POPULAR EDUCATION.

West Coast Times, Issue 329, 12 October 1866, Page 1 (Supplement)

POPULAR EDUCATION.

An extremely significant article on " Popular Education and Discontent" appeared the other day in the "Pall Mall Gazette," Reminding its readers that the question of popular education was formerly argued, both by friends 'and foes, as if it were exclusively a political subject, it points out that although '* reading and writing have eoncluced to quicken the popular desire for political power /yet so far -from taking the disastrous form which shook with terrors the ancestral'breast, never was there a day when anything in the shape of a shattering of the fabric of society was so absolutely repugnant to the notions of every class in the nation as it is at this very moment. For this very reason," urges the " Pall Mall Gazette," ''this is the moment for turning. attention to the movement which is stirring the hearts -of the multidude, and which is „ the life of that principle which is called democratic by those who do not understand itr Scarcely a week passes without some fresh illustration of the universality of the movement, which,- like all other movements, is less easily recognised by its advance than by its disturbing force. The wealthy pay* little heed to the change Avhioh is taking place in the habits of thought of the million ; but when they read of strike after strike for increased wages, of prolonged conflicts between masters and men, and of the enormous development of the tradeunion system, they begin to enquire about their own security, and almost to wish for a return to the blessed days when squires knew little, and shop- ! keepers knew less, and working people knew nothing at all." "This" — continues the " Pall Mall "—" Aye take, it, is a very pregnant fact : that by teaching the poor we have begun the operation of putting ideas into their heads, and taught them to desire a nobler life than they have hitherto lived." Again, "As they 'claim a recognition of their own manhood from the powerful, so v they concede to the rich that allowance, and — for it is sometimes needed — forgiveness, which ought to be granted to the powerful by virtue of their humanity, but to which they can put forward no -claim byvirtue of their jsowj3i\__The Jtnger excited by certain contemptuous~pnrases lately applied to working men is very illustrative of this state of things. x Ey teaching them to read^and write, and setting up readmg-rooms and libraries, we' have men ' who work with their hands to such a pass that they are ; affronted at being informed that they are not gentlemen in their behaviour. An Earl* Granville in the House of Lords has actually lectured his brother peers on their unmannerly proceedings, and quoted the politer proceedings of a gathering of m-tizans as an example to be followed, and the noble assemblage has accepted the~rebuke in silence." From this the " Pall Mall" w argues that _ | " It would be folly not to look all this in the face, even supposing it were in itself to be regretted. When you give a poor man knowledge ' and try to better his morals and refine his feeliugs, you necessarily act .upon his Avhole nature, upon his manhood, and not only upon such elements within him as will tend to make him more humbly satisfied to remain in the lot' which was enough for his forefathers. You teach him not only to say the Catechism and read > pretty books about animals and good kings and princesses, but you teach him to think ; that is, to think for himself, and to think upon all sorts of unpleasant things, and to ponder on the anomalies of life, and to strive in his own uncultured way to argue about them, and in his own energetic way to^ remedy them. You have given him desires which he had not before, and you have shown him how tp mend his condition. Above all, you have made him so much of a politician that he has come to the- conclu T sion that it is a mistake to suppose that the gain of the poor is the Joss of the rich. And all .. this has . come from ' schooling. . Our Grandfathers were certainly right when they said that the alphabet was the root of all evil, judging what is good and what is evil according to their lights." •_