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Untitled Article
freedom from want ; and that if a single individual in it has to complain that he cannot obtain remunerating employment , there must be some defect in the social state . I acknowledge that the term remunerating' is somewhat vague , and I intend it to mean such employment as will enable a moderately industrious
man to be in a constant progression towards bettering liis condition , from whatever low point he may have started . That the whole of the human race may be placed in such situations I have not the slightest doubt , but I confess that , from a long course of misgovernment , the problem , in our own country , is become somewhat difficult to solve , in consequence of the mass of poverty , and its accompaniment , ignorance , which has been for a long period
suffered to accumulate . We can now see plainly enough how it has been prevented in another country . The Atlantic , or old states of North America , have produced the elements , or springs of poverty in a far greater number than this country , in the shape of a rapid increase of population ; but there these springs , as fast as they appeared , have found space to run off and diverge from the fountain-head , and , in thousands of rills , to fertilize the new
meadows through which they have meandered : here , they have met with and obstructed each other in their course , and , for want of a sufficient number of separate and distinct channels , before they reached the sea , have accumulated into a mighty lake of human poverty , which , unless it is skilfully drained , will ultimately overwhelm the whole country in a general ruin .
I do not say that employment for the whole population might not have been found within our own limited boundaries , by wise legislation , under the loissez-nous faire system , or that it may not still be done ; but unfortunately there is little hope of such legislators being found , unless chosen more directly by the people ; and the intellect of this same people has been by former
governors * ( by the sins of omission and commission ) so destroyed or brutalized , that the poorer classes are not at present fit to choose new ones . Our only hope must , therefore , rest on placing the rising generation under better auspices—in directing their education to good instead of evil . I give a much more extensive meaning to the term g education' than is generally understood , and I consider the whole of mankind as going through even a
regular course from the moment they are born . Look through any large city , and say if there are not organized schools for the different departments of swindling , picking pockets , stealing , house-breaking , &c . &c , in which the course is conducted under a more rigid examination than even at our universities . Now these eleves can be more easily taught to obtain the same object by honest means , if we could once get them into our schools , and
* Under this term I comprehend all those who have exercised a control orer the operative classes , whether king , lords , commons , clergy , corporations , conservative , &c , &c , their retainers and followers .
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On tke Pro $ pecis of the PeopJ * . £ 7
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1833, page 97, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2608/page/29/
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