within quite modern times, as 
 fiir as the masses of mankind are concerned, the action 
 of the former, in imparting knowledge and implanting 
 habits, has been comparatively neglected ; while the 
 efficacy of the latter, in deterring from acts committed 
 through ignorance and ill-regulated propensities has 
 been blindly relied upon. For example, men in want 
 steal. All agree that theft must, if possible, be pre- 
 vented. The Educator would prevent theft by pro- 
 viding such teaching and training as will enable all 
 to keep themselves from want, and out of temptation. 
 The Punisher would prevent theft by exhibiting to 
 hungry men how other hungry men have brought 
 down legal penalties upon themselves by stealing in 
 order to allay the pangs of hunger. 
 
 Very different notions, it is true, prevail among the 
 persons out of whose mouths the word "Education" 
 finds utterance. But also some similar notions are 
 combined with the different ones. Hence, systems 
 and schemes of every conceivable form and variety, 
 some approaching so nearly as if about to unite ; others 
 diverging so widely as if never destined to co-operate ; 
 the promoters of which all lay claim to one common 
 purpose — the improvement of mankind. Let us now 
 endeavour to separate, draw forth, and bring into bold 
 relief that in which most thoughtful men cannot fail to 
 agree — be the other ingredients of their several Educa- 
 tional schemes ever so important or indispensable in 
 their opinions. 
 
 It being once conceded that Education, in some one 
 of the many forms in which it is conceived, ought to 
 be accessible to every individual ; no excuse can justify 
 our tolerating a state of things where this Education 
 
12 
 
 is practically inaccessible to large masses of the people. 
 To grant that Education is indispensable for all, is to 
 y^ grant that the withholding it from some is an act of 
 revolting atrocity. If the question were not the edu- 
 cating, but the feeding, of the people ; and while it was 
 admitted on all hands, that the people ought to be 
 fed, some contended that the people must not eat fish, 
 and others, that they must not meat, what would be 
 thought of the sense or humanity of those who should 
 be prepared to leave the people without bread till it 
 could be agreed whether this bread should be com- 
 bined with fish or flesh, or some dish made by an 
 impossible compromise of the two ? Are there any 
 ingredients that can be considered as the farinaceous 
 parts of Education ? Doubtless there are ; and be 
 ours the task to enumerate them. Once clearly seen 
 and understood, he who could think of withholding 
 them from the people would be a monster, — let us 
 hope a fabulous monster. 
 
 To drop metaphor — the most cursory glance at what 
 it is agreed ought to be taught everywhere will suffice 
 to satisfy us that there is some unanimity in the midst 
 of antagonism. For example, in all Educational 
 schemes it is agreed that Reading, Writing, Arith- 
 /metic, Geography, and Elementary Mensuration and 
 Astronomy, should be taught; and, despite the con- 
 tradictory views as to the means to be used for the 
 accomplishment of what is desired, it is no less unani- 
 mously admitted that attention ought to be directed 
 to the formation of habits of Industry, Economy, 
 V Sobriety, Trustworthiness, Punctuality, and Orderly 
 "^ Conduct. Basing the inquiry, in which I invite you 
 to accompany me, upon this unanimity undeniably 
 
13 
 
 existing to a certain extent, and desirable to a greater, 
 I shall endeavour to draw forth a little more in detail 
 what, as I conceive, ought to be universally agreed 
 upon as essentials in Education, turning aside from 
 those other portions of Education, however important 
 they may be, upon which differences of opinion exist, 
 of such strength and, perhaps, so deep seated as to be 
 ineradicable in our time. 
 
 In order not to be led astray into a purposeless 
 inquiry, we will begin by asking ourselves what con- 
 sequences can be rationally expected from Education. 
 Education can neither alter the structure of the uni-' 
 verse, nor our own organization. The utmost that it 
 can do is to make us acquainted with that structure, 
 with our own organization in relation to it, and how 
 we should conduct ourselves so as to secure that 
 amount of well-being which, as far as our knowledge 
 tells us, is attainable; training us, at the same time, 
 to the habits leading readily to that conduct which 
 knowledge has recommended for our adoption. But if 
 Education can accomplish this wherever it is brought 
 to bear, and if it can be brought to bear generally, 
 there will be little reason to regret that it can accom- 
 plish no more. 
 
 It is evident at once that Education, viewed as a 
 means of conferring the knowledge and forming the </ 
 habits that lead to well-being, will call forth methods 
 far different from those which are adopted in an ordi- 
 nary grammar-school. When parents begin seriously 
 to ask themselves, in the matter of Education, the 
 same questions that they ask themselves, each in his 
 own special department of industry, they will soon see 
 what portions of prevailing methods are susceptible 
 
14 
 
 of improvement, what must be discarded, and what 
 new ones introduced. 
 
 If a parent be an engineer, does he not accurately 
 survey his ground, consider the relative merits of 
 different expedients, calculate the strength, durability, 
 and cost of material, estimate the means at his dis- 
 posal, organize and distribute the labour under his 
 command, and then only proceed to excavate his dock, 
 build his bridge, or construct his railroad ? If he be a 
 merchant, does he not so arrange his proceedings that 
 whether he buy or sell, import or export, make or 
 receive consignments, a balance of profit may be the 
 reward of his industry? If he be the captain of 
 a ship, does he not inform himself precisely and 
 minutely concerning the seas to be traversed, the 
 qualities of his ship, the nature of his cargo, the pro- 
 ficiency of his officers and crew ? does he not inspect 
 with scrutinizing eye his charts, compasses, chrono- 
 meters, and other nautical instruments ; and, confiding 
 in these and his own watchfulness and judgment, does 
 he not look forward without fear to performing his 
 voyage in safety ? Or if he contemplate emigration, 
 does he not make every preliminary inquiry for the 
 purpose of ascertaining the climate, the soil, and other 
 peculiarities of the country which he is about to adopt, 
 so that his preparations beforehand, and his exertions 
 on landing, may as early as possible secure for him- 
 self and his family that well-being of which he is in 
 search ? 
 
 If we view parents, not as engineers, not as mer- 
 chants, not as captains, not as emigrants, but simply 
 as parents, we cannot be wrong if we assume that 
 their principal solicitude must be to provide as far as 
 
15 
 
 possible for the future well-being of their children. 
 The means by which they think to attain the accom- 
 plishment of their wishes may be ill-chosen and ill- 
 adapted for the purpose; and even their conceptions 
 of what constitutes well-being may be very imperfect, 
 but their earnestness and good faith cannot be doubted. 
 Thus much is certain, that all good parents desire well- 
 being for their children, and look to Education as one ' 
 of the chief means within their reach to bring it about. 
 By Education they expect to influence their children's 
 conduct : some kinds of conduct leading to well-being, 
 other kinds leading away from well-being. But here 
 a double difficulty presents itself. How are their 
 children to know what conduct is good and what 
 conduct is bad ? and how are they to become well 
 disposed, that is, inclined to good and averse to bad 
 conduct ? 
 
 Teaching is the means that must be relied on for 
 giving the knowledge, and training for forming the ^ 
 disposition. These two great Educational functions 
 cannot be separated. They proceed in company, well 
 or ill performed, for good or for evil. But to help us 
 to discriminate between what may be good or bad in 
 them, we may examine them separately ; and, as first 
 in order, we will begin with knowledge or the teaching 
 function, since we must know what ought to be courted 
 and what ought to be shunned before we can with any 
 comfort engage in the consideration of the habits and 
 disposition to be formed, and of the methods of train- 
 ing necessary to accomplish the purpose aimed at. 
 
 What, then, is it desirable that all human beings 
 should know in order to be able each to perform his 
 share of the work required for the general well-being ? 
 
 UNIVERSITY 1 
 
16 
 
 May we not safely say that everybody ought to have a 
 general acquaintance with the qualities and uses of the 
 objects that inevitably must, or probably will, be 
 brought within the cognizance of the senses — with 
 what the several elementary bodies, separately, and in 
 different forms of combination, may be made the causes 
 of — with the arts and industrial operations by which 
 this knowledge is, and may be applied, in order to 
 produce well-being — with the structure and functions 
 of our own organization, considered both in its parts 
 and in its integrity ? It need not be attempted or 
 pretended to impart the whole of this knowledge in 
 all its ramifications. Much of it must be reserved for 
 special study and application by particular professions 
 and trades. But a general apprehension of the struc- 
 ture of the universe, and of man in his relation to it, 
 with a minute and accurate knowledge, and a prac- 
 tised and ready skill in the application of indispensable 
 portions ought to be as much a provision made to 
 await every human being, whose coming is expected, 
 as the necessary food, clothing, and shelter. 
 
 The order in which this knowledge is to be com- 
 municated — or more properly, in which it ought to be 
 brought in contact with the young, for them to absorb 
 and assimilate, must be determined, rather by their 
 capacity for learning the different parts, than by the 
 eventual relative importance of the parts — taking care, 
 of course, that nothing really important is ultimately 
 omitted. 
 
 ' The kind of instruction which the young are best 
 fitted to receive in the first place, is that which h 
 obtainable through the judicious and pleasurable exer- 
 cise of their senses. This requires no painful restraint 
 
17 
 
 upon the restless activity of childhood, and no call 
 upon attention beyond their limited power of endu- 
 rance. The food which they eat, the air which they " 
 breathe, the clothes which they wear, the furniture that 
 surrounds them, the houses they live in, the inmates 
 that associate with them, the strangers that visit, and 
 then, the world without, according to the glimpses 
 which they catch of it — what an inexhaustible stock of 
 exercises for the sight, the touch, the hearing, the 
 smell, and the taste; in the shape, colour, texture, 
 weight, dimensions, motions, distance, odour, and taste 
 of all these objects, and in their numbers and propor- 
 tions, and the contrivances for measuring and noting 
 them ! 
 
 Preliminary teaching, such as the teaching thus 
 briefly indicated, will not merely prepare, it will excite 
 the desire, to acquire the arts of reading and writing. 
 The narratives of some things that are not within their 
 own experience, will awaken a curiosity to learn more, 
 and to possess the key of the books in which the means 
 of gratification are locked up. The pleasure of being 
 able to record what they have learned, and to com- 
 municate to those out of the reach of hearing, and the 
 exquisite enjoyment connected with the power of 
 sketching and delineating forms will speedily overcome 
 all disinclination, so to apply, as to acquire facility both 
 in writing and drawing. Reading and writing, lan- 
 guage spoken and written, occupy, in this method of 
 dealing with them, the important position to which 
 they are entitled among the means for obtaining know^- 
 ledge, and will not be mistaken for the knowledge 
 itself. A sad bereavement would it be felt were we de- 
 prived of our power of naming and describing things, 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 and of communicating our feelings in regard to them ; 
 and a sad perversion were we to mistake a familiarity 
 with the names of things for familiarity with things 
 and their qualities and uses. 
 
 From the more elementary stage, the continued 
 investigation of the order of the universe as a whole 
 and in its parts, whether narrated by travellers, ob- 
 served by themselves, or recorded from times past, 
 will lead on to higher branches of science and more 
 complex intellectual operations. Geography, men- 
 suration, astronomy, and mechanics and chemistry, 
 and their applications, will appear with all those 
 charms in which their beauties and uses invest them 
 to eyes and understandings not vitiated by long dwell- 
 ing upon unmeaning and purposeless forms, instead of 
 realities full of vitality and purpose. 
 
 That portion of knowledge which is to be obtained 
 by examining the structure and functions of the human 
 V body separately and in connection with the external 
 world — how the surrounding temperature, moisture, 
 and air, act upon them — how we ought to deal with 
 such materials as offer themselves to us for food, 
 clothing, fuel, and shelter, in order to develop our 
 strength, sustain our health, and infuse vigour and 
 . energy into us, will readily be admitted into every 
 course of instruction which is intended to comprise 
 whatever is at the same time communicable and in- 
 dispensable for our well-being. 
 
 There is another portion of knowledge that must 
 not be omitted. It can readily be shown that every 
 man of us all greatly depends for his own well-being 
 or happiness upon the conduct of his fellow-men, as 
 they do, in their turn, upon his. The investigation of 
 
19 
 
 the consequences of this undeniable and important 
 fact, leads to the discrimination between what conduct ^ ^ 
 is good and what bad — leads to a thorough apprecia- \y^ 
 tion of what are called the social duties. If, for 
 example, it be seen that men are dependent for their 
 well-being upon an abundant supply of food, clothing, 
 shelter, and fuel, and that these can only be obtained 
 by a general prevalence of industry, skill, knowledge, 
 and economy, and that those who are deficient in these 
 qualities must suffer from want, or procure relief from 
 others who are pre-eminently gifted with these quali- 
 ties, does it not follow that to work, to apply, to learn, 
 and to save, are social duties? And if it be seen that 
 division of labour, interchange, partnerships, buying 
 and selling, and credit and confidence materially assist 
 man in making his labour productive, does it notj /^' 
 follow that honesty, fidelity, punctuality, and order,*^ 
 are social duties? It need scarcely be mentioned, 
 that, as drunkenness is sure to incapacitate for the ^ 
 proper performance of these duties, so its opposite, ^ 
 sobriety, must be classed among social duties. That a 
 population knowing these duties and performing them 
 will surely be in possession of abundant supplies of 
 the necessaries and comforts of life, seems to be one of 
 those truths so obvious that to enunciate it is enough. 
 But it may be asked, — " Will they who know always 
 do what they ought?" Our experience of man's 
 history and nature forces us to admit, that, as ignorance 
 causes good conduct to be improbable, so knowledge 
 by itself does not necessarily prevent ill conduct. The 
 consideration of what must be brought to co-operate 
 with knowledge to make sure of good conduct, brings 
 us to the second educational function — the training or 
 forming the disposition. c 2 
 
20 
 
 To succeed in training to good habits, the work must 
 be commenced at an early period of life. The young, 
 for whom training is requisite, are incompetent to the 
 work, either to understand or to do what is needful 
 for the purpose. As what they ought to be taught, so 
 what they ought to be trained to, must be decided and 
 {/regulated for them by others who already have the 
 capacity which the young do not possess. It is given 
 to few to form good, and correct bad habits, late in 
 life. This is equally true of moral and intellectual, as 
 of physical habits. The requirements of social life are 
 so varied as to make it by no means necessary that 
 every individual should have precisely the same lean- 
 ings. On the contrary, there is scope for habits and 
 qualifications numerous and various enough to suit all 
 unavoidable diversities of character, did we but know 
 and attend how to distribute and appropriate each so as 
 to admit of its development in harmony with general 
 well-being. These varieties, however, require to be 
 linked to qualities that pervade all, without exception. 
 The qualities which all men ought to possess, and to 
 which, accordingly, all ought to be trained, are the 
 disposition to labour, to learn, to inquire, to save, to 
 fulfil engagements, and to obey the law. These and 
 other congenial qualities united, as it may happen, with 
 courage, strength, and vivacity, or with timidity, 
 weakness, and sedateness, will form ingredients of 
 character adapted to meet all social exigencies, and 
 suit every possible circumstance, not only without 
 disturbance, but greatly to the advantage of the general 
 well-being. 
 
 Having now clearly before us a summary of what 
 must be admitted by all to be the ingredients de- 
 
21 
 
 sirable in a good education, can we cherish a reason- 
 able confidence of their being attainable? Each 
 among us must bring his own experience to bear upon 
 this question. I have no hesitation in giving my own 
 answer in the affirmative, and in warning others who 
 feel less confidence, to beware of limiting their ex- 
 pectations of what Education may do in the future by 
 their experience of what it has done in the past. The 
 same observation and thoughtfulness that inspire us 
 with the most hopeful anticipations of what improved 
 education is destined to accomplish, explain why the 
 hitherto defective education has fallen short, and if 
 persisted in unimproved w411 continue to fall short, of 
 what the good and intelligent must not cease to strug- 
 gle for. 
 
 At the same time, all those who express their con- 
 fidence that an Education efficient to produce a high 
 order of well-being is attainable, ought to be cautious 
 not to feed themselves with delusions under the sem- 
 blance of confidence, nor by the glaring exhibition on 
 their part of a vain confidence, to indispose others to 
 enjoy the comfort of even so much confidence as is 
 reasonable. To imagine to ourselves what kind of 
 education we would have, is not to prove it to be attain- 
 able. To say, or even to know, that it is attainable, is 
 not to attain it. The very term "attainable," seems 
 to point to the consideration of the means of attain- 
 ment ; and what those means are, must be known and 
 understood by everybody who desires to form reason- 
 able expectations for himself, or to inspire others with 
 reasonable confidence. Besides, although good educa- 
 tion may be attainable, there may be great difficulties 
 in the way of its attainment. To ignore tliese diffi- 
 
22 
 
 culties, to be blind to them, and not to be prepared 
 against them, is to make them insuperable — to make 
 sure that they will eventually overwhelm us — it is to 
 prepare disgrace and ridicule for our own ignorance 
 and presumption, and, as far as in us lies, to drive 
 others to despair, and to retard the general progress of 
 society. 
 
 What other means, then, beyond those already 
 adverted to, are requisite in order to make a really 
 good education attainable? To try to evade answer- 
 ing this question is an ignominy to which it is to be 
 hoped few will henceforward be inclined to expose 
 themselves. Better far to be mortified by failing in 
 the attempt to answer it, than to be disgraced by 
 succeeding in the attempt to give it the go-by. 
 
 It cannot be overlooked by anybody, that, among 
 other accessories of good education, there must be an 
 abundance of food, clothing, fuel, and shelter, as well 
 as the specific co-operation of educators, purposely 
 maintained and qualified, to contribute appropriate 
 teaching and training. Whence are these accessories 
 to come ? The young, for whose education they are 
 needed, cannot provide them for themselves. Up to 
 the age of thirteen, or even beyond, no call ought to 
 be made upon any human being to contribute towards 
 the supply of these requisites for his education. No 
 labour up to that age ought to be enjoined, except 
 with a view to industrial training, — the produce of 
 such labour being taken rather as an incidental benefit 
 than looked for as its object. Labour from the young 
 beyond these limits can be obtained only by sacrificing 
 or retarding some development — physical, intellectual, 
 or moral — conducive to well-being. That the ac- 
 
23 
 
 cessories of good education for the young, then, must 
 be provided by their elders, is another of those great 
 facts, or truths, inattention to which cannot but be 
 productive of misery. How the duty of supplying the 
 educational and other wants of the young ought to be 
 distributed among the adults may be a subject, in the 
 opinion of some, yet susceptible of further elucidation ; 
 but nobody will deny that the duty must be per- 
 formed. This duty of the adult to the infant popu- 
 lation may be termed the parental duty. It is a duty, 
 according to the institutions that have generally pre- 
 vailed, the undertaking of which has been left alto- 
 gether optional. Many of the social duties have been 
 made compulsory. But nobody has the parental 
 duties imposed upon him ; nor has society, hitherto, 
 been very rigid in insisting upon the adequate per- 
 formance of these duties, when voluntarily assumed. 
 
 It may well be doubted how far any power, except 
 that of enlightened opinion, is competent to enforce a 
 due performance of the parental duties. But the 
 more reasonable our doubts on this head, the more 
 indispensable does it appear that the teaching what 
 are the requirements of the young and how entire 
 is their dependence upon parental care, and the 
 training to the performance of the parental duties, 
 should not be omitted from our enumeration of the 
 Educational functions. 
 
 Whatever may be our arrangements or contrivances, 
 national or municipal, to aid in the Educational effort, 
 w^ithout which the further raising of a very large 
 portion of the people out of their present state of 
 barbarism would seem hopeless, we must beware of 
 blinding ourselves, or misleading others, by coun- 
 
24 
 
 tenancing the belief that any effort can be truly suc- 
 cessful except in alliance with parental care. It may, 
 in fact, be most safely affirmed, that national or mu- 
 nicipal participation in the work of Education can be 
 no more than auxiliary. For even if it were ulti- 
 mately decided that all our educational establishments 
 should be national, municipal, or parochial, it is not 
 pretended that the young who are to frequent these 
 establishments could profit by them as they ought, 
 unless provided with adequate food, clothing, shelter, 
 and fuel, from another source, — not national — not 
 municipal — not parochial — but parental. 
 
 A high state of civilization — a state which we have 
 yet to look forward to — must be the effect of a large 
 concurrence of causes, not of a single cause. Among 
 these numerous causes, however, there is not one to be 
 compared with that of correct opinion and sense of 
 duty among parents. This cause being known to 
 flourish in any community, it might almost be pre- 
 dicated that all other causes of well-being would be 
 clustered around it. Equally confident may we be, 
 that wherever Barbarism is largely interspersed with 
 Civilization, whatever other causes of evil may be in 
 operation, among them will be found misconception or 
 disregard of the parental duties. 
 
 Applying these observations to the present state of 
 society, we are compelled to admit, inasmuch as the 
 barbarous elements are still wofully rife among us, 
 that there must be present an equally woful miscon- 
 ception or disregard of the parental duties. And since 
 it is imposed upon the pioneers of progress in every 
 age to base their operations upon actual nature, that is, 
 upon the state of society as they find it — not as they 
 
25 
 
 might imagine it ; so in this our time, Educational 
 effort must be based upon the admitted deficiency 
 in knowledge and performance of parental duty, and 
 directed, not to compensate for such deficiency, that 
 being impossible, but to eradicate it in the future, and 
 meanwhile to mitigate the painful consequences result- 
 ing from it. 
 
 Seeing the extent of pauperism with which the world 
 has, up to this time, ever been afflicted, some impatient / 
 philanthropists are rather given to despise Education 
 as a means of prevention, on account of the time that 
 must elapse before it can bear fruit. No doubt such 
 an objection would be plausible, if a resort to Educa- 
 tion necessarily precluded the employment of other 
 auxiliary preventive remedies at the same time ; or if 
 other less tardy means could be suggested in the place 
 of Education. The most tardy sanitary appliances are 
 better than no sanitary appliances at all. And it is 
 childish to object to any appliances as too slow, when 
 unprepared to substitute others more expeditious. Be- 
 sides, we are as incompetent at this moment to decide 
 what rapidity of progressive amelioration Education 
 may be capable of attaining, as we were, twenty years 
 ago, of forming a conception of the rate attainable in 
 railway travelling. Education is still in its infancy. 
 Already it has done much for classes ; and who can 
 tell what wonders it may not, in its maturity, accom- 
 plish for the masses ? 
 
 Moreover, something more than the degree of effort 
 needful to maintain a state of civilization is demanded 
 to raise us out of our present lower state. A people 
 worthy to be called civilized, implies a people among 
 whom are generally understood and practised the 
 
26 
 
 parental duties, without the due performance of which, 
 a state of civilization is impossible. A state of civiliza- 
 tion may accordingly be said to be self-maintaining. 
 But a semi-civilized people implies a people among 
 whom the parental duties are only imperfectly under- 
 stood and partially practised. And hence arises the 
 necessity of extra moral leverage to overcome this 
 impediment to a complete extrication out of a state 
 of barbarism. The favoured members of society — a 
 minority where the people are little advanced — a ma- 
 jority where well forward in civilization, must contri- 
 bute out of the comparative superabundance of their 
 share of the actual civilization, whether in wealth, in 
 knowledge, or in benevolence, towards supplying the 
 . deficiencies of those who are behind them. More 
 especially must they do their utmost to supply the 
 deficiency in respect of parental forethought, where 
 such deficiency threatens to stamp numbers of the 
 rising generation with the curse of vices alike revolt- 
 ing in their victims and damaging to society. With 
 their best efforts, they can do no more than partially 
 supply the deficiency in parental forethought, for 
 which it is impossible to find a substitute. And hence, 
 the necessity of providing, in every scheme of educa- 
 tion, for a thorough exposition of the parental duties, 
 and for such training as will lead to the scrupulous 
 performance of them. 
 
 The notion of attempting to expound the Parental 
 duties to children strikes some people as ludicrous. 
 Little are they aware of what children can appreciate 
 in the way of instruction judiciously presented to them. 
 I may be allowed to cite a little of my own experience. 
 It has happened to me repeatedly to put such ques- 
 
27 
 
 tions as these to children, and I have seldom failed to 
 elicit answers proving to everybody present, that I had 
 succeeded in engaging their sympathies, and in reach- 
 ing their understandings : — 
 
 Who feed, clothe, and lodge you ? 
 
 If your parents neglected to supply you with food, 
 clothes, and lodging, how could you get them ? 
 
 Are all children as well off as you are for parents ? 
 
 What kind of lives do such children lead, and what 
 is likely to become of them ? 
 
 What do you come to this school for ? 
 
 How do you gain admittance here? 
 
 How can your teachers obtain the means of subsis- 
 tence while they are engaged teaching you ? 
 
 What kind of people must your parents be, to be 
 able and willing to do all these things ? 
 
 How did they become possessed of these good qua^ 
 llties ? 
 
 What do you think they were doing when as young 
 as you, in order to be so good as they now ^re ? 
 
 In what respect do you think yojlrselves better 
 already, and likely to be still better hereafter, in con- 
 sequence of your parents' care of you ? 
 
 If you become parents one of these days, what kind 
 of parents should you wish to be ? 
 
 What qualities must good parents possess ? 
 
 Ought they to think of what their children will 
 want, before their children are born ? 
 
 What ought they to provide for them beforehand ? 
 
 Why must really good parents be industrious, intel- 
 ligent, economical, sober, trustworthy, and conscien- 
 tious in making and performing engagements? 
 
28 
 
 When ought people to begin to acqiure the know- 
 ledge to fit them to become good parents? 
 
 When ought people to begin to form the habits to 
 fit them to become good parents ? 
 
 Can you do anything, young as you now are, to pre- 
 pare yourselves to perform with credit, the parental 
 and other important duties ? and what ? 
 
 When these duties are well performed by parents, 
 what is likely to be the conduct of their children 
 towards them? 
 
 What feelings and conduct ought children to cherish 
 towards their parents under all circumstances? 
 
 Why ought children when they grow up, to become 
 better parents towards their children than their parents 
 were towards them ? 
 
