“The first employment to which the little workers are put, is platting straw. When they are au fait at this, which is generally at the end of a few months, they are promoted to some other craft; the one of highest dignity being that of printer. Before leaving school the child will become tolerably expert at three or four trades. Those who work on the farm have each the sole care of a plot of ground, measuring one-eighth part of an acre, and each is required to do his own digging, sowing, manuring, and reaping. An intelligent husbandman, however, is always on the ground, to teach those who are at fault. The plots of land were all clean and in nice order; and from the variety of produce, oats, turnips, mangel-wurzel, potatoes, and cabbages, the whole had a curious and amusing appearance, reminding one of the quilted counterpanes of former years. We found the system of matayer rent in use; each boy being allowed one half of the produce for himself, the other half being paid for the use of the land, the wear and tear of tools, etc. One lad, twelve years old, had in this way received no less a sum than twenty-three shillings and sixpence, as his share of the crop of the preceding year; and we were told that such earnings were by no means uncommon.”
Lady Noel Byron established a school on a similar plan at Ealing, which has been eminently successful. She there educates a number of boys in a manner which must render them far better qualified to fulfil those duties to which they will be called as they grow up, than has yet been done by the old defective modes of England, and especially of English villages. Besides being taught the most useful branches of English education, they work three hours each day, partly for the institution, partly for themselves, in their own gardens. Gardens of a sixteenth of an acre are let to the elder boys at threepence a month; seeds they either buy of their masters, or procure from their friends. Racks for the tools are put up and numbered, so that each boy has a place for his own, and in that he is required to keep them. The objects of this school are to educate children destined for country pursuits, in a manner to make them better workmen, and more intelligent and happy men than is at present the case. For this purpose it was conceived necessary that they should early acquire the habits of patient industry; that they should be acquainted with the value of labour, and know the connexion between it and property; that they should have intelligence, skill, and an acquaintance with the objects with which they are surrounded; that the higher sentiments, the social and moral part of their being, should obtain a full development.
So industriously have the boys laboured, and so well have they succeeded, that their gardens, with few exceptions, present before the crops are harvested, an appearance of neatness and good husbandry. They have all since, either disposed of their vegetables or taken them home to their families. But vegetables are not the only crop; around the borders of each, flowers are cultivated. It is a great matter to induce a taste for, and give a knowledge of, the manner of cultivating flowers. They are luxuries within the power of every person to command.
There is a considerable gaiety and alacrity in all this; the boys learn to sing many cheerful and merry songs. They strike up a tune as they go out in bands to works, and as they return, they do the same.
It is with the greatest satisfaction that I add, similar schools have been established by Mrs. Tuckfield in Devonshire, Mr. James Cropper in Lancashire, and that the Earl of Lovelace has now built a school on the same plan at Ockham in Surrey, where the same course of education will be given to the peasant children of the neighbourhood. The institution in fact, contains three schools, a boy’s, a girl’s, and an infant school. Suitable buildings are in progress for teaching the boys the rudiments of the most common handicraft trades, as shoemaking, tailoring, carpentry, basket-making, etc. The girls are employed at certain hours, in the dairy, the laundry, and in all kinds of household work. For this purpose able masters and mistresses are engaged, who have been prepared by an especial education and long practice for their arduous office. On our first visit to this interesting establishment, though it was far from being completed, we found about 130 children educating in it. It was delightful to see the young chopsticks of this county, where, from generation to generation, the intellect of the working class has long been suffered to lie as dead and as barren as one of their own sand-hills, clustered about the master in the school, answering questions in geography and natural history with as much quickness and obvious delight, as any children of city or of hall could possibly do; their little ruddy faces, no longer indicative only of health and stupidity, but fairly a-blaze with the workings of their minds, the pleasant thirst of knowledge, and the generous emulation of honest distinction. We walked through the house, and found the neat little girls sewing and ironing, cleaning and scouring, engaged in those very avocations which must some day give comfort to their homes. We saw the boys turn out with their spades, and soon found some of them planting forest trees in a nursery-ground, others planting their own gardens; and what delighted us, was to find on the bordering of their garden ground, a string of little flower-beds, belonging to the girls, which carried me at once away to my own school-days and school-garden at Ackworth.
I have not room here to do more than indicate the existence of this most invaluable school, in a part of the country where rural education is so much wanted. And, indeed, where throughout England are not such invaluable schools wanted? The attention of land owners everywhere ought to be called to this patriotic experiment. Let but such schools as those of the late Captain Brenton, William Allen, Lady Byron, and Lord Lovelace, be once diffused throughout the towns and villages of England, and a revolution will be effected, such as never yet was achieved in any country. An educated population; men no longer apt to grow up in the mere consciousness of their animal nature, but made acquainted with their intellectual powers, their moral qualities and social affections; women having the energies of their true character called forth, and taught to give comfort, and the attraction of intelligence to their homes,—then will England truly have “a bold peasantry, their country’s pride.” Brutishness and low debauchery must disappear. All will feel the claims which society has upon them; and all will see that, to attain a common share of the good things of life, they must possess activity, prudence, good management, and perseverance. Who can, indeed, imagine to himself what this country must become, with a population thus judiciously educated, filling its towns, its villages, its fields, and overflowing into our colonies, with the certain and splendid dower of industry and intellectual strength?
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONCLUDING CHAPTER.
She smiles, including in her wide embrace
City, and town, and tower, and sea with ships
Sprinkled; be our companion while we track
Her rivers populous with gliding life;
While, free as air, o’er printless sands we march,
Or pierce the gloom of her majestic woods;
Roaming, or resting under grateful shade,
In peace and meditative cheerfulness.
Wordsworth.