On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• 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

    buted the rapid increase of * gin palaces * ' Therefore , the ' champions of education have done quite right in appealing to the desire for physical comfort ; inasmuch as , until that physical comfort be obtained , there can be no reasonable expectation of a foundation whereon to begin mental improvement . Mrs . Austin talks of the poverty of German villages , and the contentment of

    the resident teachers ; and she represents the poverty as infinitel y greater than that of many of our working classes . There must be something wrong in this , —for it is almost impossible that poverty should exist at all amongst any number of people possessing the intellect and morality which good training might ensure to those possessed of the average physical capabilities , in most European nations . But the mass of the English people ought not to be blamed for their desire to better themselves : ' to remain content

    in their present miserable condition ' would imply a state of bestial apathy , a state in which no free people should exist . f We must reap as tre sow . ' It is not the writers or ' champions of education / who make the people envious or dissatisfied ; while enduring physical craving , they behold their rulers and all those who are called their superiors , rolling in wealth and luxury ; they behold

    them given up to ' mammon worship , ' without the apparent necessity—they behold them seeking to acquire fresh possessions , already having more than they can consume—they behold them lavishing this property , any how acquired , for the purpose of stimulating their senses , showing their regard for little else save

    physical luxury , and affecting ever , if they do not feel , contempt for all the higher mental pursuits , and treating with proverbial scorn the writers and teachers of the community , who sacrifice all personal advancement to the desire of being useful to their fellows .

    What inference can the people draw from this , but that the first duty of all men is to' get on / meaning thereby , to accumulate money . The fact is , that poverty is the principal source of our national evils ; the extreme poverty of a certain portion of the community , leads every being capable of calculation to reflect on the possibility , that he himself may , perchance , become an inmate

    of the workhouse , and , consequently , his intellectual faculties are principally exerted in contriving means how he himself , both in esse and posse , may become the proprietor of a larger portion of wealth than his neighbours , in order to guard against such a contingency * And thus is engendered a wholesale national

    immorality . ' We must reap as we sow / When those who call themselves the cultivated classes of society , shall show that they value physical comfort only as the means of mental luxury , their poorer brethren will not fail to ' go and do likewise . * A beneficent Creator never formed a sentient being to endure' hopeless misery . When man was condemned to earn his bread b y the sweat of his brow , he had the knowledge of' good and evil * given him , and

    Untitled Article

    792 On the Object * of Popular Education .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1834, page 722, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2638/page/48/