On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
him . We had not forgotten the eminent merits of the writer ; but we have now to add explicitly , that he is a warm friend to the principle of Association , and a valuable coadjutor in making it universally known and undeistood ; as he has heen enabled to do in the pages of a -widely circulated and influential journal—Le National *
Untitled Article
ELLIS ON EDUCATION AND DESTITUTION . Education as a means ofpreventing Destitution ; with Exemplifications from the teaching of the Conditions of fVeUbeing and . the Principles and Applications of Economical Actence at th- j Birkbeck Schools . By William Ellis . Author of the " Outlines of Social Economy . " Smith , fclder , and Co . Mb . Ellis is known as an active and benevolent philanthropist and an energetic worker in the great cause of Education . He is entitled to a hearing on
this subject ; for he is not only practically acquainted with it , but has unusual powers of pleasant and popular exposition . We must allow him to ride his hobby ; we must allow him to recognize in Education the panacea for all social malady—an error we might almost call " respectable , " if error were not necessarily pernicious to the extent of its wanderings from the truth—and having made this allowance ^ we can listen to all he says with pleasure ,
if not always with assent . In the highest and widest sense of the word , it may with truth be said that Education is the great remedy to which society must look ; but it is derisory to say that instruction in the elements of useful knowledge and moral wellbeing can lift the great burden from the People ' s back , unless concurrently with this mental improvement of the Workman there takes place a moral and intellectual revolution in the Employing Classes .
Educate Society ; teach it the true principles of Social wellbeing for masses in lieu of classes j train it intellectually and morally to a more perfect fulfilment of the Social law ; supply the present anarchy of opinions by one dominant Faith—and then , indeed , the evil we complain of will disappear . But this is Socialism ? Alas , yes ! It has that ugly name labelled round its neck , and as the College of Physicians insist upon calling it Poison , a very explicable aversion to take it is the
consequence . Mr . Ellis is an Educationist . No Socialist he . He wants to have the People educated ; but he wants society to preserve all its present conditions except the evils—which inevitably and irresistibly gr / nv out of those conditions . ' He believes sincerely that these evils are not necessary consequences of the conditions—he believes they arise from want of Education . We hold another opinion . If every
man you met were a Pinnock or a Peter Parley ( other conditions remaining the same ) , society would still present most of the sources of unhappineas which disquiet it . Mr . Ellis does not seem to make sufficient allowance for the want of food , which is the motor of so much wrong ! Man does not live by bread alone—but he must , as a preliminary , have bread ; and it is the want thereof which makes the social problem so complex . Can that want be satisfied ? One set of Economists
answers , " No ; there is over population ; at the Banquet of Nature no knife and fork is reserved for late corners . " Another set of Economists answers , " Yes ; by concert in the division of employments , by men working for each other in a friendly , instead of in a hostile , spirit , abundance for all might easily be obtained . " Hut they are " Socialists " - —so we will not listen to their Utopian schemes .
la a clear , excellently written essay , Mr . Ellis givca us bis views on ( Competition it is one of the neatest little tracts we have read on that subject . Our disagreement is fundamental . Consider the present state of things as final—believe that Humanity bus exhausted all its evolutions , and in now consolidating itself without fear of ulterior change —believe this and Mr . KHis in unanswerable . I Jut we do not believe it ; we believe the directly opposite ! of ii . ; and , therefore , bin positions , iuwtcad of being impregnable ; , are erected in one of the provincial towns , while we are attacking the very (' apitnJ itself . An , however , it in our pride to bo impartial , as we wish our readers always to hear both Hides of the question when practicable , wt : will select the strongest passages from Mr . Kllis'w
defence of Competition : — " Hut what is this competition ? — wlmt arc its attribute wunl capabilities , either for Rood or ior evi ? We will not out , oil our travels for tho purrxwo of collating answers to these question * from men of practical rxporioiuMS who , a » eye-witnesses , m » y *>» BunnoHc-d best qualified to gratify our curiosity und < mh K hteu our ignorance . Wo will step mto ou fcuetiou-room , und there we shall btt told tliat competition raises nriccB . Wo will attend at tho opening
of the sealed tenders which are sent in for the supply of a workhouse or of some branch of the public service , and there we shall be told that competition lowers prices . When we hear of a number of displaced or unplaced labourers striving to insinuate themselves among others who are employed , we hear at the same time that competition lowers wages . When we hear of manufactories starting into existence under the auspices of enterprising capitalists , we hear at the Bame time that competition raises wages . In like mariner we are told that competition lowers rents , profits , and interest ; and also that it raises them . Ought we to believe all that we hear ? Are all these wonders that are attributed to the influence of competition possible and credible ? Or are they contradictory and impossible , and therefore incredible .