 What hope can there be of future well-being for 
 children, when the parental duties are misunderstood 
 or neglected ? 
 
 y It must be remembered that I am considering 
 Education in the light of a preventive of destitution. 
 I scarcely expect to be accused by many who have 
 attended to what I have urged, of attempting to intro- 
 duce anything either superfluous or impracticable. I 
 set out with stating that my wish was to address 
 myself exclusively to such of the elements as must 
 be admitted by all to be indispensable constituents of 
 good education. I would now ask whether it is not 
 well deserving of all enlightened adults to consider in 
 what way they can best direct their energies and 
 influence, to secure the introduction into all schools 
 of these essential constituents of good education. A 
 person of any reflection not conversant with the actual 
 
29 
 
 state of our educational establishments, if there be such 
 a person, might well exclaim,— What ! do you mean to 
 say that such obvious truths as you have been uttering, 
 are ever disregarded by those who conduct the educa- 
 tion of childhood and youth? Unfortunately they are. 
 And what is worse, parents, although anxiously intent 
 upon promoting the welfare of their children, have 
 become blinded to the absurdity of what their children 
 are subjected to, under the notion of fitting them to 
 participate in the blessings and duties of life. 
 
 This lagging of good practice behind the advanced 
 knowledge of the age is not inexplicable. The force 
 of habit, the adhesiveness of our nature, disinclines us 
 to the adoption of new methods, even where their 
 superiority is demonstrated. And besides, the stulti- 
 fying effect of causes formerly in active operation, 
 prevents a large portion of the practical men of the 
 day from comprehending the force of the demonstra- 
 tions that are submitted to them. There is, however, 
 nothing to dishearten us in the very great tardiness 
 with which in practice Education has followed its 
 theory. Some tardiness is inevitable under any cir- 
 cumstances ; and the very rapidity of our progress in 
 knowledge of late years increases the difficulty of 
 finding educators trained to teach so as to supply 
 the advanced requirements of our own times. 
 
 Again, amid all our improvements, it is but as 
 yesterday that the conviction is beginning to fasten 
 itself upon us, that the only way to make sure of the 
 conduct requisite for the well-being of society is by 
 dealing with the causes of conduct. At best, to visit 
 with punishment the effects of bad conduct can but 
 exercise an uncertain and partial influence. Differ- 
 
30 
 
 ently expressed, to deal with causes is to educate, to 
 visit effects is to punish. Then, if it be but as yester- 
 day that we have emerged from barbarism sufficiently 
 to appreciate the value of good Education, if hitherto 
 Education has been rather considered in reference to 
 individuals, as a means of sustaining them in, or rais- 
 ing tliem to, rank and station, than in reference to 
 mankind as a means of elevating the race, to feel sur- 
 prise or despair at our having comparatively ill-assorted 
 tools with which to conduct the work of civilization, 
 must be unreasonable. No — the appreciation of the 
 necessities of the position ought only to stimulate us 
 to that exertion which will make all difficulties fly 
 before us, and give us a claim to the blessings of our 
 children, and children's children. 
 
 There is one kind of effort towards bringing about 
 a reformation in existing Educational establishments, 
 competent to secure such teaching and training as 
 have been indicated, in which all may participate, — 
 and that is, to insist upon having it. Let the demand 
 be created and advertised, and, in Education as in 
 anything else, supply will follow. With the progress 
 of civilization, good systems of procedure, and an 
 intelligent bar and police have superseded the cruel 
 and impotent use of torture for detecting guilt and 
 sheltering innocence in our courts of law; and in- 
 struction in navigation, and science and skill in ship- 
 building, have superseded lucky days and horse-shoes 
 as means of transporting men and merchandize across 
 the seas in safety. In like manner, let us strive to 
 introduce into our schools the teaching and training 
 which are directly adapted to fit those to whom they are 
 applied, to steer their course through life in comfort 
 
31 
 
 and safety. I repeat directly^ not indirectly adapted. 
 We hear, and may continue to hear, that Education, as 
 at present conducted, tends to accomplish indirectly all 
 that is insisted upon. But nobody ever pretended that 
 indifferent Education is not better than no Education 
 at all. What I do contend for is, that Education 
 should be as perfect as possible, and adapted in its 
 general scope, and in all its parts, to diffuse the know- 
 ledge and conduct which are the causes of well-being, 
 and to avert the ignorance and conduct which are the 
 causes of misery^ 
 
 We should not form a very favourable opinion of 
 marksmen who, wishing to hit a target, contented 
 themselves with firing in the direction of it, instead of 
 firing at it. We might be incited to laugh at their 
 folly. When, however, it is not a target to acquire 
 skill upon, but an actual enemy to be hit and killed, 
 and such an enemy, too, as the causes of misery, this 
 practice of shooting wide of the mark is far too 
 deplorable to admit of our laughing at its absurdity, — 
 we may heave the sigh or drop the tear ; but, above 
 all, we ought to rouse ourselves to the determination 
 that such shooting wide of the mark shall no longer 
 be tolerated. 
 
33 
 
 II. 
 
 THE " CONDITIONS OF WELL-BEING," AS TAUGHT IN THE 
 BIRKBECK SCHOOLS, AND AS THEY OUGHT TO BE 
 TAUGHT EVERYWHERE.* 
 
 If the object for which we now meet were of an ordi- 
 nary nature, I should adopt the ordinary form of 
 addressing you. I should say, " Ladies and Gentle- 
 men," I solicit your attention while I do my utmost to 
 enable you, when gazing at the starry firmament^ and 
 watching the successive changes and combinations that 
 present themselves, to understand the principles of that 
 wondrous mechanism by which those changes and 
 combinations are produced ; or while I strive to lift 
 the veil from the mysterious influences of Electricity 
 and Magnetism ; or while I engage in the analysis of 
 some apparently irreducible and intractable mass of 
 matter into its elements, or combine anew these and 
 other elementary bodies, so as to exhibit before your 
 eyes phenomena that delight and dazzle, or almost 
 strike you with awe as miniature resemblances of the 
 grand manifestations of nature on a larger scale ; or 
 
 * Lecture delivered in the Birkbeck School-room (theatre of the Lon- 
 don Mechanics' Institution), to the friends and parents of the boys and 
 the promoters of the school. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 again, while I endeavour to unfold some of the more 
 complex laws of vegetable and animal physiology, or 
 while availing myself of the legacies that have been 
 bequeathed to us in literature and the arts, I present 
 food to fancy and imagination, or awaken feelings of 
 tenderness and sympathy, according as the playful or 
 serious, the ludicrous or touching are made the sub- 
 jects of criticism and illustration. 
 
 Or were the object for which we meet of a merely 
 local or municipal character, I might say, " Friends 
 and Neighbours," or " Fellow Parishioners," indulge 
 me with a hearing while I endeavour to give utter- 
 ance to the thoughts, or to explain to you the reasons 
 which have led me to recommend, with so much con- 
 fidence, the plans now before us for the improved 
 drainage or lighting, or for other sanitary reforms cal- 
 culated to add to the salubrity or attractiveness of the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 But I will not conceal, either from you or from my- 
 self, that the task which I have undertaken is more 
 ambitious than any of those alluded to. Our present 
 business is not with this or that branch of knowledge, 
 nor with this or that application of one or more scien- 
 tific developments, but it is while surveying the whole 
 range of knowledge, and the entire experience of 
 science as applied to the arts and practices of life and 
 the estimated efiects of further applications, to explain 
 their bearing upon human happiness, upon human 
 well-being. Is it because I think myself competent 
 to do justice to my theme, that I embark in it? As- 
 suredly not. Rather, believe me, I undertake it in 
 the conviction that there is work to be done — well done, 
 if possible — but as well as possible, at all events. Not, 
 
35 
 
 then, as ladies and gentlemen, nor as friends and 
 neighbours, but as men and brethren do I appeal to 
 your generous and kind consideration to bear with me 
 while I do my best for our common advantage towards 
 unfolding so much of the structure of the world in 
 which we live, as to enable us to understand what are 
 the conditions on w^hich well-being is ever to be ex- 
 pected by man, individually or socially. 
 
 I make this appeal with confidence, not from any 
 personal claim that I am entitled to urge, but from the 
 claim that the magnitude and importance of the subject 
 cannot fail to suggest to every candid and thoughtful 
 individual. Who is there among us, feeling himself 
 well off, that has not at times said to himself, " Why 
 am I so much better off than many others?" Who is 
 there, feeling himself worse off than his neighbours, 
 that has not asked querulously, perhaps with bitter- 
 ness, why his lot should be so unenviable ? Who is 
 there that has not felt a pang, while in the height of 
 his own enjoyment, if the sufferings and privations of 
 others have obtruded themselves into his memory? 
 Who is there, while suffering privation, that has not 
 experienced an aggravation of his misery by contrasting 
 his own penury with the superabundance of others ? 
 Are there not many also who, in moments of generous 
 sympathy, have had thoughts of stripping themselves 
 of superfluities with the intention of mitigating the 
 suffering of others, and who have subsequently shrunk 
 from their purpose in the fear that the very misery 
 which they were intent upon diminishing, might grow 
 and extend itself under their fostering care ? Can we 
 gain no comfort, strike out for ourselves no certain 
 path, obtain no guiding light amid these perplexing 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 doubts ? Is well-being attainable ? Is destitution 
 avoidable ? Or within what limits is the one attain- 
 able and the other avoidable? Is well-being for- 
 tuitous or conditional ? and on what conditions is it to 
 be had? Surely the interest attaching to these ques- 
 tions, and the importance of satisfactory answers to 
 them, will incline you to judge with leniency the 
 attempt of anybody who approaches them in an 
 earnest and truthful spirit. 
 
 It is well known to us all that there has been a 
 growing demand of late years for improved secular 
 Education. A powerful body, not long organized, is 
 now occupied both in urging on this demand and in 
 endeavouring to bring forth a supply to meet it. An 
 effort of a more silent kind is being made to test how 
 far the parents of the day are prepared to appreciate a 
 really useful Education for their children, if placed 
 within their reach. This silent effort with which the 
 name of John Runtz is intimately connected, and 
 which may cause his name to be remembered when 
 those of men of far greater present notoriety and pre- 
 tensions will be forgotten, has so far been attended 
 with a success more than adequate to encourage those 
 who have assisted in it to persevere in their work. 
 There is a large and increasing number of London 
 parents alive to their duties, and intelligent enough to 
 hasten to avail themselves of schools calculated, by 
 their improved discipline and instruction, to facilitate 
 what they conceive to be the faithful discharge of these 
 duties. The school that meets in these premises is one 
 of the evidences that I am prepared to adduce in proof 
 of what I have asserted. The principal distinguishing 
 feature of this school is, that it professes to teach the 
 
37 
 
 " conditions of well-being" ; and one of my objects ini< 
 now addressing you is, that the parents of the children 
 who habitually meet here, and the public in general, 
 should be better acquainted than they possibly as yet 
 may be with the nature of the course of instruction 
 specially directed to this object, as conducted in this 
 and other similar schools. I pass by all the subor- 
 dinate instruction given besides, with the simple ob- 
 servation, that the teachers would take shame to 
 themselves if the children committed to their charge 
 would not pass muster, in respect of ordinary acquire- 
 ments, with those of other schools ; and I confine my- 
 self entirely to such, general exposition as can be given 
 within the limits of one lecture, of what is meant by 
 the " conditions of well-being." To do this, I cannot 
 avoid taking a cursory survey of the whole field of 
 knowledge, that we may the better appreciate how far 
 knowledge and well-being depend one upon the other. 
 There are few among us, even the most ignorant_, 
 who have not given some little attention to scientific 
 research. Still smaller is the number of those among 
 us who have not made use of the results of the science 
 of others. I do not say taken advantage of, or bene- 
 fited by, but simply made use of the results of science, 
 because here and there we meet with persons who deny 
 that science has conferred, or is conferring, any benefit 
 upon us ; and it will be well not to pass over in silence 
 an objection to science thus presented to us in the very 
 threshold of our inquiry. For what we wish to do at this 
 moment, is so to arrange our knowledge as to be able 
 distinctly to appreciate its influence upon well-being, 
 and whether we are derivino- benefit from it or not. 
 
 o 
 
 When we see people consuming food collected from 
 
38 
 
 all parts of the world — modified and combined by all 
 kinds of culinary contrivance, wearing clothes for the 
 fabrication of which the vegetable, animal, and mineral 
 kingdoms have been ransacked, sheltering themselves 
 in houses provided with numerous architectural, me- 
 chanical, and other scientific contrivances, travelling 
 by means of the latest combinations of scientific and 
 administrative talent, availing themselves of the elec- 
 tric telegraph for the conveyance of intelligence, and 
 at the same time giving utterance to doubts whether 
 all these results of industry, skill, and science have 
 been conducive to well-being, we may be excused for 
 feeling some little surprise at the apparent incon- 
 sistency between practice and opinion, between con- 
 duct and conviction, or perhaps we might say, not 
 uncharitably, between conviction as exemplified in 
 conduct, and the conviction as expressed in words. It 
 is clear that, in order to arrive at any understanding 
 with these objectors, we must ascertain what they mean 
 by " well-being," and if they will not tell us, we must 
 then ask ourselves what we mean by that term. 
 
 They may tell us, in answer to our inquiry, that 
 well-being is something uncertain, indefinite, unde- 
 finable ; that people's notions on the subject differ 
 from one age to another, and according to the climate 
 and geographical position of the country which they 
 inhabit ; that the well-being of some consists in wear- 
 ing feathers and trinkets, in hunting and fishing, in 
 gambling and drinking, in fly-catching and bull- 
 baiting, in plunder and slaughter — while that of others 
 is the contemplation of every new development of the 
 useful and beautiful, the contributing by application 
 and research to that development, aiding by their 
 
39 
 
 industry and contrivance to establish practical results, 
 and depending for a large part of their present satis- 
 faction upon the anticipation of good in the future. 
 That the well-being of individuals and nations, accord- 
 ing to their own interpretation of it, is variously 
 compounded of these very heterogeneous materials, 
 need not be disputed. But if this variety be so 
 incongruous, perplexing, and mysterious, as to prevent 
 any person from realizing to himself what well-being 
 is, equally does it disqualify him for telling us what is 
 favourable or unfavourable to well-being. It may, 
 besides, be undeniable that both individuals and 
 nations are capable of being trained or habituated to 
 take delight or to find present well-being in what 
 cannot fail to he followed by a state which they them- 
 selves would readily admit to be quite the reverse of 
 well-being, and of also being trained altogether differ- 
 ently from this. Surely, then, it becomes of great 
 moment to consider what kind of present well-being 
 will be followed by future well-being, and what kind 
 by future suffering, in order that we may know how 
 to direct our efforts to individual training and the 
 encouragement of national habits. 
 
 But let us ask what we ourselves understand by 
 well-being. We can give some account to ourselves 
 of our own feelings— of what we have felt, and of what 
 we look forward to. Each among us imparting the 
 experience of his own feelings, a selection can be made 
 from these contributions, differing as they will in many 
 respects, of that wherein they all agree. Granting 
 that what each among us considers essential to his own 
 well-being differs, in some respects, from what his 
 neighbours consider essential to their well-being, is it 
 
40 
 
 not true that it also agrees in many more respects? 
 Amid all our peculiarities, we have a common organi- 
 zation. Does this organization common to us all 
 necessarily bring with it well-being ? Or is our com- 
 mon organization such as to make us dependent upon 
 the concurrence of other circumstances for the enjoy- 
 ment of well-being? Differently expressed, is our 
 enjoyment of well-being, conditional or unconditional ? 
 And if conditional, what are the conditions of well- 
 being ? The results of self-examination, our observa- 
 tion of surrounding objects, and our experience of their 
 influence upon ourselves, are the sources whence alone 
 we can obtain answers to these questions. But if we 
 turn to them with confidence, if we strive vigorously 
 to collect, compare, and arrange these various elements 
 of knowledge, we shall feel little reason to complain 
 that our sources of information are thus limited. 
 
 Our very first application to these sources of infor- 
 mation is largely rewarded, since it enables us to state 
 that all men have constantly recurring wants, the 
 satisfaction of which is essential to well-being. As 
 most obvious among these wants, may be mentioned 
 want of food, of clothing, of fuel, of shelter. The 
 satisfaction of these wants is indispensable to well- 
 being. Food, clothing, fuel, and shelter, then, must 
 be at hand to satisfy these wants. But are they 
 always at hand under any circumstances ? or is their 
 being at hand conditional ? Our experience enables 
 us to answer this question without hesitation. The 
 adequate supply of these essentials of well-being is 
 conditional — it is altogether dependent upon the way 
 in which man conducts himself in regard to the great 
 \\ powers of nature by which he is surrounded. In the 
 
41 
 
 first place, physical exertion is required of him, — he , 
 must dig and plough, reap and grind, spin and weave, 
 mine and smelt, forge and cast, build and repair — he 
 must work, he must labour. But labour unaided by 
 knowledge would be quite incompetent to furnish 
 adequate supplies of the things essential to well-being. 
 In order to direct his physical exertions to advantage, 
 he must know what the powers of nature are — how 
 land and water, wind and steam, heat and electricity, 
 can be brought to aid him in his purposes, or not to 
 obstruct his efforts ; and as he is not born with this 
 knowledge, he must acquire it^ and he can only 
 acquire it by exertion — intellectual exertion. It thus 
 appears that to have abundance of food, clothing, fuel, 
 and shelter, men must be industrious and well informed. 
 The prevalence of industry and knowledge among 
 mankind may accordingly be affirmed to be a condition 
 of well-being. 
 
 This condition of well-being is pregnant with im- 
 portant consequences. For example, it is a portion 
 of our know^ledge that much time must intervene 
 between the commencement of every industrial pro- 
 cess and the harvesting of its fruits ; and that during 
 this interval the means of well-being, the produce of 
 previous labour, must be at hand. If we merely look 
 to the interval between ploughing and reaping, be- 
 tween the first steps to rear the lamb and the calf and 
 the maturity of the sheep and ox, between the planting 
 of the acorn and the felling of the oak, — between the 
 clip of the wool, the gathering of the cotton and flax, 
 the winding of the cocoon, and the fitting of the 
 finished fabric to the human form, — there is enough 
 to convince us that to overlook the fact, or to fail to 
 
42 
 
 make conduct harmonize with it, would be fatal to all 
 well-being. But if, in addition, we realize to our- 
 selves the still longer interval which elapses between 
 the first efforts to make all the auxiliary tools and 
 machines to aid in these industrial operations, the 
 urgency of a large accumulation of the products of 
 former industry, as a means of well-being, becomes 
 still more incontestible. To provide this store, men 
 must abstain from the immediate consumption of what 
 they produce ; they must save — they must economize. 
 
 Another consideration still further impresses upon 
 us the truth of this conclusion. Man's capability of 
 producing the means of well-being is not so uniformly 
 distributed throughout the whole term of life as his 
 dependence upon the possession of them. The labour 
 of health, "Strength, and youth must provide not only 
 for the periods of health, strength, and youth, but for 
 those of sickness, feebleness, and age as well. Har- 
 vests, besides, are uncertain. The vegetable products 
 of the earth, the main source of our nourishment, 
 are dependent upon the influence of climate, of 
 moisture, heat, and electricity ; the order of change 
 in which is so little ascertained, as yet, as to make it 
 incumbent upon us to save from the comparative 
 abundance of one season in order to provide against 
 the contingent deficiency of another. That the pre- 
 valence of economy among mankind is a condition of 
 well-being seems, accordingly, to be a plain deduction 
 from what was previously arrived at. 
 
 I will here advert to an objection that may present 
 itself. " What ! " some may exclaim, " universal 
 knowledge a condition of well-being ! " and then con- 
 clude, in their dismay, that well-being is unattainable. 
 
43 
 
 To which it may be replied, — " Yes, universal know- 
 ledge must be the possession of every society enjoying 
 a high order of well-being, but need not be the pos- 
 session of every individual in society." Some know- 
 ledge must be possessed, as some industrial functions 
 must be performed by all. While some branches of 
 knowledge, as well as some branches of industry, may, 
 without detriment, be unheeded by a large portion of 
 society, so long as there are a few individuals who 
 devote themselves to the branches of knowledge and 
 industry thus unheeded by the many. The just dis- 
 crimination between what all must know and practise, 
 and what the many may safely leave to be learned and 
 practised by a few, is another development of that 
 knowledge which has already been shown to be a 
 condition of well-being. This distribution of know- 
 ledge and labour in special departments, — this leaving 
 to some to produce what is needful for all,— this 
 division of labour, — this co-operative effort for the 
 purpose of multiplying the means of well-being — must 
 be accompanied by interchange, contracts, and every 
 description of commercial engagement ; for the pro- 
 sperity of which, integrity, sobriety, punctuality, dis- 
 cipline, and order are needful. 
 
 Neither would it be right to leave unnoticed another 
 important consequence of the prevalence of these vir- 
 tues in combination with economy: — the transforma- 
 tion of the savings of the produce of previous labour 
 into forms and combinations, adapted to aid in the 
 production of continually increasing supplies of the 
 means of well-being. By the combined operations of 
 these social qualities from year to year, and age to 
 age, portions of the annual supplies of food and 
 
44 
 
 clothing have been gradually transformed into those 
 powerful auxiliaries of human industry — tools, mills, 
 presses, docks, roads, factories, and other applications 
 of science; which, in their enormous accumulation 
 around us, are a convincing proof that, if we are yet 
 far short of civilization, we have, at all events, far 
 distanced the age of barbarism. 
 
 Let us not lose sight for a moment of what we are 
 investigating — the conditions of well-being ; the con- 
 ditions of well-being in this world, such as we know it 
 by observation and experience, — in a world of fact 
 and reality, not of fiction and fancy. We have al- 
 ready observed that food, clothing, fuel, and shelter 
 do not come of themselves ; they are dependent upon 
 those qualities in man which have been enumerated, 
 and which we cannot but class among conditions of 
 well-being. But neither do these qualities come of 
 themselves. There is, one would think, enough of 
 idleness, of ignorance, of wastefulness, of violence, of 
 drunkenness, dishonesty, and recklessness in the 
 world, to awaken the most incredulous and the most 
 dreamy among us to the conviction, that the pre- 
 valence of the virtues and the absence of the vices 
 in any community are not unconditional. The ques- 
 tion, accordingly, forces itself upon us, — What are the 
 conditions upon which the prevalence or growth of 
 the virtues, and the absence or decay of the vices, in 
 any community depend ? 
 
 The conviction that men would not work and save, 
 unless protected in the enjoyment of what they worked 
 and saved for, seems to have been long and widely 
 felt. To the question— " Will men labour, learn, and 
 save for nothing?" the answer has been almost uni- 
 
45 
 
 versally — " No." It may be stated to be a conclusion 
 hitherto generally adopted, that the qualities upon 
 which we depend for an abundant supply of the means 
 of well-being will not prevail unless the possessors of 
 these qualities are to feel assured of being able to hold 
 undisturbed possession of their earnings. Security of 
 possession, laws conferring rights of property and 
 institutions to guarantee those rights, have been 
 adopted everywhere as " conditions of well-being." 
 At the same time we need not conceal from ourselves 
 that here and there objectors have shown themselves 
 disposed to question these conditions of well-being, — 
 not that anybody has yet succeeded in proving how 
 we could get on without laws for the protection of 
 property, and till they can, these laws must be re- 
 ceived as conditions of well-being ; and we must hold 
 fast by them till something better, if attainable, can 
 be substituted. 
 
 As a consolation, and also a caution to those who 
 cannot persuade others to think with them that man 
 may be brought to labour and save as zealously and 
 unremittingly when his earnings and savings, instead 
 of being his own individual possession, are to form part 
 of the general possession of society, it may be re- 
 marked, that even where the laws of society confer the 
 right of individual property, there is nothing to pre- 
 vent each individual from waiving his right, and con- 
 tributing his earnings and savings to a general fund 
 for the common enjoyment. Abundance of wealth, as 
 a means of well-being, is indispensable. There must 
 be a prevalence of certain qualities among mankind to 
 produce this abundance. Thus far all are agreed. 
 Not till arrived at this point does any divergence of 
 
46 
 
 opinion begin. Some maintain that the productive 
 and accumulative qualities would not flourish in society 
 unless encouraged by rights of property, and in har- 
 mony with this view have opinion and practice been 
 generally guided and determined. Others contend 
 that the productive and accumulative qualities would 
 equally flourish without rights of property. If the 
 prevailing opinion and practice be based on truth and 
 experience, what frightful consequences would result 
 from the abrogation of those rights ! Even if they be 
 the offspring of error and superstition, the abrogation 
 of those laws would not be without danger, unless 
 public opinion were, in the first place, to be so far 
 enlightened as to detect the error and to demand 
 reform of practice. The path, therefore, to be pur- 
 sued by those who think that prevailing practice and 
 opinion are wrong in regard to private property, is 
 clear, if they would contribute to the advancement of 
 well-being, or avoid endangering the continuance of 
 that well-being of which society is already possessed. 
 They should co-operate with t^eir opponents in a work 
 that must be tedious and difficult under any circum- 
 stances, and indefinitely protracted by lukewarmness 
 and discord — the enlargement of the general know- 
 ledge, and the improvement of the general habits. 
 
 When this work has been satisfactorily performed, 
 the industrious, skilful, intelligent, economical, and 
 humane people, forming the mass of society, will be 
 competent to decide in what way they will please to 
 make use of the rights of property. Nobody who can 
 work and save will then be disposed to skulk from the 
 performance of his share of the work and self-denial, 
 upon which the general well-being depends ; and those 
 
47 
 
 who cannot work for their own maintenance, must, 
 under any forms, whether of law or of no-law, be be- 
 holden to the good feelings of those who can produce 
 more than enough for the satisfaction of their own per- 
 sonal wants. The laws which confer rights of property 
 do not compel those who work and save to appropriate 
 their earnings to their own individual purposes exclu- 
 sively ; they simply forbid others to invade those earn- 
 ings. Neither do they compel individuals to work 
 and save ; other forces are needed to do that ; but they 
 compel them to abstain from plundering or defrauding 
 others of what they have earned and saved. Stated in 
 other words, the laws of property are merely different 
 forms of expressing the determination of society to 
 each individual composing it, that he shall not rob 
 and shall not cheat. 
 
