Page:The Slippery Slope.djvu/198

 consider that education is synonymous with the entire State maintenance of children. "Formerly education," he says, "was in the main confined (1) to the growth of character, (2) to the growth of the mind. Now it looks increasingly at the social problems that present themselves for solution in the case of the individual child, the problem of physical deterioration, of under-feeding, of impoverished homes, and unsuitable employment. The State has come to see that it is not sufficient to impart knowledge, but that it must also see that the child is capable of assimilating that knowledge." It is noticeable that not a word is said as to the duties of the parent. The process of acceleration has, in a word, brought us in forty years from State education to State maintenance.

It has always been argued that the various measures of "social reform" which have been referred to would reduce the pressure upon the Poor Law and perhaps altogether do away with the necessity for a Poor Law. They have shown no signs of doing this up to the present. The Unemployed Workmen Act was intended to prevent able-bodied workmen from coming upon the Poor Law, yet the statistics of able-bodied pauperism show no reduction.

The figures for quinquennial periods are as follows: —

Annual Report L. G. B,, 1911, ii., p. 153.

There are many who urge that the Old Age Pensions Act would do away with the necessity for workhouses, yet the figures of indoor pauperism continue to rise.