•? Again , we ask « What is competition ? ' Our inquiries abroad having led to nothing conclusive , let us now inquire at home , and marshal our own thoughts and subject them to a course of strict examination . Whence are our notions of competition derived ? Whence , but from our observation of the thoughts and wishes and conduct of those whom we consider competing men ? What we know of competing men may be narrated in very few words . As buyers in an auction-room , they wish to buy at the lowest possible price ; as prospective tenants of a farm , they wish to obtain possession at the lowest possible rent ; as borrowers of capital , they wish to pay the lowest possible rate of interest for the loan ; as hirers of labour ? they wish , to pay the lowest possible wages . Yet those very persons , whose wishes are all in one direction—that of obtaining what they
want on the lowest terms , are the persons whose acts are said to lead to results directly the reverse of what they wish , viz ., to raising the terms . On the other hand , competing tradesmen , privately pondering upon the prices at which they will tender to ptovide supplies ; competing landlords , on the look-out for tenants ; competing workmen , seeking for employment ; competing lenders of capital , longing to be put in communication with substantial borrowerswishing , as they all do , to obtain the highest termsare the persons whose acts are said to lead to the lowering of what they wish to be high . " One would fancy it must sound a little strange to those who have habituated themselves to the notion
that competition is largely instrumental in producing misery , to hear that competing men . are not only acting in different directions , but that they are always acting in a direction opposite to that of their own wishea . But something yet stranger remains to be presented to them . Amidst what is called the strife of competition , a good harvest causes the price of corn to fall , as a bad harvest causes it to rise ; a population rapidly increasing in civilization and numbers causes r nts to rise , as a population retrograding in civilization and numbers would cause them to fall ; capital increasing more rapidly than the numbers of a people will make wages rise ; while an increase of the numbers of a people , rnoie rap id than the increase of capital , will make wages fall ; where capital earns large profits ? the rate of interest is high , and where capital earns but small -profits the rate of
interest is low . " Man , in whatever part of the world we find him , is as much a competing animal as we know him to be at home . But his competition seems to be exercised in the midst of very different results . If , tor example , we compare the United States and Australia with the United Kingdom , we observe competition , in the two first , accompanied by low rents and low prices of raw produce , and by high wages , high rates of profit and interest , and high prices of manufactured articles ; while in the United Kingdom , competition is accompanied by high rents mid high prices of raw produce , und by low wages , low rates of profit and interest , und low prices of manufactured articles . " Mr . Ellis thinks that all the miseries attributable to Competition should be rather credited to
incapacity or misconduct .: — " A working-man , unpossessed of capital , or whose capabilities can be turned to the beat account in alii * unco with tho capital of other * , hus , through a long course of active service , established a character for usefulness among tho employers in his department of industry . They compete lor the purchase of his ^ labour , lie obtains comparatively high wng <; t » . The employer who obtains his preference , cither through mismanagement , or some vicissitude of trade that he had been unequal to struggle against , is obliged ' to Mispcml his work , and to dinehnrge l » i « workmen . Other employers arc eager to secure the servicen of so valuable a man . Surely il is a more- truthful expression to say that this workman ' s success is owing to his own merit rather than to the competition of employers .