 Laws for the protection of property necessarily imply 
 courts of law for the settlement of disputes, the investi- 
 gation of claims, and the trial of offences, a police, 
 military defences, &c. &c., and the contribution by the 
 industrious and economical of a part of their earnings 
 for these purposes. 
 
 Among the various means available for promoting a 
 prevalence of the grand social virtues already enu- 
 merated, nobody can have any difficulty in distinguish- 
 ing two kinds so very different as to make a separation 
 of them into two classes a useful proceeding ; one kind 
 acting so as to create the virtues ; the other so as to 
 repress or prevent the conduct arising from the absence 
 of the virtues. The task of creating the virtues chiefly 
 belongs to the educators of the people ; that of repress- 
 ing the vices, to the governors of the people. Not that 
 educators can omit, as part of their work, the repression 
 
48 
 
 of vice, or that governors, while defending the com- 
 munity from external assault and internal crime, do 
 not actively assist in promoting the virtues, inasmuch 
 as they secure those who practise the virtues in the 
 enjoyment of the fruits of them. Nevertheless, look- 
 ing at educators and governors in combination, we 
 cannot shut our eyes to the broad distinction that 
 exists between the two classes of effort ; the one to 
 form the character, individual and national, which 
 conduces to well-being ; the other to repress the acts 
 which disturb well-being. Nor can we fail to perceive, 
 that, in proportion as we succeed in accomplishing the 
 first, the difficulty of the latter diminishes, the sacrifices 
 for the purpose become less onerous, and well-being 
 more diffused. 
 
 We have now arrived at a point whence we can take 
 a thorough survey of the various means at our disposal 
 for promoting well-being. They all resolve themselves 
 into human conduct. Some kinds of conduct lead to 
 well-being ; other kinds lead away from it. It may, 
 therefore, be laid down, as a necessity of society, that 
 there should be a general disposition among all hu- 
 man beings so to conduct themselves as to promote 
 general well-being. But what induces men to act, or 
 to decline to act, according to circumstances ? Why 
 do they eat, drink, clothe and shelter themselves, 
 dance and sing ? Is it not because they know that 
 these acts will be pleasant, and that this knowledge, 
 incorporated in their being, having long led them to 
 look for pleasure or satisfaction in these acts, and 
 experience having confirmed the correctness of their 
 anticipations, settled habits, in harmony with their 
 knowledge, have so established themselves as to form 
 
49 
 
 a part of what may be called their character? Or 
 why do they shrink from putting their hands into the 
 fire, knocking their lieads against walls, flinging them- 
 selves down precipices or into whirlpools, from swal- 
 lowing poison, or facing the thunder-storm ? Habits 
 based upon knowledge similar to those which lead to 
 action, also lead to shrinking from action. 
 
 Does all the knowledge requisite for man's guidance 
 come without special effort for the purpose ? Do all 
 the habits recommended by this knowledge, form of 
 themselves, without special effort for the purpose? 
 No, is the emphatic answer of universal experience to 
 both these questions. In what, then, does this special 
 effort consist ? The answer is obvious — in Education 
 — in teaching and training : in teaching, to give the 
 knowledge — in training, to form the habits. It is not 
 so self-evident, so plain to a child's apprehension that 
 well-being follows industry, skill, economy, sobriety, 
 honesty, punctuality, courage, and fidelity, as that it 
 follows eating and drinking, and crouching under 
 shelter. Nor is the inevitable misery consequent upon 
 the opposite vices so necessarily present to the under- 
 standing, as the suffering consequent upon a severe 
 blow, or the application of fire to the flesh. It is 
 the province, as it is within the power, of education, 
 to supply this want — to impart the knowledge which 
 otherwise might not come, and to implant the habits 
 which otherwise might not spring up of themselves. 
 
 Let us pause for a ii)oment. The conclusion just 
 expressed is one fraught with the most important prac- 
 tical consequences. The education of the people is the 
 first as well as the most powerful of the instruments at 
 our disposal for the promotion of well-being. It must 
 
50 
 
 take rank in the very front of the " Conditions of Well- 
 being." The education of the people is not to be con- 
 founded with the mere teaching of reading, writing, 
 and arithmetic, nor with what goes by the name of 
 history and geography : it means the teaching of the 
 conditions of well-being, and the training to an obser- 
 vance of those conditions. And the success of the 
 educator is to be judged by the readiness with which 
 pleasurable emotions are anticipated from good acts, 
 and painful emotions from bad acts — by the complete- 
 ness and diffusion of the knowledge of what good con- 
 duct and bad conduct really are, and by the strength 
 and activity of the impulses to do the right and abstain 
 from the wrong — by the nearness of their approach in 
 vigour to those impulses which lead us to eat and drink, 
 or to shrink from a blow. 
 
 What a mighty power is this Education, thus pre- 
 sented to us for our use and improvement! It is a 
 master-tool worthy of the skilful hand, guided by 
 commanding intelligence, and propelled by everything 
 that is exalted and tender in our nature, under whose 
 auspices even the least among us may do acceptable 
 service. We need not be alarmed or deterred by the- 
 difficulties that cannot fail to meet us, nor by the 
 magnifying of those difficulties by the cowardly and 
 desponding. The difficulties are great, indeed, but not 
 insuperable ; and what a prize is in store to reward 
 us, if we will grapple with them — a prize high above 
 us, and yet attainable ; and of a value so inestimable 
 as to be a meet stimulus for philanthropic — for heroic 
 effort. Nor need we be disappointed if our success 
 is but gradual, and eventually not universal. It is 
 man's destiny ever to fall short of excellence, but ever 
 
51 
 
 to strive to approach nearer and nearer to it, so near, 
 in the end, as to dissipate all doubts as to what our 
 duty is, and what our conduct ought to be. 
 
 The same Educational effort which succeeds in form- 
 ing the character of the many, assists in promoting 
 and perfecting another great security against ill-con- 
 duct— L e, a good public opinion. We must be pre- 
 pared to expect, that although a well-devised scheme 
 of education will, with the great majority, accomplish 
 its object, with some individuals it may fail altogether, 
 and with many more it will be only partially success- 
 ful. Upon these two classes, the ill-disposed and the 
 wavering, but particularly upon the latter, public opi- 
 nion will exercise a powerful influence for good or for 
 evil. Fancy a small number of persons, weak, irreso- 
 lute, prone to imitate, and ready to yield to temptation, 
 but yet not disinclined to good, surrounded by com- 
 panions or fellow- citizens, encouraging them by their 
 countenance and example to resist evil influence, though 
 momentarily attractive, or by companions of a different 
 stamp misleading and seducing them. A fall under 
 the latter circumstances seems all but inevitable, while 
 under the former, resistance in the beginning would be 
 followed by the gradual strengthening of half-formed 
 good habits, and the ripening of wavering resolutions 
 into confirmed good character. Who is there that has 
 not at times felt the influence of the tear of pity, of the 
 finger of scorn, of the nod of approbation, of the cheer 
 of encouragement, of the look of aversion, or of the 
 scowl of hatred ? These, in their various shapes and 
 combinations, make up public opinion, which, accord- 
 ing as it is well or ill directed, acts in unison with, or 
 
 E 2 
 
62 
 
 in opposition to, good education, confirming or mar- 
 ring the work as yet imperfectly executed. 
 
 Remain the individuals whoni education and public 
 opinion are together incompetent to propel and retain 
 in a right direction. Upon these, other influences must 
 be brought to bear. The public force must prevent and 
 repress consequences, where education and public opi- 
 nion are ineffectual to direct and regulate causes. The 
 individuals who are inclined in their conduct to disre- 
 gard their duty to society, must be deterred by the 
 knowledge that the criminal enjoyment which they 
 are seeking will be intercepted, or that painful conse- 
 quences, specially appointed by legislative authority, 
 are in store for them. It is, besides, part of the action 
 of government to determine what individual acts shall 
 be permitted or encouraged, and what forbidden or 
 prevented. We have already seen that bad conse- 
 quences may fasten themselves upon society from cer- 
 tain acts of individuals, but that the contemplation of 
 these bad consequences is not of itself sufficiently pain- 
 ful to deter some individuals from perpetrating these 
 acts. On this account the law steps in to apply, in 
 the shape of penalty and punishment, other painful 
 consequences to fall specially upon the individuals who 
 will not otherwise conduct themselves agreeably to the 
 wishes of society. That our main reliance for the 
 promoting of general good conduct, must not be placed 
 upon this intervention of legal penalty, is daily visible 
 from the frequent infliction of the very penalty, when 
 the apprehension of it has failed to act as a motive. 
 At best it can but act as a mitigation of the evils 
 from which society has not been previously guarded, 
 and ought not to be permitted to distract our atten- 
 
53 
 
 tion from the necessity of relying upon other and 
 better influences, and of applying ourselves to the use 
 of them with zeal and activity. 
 
 The reflections which must be awakened even by 
 this very cursory survey of the means available to man 
 for influencing conduct, ought to be sufficient to con- 
 vince us of what would be the depth of the fall from 
 this our not very exalted state of civilization, if Mora- 
 lity were to mean — doing nothing but what the law 
 commanded, and refraining from nothing but what 
 law prohibited. The state of society, to the attain- 
 ment of which all good men should aspire and co- 
 operate, is that where good conduct should prevail, 
 independently of legal intervention to promote it, 
 leaving as little as possible for law to accomplish by 
 means of repression and penalty. Does not this con- 
 sideration throw us back upon Education as the main 
 instrument upon which we are to rely for the attain- 
 ment of the object of our aspirations ? To what else can 
 we look if we are ever to approach a general pre- 
 valence of knowledge, and of the disposition to act in 
 obedience to what knowledge recommends? 
 
 Having once realized to ourselves the immensity of 
 the consequences that attach themselves to our con- 
 duct in regard to Education, let us not lightly make 
 use of the word, neglecting to satisfy ourselves of 
 the fulness of its import. A good education implies 
 the communicating such knowledge, developing such 
 powers and implanting such habits as will best qualify 
 each individual to contribute to the general well-being, 
 and to secure his own. The food, clothing, fuel, shel- 
 ter, instruction, and training, without which good edu- 
 cation is impossible, must be provided for, inasmuch 
 
54 
 
 as they cannot be provided by every human being 
 during the first thirteen or fourteen years of his exist- 
 ence; and there never yet has been suggested any 
 plausible source whence these elements of a good edu- 
 cation can be procured, except Parental forethought. 
 It is true we occasionally hear of the duties of Go- 
 vernment and of society on this head, and they are 
 not to be overlooked coming in aid, but are not to be 
 received in substitution, of Parental forethought. For, 
 if nine-tenths of parents did their duty by their off- 
 spring, while one-tenth neglected to do so, let us con- 
 sider what the intervention of the Government to 
 educate the children of the improvident parents would 
 really amount to. Would it not resolve itself into 
 this — That the provident parents having first done 
 their duty, individually, by their own offspring, must 
 afterwards, by a collective effort, snatch the children of 
 their improvident neighbours from the utter destitu- 
 tion, physical, intellectual, and moral, to which pa- 
 rental improvidence would otherwise consign them ? 
 A national education in a country where Parental im- 
 providence was generally prevalent, could only be 
 organized by a government capable of feeding, cloth- 
 ing, and lodging a people who would not work and 
 save for themselves — a government that is yet to be 
 invented ! 
 
 Not a word would I drop to disparage any kind of 
 effort to arouse public opinion to the necessity of active 
 measures for securing a good education to every hu- 
 man being. Where the little victims of parental 
 neglect are about to ripen into paupers and criminals, 
 the parental forethought of society, represented in its 
 institutions, must interpose and do what it can in 
 
56 
 
 mitigation of their sad lot. But the food, clothing, 
 fuel, and shelter, which are requisites of good educa- 
 tion, cannot be produced by governments— they must 
 be produced by the people. Accordingly, let govern- 
 ments and people acknowledge this great truth ! let 
 them both feel how impotent all efforts oP governments 
 must be which are not based upon the good qualities 
 of the people; and that where partial ill-conduct neces- 
 sitates either national or municipal interfererice in 
 Educational duties, the sense of the insufficiency and 
 unfitness of public functionaries to act in the place of 
 good parents, should make them, when driven to 
 interfere, strive so to conduct teaching and training, as 
 to cultivate, above all things, that for which no sub- 
 stitute can be found — Parental forethought. 
 
 My general outline of the conditions of well-being 
 is thus finished. It is as complete as I can pretend to 
 make it in a single lecture. Summed up in a few 
 words, it runs as follows : An abundant supply of the 
 necessaries and comforts of life is requisite for well- 
 being ; but can only be obtained by a general pre- 
 valence of industry, skill, knowledge, economy, so- 
 briety, honesty, and punctuality. Two large classes of 
 means are available for the cultivation and diffusion of 
 these qualities : the Governmental means, which secure 
 to every individual the full enjoyment of the fruits of 
 his earning, and the Educational means, which provide 
 adequate instruction and training for every human 
 being. Neither of these classes of means, more par- 
 ticularly the latter, can be hoped for in perfection, 
 except through that quality — that master quality — that 
 keystone of the social arch — Parental forethought. 
 I will now solicit your attention for a few minutes 
 
while I endeavour to explain a little more in detail the 
 method of teaching: the " conditions of well-beino:" in 
 this school. Of course, it is to be understood that the 
 teachers have studied and made themselves acquainted 
 with the subject in all its bearings ; and also that they 
 have familiarized themselves with the objections which 
 have been, or may be urged against the conclusions at 
 which they themselves have arrived, and which they 
 know to be founded upon an accurate observation and 
 careful examination of the structure of the world in 
 general, and of man's nature and organization in par- 
 ticular. We will assume, besides, that they have 
 by practice acquired aptitude and readiness in im- 
 parting tlieir knowledge to others. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that there are bad methods, 
 as well as good ones, even of imparting useful know- 
 ledge. The human understanding is not to be treated 
 as a rubbish-corner, with a notice posted up, " know- 
 ledge shot here" ; nor to be stuffed with dead lan- 
 guages, obsolete dogmas, or the discarded husks and 
 refuse of science, as empty sacks may be stuffed with 
 chaff or bran, to appear externally as if they were full 
 of wheat. The method adopted in this school, for 
 teaching the conditions of well-being, is to lead the 
 pupils to learn ; not to pretend to give them know- 
 ledge, but to make clear to them how they may 
 acquire it for themselves ; to show them, in fact, that 
 however advantageous, enlightened, and devoted, guides 
 may be, the utmost they can do for their pupils is to 
 aid them to acquire knowledge for themselves. So 
 much of the structure of the world and of man's 
 organization as is unquestionable by anybody, is clearly 
 placed before the children ; and, starting from this 
 
67 
 
 point, they are led step by step, and principally by 
 means of a judicious course of questioning, to observe, 
 to inquire, to examine, to register, and to combine for 
 themselves. You can readily appreciate the vigour, 
 the originality, and comprehensiveness of understand- 
 ing likely to result from such intellectual training as 
 this ; seeing, moreover, that the conclusions and gene- 
 ral propositions, as soon as formed, are submitted to a 
 searching analysis, and the young staters of them to an 
 unsparing cross-examination. You can readily also 
 appreciate the soundness, the clearness, and the activity 
 of the judgment and feelings likely to be generated by 
 that moral training, which accustoms them to consider 
 that it is their duty so to conduct themselves as be- 
 comes beings responsible for the consequences likely 
 to result from their own actions upon their own and 
 the general well-being. 
 
 Let me again remind you : — In the classes, nothing, 
 however apparently simple, is taken on trust. Even 
 what I have so slightly sketched and laid before you 
 to-night, may most truthfully be stated to be no more 
 than a summary of answers repeatedly given by the 
 children in this place. In short, everything is scruti- 
 nized. The children are questioned, and they are 
 encouraged to question their teachers : they also ques- 
 tion one another. 
 
 The more they question themselves in the classes, 
 the readier and clearer must be their apprehension as 
 they go along, and the firmer the convictions whereby 
 to direct their conduct out of the classes. Not only do 
 they arrive at a knowledge of certain great funda- 
 mental truths, but they acquire the capability of see- 
 ing, at a glance, through all the fallacies and sophisms 
 
/ 
 
 68 
 
 which mistaken people attempt to substitute in their 
 stead, and of protecting themselves as well as others 
 against delusion, gloom, ill-conduct, and misery, those 
 never- failing attendants upon misinterpretations of 
 nature's laws. 
 
 A brief enumeration of the subordinate topics that 
 they are called upon to examine is the utmost that 
 I can venture to attempt at this time ; and yet I should 
 be sorry to allow you to depart without some noti- 
 fication of what those topics are. The children, with 
 the aid and under the guidance of their teachers, trace 
 for themselves the origin and accumulation of wealth 
 and its transformation into capital. They then examine 
 how capital and labour work together, and inquire into 
 the merits of the different forms and arrangements 
 by which it has been endeavoured to give efficacy to 
 their joint employment. The distribution of the wealth 
 produced among the labourers, the owners of the 
 capital, and the proprietors of the land, and the cir- 
 cumstances which influence and regulate this distri- 
 bution, do not fail to attract their attention. The 
 consideration of the division of labour, of co-operation, 
 of partnership, of joint- stock association, of inter- 
 change, domestic and foreign, and of other important 
 developments of industrial progress forces upon them 
 the investigation of the laws of value, or of the quan- 
 tities of the various commodities that will be given and 
 received in exchange, one for the other. The adoption 
 and wide-spread use of money or a medium of ex- 
 change, the qualities indispensable in the commodities 
 to fit them for such a medium, the invention of paper- 
 money and bills of exchange, the use and abuse of 
 credit and confidence, the functions of banks and in- 
 
59 
 
 surance companies, the fluctuations of prices and rates 
 of interest, — all these, in their turn, are submitted to 
 minute and accurate investigation, whence they rise 
 prepared to grapple with all the complicated social 
 problems of the day, and to establish practical con- 
 clusions for their own guidance and the enlightenment 
 of others. Emigration, taxation, the province of go- 
 vernment — what is within, and what beyond its power; 
 and lastly, the considerations that should determine 
 them how to spend or consume their own wealth, or 
 to distribute their praise, their respect, their vene- 
 ration, according as others spend theirs — these and 
 similar subjects of inquiry may well suffice to convince 
 the most heedless how intimately connected with the 
 general well-being is the knowledge which the young 
 people in this school are endeavouring to gain, to 
 extend, to correct, or to strengthen, according to the 
 various stages of preparation in which they severally 
 find themselves. 
 
 The separate investigation of each of the subjects 
 enumerated, and of others besides, and the difficulties 
 and differences of interpretation that must present them- 
 selves, afford constant opportunities for applying all 
 preconceived principles and opinions, and testing their 
 truth under every shape and combination. 
 
 As at the commencement of this lecture I ventured 
 to depart from the form of address usually adopted, so, 
 at its conclusion, I think I can see a justification for a 
 similar departure. We have just entered on the second 
 half of this century. The half which is closed has 
 been more remarkable than any preceding half cen- 
 tury for the extent and variety of the discoveries in 
 physical science which it has witnessed, and for the 
 
60 
 
 success that has attended the attempts to apply them to 
 practical purposes. Moral improvement has been 
 also greatly, though somewhat indirectly, promoted by 
 our better acquaintance with, and more ready self- 
 adaptation to, the structure of the planet on which we 
 dwell, and the laws which govern the changes and 
 alternations of its several parts. But yet nobler 
 triumphs and richer fruits are in store for this latter 
 half century into which we have just rotated. The 
 work now about to be taken up, is both to learn and to 
 employ the means by which man's greatly increased 
 productive power may be made to accomplish the 
 largest possible amount of human well-being. 
 
 The world — at least the more civilised portion of it — 
 is prepared to enter upon a higher sphere of duty. 
 Henceforward, the blush of shame for destitution 
 unprevented, will be mingled with our tears of sorrow 
 for destitution unrelieved. The voice has gone forth 
 that much of the destitution and misery that afflict 
 society is preventible, and that in the work of preven- 
 tion our main reliance must be on Education. 
 
 Up, then, men and brethren, each and all, parents 
 and children, old and young, rich and poor, instructed 
 and ignorant, strong and feeble ! The increase of 
 human well-being, the diminution of human suffering 
 is what we have in view. Education is our lever for 
 pushing on the good and keeping off the bad. Let 
 those who have not aptitude for the work, encourage 
 and cheer and bless those who can and will put forth 
 their strength. We can all be at the pains to convince 
 ourselves what Education ought to aim at, and is 
 capable of accomplishing, and let no man judge so 
 meanly of his own powers and capabilities as to fancy 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 61 "^^C^^^ii^ 
 
 that his pains will be unrewarded. The "conditions 
 of well-being" need be a sealed book to nobody. The 
 rules of conduct, or duties of life founded upon these 
 conditions, can neither be unknown nor unpractised 
 by anybody with impunity ; and Education, as un- 
 derstood by the instructed and good, can only mean 
 teaching these conditions, and training in obedience to 
 the rules and to the performance of the duties un- 
 folded by a knowledge of the conditions of well- 
 being. 
 
63 
 
 III. 
 
 THE MORALITY OF EXPENDITURE, OR OF THE DISPOSAL 
 OF WEALTH IN GENERAL.* 
 
 "Property has its duties as well as its rights." No 
 thoughtful man would venture to impugn the sound- 
 ness of this aphorism. Nevertheless, the rules of con- 
 duet involved in it have not always found the favour 
 that they deserve. We have heard it asked, with some 
 anger too, "May I not do as I like with my own?" 
 and it must be admitted that the putting such a 
 question indicates a mind ill prepared to acknowledge 
 any construction of the duties of property likely to 
 harmonise with the spirit of the aphorism. The con- 
 sideration of the two trains of thought implied in the 
 assertion on the one side, and the question on the 
 other, will naturally introduce us to the subject to 
 which I would now solicit your attention. 
 
 The answer to the question, "May I not do as I 
 like with my own ? " will vary according to the mean- 
 ing that we attach to the little word " May,'' with 
 which the question begins. Legally, we may do what 
 the law permits; mojally, we may do nothing that to 
 our knowledge tends to diminish the general well- 
 * Lecture delivered at the London Mechanics' Institution. 
 
64 
 
 being. With regard to what we may do legally, it is 
 a fact that the policy of our laws has been based 
 upon the principle that every man ought to be secured 
 in the possession, and sanctioned in the free disposal of 
 what he has earned and saved, with the power of 
 transferring his rights on what terms and to whom- 
 soever he pleases; the parties to whom he transfers 
 them being similarly secured in the possession of their 
 acquired rights. There are some restrictions upon 
 rights of property as thus represented, but so few in 
 number, and so trivial as exceptions to the general 
 rule, that for the sake of brevity of expression we 
 might say that, " legally, a man may do what he likes 
 with his own." 
 
 Now, taking advantage of this legal license, a man 
 may riot in luxury while his neighbours are starving ; 
 may waste his substance, train up his children in habits 
 of indolence and self-indulgence, and then leave them 
 destitute ; may capriciously discard servants, abruptly 
 withdraw confidence, eject tenants, or encourage, by 
 his countenance and the attractions of his wealth, those 
 whose habits lead them to prey upon, rather than to 
 co-operate with, the more useful members of society. 
 But he may not do so morally, because, by doing so, 
 he would inflict detriment upon society. 
 
 Law-makers, in their attempts to do good, are com- 
 pelled to abide by the same rule as all other indivi- 
 duals — to do as much good as possible. They have 
 instituted rights of property in order to promote indus- 
 try, skill, economy, and other qualities which are the 
 mainstay of human well-being. They have been led 
 to abstain from attempting to regulate, more than they 
 have, the use to be made of these rights, by the know- 
 
65 
 
 ledge that any good which such attempts could achieve 
 would be greatly outbalanced by the evils of inter- 
 ference. Proprietary rights, like parental rights, are 
 given with little limitation, because a great balance of 
 good, not because unmixed good, results from them. 
 Who would be so mad as to propose domiciliary 
 inspectors of parental conduct, in order to secure the 
 happiness of children ? Who has ever ventured to 
 propose and explain the legal enactments and ma- 
 chinery by which proprietors could be compelled, not 
 only to do no mischief, but to do the greatest possible 
 good with their wealth ? 
 
 A man may thus do legally what he may not do 
 morally. A law-maker does not say, " Do everything 
 that I do not prohibit ;" but he says, " Make a moral 
 use of the license that I am bound to trust you with in 
 my efforts to promote the general well-being." The 
 moral teacher, or he who ascertains and explains the 
 conduct that promotes well-being, the educator who 
 both instructs in the knowledge, and trains to habits 
 in harmony with this knowledge, and public opinion, 
 that encourages with its approbation, or discoun- 
 tenances by its condemnation, all who act up to or 
 depart from its standard of moral excellence, are all 
 auxiliaries to legal enactment that cannot be dispensed 
 with. 
 
 Critically examined, the direct expression in the 
 aphorism might be thought by some to be rather too 
 general, the duty referred to being the moral, not the 
 legal duty. The question bears internal evidence of its 
 origin. It has been put by a person, who, perhaps, with 
 analytical powers not of the highest order, has con- 
 ceived that it was intended to dispute his legal rights, 
 
66 
 
 or to enforce compliance with the moral duties attached 
 to his legal rights. One contends for the moral duties, 
 which ought not to be neglected in the assertion of legal 
 rights ; the other indignantly repels all attempts to 
 interfere with legal rights. One lays down a moral 
 rule in a way liable to misconstruction ; the other, led 
 astray by a hasty and erroneous interpretation of the 
 words in which the moral duty was expressed, attacks 
 by implication, not what was meant, but what, as he 
 conceived, the words might be made to mean. The 
 aphorism, so corrected as to meet the objection im- 
 plied by the question, may be thus expressed, " Pro- 
 perty has its moral duties as well as its legal rights ;" 
 and he only can deserve to be considered a moral or 
 truly good man of property who spends or applies his 
 wealth so as to make it as productive as possible of 
 benefit to society. 
 
