There is every reason, so far as experiment goes, to suppose that the same effect would follow in England. Where are there men so sober and industrious as those artisans who are now the steadiest frequenters of Mechanics’ Libraries? I have given, in the first chapter of the Nooks of the World, a striking instance of the effects of such reading on an agricultural labourer. Through my instigation several intelligent families have made themselves acquainted with this meritorious man, and speak with admiration of his manly and superior character. Let the experiment be repeated far and wide!
But education itself yet wants introducing to a vast extent into the agricultural districts. The commissioners give a deplorable picture of the neglect of the agricultural population in the counties bordering on the metropolis. In some parts of Essex, Sussex, Kent, Buckinghamshire, Berks, etc., schools of any description are unknown; in others not more than one in fifteen of the labourers are represented as able to read. In this county, Surrey, much the same state of things exists. I have been astounded at the very few labourers that you meet with that can read; and I think I see some striking causes for this neglect of the labouring class in the peculiar state of society here—it has no middle link. A vast number of the aristocracy reside in the county from its proximity to town; and besides these, there are only the farmers and their labourers; the servants of the aristocratic establishments—a numerous and very peculiar class; and the few tradesmen who supply the great houses. The many gradations of rank and property which are found in more trading, manufacturing, and mixed districts do not here exist. It seems as if the Normans and the Saxons had here descended from age to age; two races, distinct in their habits as their condition, and with no one principle of amalgamation. The aristocracy shut themselves up in their houses and parks, and are rarely seen beyond them except in their carriages, driving rapidly to town, or to each other’s isolated abodes. They know nothing, and therefore can feel nothing for the toiling class. The effect is visible enough. The working classes grow up with the sense that they are regarded only as necessary implements of agriculture by the aristocracy—and they are churlish and uncouth. They have not the kindliness, and openness of countenance and manner that the peasantry of more socially favourable districts have. The farmers too seem little to employ them as house-servants, fed at their own table. You do not hear of those jolly harvest-suppers, which you may still find in many old-fashioned places, where master and man feast and rejoice together over the in-gathered plenty. So far as downright rusticity goes, there is as much of that within a dozen miles of London as in the farthest county of England; but the peasants seem to have lost much of the sentiment which those of more distant counties possess. They have their wakes and fairs on their extensive commons and greens, and leap in bags, and have wheelbarrow races, and races of women for certain articles of female apparel, gipsies with their lucky-bags and will-pegs; but as to anything of a poetical cast, I do not see it. What a fall from the funeral train going chanting a psalm on its way to the churchyard, to one which I saw the other day in this neighbourhood. The coffin was laid on a cart, and secured with ropes; one shaggy horse went jostling it along; another cart followed, occupied by the chief mourners, half a dozen of them huddled together, and the rest succeeded on foot, in a rude and straggling company.
In many villages I see no church at all; and where they are seen, how different to the fine old churches of most parts of England. As you cast your eyes over a wide landscape, you look in vain for those tall taper spires and massy towers which rise here and there in most English scenery; and find perhaps somewhere a solitary little erection resembling a little wooden dovecote. The piety of these parts never expended itself much in church-building. The villages themselves are often very picturesque. They are frequently scattered along extensive commons, amidst abundant woods and grey heaths; generally buried in their old orchards, and built with many pictorial angles and projections; often thatched, and consisting of old framed timber-work, or wood altogether, with gardens full of flowers, and goodly rows of beehives. Vines run luxuriantly over their very roofs, and in autumn hang with a prodigality of grapes; and as to the country itself, nothing can be more pastorally and sylvanly sweet than this county. Its grey heaths and pine woods, in one part, remind you of Scotland—its commons, in others, covered with the greenest turf and scattered with oaks, have the appearance of old forests; and wherever you go, you get glimpses into fine woodland valleys, and of old solitary halls standing far off in the midst of them; grey farm houses; old water mills; the most rustic huts; some pastoral stream like the Mole, which goes wandering about through this scenery, fringed with its flags and meadow-sweet, and with its bullrushes bending in its copious stream, as if it were loath to leave it; in short it is a region full of the spirit of the poetry of Keats,—a region lying as it might lie
——————— Before the faëry broods
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods;
Before King Oberon’s bright diadem,
Sceptre and mantle, clasped with dewy gem,
Frighted away the Driads and the Fauns
From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslipped lawns,—
From beechen groves, and shadows numberless.
