inability to supply those first necessaries to the
mind? And what are those first necessaries?
And in what way is the State  to interfere for
their supply? These are the main questions of
national education,  and each of them, especially
the last, breaks up into subordinate questions
of all kinds.

In strict truth, extreme poverty of wit in the
parent is quite as disabling as extreme poverty
of purse. A labourer, says Mr. Senior, once
complained to me that his "children turned out
ill; "and yet," he said, "there is not a better
father than I in the parish. I beats them whenever
I  gets sight of them; I beats them as I
would not beat a dog."  He had picked up very
literally and quite conscientiously, the notion
that sparing ot the rod was spoiling of the child.
One must let these people live and learn, and
die and leave their places in the world to others
who have learnt. If we admit a right of
interference on the ground of poverty of wit and stupidity
of discipline in the parent, we may send
the children of the nobleman into the national
school, together with the children of the hodman.

Besides, it will be said, the wealthy man,
even when desperately stupid, does send his
children to be taught and to get knowledge of
a great deal more than the first necessaries of a
rational life. We are not absolutely sure of that,
although we do not doubt that he gives his son
knowledge of a good deal more than reading,
writing, and arithmetic. Education, we need
hardly say, consists not only in the transfer of
certain facts out of one mind into another, but
implies, together with that communication of
knowledge, the communication of a habit and a power
of self-teaching, and of applying all that is learnt
to the sustainment of the mind, and to the
fitting of it for healthy work in the performance
of the real duties of life.

So, when we come to that third question as to
the limit and manner of the State's interference
for the education of the children who may not
be suffered to depend alone on the endeavours of
their parents, while we admit, obedient to a
rough necessity, no mark of disability except
absence of money, we need not assume that if
the State teaches reading, writing, and arithmetic,
it educates. Everything with which a child
comes into contact is an influence, and the
character of the educational influence is not, we
think, considered so much as it ought to be
when some schemes of public instruction are
commenced. For example, it is easier to impart
knowledge in a large school than in a small one.
Out of a large number of children those most
nearly equal in attainment can be picked off into
twenties, and each twenty can be taught as one,
while in a small school containing only twenty
scholars, the diversities of power and knowledge
are so great that any attempt to teach that
twenty as a class, would result in bewilderment
of six for every one who might chance to be at
the exact level of the manner of instruction
used. But is it desirable that twenty should be
taught as one? Is it a mistake, in family life,
that children who were to live and be trained
together, should be bom to a household in
successive years and exercise the influence of
diversity of age and knowledge, as well as of
character, upon each other: when it might have
been disposed that the children to be born to
any household should all come into the world
together and grow up of equal age, and with
exactly equal wit, so that they would all learn
the same things, at the same rate, from the
same book? Is there not more lost than is
gained by the too accurate use of any such
system ot mental drill?

In discussing questions of popular education,
it is rightly suggested by Mr. Senior, in his
book entitled " Suggestions on Popular Education,"
that we are not to underrate the cost to
a labourer of educating children, by forgetting
to add what he foregoes, to what he pays. In
many manufactures a child can earn money at
six or seven years old. Between nine and eleven,
when it is most desired to have the child at
school, he may earn from eighteen-pence to five
shillings, according as he works in the country
or in towns, No labourers are better paid
than those of the West Riding, but they cannot
afford more than threepence a week in aid
of the teaching of their children. When the
payment is raised to fourpence, there is
diminution of the number sent.

Another consideration is, that we have
frequent over-estimate of the number of untaught
children in England. The whole number of
children in England and Wales, between the
ages of three and fifteen, is about five millions.
After deductions, there remain about three
millions and a half, children of the poorer classes,
to be educated by their own parents or by the
public. But only about three-fifths of the
school-children attend for six years; and there
remain only the other two-fifths—for the ages
before six and after twelve. Therefore the
number of uneducated children does not reach
half a million, and that for those to be taught,
about two hundred and eighty thousand
to be in school at the same time. That, therefore,
is the whole number for which school
accommodation has yet to be found.

How shall we find it, and how bring the
untaught to the schoolmaster? The Privy Council
grants to the schools of England and Wales,
or expends on their maintenance, a little more
than half a million, or about five hundred and
seventy-two thousand pounds a year; with a
further sum of about fifty-five thousand for the
machinery of centralisation or inspection. If an
education rate were made to do the same work,
that money now paid out of the five hundred
millions of general income, would have to be
taken out of the eighty millions of rateable
income, and not that money only. The vote
would destroy the voluntary subscription now
encouraged, and met by the grant, so that two
millions instead of about half a million would be
the sum required; in other words, an education
rate of sixpence in the pound upon all
incomes derived from real property. That method
would excite an antagonism which the present