 A wide field of inquiry here opens upon us. How 
 is a man to spend his income morally, or to make a 
 moral use of his wealth? Ought he to sell all, and 
 give to the poor ? Ought he to spend hospitably ? 
 Ought he to live sparingly, so as to be able in the end 
 to endow a charity or found a family? Or ought he to 
 do a little bit of each of these things, or what propor- 
 tion of each ? You must not look to me for answers 
 to these questions; for I do not pretend to be com- 
 petent to give them. I shall simply invite you to 
 explore this field of inquiry, and to indulge me with 
 the permission to accompany you. The task of search- 
 ing for and gathering together the materials that will 
 justify our attempting to answer such questions, and 
 others of similar import, will not be without instruction 
 or profit. If our observations should not be adequately 
 
67 
 
 copious — our inductions not sufficiently wide — to war- 
 rant the assertion of universal rules, they may enable 
 us to evolve principles so clear and comprehensive, as 
 to guide us usefully both in directing our own conduct 
 and in judo^ing that of others. Let us begin our 
 investigation by classing the various modes of expen- 
 diture, or of dealing with wealth under four different 
 heads, represented in order to fix them more firmly in 
 our memories by so many individual types. 
 
 Lord Mere-acres has inherited an income of 20,000Z. 
 a year. He is amiable, hospitable, and in no respect 
 ill-disposed. He has a town-house and country- 
 mansion, in both of which he maintains respectable 
 establishments. He hunts and shoots, visits watering- 
 places, attends quarter- sessions occasionally, and takes 
 his seat from time to time in the Upper House. He 
 spends the whole of his income, and, according to 
 general report, liberally — but lives within it. He 
 never subscribed for shares in any railway or other 
 industrial undertaking ; never countenanced any con- 
 duct condemned as disgraceful in good society, nor 
 questioned whether acts reputed to be honourable or 
 discreditable might not in reality be exactly the re- 
 verse. He is a loyal subject, a stickler for the privi- 
 leges of his order, and constitutionally averse to vote as 
 a peer of the realm for any alteration of the law, never 
 doing so, in fact, but under the guidance of the Duke. 
 
 Lord Care-nought inherited a similar income, but, 
 by racing, betting, riotous hospitality, and indulgence 
 in sensual pleasures, he found himself deeply involved 
 in debt at the expiration of the first year of his com- 
 ing into possession of the paternal property. He 
 borrowed, he mortgaged, he signed promissory notes 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 to satisfy the pressing demands of his creditors, but 
 placed no curb upon his expenses ; so that, after a 
 wild career of five years, he found himself a beggar 
 and an outlaw. To detail the particulars of his 
 turpitude and folly would be as needless as disgusting, 
 since the evil consequences both to others and himself 
 must come home to every understanding. 
 
 John Save-all likewise possesses an income of 
 20,000/. a year. His career has been very different 
 from that of either of the two lords just mentioned. 
 He started in life without property, but with a fair 
 amount of the common elementary knowledge obtain- 
 able at an unpretending day-school, with habits of 
 industry, frugality, and integrity, and with the deter- 
 mination to lose no opportunity of earning and sav- 
 ing a competency. He shaped his course steadily 
 through the recklessness, extravagance, and intem- 
 perance around him ; uncontaminated by bad exam- 
 ple, undismayed by self-privation, and unseduced by 
 alluring temptations. His success outran his expecta- 
 tions. He rose to the head of a large manufacturing 
 establishment, which yields him an income of 20,000/. 
 The habits which elevated him to his position stick to 
 him. He lives in his work. He has no taste for 
 spending more than 500Z. a year ; and, with the 
 exception of that sum, adds every year the whole of 
 his income to his capital. It need scarcely be stated 
 that he looks out for and selects efficient workmen for 
 the various posts and departments in his factory ; but 
 pays to them little more than is requisite to attract and 
 attach to him the men best qualified to do credit to his 
 wide-spread character, to extend his fame, and to 
 increase his profit. 
 
69 
 
 Robert Steer-well, whose start in life was somewhat 
 similar to that of Save-all, is not possessed of so large 
 an income. He has not been so saving, although 
 quite as industrious as Save-all, who, during the latter 
 years of his industrial progress, might be thought to 
 have been earning and saving without an object, or to 
 have made accumulation the ultimate purpose of his 
 existence. Steer-well, on the contrary, while earning 
 and saving, has always striven to look upon wealth as 
 a means to an end — as a most efficient and indispen- 
 sable means for ulterior purposes; — for self-support, 
 in the first place ; secondly, to qualify for the under- 
 taking and performing the nearer and dearer duties of 
 domestic life ; and, lastly, to aid in the performance of 
 some of the wider and nobler duties of social life. 
 His ledger, containing as it does abundant records 
 of successful and continuous industry, of prudent 
 economy and precautions, exhibits no summing up 
 of accumulated stores quite out of proportion with any 
 capability of individual enjoyment. No attempts at 
 gorgeous display, no offensive appliances for enervat- 
 ing luxury meet the eye in his dwelling ; but within 
 and without, and around, may be seen traces of 
 advancing civilization, towards which his wealth, 
 guided by his intelligence and benevolence, has con- 
 tributed. 
 
 The contemplation of these four types of conduct 
 will probably excite very different emotions in different 
 persons. Even Mr. Steer-well, if he do not live in 
 a style conformable to that adopted among his equals 
 in wealth, may be pointed at by some as deficient in 
 spirit, and giving less employment to servants and 
 tradespeople than becomes his station. Mr. Save-all 
 
70 
 
 will be regarded still more generally as a mean 
 despicable fellow, crushing his work-people and draw- 
 ing to himself the business and profit of others. Lord 
 Mere-acres, with his well-appointed establishments, 
 his good dinners, his punctilious observance of all 
 accredited formalities, will be reputed an exemplary 
 and highly respectable nobleman, spending his income 
 as becomes his rank, and entitling himself to the 
 grateful respect of tradesmen and servants, and to 
 the good word of diners-out. While poor Lord 
 Care-nought will often be tenderly censured as being 
 after ail more the enemy of himself than of anybody 
 else; too profuse, too generous, too confiding— a much 
 less obnoxious member of society, in short, than that 
 contemptible fellow. Save-all. 
 
 Nevertheless as Lord Care-nought, amid all the 
 commiseration which he may meet with, will find 
 nobody to justify his conduct, we may at once pro- 
 nounce that his method of spending, or rather out- 
 running, his income and exhausting his capital, is 
 anything but conducive to the well-being of society, 
 or to his own respectability. The headlong course of 
 a profligate spendthrift born to a large fortune, may 
 be hit off in very few words. He comes into a world 
 greatly improved by the industry, knowledge, and 
 economy of those who preceded him, he takes advan- 
 tage of an institution contrived and upheld for the 
 promotion of good conduct — the institution of pro- 
 perty, to live by the labour of others, contributing 
 nothing in return ; and having consuuied and wasted 
 his own property, and purloined that of others, by 
 contracting debts which he cannot liquidate, he ends 
 by being beholden to the charity of others, for the 
 
71 
 
 means of draining out his miserable existence to its 
 very dregs. 
 
 The career of Lord Mere-acres makes a somewhat 
 different impression upon most of those who care to 
 contemplate it. He is prepared to hand down his 
 fortune unimpaired to those who are to succeed him. 
 His servants and tradespeople all speak of him with 
 respect, sun themselves in his service and patronage, 
 and feel that they derive benefit from his expenditure. 
 The moneys which flow from his hand seem to fertilize 
 in employment, wages, and profit, wherever they dis- 
 tribute themselves — the minutest percolations seem to 
 carry with them consolations and rejoicings. What a 
 contrast, it may be said, is presented by the domestic 
 appointments of Mr. Save-all who, in possession of an 
 equally large income, diffuses around him none of 
 those blessings which emanate so abundantly from 
 the establishment of my Lord Mere-acres. No sedate 
 butler, no culinary artiste^ no smart valet, owes good 
 wages to him. The upholsterer, the fishmonger, 
 the fruiterer, and the wine merchant, greet him with 
 no smiles. But what becomes of the 20,000Z. per 
 annum which he will not spend ? He adds it to his 
 capital, we are told. Adds it to his capital ! let us 
 consider the full force of this announcement. 
 
 In whatever form he may determine to make the 
 addition to his capital, his first step for the purpose 
 must be the same, in one respect, as the first step of 
 my Lord Mere-acres for the purpose of expenditure — 
 he must part with his money. Let us suppose that 
 one year he determines to extend and improve his 
 factory ; he purchases bricks, stones, iron, lead, slates, 
 and timber, and pays wages to those who are com- 
 
72 
 
 petent to put these materials together. The parties 
 who provide him with all these requisites for his 
 buildings, are induced to do so by the profit which 
 they anticipate from the exchanges that they make 
 with him. They do derive a profit, then, by minister- 
 ing to the addition that he makes to his capital, as 
 well as the tradespeople of Lord Mere-acres do, by 
 aiding him to surround himself with luxuries and 
 indulgences. And at the end of the year he has 
 buildings and improvements worth 20,000Z. The next 
 year he fills his new buildings with machinery of the 
 most improved construction, by buying the services of 
 skilful and highly-paid artisans. The next year he 
 increases his stock of wool or other raw material — 
 he purchases of the wool-factor, who profits by him 
 as much as wine-merchant or man-milliner would. 
 Another year he engages more work-people to spin 
 his wool into yarn by the aid of his mechanical help 
 and administrative talent. The longer he perseveres 
 in this course the larger grows his capital, and the 
 more ample the funds which are received from him 
 by others who profit in making the exchange, whether 
 of labour or of merchandize, in order to obtain them. 
 
 It may be objected that Mr. Save-all would perhaps 
 add to his capital after some other fashion — he might 
 purchase an annuity, or put his money out on loan 
 for the sake of the interest. He cannot, however, 
 place his new capital in either of these ways, without 
 adding to the fund which sets labour in motion, or 
 partially or wholly filling the vacuum created by re- 
 moval or wastefulness or incompetency. If he pur- 
 chase the annuity of somebody industriously disposed, 
 who wishes to employ his capital in some profitable 
 
73 
 
 business, his savings do indirectly, through this indi- 
 vidual, what they might otherwise have done under 
 his own superintendence. If he purchase the annuity 
 of a spendthrift whose debts must be paid by the 
 sacrifice of capital, his economy neutralizes the conse- 
 quences of this man's wastefulness. In one case his 
 economy adds to the national capital, in the other it 
 saves the national capital from diminution. In one 
 case it furnishes the means of employing more labour- 
 ers, or of giving better wages to the same number; in 
 the other it prevents the necessity of getting rid of a 
 portion of the labourers employed, or of reducing their 
 wages. 
 
 Are we prepared, after these considerations, to 
 bestow our unqualified approbation upon Mr. Save- 
 all? By no means. Society does not award its 
 highest testimonials to those who merely labour and 
 save, but to those who make a good use of the wealth 
 which they have earned and saved. But in the dis- 
 tribution of its minor tokens of regard, or of its 
 milder marks of disapprobation or censure, discrimi- 
 nation and judgment are demanded. And when the 
 career of Lord Mere-acres and that of Mr. Save-all 
 are placed at the bar of public opinion, which ought 
 we to praise the most or blame the least ? Before we 
 can answer this question satisfactorily, we must first 
 convince ourselves which of these two individuals 
 leaves society the more improved or the less damaged 
 by his having passed through it. 
 
 Many persons feel an objection to the existence of 
 large individual properties, especially in juxtaposition 
 with wide-spread destitution. The co-existence, it 
 may be admitted, is unseemly: but destitution dis- 
 
74 
 
 connected from superabundance would be still more 
 unseemly, — for it would then be destitution without 
 relief, without mitigation, without hope. And when 
 dislike is expressed at the proximity of immense 
 wealth and extreme poverty, is it not a dislike to the 
 proximity of profuse expenditure and of severe pri- 
 vation that is really felt? Our investigation, so far 
 as we have been able to follow Mr. Save-all in his 
 persevering parsimony, has led us to the discovery of 
 no destitution caused by him. It may be said, it is 
 true, that his accumulated savings are distributed not 
 among the destitute, but among those who are self- 
 supporting. Nevertheless, they are distributed among 
 those who look for shelter from destitution to that or 
 some other capital. There are two classes of can- 
 didates anxious to possess themselves of Save-all's 
 parsimonies. The first comprises the capable ; among 
 whom are the industrious, the sober, the skilful, and 
 the trustworthy. The second comprises the compa- 
 ratively incapable, the idle, the ignorant, the drunken, 
 and the dishonest. Is it to be considered a reproach 
 to Save-all that his parsimonies are converted into 
 capital, to preserve from de«titution those who can 
 and will help themselves, rather than into a charitable 
 fund to be distributed among those who neither can 
 nor will ? Passing into the hands of the capable 
 class, his parsimonies do not pass away, — they are 
 only advanced to be returned with increase. Passing 
 into the hands of the incapable class, they go to re- 
 turn no more. How people may be prevented from 
 sinking into hopeless destitution, or how, when having 
 sunk into it, their sufferings may best be mitigated, 
 are questions well deserving separate and serious con- 
 
sideration. But even now we need not hesitate to 
 pronounce, that agents of the Mere- acres' stamp 
 would be quite unequal to the task of either pre- 
 venting or mitigating any destitution that the wildest 
 fancy could attribute to the shortcomings of the 
 race of Save-alls. 
 
 The pent-up indignation of some thorough good 
 haters of parsimony may here burst out. " Your 
 justification of Mr. Save-all," they may say, " makes 
 no impression upon us." — "Softly," we must reply; 
 "we are trying — we are not justifying the object of 
 your abhorrence," He started in early youth under 
 such deep convictions of the necessity of economy, 
 and his early steps in life so repeatedly impressed 
 him with their truth, that they became all-important, 
 all-absorbing, — and gained the mastery over other 
 faculties and virtues equally indispensable to form the 
 truly excellent member of society. Nevertheless, we 
 have as yet been able to discover no evil consequences 
 resulting from his conduct, and have therefore found 
 nothing to lay to his charge that shall place him so 
 low in the social scale as Lords Mere-acres and Care- 
 nought. 
 
 Remonstrances may still pursue us. Again we 
 may be told — enough of these justifications and pal- 
 liations, call them by any name you please, and tell 
 us what is to become of this accumulation of wealth 
 upon wealth. Is it to pass into the possession of some 
 profligate booby, or of some silly girl, who will 
 thereby attract to herself a titled adventurer, whose 
 profuseness in spending wealth will possibly surpass 
 the stinginess that scraped it together ? Perhaps you 
 can show that it is not likely to be transferred into 
 
76 
 
 such hands, but rather into the hands of those who 
 will have judgment and inclination to turn it to useful 
 account ? 
 
 Let us freely confess that we can do nothing of the 
 kind. Moreover, let us admit our reluctance, whatever 
 apparent necessity there may be to permit it, to see 
 wealth thrust upon the undeserving — to see wealth, 
 which ought to be a means of enjoyment, transformed 
 into a means of corruption and misery — to see wealth, 
 not the reward of exertion and self-denial, but the 
 plaything of indolence and self-indulgence. A child 
 that comes into the world heir to a large income, is an 
 object of pity to all who are acquainted with the con- 
 ditions of well-being. They know that well-being 
 depends upon conduct, and that those habits which 
 lead to good conduct, and hence to well-being, are 
 determined by the daily influences under which the 
 child lives, and moves, and has his being. A parent's 
 wealth which encompasses a child with the means 
 of instruction and training, and of starting in some 
 career honourable to himself, and useful to society, is 
 wealth well applied. But that wealth which, in seduc- 
 tive accents, whispers first to the child in the nursery, 
 the school-room and the play-ground, and afterwards 
 to the man in the college-hall and the lecture-theatre, 
 in the club and on parade, " Idle or industrious, igno- 
 rant or instructed, wasteful or economical, dissolute 
 or temperate, I am yours, and I can give you pleasure, 
 power, and social consideration," is wealth intended to 
 bless perverted into a curse. The vague surmise that 
 such may be the destiny of Save-all's accumulations, 
 is, perhaps, at the bottom of that antipathy which so 
 frequently greets the man of thrift. But if Mr. Save- 
 
77 
 
 all is to incur our censure because his economy is 
 likely to lead to the profligacy of others, what can we 
 say in justification of the law and custom of primogeni- 
 ture, of entails, and of other contrivances for concen- 
 trating upon individuals the possession of large masses 
 of property, which might otherwise be beneficially 
 distributed among many ? While admiring Mr. Save- 
 all's virtues, let us not shelter his follies. Neither, 
 while honouring a public servant who has done good 
 service to his country, let us so impose wealth upon 
 his race as to make each successive heir, through 
 the corrupting influence of this very wealth, lose 
 somewhat of the lustre of his manhood, or, may be, 
 fall a victim to profligacy or imbecility. 
 
 We not unfrequently hear dissatisfaction expressed, 
 where no reasons are given why dissatisfaction should 
 be felt. It is useful and improving, however, for all 
 of us to strive so far to examine our own feelings as 
 to satisfy ourselves of their reasonableness. There are 
 few who have not been able to conquer some aversions 
 which at one time were thought better warranted than 
 they were afterwards found to be ; or who have not 
 regulated some fondness or attachment that was dis- 
 covered to be hurrying on to regret and disappoint- 
 ment. Equally beneficial is it to those whose feelings 
 and affections are yet disengaged, to be able to in- 
 form themselves how they may be placed so as to 
 be in unison with all that is conducive to progressive 
 humanity. 
 
 The more we dwell upon Lord Mere-acres's disposal 
 of his income, the greater difficulty do we find in 
 awarding to him any portion of our public esteem. 
 He is intent upon his own gratification, and, in pursuing 
 
78 
 
 it, does that modicum of good inseparable from the 
 interchange which he is compelled to take part in. 
 Lord Care-nought excites our active dislike and cen- 
 sure. Passive withholding of approbation, as must 
 be admitted by everybody, is not sufficient rebuke 
 for one who ruins himself and damages others by his 
 profligacy and extravagance. And although we cannot 
 deny that Mr. Save-all, besides doing the same good 
 through interchange as Lord Mere-acres, is an indus- 
 trious member of society, adds to the national capital, 
 and promotes all those useful social qualities which 
 necessarily rally round successful industrial enterprise, 
 we are conscious to ourselves that something is want- 
 ing to entitle him to the fullest measure of our esteem 
 and affection. His accumulative efforts, so protracted, 
 strike us as purposeless ; and effort of any kind, that 
 is not directed to a useful purpose, fails to enlist the 
 sympathies of intelligent benevolence. The industrious 
 young workman who saves, commands our respect, be- 
 cause his saving has a good purpose in view — his own 
 self-support during ill-health and old age, as well as 
 his competency to do justice to the tender and sacred 
 duties which he naturally expects to take upon him- 
 self. The provident parent who continues to save, 
 commands our respect because his savings have still 
 a good purpose in view — the providing the best pos- 
 sible education for his children, and the guarding all 
 dependent upon him against the privation that might 
 otherwise be consequent upon his early removal from 
 them. The man who continues to save after all these 
 contingencies have been provided for, can only enlist 
 our esteem by impressing us with the conviction that 
 these further savings are destined to promote the 
 
79 
 
 improveTnent, the refinement, the elevation, and the 
 recreation of those who have not been so favourably- 
 situated as himself to participate in the well-being 
 which this world is capable of offering. 
 
 The example of Save-all does not satisfy our yearn- 
 ings after excellence. Industry and economy, ad- 
 mirable as they are, do not comprise the whole duty 
 of man. A good use of the results of industry and 
 economy is required before we can even consent to 
 bestow our highest praise upon those indispensable 
 virtues. This recalls our attention to Mr. Steer- well, 
 who may, perhaps, be considered to represent the 
 style of man that we can admire througliout. He 
 accumulates up to a certain point — beyond that he 
 spends. In his estimation, wealth to one extent pro- 
 vided by the parent is a blessing to his children — to 
 a greater extent, it has a tendency to degenerate into 
 a curse ; and wealth destined to more general pur- 
 poses of beneficence is better applied under his own 
 superintendence, than reserved to be administered by 
 he knows not whom, and he knows not how. He 
 thus closes his life, having worked well, saved well, 
 and, what is more rare, spent well. 
 
 A reflection suggests itself here, which it would be 
 wrong to suppress. The man who spends produc- 
 tively — that is, with a view to have his expenditure 
 returned to him with increase, if he conduce his opera- 
 tions with skill, will always afford encouragement to 
 those social qualities, upon the prevalence of which 
 the general well-being of society depends. The man 
 who spends unproductively, especially in the exercise 
 of benevolence, if he be not circumspect, may afford 
 encouragement, however unintentionally, to idleness, 
 
80 
 
 vice, and improvidence. It is sad, but true, that ill- 
 directed benevolence will sometimes inflict upon pos- 
 terity misery greatly exceeding that to which it ex- 
 tends relief. Not unlike the graceless spendthrift, 
 who mortgages his reversionary inheritance for the 
 purpose of gratifying some ill-regulated propensity. 
 
 That our meaning may not be misunderstood, let us 
 contrast the action of a keen capitalist with that of an 
 inconsiderate philanthropist, upon the vice of Drunk- 
 enness. It would be waste of time and words to attempt 
 to prove that habitual drunkenness leads, almost inva- 
 riably, to destitution. Now, all the higher qualities of 
 a workman are deteriorated by this beastly vice. His 
 defectiveness in regard to steadiness of hand, to punc- 
 tuality, to trustworthiness, shuts him out from all the 
 superior grades in industrial employment, and from 
 the emoluments attached to them. He is unfit to per- 
 form the functions of foreman, of engine-driver, of 
 cashier, or of captain. He may be possessed of some 
 peculiar gift or talent that will induce a capitalist to 
 put up with the nuisance of his vices for a time, and 
 even to pay for his supervision. If, however, he could 
 but interpret aright the conduct of the capitalist who 
 employs him, he might understand the warning as well 
 as if he heard the voice saying to him : " Abstain 
 from drink, which begins by impairing all your powers, 
 and ends by making you nearly worthless — which 
 begins by lessening your wages, and ends by turning 
 you into the streets as a casual or chance labourer of 
 the lowest description, or by consigning you to a 
 Sweater's den, the only place that can shelter you 
 from the ignominy and discipline of a workhouse." 
 
 The indiscreet philanthropist comes into contact 
 
81 
 
 trith the drunkard only when vice has more than half 
 mined him. He then penetrates into the filthy dwell- 
 ing, bewails the nakedness of wife and children, reviles 
 the sweater, reproves the niggardliness and harshness 
 of the relieving officer, distributes his own alms and 
 collects alms from others. Which of the two contri- 
 butes the more to banish drunkenness from society — 
 the capitalist who says, " Drink, and I cannot give you 
 wages ; drink not, and I will buy your labour at a 
 high rate" — or a philanthropist who says, " Drink not, 
 and we shall never be known to each other, — but 
 drink, and I will come forward at the eleventh hour 
 to condole over and relieve the consequences of your 
 vice?" 
 
 A similar contrast might be drawn between the 
 action of the capitalist and that of the incautious 
 philanthropist upon every other vice in its turn, or 
 upon any combinations of the vices, for they are rather 
 given to hang together. The deduction from these 
 contrasts would be that the successful capitalist does 
 not encourage vice, inasmuch as he is on the look out 
 to obtain, in return for the wages that he disburses, 
 the largest amount of productive power, which cannot 
 exist in union with habitual vice ; whereas the mere 
 disposer of wealth, even when benevolently inclined, 
 is in danger, unless knowledge and circumspection 
 guide his hands, of encouraging vice while mitigating 
 its consequences. The successful capitalist, in fact, 
 ranks as high above the indiscriminate alms-giver as 
 he does below the enlightened philanthropist, who, 
 while not insensible to the more pressing call upon 
 his sympathies for the relief of actual suffering, is 
 conscious that the most useful service that can be 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 rendered to society, the most noble duty that can be 
 performed by man towards his fellow-men, is the 
 prevention of destitution, by averting its causes — the 
 Vices. 
 
 Expenditure in itself, view it in what light we will, 
 ought neither to command our respect nor attract our 
 sympathy. Neither ought it to gratify the self-love, 
 or satisfy the aspirations of those who have it in their 
 power to spend profusely. Treasure this up in your 
 thoughts, ye prettiest butterflies of creation ! Re- 
 member that when ye trip lightly out of the ancestral 
 mansion into a luxurious equipage, and are thus trans- 
 ported from one mart of fashion to another, spending 
 profusely what no effort of your own aided to produce, 
 ye are doing no good, — ye may be pretty, and deli- 
 cate, and gaudy, but at the best ye are only harmless. 
 Ye are giving no encouragement to trade, nor to the 
 social virtues upon which it rests. Ye are far inferior 
 in social worth and usefulness to those active lassies 
 whose clever fingers, vigorous understandings, and 
 courageous energies, are directed to earn and save 
 for present and future maintenance, and towards the 
 due fulfilment of those sacred duties which await them 
 — whose tempers, chastened by industry and self- 
 denial, whose tastes and capabilities, elevated and ex- 
 tended by application and exercise, will enable them 
 to preserve affections which they have once gained, 
 and to conciliate regard and deference which they 
 never arrogated. 
 
 Are you not, it may here be asked, lending yourself 
 to a low and vulgar prejudice ? Are you not decrying 
 grace and elegance in thus running down the kind of 
 expenditure that distinguishes what is called fashion- 
 
83 
 
 able life? I hope not. Display and luxury are not 
 identical with grace and elegance, which are more 
 often than otherwise found in company with modest 
 simplicity. The fine arts, and everything that con- 
 duces to elevation and refinement of taste, must on no 
 account be disparaged. Their influence upon well- 
 being is so precious that I should deeply regret were 
 words expressed, or words omitted, to expose me to 
 the imputation of undervaluing any conduct that tends 
 to favour them. But elegance, refinement, and taste, as 
 far as I can judge, owe as little to the Mere-butterflies 
 of society, as the more substantial parts of the social 
 fabric do to the Mere acres. 
 