But the people themselves seem lost in their umbrageous hamlets, and on their commons, unthought of. There is the village of Oxshott, some three miles hence.—Go through it on a Sunday, when the agricultural people are all at leisure, and there they are as thick as motes in the sun, in the middle of the village street. There appears to be no church, nor any inhabitants but farmers and labourers. Boys, girls, men and women, all seem to be out of doors, and all in their every-day garbs. The colour of tawny soiled slops and straw-hats gives, as a painter would say, the prevailing tint to the scene. The boys are busy enough playing at ball, or cricket. The men seem to pass their time sitting on banks and stiles, or gossiping and smoking in groups. Scarcely a soul will move out of the way to let you pass on. The intellectual condition of this obscure hamlet is strikingly indicated to every passer through, by a large school-house bearing on its front, cut in stone, this proud title—“The Royal Kent School, founded in 1820;”—but which has been since so far confounded, that its windows are broken to atoms, and it is at once recent and in ruins! This state of things should not be suffered to continue. The vast wealth of the aristocracy living hereabout, and the ignorance around them, very ill accord. Amongst the affluent families in the county, there are, no doubt, many who would be anxious to secure an education to the rural children, if they actually knew that it was needed! In the village of Esher this has recently been done: let us hope that other places will “go and do likewise.”[35]
[35] I am told by intelligent people, who have spent the greater part of their lives here, that the farmers are particularly jealous of the peasantry receiving any education,—they conceive it would spoil them as beasts of burden. This shews what is the deplorable ignorance of this class, too, of the rural population.
Since writing the above, I have met with the following statements, in Mr. Frederick Hill’s excellent work on National Education. They are in his account of Mr. William Allen’s School of Industry at Lindfield, in Sussex; and are, at once, most confirmatory of the view I have taken of the state of things in this county, and of the remedy to be applied. To benevolent and wealthy landed proprietors they are full of encouragement.
“We visited the school at Lindfield, in July 1831, and it had then been established several years. Before fixing on the spot where to build his school, Mr. Allen sent an intelligent young man on a tour through the county, to find out where a school was most wanted. After a diligent search, Lindfield was pitched upon as the centre of a district in which the peasantry were in a very low state of ignorance. Lindfield is on the road from London to Brighton; distant from London about thirty-seven miles, from Brighton fifteen.
“Not only did Mr. Allen receive no assistance in building his school, but most of the wealthy inhabitants endeavoured to thwart him; while among the peasantry themselves, the most preposterous stories were afloat respecting his designs. These poor people had been so little accustomed to see persons act from other than selfish motives, that they could not believe it possible that any one would come and erect a large building, at great cost and trouble to himself, merely from a desire of promoting their good. They felt sure that all this outlay was not without some secret object; and at last they explained all, much to their own satisfaction, by referring it to the following notable project.—The building was to be applied to the diabolical purpose of kidnapping children; a high palisade was to be thrown up all round it, and other measures taken to prevent entrance or escape. Then the school was to be opened, and every thing carried on smoothly, and with great appearance of kind and gentle treatment, until such a number of children had been collected as would satisfy the rapacious desires of the wretches who had hatched the wicked scheme; when all at once the gates were to be closed upon them, and the poor innocents shipped off to some distant land!
“Greatly indeed must a school have been wanted where such unheard-of absurdity could circulate and obtain credence. At length the building, a most substantial and commodious one, was completed, though few indeed were those who at once ventured within the dreaded bounds. However, by dint of perseverance, this number was gradually increased. The few children who did come, began in a short time to take home with them sundry pence, which they had earned in plaiting straw, making baskets, etc.; arts they were learning at school. The boys began to patch their clothes and mend their shoes, without their parents having a penny to pay for the work. Meanwhile there came no authentic accounts of ships lying in wait on the neighbouring coast, nor had even the dreaded iron palisades raised their pointed heads. Little by little, the poor ignorant creatures became assured that there was nothing to fear, but, on the contrary, much practical good to be derived from sending their children to the school; and that strange and incredible as it might seem, the London ‘gemman’ was really come among them as a friend and benefactor. A breach being thus fairly made in the mud-bank of prejudice, it was not long before the whole mass gave way. In short, the scheme proved so completely successful, that at the time we visited the school, almost every child whose parents lived within a distance of three miles, was entered as a pupil, the total number on the list being no less than 300. The children are at school eight hours each day; three being employed in manual labour, and five in the ordinary school exercises. There is a provision for a diversity of tastes in the classes of industry; indeed the most unbounded liberality is manifest in all the arrangements. Some are employed as shoemakers, others as tailors, and others again, at platting, basket-making, weaving, printing, gardening, or farming. The children work very cheerfully, and are found to like the classes of industry better than the school.