Page:An address on compulsory education.djvu/11

7 its necessity, and if the present Cabinet remain in office, I do not think we shall wait long for legislation on it. I argue from the fact that since the Government demands school accommodation for one-sixth of the whole population to be provided everywhere, when the buildings are erected, they will find some means of filling them. I think it is a fair deduction that since compulsion is applied to the buildings it will eventually be applied also to the children. As it is, in parishes where no School Board now exists, and in many instances, where they do, or will exist, the education of the children will not be advanced a single iota by the present Bill. The children in these districts who now grow up in ignorance will still remain uneducated. But, I believe, that if it is found that the School Boards in our large towns can compel the children to attend school, there will be a universal cry for compulsion arise in our land. The Factory Act has done much towards giving many children an education. The Act itself is a species of indirect compulsion. Its extension to all parts of the Kingdom and to all kinds of labour in which children are employed would do much to force many into our schools. If it were made penal for an employer to give children under thirteen work of any kind, unless they attended school a certain number of times in the year, the selfishness of the parents would at once be appealed to, and selfishness is a potent motive power in human nature. For their own interests, many would send their children to school merely that their little ones might occasionally obtain employment. A system of indirect compulsion such as this, would no doubt be very beneficial, and would cause many children to receive an education who are now allowed to grow up in ignorance. But still it would be by no means effectual. The education of our country would not be national in the true sense of the word. It would not touch our city Arabs, or the dregs of our towns and villages. I do not believe we can do without, or that we shall be very long without, a direct system of compulsion which shall affect all the children of the poor, and yet not such a rigid scheme as would entirely deprive the parents of the wages of their children. But the question naturally arises—How can this be accomplished?

In my opinion, no act of compulsion could be so framed as to be universally applicable without in some instances being detrimental to those interests of the poor which we are bound to respect. For the peculiarities of child-labour vary in