"Agniu , other working . men , cither through indo-Iwicc , ignorance , unnkilluliicHH , dihhoncsiy , uiipuncluulit , y , drunkcmicHH , or recklessness , fuil to inspire capitalists with a notion that their labour can be regularly turned to account . ( Some of them , however , will obtain omployment , hut will noon lose it by their ill conduct . When they lo » o it , tho cuuso of their ho lowing it being no secret , other capitalists are slow
to purchase what has little or no value . The whole class of such men become the casual labourers of society—the labourers who in the convulsive movements of industrial employment are apt to be thro wn aside unthought of , and uncared for . They compete among one another for the scanty and casual wages that are still hoped for , although difficul t to be obtained . Their competition may assume a most hideous form—it may resemble the ferocious struggle of a pack of wolves for the small scrap of a single carcass . The wages , when obtained , are miserabl y low , constant employment is obtainable by none and ^ not even casual by all ; and misery is gene ral among them . Surely this misery is more correctl y attributable to the character than to the competition of the workmen . "
We will endeavour to bring to light the fallacy that lies here . Because good workmen , by reason of their scarcity , are seldom out of employ , and because they are competed for , it is thought that Competition is a benefit . But we ask Mr . Ellis to consider the problem as it would present itself were his views realized : —An enormous population of excellent workmen , intelligent , sober , honest , are in receipt of good wages , a " glut" comes , owing
to the want of any " concert , " manufacturers are forced to lower wages , and finally to shut up their Mills—all tbe men are thrown out of employ ; will their being intelligent , sober , and honest , keep them from starving ? Not under present conditions . Raising the population to Mr . ElHs * s standard would not feed it ; and the primary question is how to get food . Moreover , when Mr . Ellis says that the misery is attributable to the character of the workmen , he should also ask what conditions have made
the workmen ignorant , improvident , intemperate , and he will find that here also the questions of Food and Competition meet him on the threshold . We do not , therefore , agree with Mr . Ellis in believing Education to be the means of preventing Destitution , nor do we believe in the finality of Competition ( though we admit the useful part it has played and continues to play ) , but we fully agree with him when he says : —
"It being once conceded that education , in some one of the many forms in which it is conceived , ought to be accessible to every individual ; no excuse can justify our tolerating a state of things where this education is practically inaccessible to large masses of the people , To grant that education is indispensable for all , is to crant that the withholding it from some is an act of revolting atrocity . If the question were not the educating , but the feeding , of the people ; and while it was admitted on all hands that the people ought to le st not eat
be fed , some contended that the peopmu fish , nnd others , that they must not eat meat what would be thought of the sense or humanity of those who should be prepared to leave the people without bread , till it could be agreed whether this bread should be combined with fish or flesh , or some dish made by an impossible compromise of the two ? Are there any ingredients that can be considered as the fannaceo parts of education ? Doubtless there are ; and be ouis the task to enumerate them . Once clearly seen a , d understood , he who could think of withholding- them from the people would be a monster , —let us ftopt »
fabulous monster . . " To drop metaphor-the most cursory K'ancc . what it is agreed ought to be taught everywhere , w J suffice to satisfy us that there is some unanimity the midst of antagonism . For e xample , in ai < - « catioual schemes it is agreed that reading , *»"'«• arithmetic , geography , and elementary menauratioi and astronomy , should be taught ; and , despite u contradictory views as to the means to be used I 0 . it is lens uii
accomplishment of what is desired , no , . mously admitted that attention ought to be < ^ to the formation of habits of industry , eco ™™ y *™ bricty , trustworthiness , punctuality , and orderiy ^^ ^ duct . Basing the inquiry , in which I in , / iably accompany mo , upon this unanimity u , ' ' - existing to a certain extent , and desirable to ay , ' I shall endeavour to draw forth a little more ini o ^ what , us I conceive , ought to be " Y < : r > sull ^ 1 ( . f r 0 in upon as essentials in education , turning a * i ' lt those other portions of education , however imp ^ they maybe , upon which differences of opm' » _ of such strength , and , perhaps , so deep « caic »
be ineradicable ! in our time . " t , When iu Kdinburgli w « visited a Secular > c * ° ^ the pupils of winch were taken from the » an ( i and were much struck by observing the inw . i intelligence excited in them by Mr . Oeorffe < 'o n ^ admirable exposition of ph ysiological ami a truths . From what we saw there we arc pi l to endorse the following passage : — r Teaching is tho means that muat bo ' ^ j ^ "th * uiving the knowledge , and training for lorin » H disposition . These two K ™ it educational lunc cannot be BeparuteJ . They proceed »» «» " »| ' *^ Jip us or ill performed , for good or for evil . Bu *" . * in to discriminate bBtwfcen what may be goooror u
Untitled Article
970 &f ) £ 9 Lfa& £ t \ tSATURDAY ,
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 11, 1851, page 970, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1904/page/14/
-