 There is a rule of conduct with regard to expendi- 
 ture, or the application of means, that will be observed 
 by all of us who aim at governing our proceedings by 
 moral considerations, — not to disappoint expectations 
 of benefit from our wealth which our mode of dealing 
 with it has naturally created in others. No good 
 parent, for example, would so spend his wealth as to 
 foster habits of ease and luxury in his offspring, train- 
 ing them up to no vocation, by assiduity in which they 
 might earn a livelihood similar to what they had ever 
 enjoyed, and then leave them either with no property, 
 or too little to furnish them with the means of com- 
 fortable existence. No good master would suffer a 
 servant to grow old and incapable in his service, 
 taking no pains to induce habits of saving to meet 
 such an emergency, and indirectly encouraging hopes 
 of an annuity for the decline of years, and ultimately, 
 by his death or otherwise, turn his servant helpless 
 and penniless on the world. No considerate man, in 
 dealing with others, whether for personal services, or 
 
84 
 
 for articles of merchandize, would unexpectedly trans- 
 fer his custom so as to entail loss upon those who had 
 always conducted themselves in a satisfactory manner. 
 It is quite true that by shifting his dealings, the profit 
 previously realized in one quarter is now realized in 
 another; but unless time for preparation be allowed, 
 the happiness or satisfaction imparted to the new 
 gainer of the profit would not counterbalance the 
 discomfort or annoyance of the former gainer, now 
 obliged to do without the profit. 
 
 Although all men blessed with a high order of 
 understanding, and inspired with the wish adequately 
 to perform their social duties, would be thus circum- 
 spect in their expenditure, they would do nothing to 
 countenance in others the fatal delusion — that any 
 kind of dependence for the means of subsistence can 
 be safe, except that which is founded upon self- 
 dependence. A double duty is owing by the more 
 intelligent towards the less intelligent members of 
 society ; — 1st, to assist in diffusing that intelligence 
 and morality which will best enable all to provide for 
 themselves ; 2nd, to protect as much as possible those 
 who, from defects in capacity or instruction, are in 
 danger of suffering from the consequences of their 
 lack of intelligence. 
 
 If we extend our inquiries from the expenditure of 
 individuals to that of governments, our conclusions in 
 regard to the effect of mere expenditure need undergo 
 no modification. What the government spends is 
 drawn away from individuals by taxation. If the 
 government, in its expenditure, were to buy the same 
 services and the same merchandize that would have 
 been bought by the individuals from whom the taxes 
 
85 
 
 were received, there would be no change for either 
 better or worse, as far as the acts of expenditure were 
 concerned. If the services and merchandize were dif- 
 ferent, another direction would be given to a portion 
 of the capital and industry of the people. There is no 
 reason to suppose that such change of direction is of 
 itself likely to bring any increase of profit to the 
 industry of the country. The utmost that it could 
 achieve would be to transfer the profit from one set of 
 individuals to another. The benefit of governmental, 
 as of individual, expenditure is to be looked for, not 
 in the act of expenditure, but in the results which that 
 act is specially designed to lead to. 
 
 The wealth of the people, and hence their means of 
 enjoyment, are directly diminished by taxation. By 
 what is taken from them in taxes, they have so much 
 less to spend either productively or unproductively. 
 The use made of this wealth by the government may 
 tend to increase the people's wealth indirectly more 
 than the taxes diminish it directly. The govern- 
 mental action may enable the people to extract more 
 well-being out of their diminished wealth, than they 
 otherwise could have extracted out of it undiminished. 
 Now, it really does happen that when the government 
 expenditure is well directed, it both indirectly adds to 
 the wealth of the people, and directly to the enjoy- 
 ment derivable from the wealth. 
 
 The necessity of government is founded upon the 
 fact — that there always have been, and still are, a 
 large number of people disposed to commit acts of 
 violence, to rob and to defraud. These acts must be 
 prevented; and no better means for prevention have 
 yet been suggested, than for the well-disposed portion 
 
86 
 
 of society to organise a force adequate to prevent all 
 apprehension from the ill-disposed. The ill-disposed 
 from whom mischief might be apprehended may be 
 external to, or comprised within, the community. To 
 guard against the one a military force is needed, and 
 against the other a police force ; and, besides, institu- 
 tions and arrangements for the efficient direction of 
 these forces, and for lessening the occasions for their 
 active intervention. These services and others are 
 performed by governments. They are indispensable 
 for well-being. People acting individually are inca- 
 pable of adequately performing them ; and if they 
 could, the farming, building, weaving, mining, and 
 navigating, and other industrial operations, would be 
 greatly impeded, if the necessity of self-defence were 
 imposed upon those who were conducting them. The 
 general industry of society is made much more pro- 
 ductive by separating the governmental work, and 
 delegating it to parties specially appointed. There is 
 no division of labour by which society profits more 
 than it does by this ; and accordingly it may be said 
 that a good government co-operates largely, though 
 indirectly, in every department of industry. 
 
 Equally or still more evident is the beneficial action 
 of government, in protecting enjoyment, as well as in 
 aiding production. Where is the man possessed of 
 wealth, who, feeling no confidence in his ability to 
 retain it, would not readily part with a considerable 
 portion of it to purchase security for the remainder ? 
 The organization of government and its administration, 
 properly conducted, give this security in return, not 
 for a large, but for a small part of each individual's 
 wealth. 
 
87 
 
 The benefits of well-organized and well-administered 
 government are inestimable, and more than compen- 
 sate all expenditure requisite for the due performance 
 of its functions. But any expenditure beyond what is 
 needful to procure efficient public servants, and the 
 means for conducting the public service is waste — is 
 evil. As a zealous, high-minded, instructed, and well- 
 paid public servant, is an individual alike estimable 
 in himself, and honourable to the society which he 
 serves, so a sinecurist, one who fills a sham office, or 
 is a sham worker in a real office, who is a sham in 
 everything except in appropriating other people's 
 wealth, is alike contemptible in himself, and discredit- 
 able to the society that tolerates the imposition. The 
 conceit of Lord Mere-acres, who plumes himself upon 
 the benefit that he confers upon society, by his osten- 
 tatious expenditure, may be no worse than that of a 
 strutting peacock, simply ridiculous ; but the Right 
 Hon. Mr. " Clothes-horse," who parades the finery, 
 purchased by a salary for which he has given no equi- 
 valent, is hateful as a bird of prey. 
 
 Taxes have, nevertheless, been likened to the mois- 
 ture drawn up from the earth by the sun, afterwards 
 to descend in fertilising showers. The image is not 
 without beauty, and, if carefully applied, not without 
 truth ; but, if by refreshing showers be meant the profit 
 derived by the tradesmen among whom the taxes are 
 spent, respect for the judicial wig, from under which the 
 simile is reported to have emanated, must prevent our 
 saying more than that legal knowledge is not neces- 
 sarily united with comprehensive intelligence. The 
 services performed by the functionaries among whom 
 the taxes are distributed can alone be represented by 
 
88 
 
 the fertilising showers ; and the tax-payers, if wise, 
 will not grudge the moisture extracted to be condensed 
 into such showers. But if the moisture, after extrac-' 
 tion, be concentrated upon shams and sinecurists — 
 upon mere " clothes-horses" and " meat-troughs" — 
 the showers will be anything but fertilising ; they 
 must be corrupting to the recipients who make no 
 return, and the exhaustion from the loss of moisture in 
 all other quarters may generate a blight leading to 
 scarcity or famine. 
 
 I must now announce — and perhaps you will say^ 
 not too soon — that the minute examination into the 
 various consequences of different modes of expenditure 
 in which you have accompanied me has been brought 
 to a close. There is one striking practical conclusion 
 arising out of this examination, especially as taken in 
 connection with certain very prevalent opinions and 
 feelings, that I must yet notice before we separate. 
 
 In dwelling upon the horrors of destitution and 
 the sorrows of pauperism, the contrast between them 
 and the luxuries of large possessions and the joys of 
 abundance, has been a favourite, nay, almost a hack- 
 nied theme for moralists, novelists, and politicians. 
 But what really strikes the eye of the observer is, not 
 so much the difference between large and small pos- 
 sessions, as between large and small expenditure. 
 Everybody who has paid any serious and systematic 
 attention to the conditions of well-being, knows that the 
 only sure foundation on which any individual can rely 
 for a comfortable existence is the practice of all the 
 social virtues ; and, among them, the virtue of economy, 
 beyond which our thoughts need not at present extend. 
 The comfortable existence of any number of individuals 
 
89 
 
 can only rest on the same foundation. There is no 
 avoiding the admission, that if economy were to be 
 entirely neglected by all the members of a community, 
 starvation would await them ; and if economy be 
 neglected by a portion of a community, starvation for 
 those who form that portion can only be averted by 
 their being admitted to participate in the wealth pos- 
 sessed by the economical individuals in society. 
 
 But the economical man cannot spare of his savings 
 to supply the wants of others without self-privation, 
 unless he have saved more than enough for his own 
 immediate wants. Is not the wealthy capitalist a 
 saving man of this description ? Is he not one of those 
 who is able and willing to supply the means of sub- 
 sistence to those who either have none or not enough ? 
 It is true, that, in distributing these surplus means of 
 his, he takes care to select, as the objects of his 
 preference, the industrious, the skilful, and the trust- 
 worthy, because they are competent to contract with 
 him to replace, with increase, what he advances. If 
 the end to be attained is, that there should always 
 exist a stock of wealth large in proportion to the 
 numbers of a community, many of whom have none, 
 can there be a doubt among which of the wealthless 
 the surplus wealth of the capitalists should be distri- 
 buted in preference ? Whether among those who are 
 capable and willing to replace what is allotted to 
 them ? or among those who are either incapable or 
 unwilling ? 
 
 Viewing rich men as successful capitalists, it is un- 
 deniable that so far from aggravating what is calcu- 
 lated to distress our better feelings and sympathies, in 
 the contrast between riches and poverty, they are 
 
90 
 
 labouring to soften the contrast to the utmost of their 
 ability. As long as they refrain from spending or 
 consuming that which their capital produces, they may 
 be considered as trustees for others. They act as 
 though they were not the owners, but the adminis- 
 trators of the capital ; all right to appropriate or enjoy 
 the profits resulting from their administrative talent 
 being suspended. While this suspension continues, 
 capital accumulates and employment increases. There 
 is no cause for uneasiness as to the application of the 
 profits thus accumulated till the suspension is with- 
 drawn. 
 
 It is only when we view the rich man as a luxu- 
 rious liver, as a profuse spender, that his conduct is 
 open to criticism for daring to revel in the midst 
 of the destitute. The aim of the spending rich man, 
 who aspires to make his expenditure a blessing to 
 society, should be to do more good than the success- 
 ful capitalist, or at all events to do some good that 
 the capitalist omits to do. The good which the capi- 
 talist does, is to encourage those who are industrious, 
 skilful, and trustworthy. The good which he omits to 
 do, is to contribute towards making those industrious, 
 skilful, economical, and trustworthy, whose dispositions 
 and habits are not yet formed, but whose position is 
 ill-adapted for the formation of good characters and 
 habits. This latter work does not come directly 
 within the sphere of what capitalists consider to be 
 their duty. Here, then, is the field of exertion — of 
 enlightened, philanthropic exertion — for men of wealth 
 not engaged in industrial pursuits. Let them look 
 around. Everywhere they see numerous children des- 
 tined, but for their intervention, to grow up into incom- 
 
91 
 
 peterit, miserable, and dangerous members of society 
 — the parents of future generations as uncivilized as 
 themselves. Let them intervene, and these children 
 will become vrell- con ducted and happy men, com- 
 petent to contract v^ith capitalists to replace -with in- 
 crease the capital advanced to them, and be the 
 ancestors of a race of men, the like of whom, in point 
 of civilization, this world has not yet beheld. 
 
93 
 
 IV. 
 
 WHAT IS COMPETITION?* 
 
 It is scarcely possible to walk abroad, to attend a dis- 
 cussion on public matters, or to take up a newspaper, 
 and not to fall in with something conveying the im- 
 pression that there prevails among a large number of 
 people an opinion that " Competition" has done, is 
 doing, and will, unless prevented, continue to do a 
 vast deal of mischief in the world. 
 
 Another conviction, a most welcome conviction, also 
 forces itself upon us. There is a feeling generally per- 
 vading society that the destitute and miserable form 
 much too large a proportion of our whole population ; 
 that this proportion may be and must be diminished, 
 and that the causes of this misery must be inquired 
 
 * This paper is little else than a connected summary of the answers 
 given by the boys attending the Social Economy Class at the Birkbeck 
 School (London Mechanics* Institution), during two interrogative lessons 
 upon the effects of Competition. 
 
 Trifle as it is, the writer ventures to present it to Mr. Runtz, the 
 excellent master of that school, with the expression of his regard and 
 esteem, and of the grateful feelings with which he has long watched the 
 zeal and ability brought to bear by Mr. Runtz in his efforts to aid in the 
 extension of a sound and useful education to all classes of his country- 
 men. 
 
94 
 
 into and made known. On the present occasion, our 
 wish is to ascertain whether Competition is in reality 
 one of the causes of this undue amount of destitution 
 and misery. 
 
 If we inquire among the destitute and miserable 
 themselves, and if we extend our inquiries among 
 those benevolent missionaries of humanity who ex- 
 plore the haunts of misery and visit their suffering 
 brethren for the purpose of imparting comfort and 
 relief to the objects of their commiseration, we learn 
 that, in their opinion, much of the surrounding misery 
 is clearly owing to " excessive Competition." 
 
 The causes of misery, mistaken or real, are subjects 
 that must not be trifled with. Mistaken causes, while 
 adopted as real ones, hide the real causes from our 
 eyes, and our ignorance of the real causes, while it 
 lasts, makes the prevention or diminution of misery 
 hopeless. Let us, then, endeavour to satisfy ourselves 
 whether Competition be a real or a mistaken cause of 
 misery — whether Competition ought to be attacked as 
 an enemy, disregarded as of no account, or courted as 
 a friend. 
 
 But what is this Competition ? — what are its attri- 
 butes and capabilities, either for good or for evil? 
 We will set out on our travels for the purpose of col- 
 lecting answers to these questions from men of prac- 
 tical experience who, as eye-witnesses, may be supposed 
 best qualified to gratify our curiosity and enlighten our 
 ignorance. We will step into an auction-room, and 
 there we shall be told that Competition raises prices. 
 We will attend at the opening of the sealed tenders 
 which are sent in for the supply of a workhouse or of 
 some branch of the public service, and there we shall 
 
95 
 
 be told that Competition lowers prices. When we 
 hear of a number of displaced or unplaced labourers 
 striving to insinuate themselves among others who are 
 employed, we hear at the same time that Competition 
 lowers wages. Wlien we hear of manufactories start- 
 ing into existence under the auspices of enterprising 
 capitalists, we hear at the same time that Competition 
 raises wages. In like manner we are told that Com- 
 petition lowers rents, profits, and interest; and also 
 that it raises them. Ought we to believe all that 
 we hear ? Are all these wonders that are attributed 
 to the influence of Competition possible and credible ? 
 Or are they contradictory and impossible, and there- 
 fore, incredible ? 
 
 Again, we ask, "What is Competition?" Our in- 
 quiries abroad having led to nothing conclusive, let us 
 now inquire at home, and marshal our own thoughts 
 and subject them to a course of strict examination. 
 Whence are our notions of Competition derived ? 
 Whence, but from our observation of the thoughts and 
 wishes and conduct of those whom we consider com- 
 peting men ? What we know of competing men may 
 be narrated in very few words. As buyers in an auc- 
 tion-room, they wish to buy at the lowest possible 
 price ; as prospective tenants of a farm, they wish to 
 obtain possession at the lowest possible rent ; as bor- 
 rowers of capital, they wish to pay the lowest possible 
 rate of interest for the loan ; as hirers of labour, they 
 wish to pay the lowest possible wages. Yet those very 
 persons, whose wishes are all in one direction — that of 
 obtaining what they want on the lowest terms, are the 
 persons whose acts are said to lead to results directly 
 the reverse of what they wish — viz., to raising the 
 
96 
 
 terms. On the other hand, competing tradesmen, 
 privately pondering upon the prices at which they will 
 tender to provide supplies; competing landlords, on 
 the look-out for tenants ; competing workmen, seeking 
 for employment ; competing lenders of capital, long- 
 ing to be put in communication with substantial bor- 
 rowers — wishing, as they all do, to obtain the highest 
 terms — are the persons whose acts are said to lead to 
 the lowering of what they wish to be high. 
 
 One would fancy it must sound a little strange to 
 those who have habituated themselves to the notion 
 that Competition is largely instrumental in producing 
 misery, to hear that competing men are not only acting 
 in different directions, but that they are always acting 
 in a direction opposite to that of their own wishes. 
 But something yet stranger remains to be presented to 
 them. Amidst what is called the strife of competition, 
 a good harvest causes the price of corn to fall, as a 
 bad harvest causes it to rise ; a population rapidly in- 
 creasing in civilization and numbers causes rents to 
 rise, as a population retrograding in civilization and 
 numbers would cause them to fall ; capital increasing 
 more rapidly than the numbers of a people will make 
 wages rise ; while an increase of the numbers of a 
 people, more rapid than the increase of capital, will 
 make wages fall ; where capital earns large profits the 
 rate of interest is high, and where capital earns but 
 small profits the rate of interest is low. 
 
 Man, in whatever part of the world we find him, is 
 as much a competing animal as we know him to be at 
 home. But his Competition seems to be exercised in 
 the midst of very difl:erent results. If, for example, 
 we compare the United States and Australia with the 
 
C UNIVERSITY 1 
 97 ^^"S^^^^S*-^ 
 
 United Kingdom, we observe Competition, in the two 
 first, accompanied by low rents and low prices of raw 
 produce, and by high wages, high rates of profit and 
 interest, and high prices of manufactured articles ; 
 while, in the United Kingdom, Competition is accom- 
 panied by high rents and high prices of raw produce, 
 and by low wages, low rates of profit and interest, and 
 low prices of manufactured articles. 
 
 The preceding facts and reflections must, we should 
 think, lead to the suspicion that the phenomena of high 
 and low prices, high and low rents, high and low 
 wages, and high and low rates of profit and interest, 
 are all the effects of causes among which Competition 
 acts a very subordinate and insignificant part. All 
 men compete, more or less : by their very nature they 
 must compete. They compete to make themselves 
 comfortable, agreeably to what their notions of com- 
 fort may be. When actively engaged in any depart- 
 ment of productive or professional industry, they com- 
 pete to make their efforts successful and profitable. 
 But their success, or want of success, cannot be cor- 
 rectly attributed to Competition, and if it be really 
 attributable to other causes, a knowledge of which is 
 indispensable to our well-being ; there must be danger 
 if we allow the word " Competition" to act as a charm 
 upon our thoughts, to distract them from that course 
 of inquiry which is likely to lead us to the discovery 
 of those causes. 
 
 When an engineer, a physician, a surgeon, or a 
 lawyer, has established a character for usefulness in his 
 profession, the public compete for his services, and his 
 emoluments are large. The cause of his success is his 
 professional merit, rather than the public Competition. 
 
98 
 
 When one belonging to any of these classes has 
 failed to establish a character for usefulness in his pro- 
 fession, the public feel no desire to compete for his 
 slender services, and his emoluments are small. The 
 cause of his ill-success may more truly be said to be 
 the deficiency of his own merit than the want of public 
 competition. 
 
 A working man, unpossessed of capital, or whose 
 capabilities can be turned to the best account in alli- 
 ance with the capital of others, has, through a long 
 course of active service, established a character for 
 usefulness among the employers in his department of 
 industry. They compete for the purchase of his la- 
 bour. He obtains comparatively high wages. The 
 employer who obtains his preference, either through 
 mismanagement or some vicissitude of trade that he 
 had been unequal to struggle against, is obliged to 
 suspend his work, and to discharge his workmen. 
 Other employers are eager to secure the services of so 
 valuable a man. Surely it is a more truthful expres- 
 sion to say that this workman's success is owing to his 
 own merit rather than to the Competition of em- 
 ployers. 
 
 Again, other working men, either through indolence, 
 ignorance, unskilfulness, dishonesty, unpunctuality, 
 drunkenness, or recklessness, fail to inspire capitalists 
 with a notion that their labour can be regularly turned 
 to account. Some of them, however, will obtain em- 
 ployment, but will soon lose it by their ill conduct. 
 When they lose it, the cause of their so losing it being 
 no secret, other capitalists are slow to purchase what 
 has little or no value. The whole class of such men 
 become the casual labourers of society— the labourers 
 
99 
 
 who in the convulsive movements of industrial employ- 
 ment are apt to be thrown aside, unthought of, and 
 uncared for. They compete among one another for 
 the scanty and casual wages that are still hoped for, 
 although diflScult to be obtained. Their Competition 
 may assume a most hideous form — it may resemble 
 the ferocious struggle of a pack of wolves for the 
 small scrap of a single carcass. The wages, when 
 obtained, are miserably low, constant employment is 
 obtainable by none, and not even casual by all ; and 
 misery is general among them. Surely this misery is 
 more correctly attribu^table to the character than to the 
 Competition of the workmen. 
 
 A difficulty will suggest itself here to most inquirers, 
 who will remind us that workmen of good, as well as 
 those of bad character, will sometimes find themselves 
 in the position of temporary supernumeraries. This is 
 undeniable, and the difficulty must be investigated. 
 
 On close inspection, it will be seen at once that 
 workmen can no more be divided into two classes, 
 good and bad, than they can be bisected into tall and 
 short, or weak and strong. The individual workmen 
 of whom the whole body is composed, descend by 
 insensible gradations from the best to the worst. An 
 uncivil or an ill-tempered man will part from his em- 
 ployer, when a civil or a good-tempered man will not. 
 From one extreme to the other, it will be found that 
 those workmen who combine in themselves the largest 
 number of good qualities have high wages and constant 
 employment, and those who are most nearly destitute 
 of all will have the lowest wages and the least certain 
 employment. It is true, there are branches of business, 
 the employment in which is necessarily uncertain and 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 intermittent, but the good workmen attached to this 
 department of industry will either combine other 
 remunerative labour with it, or will, by economy, 
 provide against the vicissitudes inseparable from their 
 business. Another security against suffering from 
 temporary suspension of employment is always to be 
 found among the better workmen of society — a security 
 which should teach us in what direction to look for the 
 amelioration of the lot of the worser workmen. The 
 better workmen, as a rule, have been blessed with 
 industrious and provident parents, who have known 
 their duties to their offspring, and have striven to 
 perform them — parents who have provided themselves 
 with the means of developing the strength and intelli- 
 gence of their children, and of forming their habits, so 
 that they may be able when men to take their share of 
 the active duties of life with comfort, respectability, and 
 usefulness. While it was probably the lot of the worser 
 workmen to be prematurely turned adrift from parental 
 protection, or to have their undeveloped strength, un- 
 enlightened intelligence, and unformed character sold 
 to the highest bidder by their own wretched parents, as 
 a means of relief from a distasteful duty, or as a means 
 of indulging some loathsome propensity. 
 
 But people who have been long accustomed to pro- 
 nounce and to think that low wages, low prices, and 
 low profits, are caused by Competition, cannot readily 
 rectify the association which has established itself in 
 their understandings. What is called Competition, 
 lies on the surface of society, much as the liands on the 
 surface of a clock, of which the spring and regulator of 
 movement are hidden from view, but must be studied 
 and understood. Equally necessary is it to study and 
 
101 
 
 understand the less apparent springs and regulators of 
 industrial enterprise. For this purpose we will return 
 to the contemplation of competing men, from an accu- 
 rate observation of whom alone we can clear up our 
 doubts and difficulty on the subject of Competition. 
 
 We will contemplate them as farmers, all competing 
 for large crops, small outlay, and good prices. Among 
 them will be some more skilful and successful in their 
 agricultural efforts than others. They will obtain the 
 same prices as other farmers, and consequently gain 
 larger profits. The desire to obtain a wdder scope for 
 their growing capital, will make them anxious to 
 acquire possession of more land. As leases and agree- 
 ments expire, they will bid larger rents. Some of the 
 neighbouring farmers will watch their proceedings, and 
 strive to imitate their improved methods of culture ; 
 while others, less energetic, will shrink from the effort 
 essential to success, and retire before those who under- 
 stand farming business better than themselves. Surely 
 it is a more appropriate, as well as more instructive 
 description of the respective causes of the success and 
 failure of the two sets of farmers, to say that one is 
 aptitude, and the other inaptitude, than to declare that 
 the unsuccessful farmers are ruined by Competition. 
 
 Passing on to the shop-keepers, or retail tradesmen, 
 they all compete to buy at low prices, to arrange their 
 establishments conveniently and economically, and to 
 sell at high prices. Among them some will have 
 more talent for arrangement than others, and conduct- 
 ing their business more economically than their neigh- 
 bours, while selling at the same prices, they will realise 
 a larger rate of profit. The larger the rate of profit, 
 above the average, the more anxious will they be to 
 
102 
 
 introduce additional capital into their thriving esta- 
 blishments. This can be accomplished only through 
 the accession of new customers, who must be attracted 
 by a reduction of sale-prices — a reduction causing, it is 
 true, a somewhat lower rate, although compensated by 
 a greatly increased absolute amount, of profit. This 
 reduction of sale-prices will compel other tradesmen to 
 re-model their establishments upon the improved plan ; 
 while others, again, unequal to the situation, will be 
 driven from the field, not through Competition, but 
 through want of capacity to adapt themselves to the 
 requirements of the business in which they are en- 
 gaged. 
 
 Let us once more turn to the case of professional 
 men — of surgeons, for example. Some compete by 
 striving to perfect themselves in the knowledge of 
 anatomy and physiology, by acquiring surgical skill, 
 and by establishing an unblemished character for 
 integrity, assiduity, and humanity, and thereby gain 
 public favour and large pecuniary emoluments ; others, 
 less strenuous, meet with less pre-eminent success; 
 while others, wholly unequal to the effort, make an 
 early retreat, or loiter on, suffering, not as they delude 
 themselves to believe, from the public neglect and 
 blindness, or from the Competition of their professional 
 brethren, but in reality from their deficiency in those 
 qualities which would induce patients to confide to them 
 the restoration of their health, or the alleviation of their 
 sufferings. 
 
