In the School-Room: Chapters in the Philosophy of Education

by John S. Hart

In 1840, in 20 counties of England and Wales, with a population of 8,724,338, there were convicted of crime only 59 educated persons, or one for every 147,870 inhabitants. In 32 other counties, with a population of 7,182,491, the records furnished not one convict who had received more than the merest elements of instruction.

In 1841, in 15 English counties, with a population of 9,569,064, there were convicted only 74 instructed persons, or one to every 129,311 inhabitants, while the 25 remaining counties and the whole of Wales, with a population of 6,342,661, did not furnish one single conviction of a person who had received more than the mere elements of education.

In 1845, out of a total of 59,123 persons taken into custody, 15,263 could neither read nor write, and 39,659 could barely read, and could write very imperfectly.

In the four best taught counties of England, the number of schools being one for every seven hundred inhabitants, the number of criminal convictions was one a year for every 1108 inhabitants. In the four worst taught counties, the number of schools being one for every 1501 inhabitants, the number of convictions was one a year for every 550 inhabitants. That is, in one set of counties, the people were about twice as well educated as in the other, and one half as much addicted to crime. In other words, in proportion as the people were educated, were they free from crime.

Thrift and good morals usually keep pace with the spread of intelligence among the people. This has been the result in all those countries of Europe where good common schools are maintained, as in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and most of the German States. Pauperism, with its attendant evils and crimes, is almost unknown in those countries, while in England, where the common people are worse educated than those of any Protestant nation in the world, pauperism has become an evil which her wisest statesmen have given up as unmanageable. In 1848, in addition to hundreds of persons assisted by charitable individuals, no less than 1,876,541 paupers (one out of every eight of the population!) were relieved by the boards of guardians of the poor, at an expense from the public purse of nearly thirty millions of dollars.

In our own country, the same pains have not been taken to collect statistics on this subject, because comparatively little controversy about it has existed here to call forth inquiry. We as a people have generally taken it for granted that popular education lessens crime and pauperism. Still, facts enough have been recorded to show the same results here as elsewhere. When an educated villain is convicted, like Monroe Edwards or Professor Webster, the fact becomes so notorious by means of the press, that it is unconsciously multiplied in our imagination, and we think the instances more numerous than they really are. We never think of the scores of obscure villains that are convicted every week all the year round. A quotation or two from the facts which have been recorded, will be sufficient to satisfy us on this point.

In the Ohio penitentiary, out of 276 inmates, nearly all were reported as ignorant, and 175 as grossly so.

In the Auburn prison, New York, out of 244 inmates, only 39 could read and write.

In the Sing Sing prison, no official record has been made on this point. But the Rev. Mr. Luckey, for more than twenty years chaplain of the prison, is obliged by the prison regulations to superintend and read all the letters between the prisoners and their friends. In this manner he becomes personally acquainted with the condition of the convicts in regard to education. He reported a few months since to the writer of these pages, that while there are always some among the convicts who have been educated, yet the great mass of them are stolidly ignorant. There are usually between one and two hundred learning to read, and this does not include the half of those who are unable to read, as the attendance upon the class is voluntary, the accommodations are meagre, and most of the prisoners are indifferent to their own improvement. Not five in a hundred can write otherwise than in the most clumsy and awkward manner, and with the grossest blunders in orthography, and not more than two in a hundred can write a sentence grammatically. Out of the 700 then in prison, only three were liberally educated, and two of these were foreigners.

Throughout the State of New York, in 1841, the ratio of uneducated criminals to the whole number of uneducated persons was twenty-eight times as great as the ratio of educated inhabitants.