Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/856

818 services in accordance with the forms of the Church of England, in whose communion he always remained. From the beginning his success was complete, and his chapel soon came to be filled with an audience such as no other preacher in London could boast. During the summer months he made what he called “ gospel-tours” into all parts of the country, sometimes extending them to Scotland and Ireland, and attracted wherever he went audiences as numerous and as interested as those which had crowded to hear Whitfield. After these tours he always returned with increased enthu- siasm to his duties at Surrey Chapel, where he continued to officiate almost to the day of his death, 11th April 1833. The oratury of Rowland Hill, like that of Whitfield, was specially adapted for rude and uncultivated audiences, and it was equally effective although by more varied means. He possessed a voice of great power, and, according to Southey, “his manner” was “that of a performer as great in his own line as Kean or Kemble.” Not unfrequently he violated the laws of good taste in the eccentricities of his wit and humour, but the intensity and purity of the purpose by which he was actuated enabled him always to retain uninjured his moral influence over his andience. Among the various publications of Rowland Hill the best known is his Village Dialogues, which first appeared in 1810, and reached a 34th edition in 1839.

1em  HILL, (1795–1879), author of the penny postal system, a younger brother of Matthew Davenport Hill, and third son of T. W. Hill, who named him after Nowland Hill, the preacher, was born December 3, 17935, at Kidderminster, to which town his father had lately removel from Birmingham. For some years of his child- hood his health was very feeble, and as, on account of an affection of the spine, he had to maintain a recumbent position, his principal method of relieving the irksomeness of his situation was by repeating figures aloud consecutively until he had reached very high totals. A similar bent of mind was manifested when he entered school in 1802, his aptitude for arithmetic and mathematics being quite excep- tional. But if he owed his subsequent eminence to a peculiar natural talent for figures, he was indebted for the (lirection of his abilities in no small degree to the guidance of his father, a man of great force of character and of advanced political and social views, which were qualified and balanced by the strong practical tendency of his mind. At the age of twelve Rowland began to assist in teaching aritb- metic and mathematics in his father’s school at Hilltop, Birmingham, and latterly he had the chief management of the school. On his suggestion the establishment was removed in 1819 to Hazelwood, a more commodious building in the Hagley Road, in order to have the advantages of a large body of boys, for the purpose of properly carrying out an improved system of education. That system, which was devised principally by Rowland, was expounded in a pamphlet entitled Plans for the Government and Educa- tion of Boys in large numbers, the first edition of which appeared in 1822, and a second with additions in 1827. The principal feature of the system was “to leave as much as possible all power in the hands of the boys themselves ;” and it was so successful that, in a circular issued six years after the experiment had been in operation, it was announced that “the head master had never once exercised his right of veto on their proceedings.” This doubtless was in no small degree due to the powerful personality of Rowland Hill, which made itself felt whether he was present or not. The system, it must be admitted, had several features of too utopian a character for the present constitution of society ; but on the whole Rowland Hill, as an educa- tionist, is entitled to a place side by side with Arnold of Rugby, and was equally successful with him in making moral influence of the highest kind the predominant power in school discipline. After his marriage in 1827 Hill removed to a new school at Bruce Castle, Tottenham, which he conducted until failing health compelled him to retire in 1833. About this time he became secretary of Gibbon Wakefield’s scheme for colonizing South Australia, the objects of which he explained in 1832 in a pamphlet on Home Colonies, afterwards partly reprinted during the Irish famine under the title Home Colonies for Ireland. It was in 1835 that his zeal as an administrative refurmer was first directed to the postal system. The discovery which resulted from these investigations is when stated so easy of comprehension that there is great danger of its originality and thoroughness, and its greatness as an element in human progress, being lost sight of. A fact which also enhances its merit was that he wus not a post-oflice official, and possessed no practical experience of the details of the old system. After a laborious collection of statistics he succeeded in satisfying himself and in demonstrating to the world that the principal expense of letter carriage was in receiving and distributing, and that the cost of conveyance differed so little with the distance that a uniform rate of postage was in reality the fairest to all parties that could be adopted. Trusting also that the deficiency in the postal rate would be made up by the immense increase of correspondence, and by the saving which would be obtained from prepayment, from improved methods of keeping accounts, and from lessening the expense of distribution, he in his famous pamphlet pub- lished in 1837 recommended that within the United Kingdom the rate for letters not exceeding half an ounce in weight should be only one penny. The employment of postage stamps is mentioned only as a susgestion, and in the following words :—“ Perhaps the difficulties might be obviated by using a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash which by applying a little moisture might be attached to the back of the letter.” Proposals so striking and novel in regard to a subject in which every one had a special personal interest could not fail to command general atten- tion, and perhaps no pamphlet that ever issued from the press has caused so much and such widespread discussion, or been so speedily effective in promoting reforms in any degree so beneficial to the human race. So great became the pressure of public opinion against the opposition offered to the measure by official prepossessions and prejudices that in 1838 the House of Commons appointed a committee to examine the subject. The committee having reported favourably, a bill to carry out Hill’s recommendations was brought in by the Government. The Act received the royal assent in 1839, and after an intermediate rate of fourpence had been in operation from December 5th of that year, the penny rate commenced January 10, 1840. Hill received an appointment in the Treasury in order to superintend the introduction of his reforms, but he was compelled to retire when the Liberal Government resigned office in 1841. In consideration of the loss he thus sustained, and to mark the public appreciation of his services, he was in 1846 presented with the sum of £13,360. On the Liberals returning to office in the same year he was appointed secretary to the postmaster-general, and in 1854 he was made chief secretary. In these positions, his ability as a practical administrator made itself felt in every department of the postal system, and enabled him to supple- ment his original discovery by practical expedients realizing its benefits in a degree commensurate with continually improving facilities of communication, and in a manner best combining cheapness with efficiency. In 1860 his services were rewarded with the honour of knighthood ;