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    also the ^ od-like faculty reason oose betw ee n them . By the exertion of that reason , the whole circle of elemental power is placed within his grasp , and he may , if he chooses , go on till almost his only labour will be that of the mind , for the purpose of directing the operations of nature . Meanwhile , * learn that you

    may get on , is as sound a maxim for the English operatives as it was for Adam , when being ejected from paradise he had to devise the best means of reaping artificial crops at as small an expenditure as possible of the ' sweat of his brow . ' And to the constantly progressing skill of his descendants it is owing , that leisure has ken accumulated for many human minds to exercise the faculty of thinking .

    To return to poverty . Every class in society will give a varying definition of this all-dreaded evil . In the poorer classes , it is the fear of poverty which principally operates ; in those above them it is the shame of poverty . What is poverty ? His Majesty finds poverty in a resignation of the pension list . The

    proud peer will tell you it consists in the inability to rebuild one of his many mansions after the latest fashion , or in being obliged to give up his danseuse and opera-box ! The fat rector will say , it is being obliged to lay down his carriage and horses ! The country squire will tell you it is the exchange of a kennel of fox hounds for a couple of greyhounds . The wealthy tradesman will

    tell you it consists in his change of town-house and countryhouse for a year-round cottage in the suburbs . The retail dealer will tell you it consists in losing his annual visit to a watering-place . The mechanic of large earnings will tell you it consists in losing his hot supper and c grog / and having it replaced by meagre bread and cheese and ' heavy wet ; ' and the

    poor weaver thinks the times very hard indeed when he can no longer afford a salted herring to season his potatoes . But what m poverty ? The rationale of it I take to be this : —privation of any physical appliance which may be necessary to the due cultivation , in the highest degree , of the most noble attribute of the whole creation , the human mind . To suffer the privation of

    warmth , to suffer the privation of cleanly and sufficient clothing , to suffer the privation of wholesome food , to be obliged to reside m a dwelling where the common necessities of nature must ta unpleasantly obtruded on each other , owing to want of space or want of arrangement , to be deprived of books , or of intelligent and moral beings with whom to associate ; to suffer any of these

    pnvations , is poverty ; and , to suffer the whole of them united , as so many of our unfortunate fellows do , is a condition of the West human misery ; and , while any of these wants are ungraded , no human being ought to sit down content . In the words ° fthe benevolent Loud on , r no English working man ought to live in a dwelling which a rational English nobleman mi g ht not u occasion rusticate in with comfort ; and no rational being

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    of to ch On the Objects of Popular Education . f 23

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1834, page 723, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2638/page/49/