 It may still be urged that the effect of Competition 
 in the auction-room to raise prices cannot be denied, 
 although the buyers are all anxious to buy as cheap as 
 possible. Admitting this, we should by no means be 
 
103 
 
 justified in employing the general expression, " Com- 
 petition raises prices " because it may raise them in 
 one room or in one town. The buyers, giving them 
 credit for the knowledge how best to employ their 
 time and direct their efforts in making desirable pur- 
 chases, will have satisfied themselves that no other 
 room, or no other readily accessible market, presented 
 to them so fair an opportunity of procuring what they 
 wanted at a low price. After careful preliminary in- 
 quiry, they have determined to add their demand to 
 that likely to be attracted from other quarters to the 
 auction-room in question ; and to subtract their de- 
 mand from other places of sale. By thus increasing 
 the demand where they expect prices to rule low, and 
 diminishing the demand where they expect prices to 
 rule high, the effect of their Competition (if the term 
 must be used) is to assist in equalizing prices in adja- 
 cent markets. 
 
 A similar effect is produced by parties tendering to 
 sell. Their object is to sell merchandise of which they 
 are in possession ; it may be that they are under the 
 necessity of selling on any terms. Be that as it may, 
 they look about in all quarters to ascertain where the 
 best price is likely to be met with, and eventually they 
 make a tender at such a price as will, in their opinion, 
 be beyond what they could obtain in other markets, 
 which they decline to frequent, and at the same time 
 sufficiently low to secure for themselves the preference 
 over other tenderers. By thus withholding their sup- 
 plies from markets where they expect prices to rule 
 low, and offering them where they expect prices to 
 rule high, the effect of their Competition (supposing 
 the term to be retained) is to raise prices where they 
 
104 
 
 are comparatively low, and lower them where they 
 are comparatively high ; in other words, to equalize 
 prices. 
 
 It may also be objected, in regard to shopkeepers, 
 manufacturers, and others, who reduce their prices 
 below those from which their neighbours can contrive 
 to draw a profit, that they are sometimes enabled to 
 do this, not by superior skill, contrivance, and activity, 
 but by reckless destruction of their capital, evasion of 
 duties, by adulteration, or other fraudulent practices. 
 This is true ; and though they ruin themselves by 
 their folly and roguery, they ruin others at the same 
 time. But by what is this ruin brought about? Is 
 it not more descriptive of the jtruth, and more intel- 
 ligible, to state that the reduced price is caused, not 
 by Competition, but by recklessness or fraud? — it 
 being one of the ordinary consequences of folly and 
 immorality, to injure society as well as the culprits. 
 When the reduced price is a consequence of some 
 improved aptitude, they who do not possess, or cannot 
 acquire this aptitude, must retire from the business. 
 Where it is the result of reprehensible conduct in 
 others, pains must be taken to keep as much as possible 
 out of the reach of mischief. A tradesman, ruined by 
 the profligacy of others, in the same line of business as 
 himself, can no more be said to be ruined by Com- 
 petition than if his property was plundered, burnt, or 
 damaged by the criminality or negligence of others. 
 
 There is, clearly, no room for difference of opinion as 
 to what must be the fate of the merchant, shopkeeper, 
 or manufacturer, who is undersold by his neighbours. 
 To preserve his business, he must lower his prices; 
 and if the reduced prices will not more than cover the 
 
105 
 
 costs at which he produces, he must either be ruined 
 or escape ruin by abandoning his business. Before 
 resigning himself to this latter alternative, he will 
 make every effort to reduce his costs ; and among 
 other expedients, may strive to reduce the wages of 
 his workpeople, who, however, will only submit to this 
 reduction if unable to do better for themselves else- 
 where. The difficulty, if there be any, is to discover 
 and comprehend the means by which some are able 
 to sell at lower prices than others, and thus to drive 
 competitors out of the market. As far as we can learn, 
 these means are twofold — superior aptitude for the 
 work, or resort to fraudulent practices. Is there not 
 something more satisfactory in being able to account 
 for instances of unsuccessful industry, by tracing them 
 to the superior aptitude or fraudulent practices of 
 others than by attributing them to something un- 
 explained, and, perhaps, inexplicable, called " Compe- 
 tition"? Efforts to improve, or to shift to some other 
 employment more congenial with the sufferers' capa- 
 bilities, or to detect and prevent fraud would be the 
 consequence of one set of conclusions ; while the con- 
 sequence of the other would be utter despair, since 
 this horrid phantom, " Competition," would not fail 
 to pursue the unfortunate sufferer to whatever depart- 
 ment of the industrial world he should venture to 
 resort. 
 
 After the strictest inquiry, we must confess our 
 inability to discover any reason for supposing that 
 Competition is guilty of conducing, in the slightest 
 degree, to the destitution and misery, by all deplored, 
 and by common consent assumed, to be more prevalent 
 than they need be, or ought to be. But, it may be 
 
106 
 
 asked, what are the causes of this misery, among 
 which Competition is not to be found? To this ques- 
 tion we should be justified in replying, our present 
 business is with Competition. To clothe our thoughts 
 in legal phraseology, a great crime has been com- 
 mitted against society — the land has been overspread 
 with misery. The agents of mischief have hitherto 
 escaped detection. Competition has been taken up on 
 suspicion, has been committed for trial, has been 
 arraigned at the bar of our Court of Common Sense. 
 His conduct has been subjected to a minute and rigid 
 scrutiny, and pronounced faultless. The witnesses 
 against him have been examined and cross-examined, 
 and the court has been shocked with their ignorance 
 and their inconsistent and contradictory testimony. 
 Finally, the accused has not only been most honour- 
 ably acquitted ; but, on cross-examination, the wit- 
 nesses have unconsciously made known who the 
 hidden agents of mischief really are. The existence 
 of a gang of the most audacious villains in perpetual 
 and active conspiracy against the well-being of society 
 was clearly proved. Some of the more noxious 
 among them were named, to-wit — Idleness, Ignorance, 
 Wastefulness, Dishonesty, Drunkenness, and Parental 
 Improvidence. Well might the presiding judge in- 
 dignantly express his surprise that such vile male- 
 factors should be suffered to roam at large, and hint 
 his suspicions that there must be some collusion or 
 incapacity among those appointed servants of the 
 public, whose high function and solemn duty it is to 
 repress and confine these social pests by useful teach- 
 ing and judicious training ! And well may we as 
 listeners in that court, warmly sympathizing with the 
 
107 
 
 explicit denunciations and implied suspicions of the 
 judge, invoke the people who complain with so much 
 reason of the destitution and misery in their ranks, no 
 longer to delegate the care of their own well-being to 
 others, but to look their real enemies in the face, and 
 combat them with those weapons which will not be 
 wanting to their hands, if they will but manifest the 
 sagacity and courage to make use of them. 
 
 Having satisfied ourselves that the sufferings of 
 mankind are none of them attributable to Competition, 
 and thus cleared away some of the obstructions which 
 might otherwise prevent our obtaining a distinct 
 apprehension of what are really the causes of these 
 sufferings, and of the means by which they may be 
 mitigated or prevented, let us proceed to inquire 
 whether Competition is productive of any benefit to 
 mankind. 
 
 To conduct this inquiry satisfactorily, we must again 
 have the competing man before us, producing at as 
 little cost as possible, purchasing at as low a price as 
 possible, selling at as high a price as possible ; and we 
 must contrast him with the non-competing man, who 
 is careless or inert in these matters. 
 
 Competing farmers adopt every available improve- 
 ment in the cultivation of their farms ; they know 
 that to neglect to do so involves the probable loss of 
 their farms. Non-competing farmers, under the most 
 favourable circumstances^ obtain less profit than their 
 neighbours; but more frequently become insolvent, 
 or are compelled to relinquish their farms. The ten- 
 dency of Competition among farmers, accordingly, is 
 to give the right of possessing and cultivating the land 
 to those who are the most competent to extract out of 
 
108 
 
 it the largest quantity of the raw material of the 
 comforts and necessaries of life, for the benefit of the 
 whole community. 
 
 Competing manufacturers introduce into their estab- 
 lishments every process and contrivance best adapted for 
 transforming the raw material into the finished fabric, 
 and they procure their raw material from the cheapest 
 sources of supply, because they know that the prices 
 at which they must sell will be the same as those at 
 which similar fabrics may be purchased of their neigh- 
 bours. The non-competing manufacturers, bound 
 down to the same selling prices as their competing 
 neighbours, can only save themselves from eventual 
 ruin by abandoning the manufacture, to the profitable 
 conducting of which they are incompetent. The ten- 
 dency of Competition among manufacturers is, thus, 
 to transform abundant supplies of raw material into 
 articles of manufacture, with the least possible addition 
 of cost to the community. 
 
 Competing shipowners build and equip ships of the 
 forms and sizes best adapted for the ditferent purposes 
 to which they are severally destined, having regard 
 to their durability, capacity, and sailing qualities, in 
 combination with cost; knowing, as they do, that the 
 freight which they are to earn, is not determined by 
 the cost of their particular ships, but by the freights 
 at which other owners, of equally suitable ships, are 
 prepared to carry similar merchandize. Non-com- 
 peting shipowners, subject to the same inexorable con- 
 ditions as to the rate of freight, thrive so much the 
 less, or go to ruin so much the faster, as they are the 
 more wilful in disregarding the imperative mandate 
 which calls upon all engaged in productive industry, 
 
109 
 
 to conform to that line of conduct which alone can 
 lead to success, or save from failure. The tendency 
 of Competition among shipowners, accordingly, is to 
 commit the carrying business to the charge of those 
 who can transport merchandize and passengers from 
 one part of the world to another, most safely, speedily, 
 and cheaply, and thereby to keep up most efficiently 
 those means of intercommunication, which are so 
 important for the progressive and extending civilization 
 of mankind. 
 
 Competing merchants apply themselves to the dis- 
 covery of the best possible markets for the purchase 
 and sale of merchandize. Knowing where they can 
 obtain the highest prices, they can safely outbid in the 
 buying market those who have not their knowledge. 
 Knowing where to buy at the lowest prices, they 
 can afford to accept prices in the selling- market, 
 which would entail loss or ruin upon those who had 
 not purchased so favourably. Competing merchants 
 go still further in their efforts ; they make themselves 
 acquainted with the particular tastes of the inhabi- 
 tants of different parts of the world, in order to decide 
 upon the quality and fashion of the merchandize with 
 which to supply them; they strive, besides, to sti- 
 mulate new tastes, by opening to them the knowledge 
 of the pleasures, refinements, and indulgences of other 
 lands, and of the commodities which minister to them; 
 and they search among the various modes of con- 
 veyance, the cheapest, safest, and most expeditious. 
 The tendency of their competition being to transport 
 the comparative superabundance of one land, to the 
 ill-supplied inhabitants of another, and to take away 
 of that wherein they superabound, in exchange. 
 
110 
 
 Competing retail-traders, or shop-keepers, buy from 
 merchants or wholesale traders and producers, fix 
 their shops where they expect to meet with most 
 applicants for their merchandize, and then divide, 
 combine, and display it, so as to attract customers. 
 They know that the prices at which they can sell, 
 must not be higher than what neighbouring trades- 
 men are selling at, and that every step in their pro- 
 ceedings, from the original wholesale purchase to the 
 final retail-sale, must be taken with judgment and 
 economy, or loss rather than profit will be the result 
 of their dealings. Non-competing tradesmen, blind 
 to the requirements of their position, buy unadvisedly, 
 arrange bunglingly, and conclude by finding that the 
 sum of their sales is unequal to balance the sum 
 expended in purchases and outgoings. An early re- 
 treat, or later ruin, is thus the only alternative pre- 
 sented to such traders. The tendency of Competition 
 among retail-traders accordingly, is — first, to commit 
 the management of the retail- business to those who 
 are most competent to the work — and secondly, to 
 cause to be distributed among the people, i. e., the 
 consumers, of all classes, and in all situations, those 
 abundant supplies of necessaries and luxuries, brought 
 together by the united efforts of competing farmers, 
 competing manufacturers, competing shipowners, and 
 competing merchants, subtracting from them as little 
 as possible, to remunerate the services of those en- 
 gaged in the work of distribution. 
 
 Competing labourers strive to acquire skill and pro- 
 ficiency in their several kinds of work, pursue a course 
 of steady industry, and thus establish a character for 
 that capability, out of which capitalists may expect to 
 
Ill 
 
 earn a profit. They keep themselves informed con- 
 cerning the parts of the world, and the establishments 
 of the capitalists, where their services will command 
 the highest remuneration, present and prospective, 
 and they economize funds by means of which they 
 need not be at the beck or subject to the dictation of 
 the first capitalists whom they may meet with. Non- 
 competing labourers, deficient in energy, vigilance, and 
 economy, have but poor aptitude for earning profit to 
 ofier to capitalists. Instead of themselves seeking 
 employment, they expect employment to look for 
 them, and are under the necessity of accepting the 
 first offer of wages that presents itself. Can it be 
 denied, then, that the tendency of competition among 
 labourers is to improve their capabilities of productive- 
 ness, and to cause their capabilities to be directed to 
 that kind of industry, and to that region of the earth, 
 where they will be productive of the largest amount of 
 benefit to themselves and to mankind ? 
 
 There is another remark of more general application, 
 which ought not to be altogether omitted in an attempt 
 to compute with accuracy the influence of this not 
 uncommonly misunderstood agent called " Competi- 
 tion." Of course everybody is familiar with the prac- 
 tice followed so universally and so advantageously, 
 whereby each individual in society devotes himself to 
 some special profession or branch of industry, as the 
 means of providing himself with the share of the 
 necessaries and comforts of life which he desires. 
 Now, every person who adopts this practice, must 
 attend to one condition, if it is to be a source of 
 benefit to him. He must be careful to direct his 
 talents and industry to the production of what others 
 
112 
 
 want. If an artist produce a work of art, let it be 
 ever so clever, of which nobody desires to become the 
 possessor, he will be unable to obtain anything in 
 exchange for it. If a hundred artisans apply themselves 
 to make watch-springs, when fifty could make enough 
 to supply all the watches that are made up, these arti- 
 sans will obtain but poor remuneration for their labour. 
 If a capitalist produce and take to market commodities 
 in a larger quantity than is required, the price that he 
 can obtain will not balance the cost at which he pro- 
 duced them. His capital will first be diminished, and 
 if he persist in his ill-advised proceeding, will at last 
 disappear. 
 
 This condition of attending to what others are likely 
 to want, is attached to success in every industrial and 
 professional pursuit. The demands of the public and 
 their probable variations and fluctuations, must be 
 thought of and estimated as carefully as the readiness 
 and cheapness of the means of supplying them. Surely 
 it is neither appropriate nor instructive to attribute the 
 loss or suffering arising from want of attention to this 
 very obvious condition of industrial and professional 
 success to Competition, which seems to lead to nothing 
 but useless repining, whereas the clear apprehension 
 of the real cause points unmistakeably to the appro- 
 priate remedy. The consequences of want of capacity 
 to engage in any particular department of industry, 
 are loss and suffering to those who persist in that for 
 which they are unfit, and the consequences of mis- 
 direction of capacity are nearly as bad. 
 
 When it is considered that the incomes of all, — 
 labourers, capitalists, and landlords, by the usages of 
 society, and in accordance with the general conve- 
 
113 
 
 nience, are paid in money, that the efficacy of these 
 incomes to procure for their possessors the means of 
 comfortable maintenance depends quite as much upon 
 the money's worth, as upon the amount of money, and 
 of what importance it is that there should be, at all 
 times and in all situations, persons competing to offer 
 that money's worth, any lingering doubts, we would 
 fain hope, that might yet survive among persons 
 hitherto incredulous, of the useful offices performed by 
 Competition will be obliterated. 
 
 While thus sensible of the meritorious services of 
 Competition in aiding the production and distribution 
 of wealth, we would not countenance the notion that 
 man is to be considered solely as a competing animal. 
 Let him compete, by all means ; but he should, besides, 
 be so gifted with sensibilities, sympathies, and aspira- 
 tions, that if his competitive efforts are crowned with 
 success, the noblest use in his estimation to which the 
 fruits of his competition can be applied, will be in 
 cheering the unsuccessful — in enlightening their igno- 
 rance, propping their weakness, correcting their errors, 
 reforming their bad habits, and encouraging their 
 efforts to attain self-reliance and self-respect. 
 
 Without lending ourselves to any exaggerated and, 
 if exaggerated, untrue expression of the actual services 
 rendered to the world by the competing, as contradis- 
 tinguished from the non-competing man; we think, 
 in answer to the question — "What is Competition?" 
 we may unhesitatingly pronounce that, " Competi- 
 tion is one of the most efficient agents for diffusing 
 the benefits of industrial enterprise over the whole 
 world." 
 
115 
 
 V. 
 
 NOT OVER-POPULATION, BUT UNDER-EDUCATION, THE 
 CAUSE OF DESTITUTION : NOT MORE EMIGRATION, 
 BUT MORE EDUCATION, AND OF BETTER QUALITY, 
 THE REMEDY FOR DESTITUTION * 
 
 One of the effects of civilization, in its present state 
 of advancement, is, that destitution and misery can 
 no longer abide among us, as heretofore, unnoticed 
 and uncared for. Not only is the sight of unrelieved 
 destitution repugnant to our feelings, but to know 
 that destitution prevails among us, for which no 
 mitigation is attempted, is unbearable. 
 1^ Modern civilization is arousing us to a sense of 
 duties hitherto inadequately performed. To feed the 
 hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter the house- 
 less, — these are duties which have long been and 
 still are enjoined. Other and higher demands are 
 now made upon us ; for we are told to continue our 
 efforts to relieve destitution, and at the same time to 
 
 * Happy for mankind will be the day when all teachers are competent, 
 like Mr. Runtz, to introduce into their schools the kind of instruction 
 implied in this paper. The matter which it contains might have been 
 collected and written down by anybody who had attended the lessons 
 and taken notes of the answers of the Birkbeck-boys. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 
 
 couple with them efforts for its diminution and pre- 
 vention. 
 
 The more intelligent among us are dissatisfied with 
 the results of mere efforts for relief. They have long 
 perceived that the diminution of destitution has not 
 kept pace with the increase of appliances to relieve it : 
 they begin to suspect, that on many occasions the 
 growth of destitution has actually been quickened by 
 the very means applied for its relief. 
 
 These difficulties and perplexities are not to make 
 intelligence and benevolence part company. On the 
 contrary, the bond of union must be drawn the more 
 closely between them. Intelligence, aided by bene- 
 volence, must seek for the means of diminishing or 
 preventing future destitution, with due regard to the 
 claims of the destitute present among us ; and bene- 
 volence, aided by intelligence, must endeavour so to 
 discharge its duties to the actually destitute as not to 
 render hopeless all attempts to prevent future desti- 
 tution. 
 
 It is the sign of an improved and enlarged sense of 
 duty, as it is the effort of an advanced civilization, to 
 rise from the contemplation of actual destitution to 
 a knowledge of the causes, and of the means for the 
 prevention of future destitution. The first leads us to 
 hold out the hand of sympathy and charity to our 
 suffering brethren ; the second elevates us to a 
 higher duty, — that of not incurring the disgrace, 
 either through apathy or negligence, of inflicting 
 destitution upon our posterity. 
 
 There is a marked difference of character, that 
 ought to be specially noted, in the measures required 
 for the relief of destitution, and in those required for 
 
117 
 
 the prevention of destitution. The measures for the 
 first, are the organizing of the means of giving to the 
 destitute that whereof they are destitute; the mea- 
 sures for the second, are the organizing of the means 
 by which the causes that have produced the present 
 destitution shall no longer be permitted to produce 
 destitution in the future. A species of knowledge not 
 requisite for the first set of measures is indispensable 
 for the second. No progress can be made in the 
 latter until the causes of destitution have been ascer- 
 tained. 
 
 To the question, " What are the causes of destitu- 
 tion?" many and conflicting are the answers that 
 have been given. But it may, we think, be safely 
 stated that, among all the debated causes of desti- 
 tution, few have been urged with more authority and 
 frequency than that of over-population. True, this 
 cause of destitution has been rejected most indignantly 
 in many quarters; and amid the conflict of opinion 
 on the admissibility or non-admissibility of over- 
 population among the causes of destitution, we crave 
 permission here to interpose a few words of calm 
 inquiry. 
 
 We must not be surprised that passion and pre- 
 judice should enter largely into questions connected 
 with human well-being. Passion may even be taken 
 as a proof of good intentions, however misdirected. 
 It marks earnestness and sincerity, and from them we 
 should never despair to extract good. Now that the 
 first heat of discussion has had time to expend itself, 
 there is room to hope that those whose feelings are the 
 warmest may be willing to listen to those who scruti- 
 nize rigidly ; and that dispassionate reasoners will 
 
118 
 
 bear with the unmeasured expressions of opponents, 
 who are led more by their sympathies than their 
 understandings. 
 
 It may so happen, besides, when the matter in dis- 
 pute is thoroughly sifted, that its dimensions will be 
 greatly reduced. The term " over-population " may 
 prove to be inappropriate or ill-selected ; and the 
 odium attached to the doctrine implied by " over- 
 population " may be more deserved by the term than 
 by what the term is really intended to signify. It is 
 high time, at all events, that the force of the affections 
 and the direction of the judgment should act in unison. 
 The interests of humanity demand their harmonious 
 and energetic co-operation. Proud should we be to 
 contribute to so good and noble a work ! 
 
 To clear the way, it will be well to give some little 
 consideration to this term " over-population." Its 
 meaning, according to the generally received defini- 
 tion, is " population in excess, as compared with the 
 means of subsistence." We must have some ex- 
 pression to indicate every state of things which is of 
 sufficient interest to rivet attention or to invite ex- 
 amination ; and there can be little doubt that the 
 state of a population inadequately supplied with the 
 means of subsistence is such a state. Is over-popu- 
 lation an expression well selected to designate such a 
 state ? 
 
 When our countrymen first visited Australia, the 
 native inhabitants, although few in number, were very 
 inadequately supplied with the means of subsistence. 
 Was theirs a state of over-population ? 
 
 Our countrymen and their descendants, who now 
 occupy those regions, have greatly added to the num- 
 
119 
 
 ber of the population, but they sujBfer from no lack of 
 the means of subsistence. 
 
 A contrast similar to that between the natives and 
 European colonists of Australia, might be drawn be- 
 tween the natives and the descendants of the European 
 settlers in North America. The Red Indians, few in 
 number compared with their successors, frequently 
 suffered the greatest hardships from scarcity of food. 
 We do not hear that the present inhabitants of the 
 United States, large as are their numbers, constant 
 and enormous as is the influx of new settlers from 
 Europe, suffer in anything like the same degree from 
 a deficiency of the means of subsistence. 
 
 We would sedulously avoid being drawn into a 
 merely verbal discussion. Looking at facts, there is 
 not, thus far, much room for discussion. It cannot be 
 questioned that the natives of Australia and North 
 America did suffer from a deficiency of the means of 
 subsistence, or from destitution, or, if the expression 
 under examination were to be adopted, from over- 
 population. Our understanding must not lose its hold 
 of the fact, because there may be some difficulty in 
 agreeing upon the terms in which the fact is to 
 be stated. 
 
 The importance of starting clear from misappre- 
 hension in the investigation of a subject such as this, 
 intimately connected with human well-being, will 
 excuse our being more than ordinarily cautious. To 
 fix attention, then, upon the fact from which we start, 
 we will resort to an illustration. A ship with her 
 ordinary complement of crew and passengers sets sail 
 on her voyage. By some strange infatuation or cul- 
 pable negligence, the owner has omi tted tq load the 
 
 f X^ OP THE ^'^^ 
 
 f UNIVERSITY 1 
 
120 
 
 requisite quantity of stores, and the oversight is not 
 discovered till the ship is far removed from any possi- 
 bility of obtaining additional supplies. The crew and 
 passengers cannot fail to suffer from a deficiency of 
 the means of subsistence, or from destitution, or from 
 over-population. 
 
 We have before us a great fact, a case of human 
 suffering, susceptible, owing to long tolerated sloven- 
 liness of expression, of being designated by three diffe- 
 rent names. Gladly would we confine ourselves to 
 one, out of which no controversy should arise, that we 
 might proceed calmly and steadily to examine into the 
 causes of this suffering. But it is doubly mortifying 
 at our first step to track these causes, to be perplexed 
 by hearing that this suffering, designated by one of 
 these names, is caused by itself, under another of these 
 names. Yet so it is ; for pyer-population is unsus- 
 pectingly _admitted as a cause of destitution by persons 
 whojvould be astounded to hear destitjiiti.Qn_set up^s a 
 cause of over-population. 
 
 We will now pursue our inquiry and endeavour to 
 learn whether the term over-population is ever sup- 
 posed to mean anything more than what we have 
 stated. At all events, we must not be turned aside 
 from an investigation into so important a subject as the 
 causes of human suffering, by the substitution of 
 another name for the effect, in the place of the name 
 of a real cause. 
 
 To proceed with our examination into over-popu- 
 lation : let us inquire how it may be supposed to have 
 manifested itself in our own country. 
 
 There is no reason why we should involve ourselves 
 in historical details. We mav assume it as a fact 
 
121 
 
 sufficiently established, that the inhabitants of the 
 United Kingdom have never been adequately supplied 
 with the means of subsistence. The poor laws of 
 England, from their original enactment, and through 
 their several modifications to the present day, are a 
 convincing proof that the means of subsistence have 
 not been considered so accessible to the entire popu- 
 lation as they ought to be ; and the active investigations 
 still going on into prevailing destitution are a proof 
 that poor laws have been indequate to supply the de- 
 ficiency. The enactment of the Irish poor laws within 
 these few years was the consequence of a state of 
 destitution so notorious and so wide-spread as to be 
 no longer endurable. 
 
