population, competition and the rise and fall of
wages, were discussed in the same familiar
way. Throughout the lesson, it was evident
that the boys were becoming grounded in
the truths that regulate the life before
them, and that they knew it. They were
learning how they must work, and why they
must work. They were taught at what
points human sympathy should step in, and
does very commonly step in, to smooth the
business intercourse existing between man and
man; how, when a man droops in sickness, or a
labourer becomes infirm, stronger hands
commonly are prompt to do a neighbour's work:
forbearing to deprive him of the hire on which
his bread depends. They learnt in what cases
forbearance should be expected, but they learnt
also that even in such cases it is sometimes
absent; that they must be prepared to do their
duty of forbearance towards others, as the
best foundation for a claim upon forbearance
when they need it for themselves. Fluctuations
of wages that depend on natural causes
they were taught to understand and to accept
as necessary facts, when they might hereafter
occur within their own experience. And thus
in fact these boys were learning what work
means, were trained to help themselves, and
rescued from the unhappy crowd that yet for
many years to come will act to its own hurt
under the guidance of pot-house orators and
pot-house prints. The little flaxen-headed
statesman who dropped from his form when
the lesson was over, and fell into the file for
marching out, standing in his shoes one or
two heads shorter than the boy before him,
will, with Heaven's leave, grow up to be a
workman skilful, industrious, sober, honest,
and punctual. We pictured him to ourselves
as he will be hereafter, with a square bald head,
sitting beside the neatest of wives, and
arguing with his eldest son the question, how
he shall dispose of certain capital into which a
portion of his wages shall have been by that
time converted. It is too much to hope that
he will ever be Prime Minister.

It had struck one o'clock, and when we
came again into the central lecture-room, we
found the children there assembled for the
enjoyment of thirty minutes' rest to their
minds, and preparing to get through a little
labour with their teeth. Pocket-dinners were
produced and eaten. How dear is the savour
of a stew on Saturday; how like a gale of
Eden is the breath of osmazome from the hot
joint of Sunday, to the child who has been
digesting the cold lumpiness of pocket-dinners
for every one of the first five days of the
week. We took leave of the young faces, and
at the door of the London Mechanics'
Institution we found puddles under foot, and a
smoke-coloured rain descending.

No weather could damp our curiosity to
hear a little more of this kind of instruction.
Snatches of it that we had heard, such as
the following, amused and interested us, and
at the same time still piqued our curiosity.

Teacher to Pupil—How many appetites a
day have you? Pupil answers that he has
four appetites; that he likes breakfast, dinner,
tea, and supper. How many does that make
in a year?  the teacher next inquires. Three
hundred and sixty-five times four, which
being worked out on a slab, is found to make
a total for each person of one thousand four
hundred and sixty appetites a-year. The
teacher then wishes to know how many
harvests there are in the year, and is of course
told that there is " only one." Only one
harvest for us all, when each of us has
fourteen hundred and sixty appetites. How can
we all be fed?  The child begins to think,
and answers that the corn is not all eaten at
once, that it is saved, and so the lesson travels
into the wide fields of social economy.

Not very long after our visit to the Birkbeck
School in Southampton Buildings, we
paid an afternoon visit to another school,
established on a plan somewhat similar, in
Holborn. An evening lesson was to be given
by a gentleman who has for some time
devoted all the leisure of an active life to
education of the kind we have described. It
was the gentleman by whom, indeed, the
Birkbeck schools were founded, and by
whose suggestions social science was
included in the list of subjects taught. We
joined, on this latter occasion, a mixed class
of boys and girls, enjoying the mental
discipline provided by an enthusiastic and
accomplished teacher. The children had all
written on their slates, the subject of the
lesson that "not the money wages, but the
amount of commodities that money wages
could procure, ought to engage the attention
of the person by whom wages are received."
After defining, in reply to questions, general
terms, and thoroughly making up their minds
that a shilling when it would buy four loaves
and other food in like proportion, was really
higher wages to the workman than eighteenpence
would be if eighteenpence would only
buy three loaves, a part of the lesson ran
somewhat in the following way:—

If the value of gold should be lowered by
the importations from Australia —"Then,'*
said a brisk girl in a green netted polka
jacket, "there could not be so much food
bought with a sovereign. Real wages would
be lowered." A stout and tall boy, with a
heavy well-formed head, and with a wide
interval between the top of his half boots
and the bottom of his trousers, was of opinion
that in such a case "the workmen would
want more wages."  " Could they be had by
wanting? "  " Well, they would be wanted.
But the change must be gradual. The
proportion between capital and wages never alters
suddenly."  " But when the workmen wanted
wages, would it be enough to want? Who
wants wages most? "  " The man who can't
get them," cried a small voice. "A drunken
man, does he want wages as much as a good
workman? " A shrewd little girl suggested