Page:An address on compulsory education.djvu/13

9 out, there is found to be insufficient accommodation in any particular school, the denomination to which it belongs must enlarge their buildings, supposing there is no room elsewhere within a reasonable distance, or a rate school must be established by the Board. This plan, I think, will be reasonable and equitable; for if the denominationalists wish to retain their schools, they should be compelled to keep pace with the requirements of their several districts; and that they would do so I believe there is very little doubt.

2.—They should have power to regulate the duration of time when the children should be absent at work, subject to a fixed number of annual attendances.

3.—If the parents are so poor as to be unable to pay the school fee, the Board should be allowed to pay it out of the poor rate. This mode of payment would prevent the privilege being abused, for the honest and upright among this class regard it as a great stigma to receive "parish relief" unless they are absolutely compelled.

4.—All persons who neglect to send their children to school, the Board should have power to summon before the magistrate. The punishment should be a fine varying from one shilling upwards. To this, it has been objected, that the poverty of many of the parents will make the imposition of the fine useless, as they would be unable to pay it. But, I believe, the universal dissemination of the fact that the parents commit a criminal act when they deprive their children of education, will have a most deterrent effect; so that offences of this character will soon become uncommon. In Switzerland, out of three thousand parents, only forty were punished for educational offences in eight years.

Lawless children who defy the authority of their parents, and of the Board, should be sent to Industrial Schools. Far better this, than that their wayward wills, unchecked by any restraint, should make the lives of these children a curse to themselves, their parents, the neighbourhood where they dwell, and eventually, in all probability, a curse to their country. The children of professional vagrants should be similarly dealt with, while the children of gipsies and other nomads should be compelled to attend schoool [sic] during the time they are encamped in any locality.

I need not say much to you teachers on the advantages of compulsory education. Almost every child would then be educated, and the education of our country would indeed be national. The poor would not only have—as, alas! too