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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.
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IBS fntetib gbtce . —The Dangers $ E $$ aiUk . V
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soitfetrrmfc asked ^ i&deed i Woidd the iJigh ^ Chvrch and Ta + y fbftif have token up MeU if he had itbt bten opposed to J ^ ancaster \ P Have they ' not supported him . not because they like the
education of the poor , but because they think that education cramped by the Chufch Catechism is a less evil than education inade religious only by the lessons of the Bible ? — But these questions appeared uncharitable and we dropped them . At length , the
secret begins to be disclosed . XIie orator , Mr . Canning , who is commonly supposed to speak the sense of the worldly-wise men in the country , has discovered that the plots and riots , which were found in the green bag , of seditious and treasonable memory , may perhaps be traced to the education *> f the pG&r I And he drops a significant hint that it rriay be necessary for
the peace of the country to throw the mass of the population back again into barbarism ! He is thus . made to speak in the Morning Chronicle of Saturday , Mareh 15 , in the debate t $ ie night before on the third reading « lt the portentous Seditious Assemblies JBii ) , which , according to Sir Samuel Romiifyy is f € ten ft en in characters of Mood r ~ :
*• One of lh « circumstances peculiar to the present times , the increase of ike inttfiijgencc of the country , was now by . incendiaries turned to a shntcc of poison . He knew that b y some it was doubted whether the press , to which so great a proportion of the pcdple had been recently achwiited , in conseof the
^ erence benevolent efforts Which had been so largely and so successfully made in our times , from an opinion + that the safety of a state depended on its morals and its morals en its education , tea * not a source of greater detri merit tlutn of advantage , Jrom this Iwbitiiy to abuse . There could not in his opinion be a greater
enemy to mankind than he who by jakin ^ advantage of the pressure of the distress of the people , ami the increased means of knowledge placed within their reach , called it in doubt whether the communication of knowledge hud been useful or detrimental to the community . This malignity iVl extent exceeded every otlrer- ^ -it poisoned the well-springs of life—\) c j * alsitfct tfoet-efFortsi of benevolence , aricf tended ' to deprive future generations of
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one of the greatest lil £$ sin&s tohicTi < & nation couta enjoy . . , We have nothing to do with the figures of this oritoi of the Morning Chronicle ; they belong to another department of criticism . We confine
ourselves to the sentiment of the passage , the Suspicion , the more ; than , suspicion , the rising hostility to education , Which it manifests . The press ! This is the engine of mischief . The people ' s press ! this is the threat 7
ening peculiarity of the present times . " The increase of the intelligence of the country , " this is the most " alarming omen in the state of Great Britain . As if " intelligence , as if " the press" could-be upon the
whole-unfavourable to any thing but falsehood , imposture and injustice . As if ignorance would make men more quiet under the acknowledged " pressure of distress . " As if the poor in proportion to their " intelligence" and familiarity with < c the press" Xvere iii
danger of becoming passive tools in . the hands of wicked demagogues . As if at the press the advantage were on the side , not of truth and reason and virtue , but of error and folly and wickedness . As if only bad men could write , and as if in reading the majority of men became weak .
Never in reality was there a more decisive proof , than at the present moment , of the value of the press . The state of the mass of trje people is wretched , not only beyond experience , hut also beyond belief . A large pro-• r % * J " » ft
i portion ot trie passengers on tne roads around the metropolis are beggars , not such beggars as Knglishmen forr merly knew , but beggars whose looks betray their shame , w hose tone reaches to the heart , beggars who are ticketed '
by famine and forced into a degradation nearly as intolerable as death , b y the cries of shivering , brcadless , " p ^ rish JMig children . Yet , whenever was tncre seen such patience ^ such quiet , jsucK respect for the laws ! liie people cannot be seduced even by hunger into tumult ^ . In circi ^ msta / ices that in other times would have converted
the land into one wide scenej of r ^ ot and outrage , there tiave / been no assemblages of tjtye popVila . ce but such as tiie ^ O ^ D ^ oS jSTi'rtJt'ioif of fingland , invites , and nor voicp but tl > at yvhifci ^ tHe CflXL of fejGHT ^ " d eflnatrTdfj anil insists ^ that En | l « shrn % h « n ail Be
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1817, page 182, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2462/page/54/
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