Page:An address on compulsory education.djvu/10

6 must eat bread. Now it has been ascertained that very few children under twelve are regularly employed day by day; and more especially is this the case in agricultural districts, where no laws affecting the labour of children at present exist. They work for a period of a few days, or it may be of a few weeks, and when their employment ceases, instead of attending school, they are allowed to roam about, not uneducated, alas!—for there is no such thing as an uneducated child—but receiving such an education as blunts and vitiates their minds. They possess no opportunity, in the spring-time of life, for receiving those seeds of knowledge which in their after life would probably bring forth a harvest of good to themselves and their country. Therefore, I conclude, that compulsion is essential for this class of children, yet not such a rigid system as would entirely deprive the parents of the wages or labour of their children; for this deprivation is the only objection that can be substantially raised against compulsion.

4th.—Then, as you all know, there are some children who set the authority of their parents at defiance. More particularly is this the case when the father is dead, and the poor mother has to be the bread-winner of her children. She may wish them to attend school, but her persuasions are useless. Here again the lawlesness [sic] of the children should be coerced by the power of the law.

That a universal system of compulsion is necessary in order that all our children may be educated, is now being reluctantly admitted. With a plentiful supply of schools, and an efficient staff of teachers, there will still be many children who will seldom, or never, enter a school door. A universal system of compulsion has not yet been enacted by Parliament, still the principle is embodied in the recent Education Act. You know that the power of compulsion is vested in the School Boards, but only as a permissive privilege. There is no doubt that the Boards of our large towns will avail themselves of it, but that every School Board will enforce the attendance of the children is by no means probable. In agricultural villages, where the Board would consist mainly of farmers, I fear the question of compulsion will be shelved.

A gradual change is manifest in public opinion, as expressed in the daily journals, upon this subject, and many influential advocates for its adoption are now to be found. Mr. Forster, Mr. Stansfield, and Mr. Mundella recently publicly spoke of