 The survey of our history makes known to us a state 
 of over-population (if we may continue to use the term) 
 quite as sad when our numbers were not more than 
 one- fourth of what they now are ; and progressively 
 with all our improvements in agriculture, manufactures, 
 and industrial operations in general, the introduction 
 of the potato and the turnip, all leading to a large 
 increase of the means of subsistence, the state of over- 
 population seems to have been but little aflected. 
 When to this we add the emigration of these our 
 days — an emigration, as regards its magnitude and 
 continuity, unexampled in the world's history, the 
 wonders of over- population assume a still more mys- 
 terious appearance. Certainly, to pretend that desti- 
 tution is traceable to over-population, and there to 
 leave the question, is to help us but little on our way. 
 We must endeavour to get at something a little less 
 imaginary — a little more intelligible — a little more 
 practical. 
 
122 
 
 According to our reading of the lessons of experience, 
 the cause of the great extent of destitution in propor- 
 tion to their numbers among the natives of Australia 
 and North America, as compared with* that am^ong 
 the European settlers who have supplanted them, is to 
 be found in the character of those natives. The 
 natives, as is the case with all savages, were ignorant, 
 incapable of steady labour, untractable, improvident^ 
 without skill, and without self-control. As a rule, the 
 European settlers have been the reverse of all this. Is 
 this difference of character adequate to account for the 
 difference in the states of existence observable between 
 these two races planted in the very same locality ? To 
 our apprehension it is. 
 
 Reverting to the case of the ill-found ship, is the 
 suffering of the crew and passengers satisfactorily ac- 
 counted for, when we have proved the charge of negli- 
 gence or incapacity against those whose duty it was to 
 see her properly fitted for the voyage ? To our appre- 
 hension it is. 
 
 These considerations naturally direct us to the course 
 of inquiry which, it may be hoped, will enable us to 
 solve the over-population question as it bears upon our 
 own country. We must separate our aggregate popu- 
 ^tion into two classes — the self-supporting and the 
 non-self-supporting ; and as destitution is confined to 
 the ranks of the latter, we will examine into some 
 of the causes of their destitution in the spirit which 
 directed our inquiries into the causes of destitution in 
 Australia, North America, and the ill-found ship. 
 
 To begin, let us select out of this class those who are 
 drunken, dishonest, and disorderly. Among these, but 
 few will have saved out of their own earnings, or have 
 
123. 
 
 husbanded property left them by their parents. Their 
 subsistence will depend, accordingly, upon their oppor- 
 tunities to sell their labour, which, unfortunately for 
 them, is nearly worthless. Can such persons be cited 
 in support of the doctrine of over-population ? 
 
 Let us next examine the case of the improvident, 
 whose employment is influenced by the seasons and by 
 fluctuations of trade. If the brickmakers among them, 
 knowing, as they do, that they cannot make bricks in 
 the winter, will not set apart some of their summer 
 earnings to supply their winter wants, and if the 
 workmen in particular branches of manufacture will 
 not, when employment is rife, save against the time 
 when employment will be slack, a state of suffering 
 necessarily awaits them. Is their destitution to be 
 taken as a proof of over-population ? 
 
 The ignorant and the unskilful demand a somewhat 
 more elaborate notice. Knowledge and skill may 
 almost be said to be conditions of existence in an old 
 country arrived at the height of civilization which we 
 have attained. Great Britain may be made the com- 
 fortable dwelling-place of twenty millions of people, 
 or, for anything we know to the contrary, of twice 
 twenty millions of people; but they must be well 
 instructed in all the powers of nature, and skilful to 
 apply them. It will not suffice that they should know 
 how to scratch the earth with their nails, or to dig it 
 with spades, to spin at the wheel, to ply the hand- 
 loom, to handle the oar and the paddle, and to hew 
 wood and draw water. It can scarcely be expected 
 that the ignorant and unskilful will not be destitute in 
 this country ; but when ignorance and want of skill are 
 combined with other defects of character^ destitutiou 
 
124 
 
 appear s to us an inevitable consequence. How far 
 does over-population seem to be an appropriate desig- 
 nation for the destitution, or for the cause of the 
 destitution, of the ignorant and unskilful ? 
 
 We must not omit to notice another objection that 
 may fairly be urged against the term over-population. 
 It seems to suggest as a remedy for destitution that 
 which, as we have already hinted, we conceive to 
 be utterly inadequate and fallacious — we mean emi- 
 gration. Be it understood, we no more quarrel with 
 emigration, than with mechanical and agricultural im- 
 provements, or any other means of aiding the industrial 
 efforts of man. We only deprecate a reliance upon 
 emigration, in utter disregard of all experience, as a 
 means of warding off over-population. 
 
 That the non-self-supporting are below the average 
 of the whole population in respect to all the social 
 virtues, will be questioned by nobody. The self- 
 supporting comprise in their ranks the whole body of 
 unassisted emigrants. To assist the destitute to emi- 
 grate need be objected to no more than to assist them 
 to food, clothing, and lodging; and destitution is as 
 little likely to be abated by one of these methods of 
 assistance as by the others. To promote a more ex- 
 tensive emigration of the self-supporting by a bonus, 
 would only cause the burden of supporting the desti- 
 tute at home to be borne by a diminished number of 
 the industrious and skilful. Such a proceeding would 
 have the effect of taxing the industrious and skilful at 
 home, for the purpose of driving away a portion of 
 those who were sharing with them the burden of sup- 
 porting the destitute. 
 
 In whatever light we view emigration, when pro- 
 
125 
 
 posed as a remedy for what goes by the name of over- 
 population, we cannot but anticipate that it must be as 
 inoperative for the future, as it ever has been in times 
 past. Emigration has never yet been able to claim 
 the credit of removing from us, even for a time, the 
 non-self-supporting part of our population. Had it 
 done that and nothing more, our requirements would 
 still be but partially satisfied. Remove the destitute 
 if you can ; but our cordial and entire approval is 
 reserved for those efforts which are to remove destitu- 
 tion — a work only to be effectually performed by 
 removing its causes — a work which the term over- 
 population does not help us to understand, or en- 
 courage us to enter upon. 
 
 It is reported that on one occasion some lethargic 
 or holiday legislator gave utterance to the sentiment 
 that it would be a great boon to humanity if Ireland 
 could be subjected to twenty -four hours' submersion 
 in sea-water. Such a process, there can be no doubt, 
 would rid that island of the destitute. Would it pro- 
 vide security against future destitution ? Our lethargic 
 legislator was, perhaps, morally and intellectually unfit 
 to cope with such a question. At all events, he did 
 not condescend to tell us how many years would be 
 required for a revival of the submerged causes to bring 
 back the submerged effects. 
 
 To our apprehension, destitution is a more appro- 
 priate term than over-population to designate the state 
 of men suffering from insufficiency of the necessaries 
 and comforts of life. It does not mislead by covertly 
 prejudging the causes of suffering. To adduce over- 
 population as a cause of this suffering, unless it be a 
 verbal juggle or a gross misapprehension, is either a 
 
126 
 
 contemptible subterfuge or a cowardly evasion of a 
 difficulty, the grappling with which demands all our 
 energies and resources. The causes of destitution are 
 numerous — they are manifest enough, too, if we will 
 but open our eyes to the contemplation of them. 
 
 Arrived at this point, we are naturally led to the 
 mention of another social deficiency, which, indeed, 
 may be said to be the parent of all the social defi- 
 ciencies that we have named. Civilized men, for by 
 that name we may designate those men who guide 
 their conduct by all the rules conducive to well-being, 
 do not come ready-civilized into the world. Whether, 
 as full-grown men, they will be civilized, semi-civilized, 
 or utterly barbarous, depends upon the circumstances 
 into which they are born, and through which they 
 have to pass on to adolescence. Now the persons 
 afflicted with the social deficiencies already enumerated, 
 and suffering from their consequences, are the very 
 persons who will fail so to conduct themselves as that 
 their children shall be surrounded by the circum- 
 stances which are favourable to civilization. What, 
 then, must necessarily await their children, if entirely 
 dependent upon what their parents are inclined or 
 competent to do for them ? Intelligence and habits 
 similar to those of the parents — intelligence and habits 
 imfitting them to earn the means of subsistence for 
 themselves. Shall we assign over-population as the 
 cause of their misery, or the social deficiencies, them- 
 selves the effects of the monster-cause— parental im- 
 providence ? 
 
 Rising above the intricacies and pedantry of verbal 
 criticism, and bringing ourselves face to face with the 
 important consequences that must follow the answer to 
 
127 
 
 this question, we challenge anybody who will be at 
 the pains to weigh carefully what has been urged, to 
 gainsay our deliberate affirmation, that the causes of 
 human misery, so far as they are removeable, are the 
 whole host of social deficiencies, with parental im- 
 providence at their head. And as the adequate pre- 
 valence of the social virtues is the consequence of 
 sufficient education, so the inadequate prevalence of 
 them is the consequence of insufficient or under- 
 education. 
 
 Had our answer been — that over-population was 
 the cause of human misery, emigration might as 
 naturally suggest itself as a remedy to us as it has 
 suggested itself to others. We know it is easier to 
 ship off emigrants at the cost of the industrious and 
 saving, than to make the idle and wasteful unship their 
 bad habits. Our answer, therefore, will not be received 
 with favour by those who prefer present ease with 
 future danger, to present effi)rt with future safety. 
 The work of emigration may be persevered in for a 
 time, inadequate though it be to prevent destitution. 
 If public patience could hold out so long, under such 
 protracted disappointment, what might we expect in 
 the year 1900? A population in North America, not 
 short of 200 millions, and one in Australia of twenty 
 millions, with British pauperism unabated. 
 
 Our answer, however? being what it is, not over- 
 population, but under-education, the remedy is obvious 
 — immediate and energetic efforts to make good the 
 deficiencies in education, both as regards quality and 
 quantity, so glaringly exposed to us in the extent of 
 suffering, vice, and crime, that has fastened itself upon 
 us. By such conduct, and such alone, can we hope to 
 
128 
 
 be excused for former negligence, to satisfy present 
 demands, or to earn future gratitude. Emigration 
 will ever occupy the honourable position which it 
 ought to occupy till every part of the world has 
 afforded shelter to its fair proportion of the whole 
 human family. To Emigration, as to every advance 
 in civilization, may be conceded the merit of affording 
 to a perpetually improving race the means of mak- 
 ing labour more productive and well-being more 
 attainable. 
 
 Our objection to the term over-population, as must 
 be evident, is more directed against it when used to 
 indicate a cause of human suffering than when used to 
 indicate the effect — the suffering itself. We certainly 
 think destitution a term better adapted for this latter 
 purpose. We also admit that wherever there is desti- 
 tution there are too many people, because all those 
 who are idle, ignorant, drunken, dishonest — in short, 
 incompetent to maintain themselves, must always be 
 too many, wherever they may be. But parental fore- 
 thought, the safeguard upon which we rely, is compe- 
 tent to ward off future destitution, whether considered 
 to arise from the excessive numbers or from the defec- 
 tive characters of a people. For parents who really 
 deserve to be called good, according to any sound 
 standard of judgment, will have provided themselves, 
 previous to assuming one of the most sacred duties 
 that man can assume, with the means of maintaining, 
 .and of teaching and training their children. The ade- 
 quate provision of the means of maintaining children, 
 previous to their birth, guards against all danger from 
 excessive numbers ; and the adequate provision of the 
 means of teaching and training, guards against danger 
 
129 
 
 from defective characters, so far as such danger can 
 be guarded against. Subsequent efforts and arrange- 
 ments, partly by individuals, and partly by society, 
 will ever be required to deal with those exceptional 
 cases which cannot, perhaps, be entirely prevented, 
 but which need not be numerous when parental fore- 
 thought, and, as a consequence, good education, are as 
 prevalent as they ought to be. 
 
 Among our readers, as we well know, will be many 
 of the rising generation ; and our concluding remarks 
 can be addressed to none more appropriately than to 
 them. All of their number who are about to make a 
 fair start in life, cannot fail, on reflection, to perceive 
 how greatly they are indebted to their own industrious, 
 skilful, and provident parents for being able to make 
 such a start. Neither will they fail to feel compassion 
 for their less fortunate neighbours who are about to 
 make a bad start owing to the ill-conduct of unwise 
 parents. They will also be able to understand with us 
 that upon the combined efforts of the good and the en- 
 lightened mainly depends the future decrease of desti- 
 tution : although, even with these efforts, progress will 
 necessarily be slow. Any present generation of adults 
 can be but partially reclaimable ; and yet we must 
 have provident parents. But parents, as a rule, will 
 not be provident and sensible of the duties which 
 they owe to their children, unless they shall have 
 been themselves well taught and well trained as 
 children. 
 
 What a noble task thus opens upon those who can 
 congratulate themselves upon being the children of 
 wise parents ! After providing for their own self- 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 support, which their good conduct, the fruit of their 
 good education, will readily enable them to do, they 
 will devote their surplus energies and talents to the 
 assistance of those who are unprovided with the means 
 of securing a fair start for themselves. 
 
131 
 
 VI. 
 
 REASONS FOR INSISTING THAT INSTRUCTION IN ECONO- 
 MICAL SCIENCE SHALL NO LONGER BE EXCLUDED 
 FROM OUR SCHOOLS. 
 
 Of late years I have devoted some time and atten- 
 tion in aiding to diffuse a knowledge of Economical 
 Science. I have been giving lessons in this science in 
 many schools, and have been endeavouring to persuade 
 others to obtain the introduction of similar teaching 
 into schools over vrhich they exercise control or influ- 
 ence. I have also presided over several Adult classes ; 
 and, deeply impressed with the importance of what I 
 am engaged in doing, I have spared no pains to induce 
 the friends and promoters of Education to bend some 
 portion of their efforts in the same direction. It is 
 gratifying to me to be able to state that I have met 
 with much success. I must also admit that disappoint- 
 ments and rebuffs have not been unknown to me. 
 
 Exposition, persuasion, refutation, oral and written, 
 as might be expected, are what I have been obliged to 
 make use of, according as there presented themselves 
 to me, from time to time, ignorance to be enlight- 
 ened, indifference to be overcome, error to be com- 
 bated. The result of my experience, thus far, is a 
 growing conviction that if once the public can be 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 made to see what Economical Science really is — how 
 simple, how beautiful, how interesting, I might almost 
 say, how grand, when unfolded step by step, without 
 pedantry and pretence — what blessings would be 
 secured, what suffering warded off, what heart-burn- 
 ings and asperities softened down by a general fami- 
 liarity with its leading principles — all other difficulties 
 would vanish, and instruction in Economical Science 
 would speedily be as common in all our schools and 
 colleges as its exclusion is at present. 
 
 With these views, my purpose on this occasion is to 
 address myself to those who have never given any 
 systematic attention to Economical Science. Dwelling 
 in the same country, surrounded by the same objects, 
 whether happiness or misery be the predominant fea- 
 ture, floating down the same social current, whether 
 improving or deteriorating as it hastens onward, I 
 propose that we should enter into free communication ; 
 I taking upon myself to persuade them how much 
 better we should be if we were all acquainted and 
 acting in harmony with the leading principles of Eco- 
 nomical Science, they simply suspending their judg- 
 ment upon the claims of Economical Science to their 
 attention till they have heard what it would do, and 
 what it is capable of doing. 
 
 Nobody will deny that the amount of well-being in 
 store for us in this world depends greatly upon our 
 conduct. Our conduct, again, is not independent of 
 our knowledge. Long before mechanical, chemical, 
 electrical, and physiological science had assumed the 
 forms in which they are now familiar to us, men sub- 
 sisted among the same elements — only in disregard, 
 because in ignorance of much of their power to influ* 
 
133 
 
 ence well-being. Who would venture to assert that 
 the greater regard, founded on the more accurate know- 
 ledge of those elements as embodied in modern science, 
 has not greatly added to our means of enjoyment, and 
 provided us with more numerous securities against 
 suffering? In like manner, we all live, surrounded 
 by the elements of Economical Science, unconscious, 
 too many of us, of their power to influence well-being. 
 If it can be explained what these elements are — if even 
 a glimpse can be communicated of the immensity of 
 their power, either to impede or to promote well- 
 being, according as we conduct ourselves — nobody 
 would venture to assert that an altered conduct, 
 founded upon a more accurate knowledge of the lead- 
 ing principles of Economical Science would not greatly 
 increase well-being. It being once understood what 
 Economical Science embraces and explains, to linger to 
 introduce the teaching of it, in company with other 
 sciences, into our schools, would seem to be no longer 
 possible. To close our own ears to those who are 
 willing to instruct us, would be to make ourselves 
 moral suicides. Were we to withhold such instruction 
 from our children, we should be something worse — 
 moral infanticides. 
 
 There is one opinion and feeling common to those 
 who ignore and to those who study Economical Sci- 
 ence ; they both admit and deplore the prevalence or 
 too frequent recurrence of certain social evils, such as 
 low wages, agricultural and commercial distress, bank- 
 ruptcy, pauperism, and destitution. They who ignore 
 Economical Science and shut it out of their schools, 
 are not inclined to look on for others, or to bear for 
 themselves, in silence, the calamities above enumerated. 
 
134 
 
 They cry out against them quite as loudly as the most 
 sturdy economist. They differ from the economists in 
 this respect, that they assign causes for evils at hap- 
 hazard, and when opportunity offers proceed to act 
 upon their assumptions, to the detriment of many of 
 the objects whom they commiserate, and to their own 
 eventual mortification ; whereas the economists investi- 
 gate the causes of evils, and having systematized the 
 results of their investigations into a body of Economi- 
 cal Science, recommend them to be tested, verified, 
 studied, and applied for the benefit of mankind. 
 
 It is a curious feature in the progress of mankind, 
 that science, or the establishing by careful observation 
 and experiment of the connection of cause and effect, 
 has ever been obstructed in its progress, and excluded 
 as long as possible from practice, by empirics, who 
 assume the connection without troubling themselves 
 either to study or to experiment. 
 
 Let us begin by contrasting the conduct of the 
 economist and the empiric in the matter of low wages. 
 There can be no social evil more fruitful of painful 
 consequences than a prevalence of low wages ; meaning 
 by low wages, wages insufficient to enable the labourer 
 to maintain himself in sickness and old age, as well as 
 in health and youth. It is cruel of masters, says the 
 empiric, to give such low wages ; they ought not to be 
 so hard-hearted, so grinding, so rapacious ; and if they 
 cannot be legally prevented from sweating their victims, 
 they should be controlled by public opinion. The 
 economist brings to bear upon this subject the whole 
 of his scientific experience. He knows that if a capi- 
 talist is gaining extraordinary profit by his purchase of 
 labour at a low rate, other capitalists would strive to 
 
135 
 
 draw his labourers from him by tempting them with the 
 offer of higher wages. He knows, also, that it is open 
 to labourers to better their condition by shifting from 
 one employer to another. He knows more than this ; 
 he knows that the capitalist who is giving low wages to 
 some workmen, also gives large wages to some, and 
 has actually refused to give any wages at all to others. 
 He is well aware that the master employs his capital 
 for the purpose of earning profit, and that he would 
 rather pay one man lOOOZ., if his services would yield 
 him 1,200Z., than he would distribute the same sum 
 among 100 men if their joint labour would yield no 
 more than 1,100Z. ; but on no account would he pay the 
 same sum to purchase the labour of 1000 men, if the 
 produce of their labour would not replace the 10007. 
 advanced to them. The men who receive high wages 
 are the comparatively competent, those who receive 
 low wages are the comparatively incompetent, and 
 those who can obtain none are the impotent. 
 
 Incompetent adults are objects of pity, and impotent 
 adults still more so. The latter constitute the pauper 
 class. They are the old, the infirm, and the helpless, 
 who have no funds for their maintenance provided 
 out of their own or other people's savings. The 
 softest of social empirics issuing out of a lordly man- 
 sion would scarcely venture to denounce a capitalist 
 for refusing to give wages to the impotent. Is he 
 justified in denouncing him for refusing to give any- 
 thing beyond a miserable pittance to the compara- 
 tively incompetent, to the drunken, the indolent, the 
 untrustworthy, the ignorant, and the wasteful ? Our 
 impassioned empiric directs some of the overflowings 
 of his indignation against those who put such ques- 
 
136 
 
 tions, and fancies that to screen the master from 
 unmerited imputations is to sanction low wages, and 
 to abet the continuance of misery among the la- 
 bourers. The economist is fairly entitled to urge 
 that the denunciation of those who really haVe no 
 power over wages is the way rather to favour the 
 continuance than the amendment of any insufficiency 
 in them; that he is prepared to explain, not how 
 existing adult labourers can have higher wages se- 
 cured to them, but how that happy change may be in 
 store for the labourers who are to come after them ; 
 and that, in the mean time, the burthen and duty of 
 mitigating present suffering must be borne by society 
 at large, — as well by court-lords, living without work, 
 as by lords of labour, or capitalists, living in their 
 work. 
 
 The economist, then, with his more comprehensive 
 intelligence and his more considerate benevolence, 
 feels that it is his duty to care for a future as well as 
 for the present race of labourers. It appears to him, 
 that ranting and raving against capitalists will no 
 more provide any guarantee for future adequate wages 
 than a remedy for present inadequate wages. He 
 knows that to cause a future range of adequate wages 
 to succeed a present range of inadequate wages, there 
 must be increase of capital, and that increase of capital 
 can only originate in increase of knowledge, of in- 
 dustry, and of economy. If you ask him how this is 
 to be obtained, he will refer you to better teaching 
 and training, — and the source whence these are to 
 flow, clearer perceptions of the parental duties. 
 
 Now, if these statements of what the economists 
 would teach are correct interpretations of experience 
 
137 
 
 and science, it must be obvious that all confused or 
 delusive appearances which mislead, or films that ob- , 
 struct the eyes of observers, must be dangerous. 
 They who cannot gainsay these expositions may ig- 
 nore them ; and baffled in their attempt to fasten the 
 odium of low wages upon masters, they may attribute 
 them to want of money. It being once admitted that 
 low wages originate in want of money, an increase of 
 the quantity of money would seem the thing of ne- 
 cessity to be prescribed as the means of raising wages. 
 There are only three ways conceivable by which the 
 quantity of money can be increased : — debasing the 
 coin, a forced issue of paper-money, and an increased 
 produce of the precious metals. But the economist 
 observes, on each of these means, that not one of 
 them would add to the capital of the country, — to the 
 store of food, clothing, furniture, &;c., out of which 
 wages are to be paid ; that a large increase of money 
 would depreciate its value — in other words, raise 
 prices ; and that accordingly, although money-wages 
 would rise in proportion, the increased money-wages 
 would obtain for those who received them no increase 
 of real wages — no larger quantity of the necessaries 
 and comforts of life. The practical lesson to the 
 student of Economical Science from these expositions 
 of the influence of the quantity of money upon the rate 
 of wages is, that to obtain comparatively high wages 
 workmen have but one course to pursue, that is, to 
 increase their usefulness — to make their labour produc- 
 tive, and the purchase of it an object of research. By 
 efforts in this direction every workman may hope to 
 gain wages more than enough to satisfy his immediate 
 wants. Following up these efforts by a well-regulated 
 
138 
 
 economy, he will make a provision for the future; 
 and while contributing to the growth of the general 
 capital, will become a capitalist himself. Neither, 
 while thus conscious of the true means of acquiring 
 a title to high wages, will he be negligent of the 
 duties which he owes to society and to his children, to 
 assist in laying the foundation of a high rate of wages 
 for those who are to come after him. And, to do this, 
 the same intelligence and good conduct which hav3 
 served to increase his own wages will convince him tf 
 the necessity of leaving to his children the only in- 
 heritance that he can safely confide in as their main- 
 stay — similar intelligence and good conduct to guide 
 them to good wages, and to the good application of 
 such wages when placed within their grasp. 
 
 Another cause to which lowness of wages has been 
 attributed — one that has often been pleaded by em- 
 ployers, in extenuation of the charge of harshness or 
 niggardliness towards those whose labour they pur- 
 chase, is want of means and consequent inability to 
 afford more. This plea is frequently followed up by 
 an off-hand explanation of the causes of this inability. 
 A certain class of farmers will afford us an example of 
 such employers. They pay low wages, and regret that 
 they cannot afford to pay higher, the prices of their 
 produce being so low, and their farming expenses so 
 high. According to these farmers, protection against 
 foreign competition would secure to them higher prices, 
 and liberality in landlords would make easy rents, 
 and there would then be no excuse for low wages! 
 These assertions teem with contradictions to the eco- 
 nomist. He cannot take for granted that farmers, 
 even when favoured with high prices and low rents. 
 
139 
 
 will pay high wages, if labourers, anxious to obtain any 
 wages, however low, are pressing them for employment 
 beyond what their capital can provide. The economist 
 never can lose sight of the fact that present wages, con- 
 sidered in the aggregate, depend upon the proportion 
 that the capital bears to the number of labourers, 
 while future wages depend greatly upon the produc- 
 tiveness of present capital, and upon the economy with 
 which this productiveness is followed up. He then 
 puts a very simple, yet stringent question to himself. 
 How will the capital of a country be most productively 
 employed — by allowing the possessors of it to give 
 to it the industrial direction from which they expect 
 to derive most profit? or by forbidding them? By 
 giving them permission to fish with their capitals, 
 where they expect shoals are to be caught? or by 
 insisting upon the casting of their nets, where fish are 
 shy, and making fish dear to compensate them ? 
 
 The economist finds it no more possible to hesitate 
 in giving his preference to freedom of industrial enter- 
 prise as a means of making capital productive, than it 
 would be to hesitate in preferring skilful to unskilful 
 farming. He accepts this preference with the con- 
 dition attached to it, that the unskilled and incom- 
 petent capitalist must give place to the capitalist of 
 skill and competency. That price which yields profit 
 to the skilled capitalist will not so much as meet the 
 expenses of the unskilled capitalist, who must relinquish 
 what he is unfit for, or be ruined in persisting — in 
 either case consigning the labourers to those capitalists 
 who are competent to buy labour, direct it profitably, 
 and accumulate more capital. Amid the constantly 
 varying distributions and re-distributions of capital to 
 
140 
 
 enable its administrators to earn profit, the economist 
 observes many directed to facilitate and develope inter- 
 change with the inhabitants of other lands. This also 
 he accepts with the condition attached to it — that 
 whatever is imported, is imported only because it costs 
 less to produce it through the intervention of com- 
 merce than it would without such intervention. In 
 other words, a portion of capital is more beneficially 
 employed producing commodities, to be exported as a 
 means of purchasing the commodities really wanted, 
 than by attempting to produce the commodities wanted 
 without the intervention of commercial interchange. 
 The administrators of capital, if unfettered by restric- 
 tions, naturally apply it in this way, and the labourers 
 who seek wages, must follow the direction of the 
 capital. 
 
 The question, accordingly, that is at issue between 
 the two parties who interest themselves in the welfare 
 of the labourers — the economists who would leave 
 capitalists at liberty to administer their capitals as 
 they please, and the protectionists, or more properly 
 the restrictionists, who would not, is, — Whether to 
 employ capital as profitably as possible, be among the 
 means by which wages sufficient to meet all the 
 demands of humanity, shall be universally accessible 
 to those who have their labour to dispose of. It is to 
 be hoped that neither party will any longer shut their 
 eyes to the influence of other means toAvards attain- 
 ing this end so devoutly to be wished, viz., the know- 
 ledge and conduct of the labourers themselves — an 
 influence so preponderating, that in comparison with 
 it all other influences may be said to be insigni- 
 ficant. 
 
141 
 
 
 Equally irrational to the understanding of the Social 
 Economist is the plea of the farmer that he is pre- 
 vented from doing justice to the labourers whom he 
 employs on account of the rent, for which he has 
 rendered himself liable. The economist would ask 
 why the farmer came under any engagement for rent. 
 He knows that some capitalists pay little or no rent, 
 while others pay very high rents. He finds that many 
 shop-keepers in towns, as well as farmers in the 
 country, who pay high rents, engage good workmen at 
 high wages, and earn, withal, satisfactory profits ; and 
 it is no surprise to him, with his experience of the 
 world and range of vision, that there should be farmers 
 as well as tradespeople, who, paying low rents and low 
 wages, nevertheless fail to earn a profit. No capitalist, 
 fit to conduct farming or any other business, ever 
 engages to pay rent for land or premises except on the 
 calculation that the productive power to obtain which 
 the rent is to be disbursed, will enable him to retain, 
 at least, as much profit, after paying his rent, as he 
 could expect to earn elsewhere without paying any. 
 
 Is it any extravagance, then, to assert that the children 
 now at school would be the better for being so taught, 
 that when they go into the world they will, as labourers, 
 look to their own capabilities and conduct for the im- 
 provement of their wages, and as they gradually accu- 
 mulate capital by economy, their own sagacity will 
 suffice to guide them how to employ it or how to lend 
 it on security, according as they find it expedient to 
 enter into business on their own account, or to continue 
 working under the direction of others ? 
 
 The inevitable sufiering consequent upon insufficient 
 wages is so deplorable, that neither surprise nor regret 
 
142 
 
 ought to be felt that labourers and those who take an 
 interest in their welfare are not disposed to submit 
 without striving to emancipate themselves from their 
 infliction. We will not submit, say the ill-paid work- 
 men, with more or less fierceness ; and they are abetted 
 in their determination by a certain prate-a-paee class, 
 who do not scruple to give advice, the consequences of 
 which they have neither the intelligence to foresee, nor 
 the conscientiousness to think of investigating. " You 
 say that you have no work for me, that you cannot 
 give me the wages that would keep a horse," remon- 
 strates the labourer with the capitalist, " then why do 
 you employ steam power and mechanical contrivance 
 to do my work?" Because, with these helps, I get 
 my work better and cheaper done, is the answer of the 
 capitalist ; an answer which, however conclusive with 
 him, is far from satisfactory to the suffering applicant 
 for wages. Two courses of action, as is well known 
 to everybody, have been resorted to by the aggrieved 
 workmen in order to improve their position : one, in 
 direct defiance of the law, to destroy their supposed 
 enemy, machinery; the other, to disarm it by com- 
 bining in a refusal to work in conjunction with it or 
 with any workmen who, in opposition to their own 
 determination, had consented to work for capitalists who 
 availed themselves of the aid of machinery. Magis- 
 trates, whose duty it is to fine and commit those who 
 have been guilty of breaches of the law, have at times 
 been so overawed by surrounding public opinion, and 
 so little able to clear up the difficulties in their own 
 minds on the subject, that they have recommended 
 capitalists to discontinue the use of the obnoxious 
 machinery. 
 
143 
 
 The low wages of the labourer are a subject of deep 
 regret to the economist. He has been at the pains to 
 investigate the causes of low wages, and he is prepared 
 to expound them, and to point out the means, framed 
 \}[:on a knowledge of these causes, to bring about an 
 increase of them. In the course of his investigations 
 jie has brought together a mass of evidence quite con- 
 clusive to all who can and will examine attentively 
 and dispassionately, that the use of mechanical power, 
 so far from lowering wages, is one of the great means 
 of continually adding to capital, and thereby of increas- 
 ing the wages of the same number of labourers, or of 
 providing undiminished wages to a larger number. 
 Magistrates, capitalists, and labourers, are invited by 
 him, if they do feel themselves a little puzzle-headed — 
 somewhat overpowered by old associations, and misled 
 by, to them, inexplicable and illusory appearances, 
 not to debar their children from the benefit of the 
 instruction that he is able and willing to give them. 
 He undertakes to form labourers who shall know how 
 to secure good wages for themselves, and shall not be 
 tempted to break or evade the law, or to exclude 
 their fellow-workmen from work and wages ; to form 
 capitalists, who, knowing how to direct their capitals, 
 will appreciate and encourage good workmen, and be 
 competent to supply them with good wages ; and to 
 form magistrates with intellects so well exercised on 
 economical subjects as to be able to see the right and 
 wrong of the cases brought before them at a glance, 
 and to expound and make manifest, with readiness 
 and precision, to those who stand in need of illumina- 
 tion and guidance, the errors of the mistaken courses 
 into which they had strayed. 
 
144 
 
 Again, " your low wages and wretched condition 
 may be easily accounted for," say others of the prate-a- 
 pace school to their too confiding listeners. " You are 
 shut out from the land. Unhappily for you, perscns 
 possessed of the power have not scrupled to appropriate 
 nearly the whole of the land, and, consequently, any of 
 your class denied a fair remuneration for your labour, 
 or unable to obtain work, are shut out from that 
 resource which the opportunity of falling back upon 
 the land would present." Words such as these, 
 addressed in a confident tone to men who are suffering 
 from low wages or want of employment, and who know 
 that all the land around them is appropriated by 
 others, sound plausible enough to untutored ears. In 
 the economist they excite feelings of distressing appre- 
 hension on behalf of all workmen likely to be in- 
 fluenced by them. He knows that property in land 
 is not an indispensable condition of the right to culti- 
 vate it. Income from property in land is obtainable 
 only by its cultivation; and cultivation implies the 
 possession of capital, and of the requisite skill and 
 knowledge to direct it. If the owner of the land has 
 these two adjuncts, he may cultivate his own land suc- 
 cessfully. If he have not, he will let his land to some 
 one else who has them, and who will pay him a rent 
 for permission to cultivate. 
 
 The economist knows, besides, that if capitalists not 
 possessed of skill and knowledge undertake farming- 
 business — ruin, not income, must await them. He is 
 astounded at the presumption and wickedness of 
 those who dare to invite artizans, and others untrained 
 to any kind of field-labour, to club together their 
 slender savings, invest them in land, and abandoning 
 
145 
 
 tliat work of wliich they had some experience, to 
 embark in other work of which they have no expe- 
 rience. Wonderful it appears to him that those whose 
 duty it is to direct the destinies of a nation, and to 
 conduct its education, can have contrived so ill as 
 that large numbers of the people should be weak 
 enough to become the victims of adventurers who 
 must be noodles if honest, or if intelligent must be 
 knaves. Well may he exclaim that the merest 
 modicum of economical instruction would suffice to 
 protect them from such ill-baited snares — such barely 
 covered pit-falls, and would dispel the mist that pre- 
 vents them from seeing how large a part of the work 
 required for the cultivation of a farm is done, both by 
 capitalists and labourers, not only without possessing 
 the land but actually at a distance from it. As there is 
 no difficulty in showing and teaching children, so there 
 need be none in satisfying the understandings of 
 adults that the capital and labour employed to import 
 guano, rape and linseed cake, and bones, are as much 
 engaged in farm cultivation as the capital and labour 
 that can be inspected at the home-stead. The same 
 observation is applicable to the capital and labour 
 engaged in manufacturing agricultural machinery, 
 tools, and utensils. In fact, it would be difficult to 
 form an adequate conception of the length and wind- 
 ings of the labyrinth that we should have to explore 
 before we ceased to track and bring to light some 
 portion of capital and labour indirectly engaged in 
 promoting the cultivation of the land. 
 
 While the economist is compelled to animadvert 
 upon the default of that teaching and training which 
 would supply a capacity of self-guidance competent 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 to ward off suffering, he observes no end to schemes 
 for lifting suffering victims out of the misery in which 
 they have been engulphed through the absence of this 
 capacity for self-guidance. " Want of co-operation 
 has led you to what you are now enduring, and is 
 leading many around you ^to a like fate." Such is the 
 admonition given with all confidence by others of the 
 incompetent school to disheartened sufferers. The 
 economist, having surveyed all the industrial opera- 
 tions of society, is at a loss to discover where the 
 evidence of want of co-operation is to be found. The 
 abundance of it meets his eye at every turn. He sees 
 men rising to wealth and sinking to poverty, whether 
 acting as partners or as individuals. It certainly does 
 appear to him an infatuation as strange as deplorable, 
 for men who have not been able hitherto to raise 
 themselves above or to prevent themselves from sink- 
 ing into want, to rush into a co-operative effort, as if an 
 amalgamation of incompetent individuals were likely 
 to make a successful partnership. He knows that 
 it is not for him to predetermine who, among all his 
 pupils, shall till the land or engage in the auxiliary 
 operations needful for the successful completion of 
 agricultural work, or who shall turn their attention 
 and bend their energies to other industrial depart- 
 ments, or whether in the method of their action, the 
 individual or the co-operative effort is to predominate, 
 or whether they are to act as chiefs or subordinates, as 
 principals or agents. It is his wish, as it is his effort, 
 to unfold to his pupils the relative uses and merits of 
 all these modes of concentrating, combining, and 
 applying industrial effort, and to make it as evident 
 to their understandings as it is to his own that the 
 
147 
 
 short-comings of individuals, of classes or of nations, 
 are not to be accounted for by differences in one or 
 more of the external or superficial forms which labour 
 and capital assume, but in the social qualities generally 
 prevailing, — to implant, invigorate, and direct vrhich, so 
 as to promote that conduct which leads to well-being, 
 is the grand function as it is the exalted privilege of 
 the enlightened and earnest educator. 
 
 There yet remain to be mentioned numerous other 
 calamities and hardships which all have heard of, many 
 have witnessed, and some felt — scarcity approaching 
 to famine, agricultural and commercial distress, bank- 
 ruptcy, and loss of employment. It is not in man's 
 nature to suffer these calamities in silence without con- 
 necting them with some cause, real or imaginary. 
 Imaginary causes are the most numerous and acces- 
 sible. Scarcity and high prices — are they not caused 
 by farmers, millers, bakers, graziers, butchers, fore- 
 stallers, regraters, and speculators ? Commercial and 
 agricultural distress-— are they not caused by bank 
 directors and money-lenders who put on the screw, 
 and make the money market tiffht? Refusal of wages 
 and of employment — are they not caused by the rapa- 
 city of capitalists, and the profligacy of the rich in 
 general? The unfortunate people attributing their 
 sufferings to these causes, have not restricted them- 
 selves to verbal complaints, but have at times been 
 terribly earnest in action — they have participated in 
 bread-riots, burnt mills and factories, scared bank 
 directors, and threatened the prime minister ! 
 
 The economist remonstrates against these proceed- 
 ings. " Beware/' says he, " lest you aggravate rather 
 than mitigate your sufferings." The deficient supplies 
 
148 
 
 consequent upon bad harvests, must be made to last out 
 till additional supplies can be obtained ; and the high 
 prices against which indignation is erroneously directed, 
 act as the caution to restrain consumption, and as the 
 stimulus to bring forth supplies. Reconcile yourselves 
 as vrell as you can to present privations, and as seasons 
 of indiflferent produce are sure to recur, bear in mind 
 that there is but one method of guarding against priva- 
 tions when they shall recur, that is, by saving out of 
 the produce of the more abundant seasons, in which 
 effort bakers, millers, and speculators, may all greatly 
 assist. 
 
 To merchants, bankers, and capitalists in general, 
 whose estates are brought into the Court of Bank- 
 ruptcy, or who are enduring the agonies of insolvency, 
 the admonitions of the economist might be couched in 
 severer language. Shocked at hearing bankruptcies 
 and insolvencies attributed to influences beyond con- 
 trol, at hearing every form of accusation except that of 
 self- accusation, his feeling of pity for the ignorance of 
 the unfortunate sufferers, can alone soften his indigna- 
 tion at their delinquency. He knows that without 
 credit there could be no insolvency, although this 
 same credit carefully and conscientiously employed, 
 opens opportunities and affords facilities to industrial 
 enterprise. To his mind, the capitalist, who avails 
 himself of a privilege founded upon the confidence 
 which he is presumed to deserve, ought to be deeply 
 impressed with the responsibility that he assumes, and 
 to be scrupulously careful to see his way beforehand 
 to do justice at the appointed time to the creditor who 
 trusts him. The economist, whose previous studies 
 have convinced him of the all-importance of regulating 
 
149 
 
 mercantile operations by these, to him, obvious moral 
 principles, in combination with the requisite industry 
 and special knowledge, has still further fortified him- 
 self in his convictions, by perusing the records of the 
 Bankruptcy and Insolvency Courts. He cannot but ex- 
 claim, " Merchant-capitalists of England, how can you 
 reconcile it to yourselves to connive at the perpetuation 
 of a collegiate and scholastic system, by which your 
 children are debarred from the intellectual instruction 
 which would keep mercantile disasters at a distance, 
 and from the moral guidance that would shield them 
 from mercantile dishonour ? " 
 
 It would be out of place here to attempt to expose 
 all the delusions, malpractices, and miscarriages origi- 
 nating in inattention to Economical Science. Neither 
 in what has gone before have I pretended to do more 
 than submit to the parents and guardians of youth the 
 consequences of denying to their children and wards 
 that instruction which is absolutely indispensable to 
 good self-guidance in life. I cannot be wrong in 
 assuming that none among them will hesitate to admit 
 that the degree in which the power of good self- 
 guidance pervades society ought to be considered the 
 best proof of the quality of the education attempted, 
 and of the skill of its conductors. 
 
 In striving to persuade others to agree with me, as 
 to the urgency of introducing instruction in Econo- 
 mical Science into all our schools and colleges, it 
 would be scarcely decorous were I to affirm that they 
 are wrong in countenancing its exclusion, and that I 
 am right in advocating and aiding its introduction; 
 but with the decided opinions and strong feelings that 
 I am conscious of, it would be dishonest and dastardly 
 
150 
 
 were I either to conceal my opinions or to smother 
 my feelings. It can be no breach of decorum for me 
 to affirm, that I believe my views to be right, and to 
 place before others the facts and reasons that have led 
 me to the conclusions which I have adopted. There 
 is censure in another form, and from a different 
 quarter, of which I also incur the danger. I may be 
 taunted with my conceit, at fancying that it has been 
 reserved for me to discover an educational want of 
 which nobody had ever taken cognizance. I am 
 prepared for this taunt, although I do not admit that 
 either what I am contending for, or the manner in 
 which I am contending, fairly exposes me to the 
 imputation of conceit or presumption. 
 
 Economical Science has long occupied the thoughts 
 and exercised the abilities of many of the master-minds 
 of the world. Their investigations and developments 
 have been verified and systematised, and, at last, in 
 these our days, constitute a body of science replete 
 with principles most of which have been made the 
 basis of modern legislation, and many the texts of in- 
 structive exhortations. I find this science ready made 
 to my hand, approved and recommended by all the 
 advanced intelligences around me ; and although it 
 be scorned and repudiated by some undoubtedly good 
 men, their aversion and repugnance are clearly trace- 
 able to their ignorance, which, while we deplore, we 
 touch gently, on account of the excellent dispositions 
 of the benighted philanthropists thus severely afflicted. 
 Now it strikes me very forcibly, that what is good for 
 adults ought to be taught to the young so far as 
 is practicable. They who contend that Economical 
 Science is above the capacities of the young, only 
 
151 
 
 show that they are not quite up to the mark in 
 what they venture to pass judgment upon. Indeed, if 
 they will be at the pains, they may visit schools where 
 instruction in Economical Science is not only given fOy 
 but by boys. To object that, if such instruction were 
 really desirable, it would long ere this have been in- 
 troduced into schools is still more unreasonable. Since 
 Economical Science, as it exists among us, is a modern 
 development, the materials of which it is formed hav- 
 ing existed, it is true, from time immemorial, but their 
 interpretation and arrangement in a scientific form 
 having but just been accomplished. It was necessary 
 that interpretation and arrangement should precede 
 instruction ; but instruction ought not to lag far be- 
 hind the completion of the science. This order of 
 progress is what we have witnessed in geography, 
 astronomy, chemistry, mechanics, and every other 
 physical science, all of which are taught with more 
 or less success in our schools ; and now, let the same 
 order be extended to Economical Science. 
 
 I have already referred to the strong convictions 
 that I feel upon the importance of making instruction 
 in Economical Science a part of general Education. 
 These must be my apology for some appearance of 
 repetition and reiteration. But I would not willingly 
 omit any explanation that might assist others to a 
 correct appreciation of what this science really is. 
 Till it has been made a subject of study, we must not 
 be surprised that there should exist prejudice and mis- 
 apprehension as to what it is, and what it leads to. 
 As I have more than once observed, few of those who 
 excuse themselves the task and deny themselves the 
 pleasure of studying the science as a whole, excuse 
 
152 
 
 others the task and the pain of listening to their 
 opinions and conclusions upon all those phenomena in 
 society which can only be correctly interpreted by a 
 judicious application of the principles of the very 
 science from the study of which they shrink. They, 
 perhaps, will be surprised to learn how very simple 
 the fundamental principles of Economical Science really 
 are, and that the difficulties, contradictions, and mysti- 
 fications with which, according to their experience, it 
 seems to abound, exist only in their own ill-arranged 
 understandings, and originate in the daring presump- 
 tion with which they venture to pass judgment upon 
 the efiect of numerous concurrent causes, acting some 
 in unison and some in opposition, perfectly unconscious 
 of what those causes are. 
 
 Instruction in the elementary principles of Economical 
 Science, as I advocate its being conducted in schools, 
 should, in my opinion, be somewhat as follows : 
 
 First, to explain that the abundance and good distri- 
 bution of the material comforts of life depend upon 
 the prevalence of industry, skill, knowledge, economy, 
 sobriety, trustworthiness, &;c. These explanations admit 
 of innumerable illustrations of great interest, and quite 
 within the powers of comprehension even of very 
 young children, who can also readily apprehend how 
 teaching and training for the young, and the pre- 
 servation of order and protection of property will 
 conduce to the prevalence of these social qualities. 
 
 Second, To proceed progressively to show the origin 
 and uses of the social arrangements out of which have 
 grown what go by the names of Wages, Profit, Interest, 
 Rent, Money, Prices, Exchange, Taxes, &c. The true 
 test of success in this second division will be, the clear- 
 
153 
 
 ness and precision with which the students are enabled 
 to apprehend the continuous succession of verifications, 
 afforded by the minute examination of the subordinate 
 departments of the science, of this grand induction — 
 that wherever individuals, classes, or nations, fail to 
 enjoy well-being, as marked by rates of wages, profits, 
 rents, prices, &c., they only do so by failing in respect 
 of those social qualities; and that wherever wages, 
 profit, rent, prices, &;c. adjust themselves harmoniously 
 with well-being, they do so on account of prevailing good 
 conduct. The way to alter what is wrong in regard to 
 these instruments of distribution, or to maintain them 
 in the desirable state, is to correct or to confirm the 
 social qualities, and not to run riot in interminable 
 gabbling and wrangling, the main object of which 
 would seem to be, to show by what means these quali- 
 ties may be dispensed with. 
 
 Fellow-parents, fellow-countrymen, fellow-men, I 
 now leave in your hands this matter of the continued 
 exclusion of Economical Science from the schools 
 where your children ought to be receiving that know- 
 ledge, and forming those habits upon which depend 
 their happiness, their usefulness, and their respecta- 
 bility in after-life. .-.^TTlBaSS^ 
 
 9^ OF THB ^y 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 THE END, 
 
LONDON : 
 
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ELEMENTARY WORKS ON THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, 
 
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 PUBLISHED BY SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. 
 
 OUTLINES OF SOCIAL ECONOMY. 
 
 Second Edition, Foolscap 8vo, price Is. 6d. half-bound. 
 
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 tion the three great duties of social life ; — 
 
 1st. To strive to be self-supporting, and not to be a burden upon 
 society. 
 
 2nd. To avoid making any engagements, explicit or implied, with 
 persons now living or yet to be born, for the due performance of 
 which there is no reasonable prospect. 
 
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 knowledge, skill, or wealth, as to promote to the utmost the 
 general happiness of mankind. 
 
 OPINIONS OP THE PRESS. 
 
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 that the science of Social Economy is a subject with which all school- 
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 in economical science, to a class of thirty boys out of a school of one 
 hundred and eighty in his own neighbourhood. This little book is a 
 compendium of the science of wealth adapted to the capacities of youth. 
 What Sir Robert Peel did for the politicians of the day, what Mr. 
 Richard Cobden did for the middle classes, what Adam Smith did for 
 man and civilization, this gentleman is doing for the coming generation. 
 From experience we can confirm the opinion of the author, that boys 
 can be instructed, and even delighted, in economical truths. As calcu- 
 lated for such good ends we strongly recommend these admirable * Out- 
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 *' This work is a very proper companion to the * Outlines of Social 
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 as they are generally developed. With something of Paley's firm grasp 
 and plain illustration, he seizes hold of the important point of each 
 branch of his subject, and sets it distinctly before the reader. His work 
 gives us all that is valuable in all the metaphysicians — from Locke to 
 Brown-^in a nutshell. He expressly intends his book to assist school" 
 . masters, and it is admirably adapted both to improve their minds, and 
 enable them to improve their pupils. It is at once sound in principle, 
 and clear in exposition, and will be a valuable auxiliary to the school- 
 master, in labours which increase in importance and in the estimation of 
 society." — Economist. 
 
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 the same pen are likely to prove more valuable — the teacher or the 
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 matters connected with his profession ; and, for the latter, they contain 
 much interest, and amuse as well as inform, while the language is so 
 lucid and simple as to be intelligible to all." — Church of England 
 Quarterly Review. 
 
 "A little manual, well suited to schools, and containing the substance 
 of ponderous tomes, whose size and dryness might well affright the 
 student from the perusal of their pages. The views developed in the 
 various sections of this epitome are in general sound, as well as put forth 
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 LONDON : SMITH, ELDEK AND CO., 65, CORNIIILL. 
 
A:pnl 1851. 
 
 CATALOGUE OF BOOKS 
 
 IN 
 
 VARIOUS BRANCHES OF LITERATURE, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 
 
 65, CORNHILL, LONDON. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Works of Mr. Ruskin 
 ,, CuRRER Bell 
 
 ,, Leigh Hunt 
 
 Miscellaneous . 
 
 page 
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 Works of Practical Information 9 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Illustrated Scientific Works 11 
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 Educational . . . ,14 
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 Books for the Blind 
 
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 MR. RU SKIN'S 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF ''THE STONES OF VENICE." 
 
 Preparing for Immediate Fublication, 
 
 EXAMPLES OF THE ARCHITECTURE OF VENICE, 
 
 Selected, and Drawn to Measurement from the Edifices. 
 
 By JOHN RUSKIN, 
 
 Author of " The Stones of Venice/' " Seven Lamps of Architecture," " Modern 
 
 Painters," &c. 
 
 In Twelve Parts, folio imperial size, with Descriptive Notices. 
 Price One Guinea. 
 
 Each Part will contain Pive Plates, engraved by the first artists, and as 
 nearly as possible fac-similes of Mr. Ruskin's original drawings, but of mixed 
 character : — some will be finished mezzotints ; some, tinted lithographs ; and some 
 wood-cuts, or engravings in outline, of profiles and sections. There will be at 
 least one mezzotint in each Part. 
 
 The First Part will appear on the 10th of May 1851, and the work will be 
 completed as rapidly as possible. 
 
 *^* Pifty India Proofs only will be taken on Atlas Eolio, price Two Guineas 
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 Subscribers' names will be received by the Publishers, where Prospectuses may 
 be had, and Specimens of the Work may be seen. 
 
 The Second Yolume of " THE STONES OE YENICE" is in preparation. 
 
WORKS OF MR. R U S K I N. 
 
 (the ** oxford graduate.") 
 
 I. 
 THE STONES OF VENICE. 
 
 Volume the First. THE FOUNDATIONS. 
 
 By JOHN RUSKIN, Author of "The Seven Lamps of Architecture," &c. 
 
 With Twenty-One Plates, from Drawings by the Author, and numerous Wood-Cuts. 
 
 Price 2/. 2s. in embossed cloth, with top edge gilt. 
 
 II. 
 
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 By JOHN EUSKIN, Author of "Modern Painters." 
 
 1 vol. imp. 8vo., with Pourteen Etchings by the Author. Price One Guinea, 
 bound in embossed cloth, with top edge gilt. 
 
 " By the * Seven Lamps of Architecture,' we understand Mr. Ruskin to mean the seven funda- 
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 stitute the most significant piece of criticism which has appeared in the English language for very 
 many years." — North Britigh Review. 
 
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 less than the elucidation of pure principles in art. He observes and investigates for himself, and 
 expresses himself in a strain of eloquence which rivets the mind by its fulness of meaning, and fasci- 
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 MODERN PAINTE^IS. 
 
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 NOTES ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF SHEEPFOLDS. 
 
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