going on; and the milk-maids were about to issue from the cowhouse, and wend homewards. What was Lilly's surprise, on reaching the house, to hear the joyous laughter of her son issuing from within! Could she believe her ears? She had expected to find him bursting with grief, and pining in bitter solitariness. Another scream of laughter! It is her child's voice, there can be no mistaking it. Bessie was equally astonished, and, turning to Lilly, smiled meaningly in her face. The two then walked onwards to the porch, and as they passed the window, through which the cheerful light of the kitchen-fire streamed brightly, they could not help peeping in, and their eyes were instantly riveted by the scene that met their view. Little Dick sat on his grandfather's knee, the old man holding him lovingly in the hollow of his right arm, while in his left hand he held his watch, from which dangled a bunch of seals, which he swung to and fro before the child, who shouted with joy when he had caught them; and then the old man stroked the child's head, patted him on the hands, and kissed him on the cheek, the boy meanwhile as happy as a king. The two women approached the door, and Lilly's knock was answered by a loud "Come in." As she entered, Bessie in the shade behind her, the old man looked at the stranger in her widow's cap-still fair and comely, though with the traces of deep grief upon her face-as if inquiring her business. She spoke at once"I have come, sir," she said, but the words were no sooner out of her mouth than the boy almost leapt from his grandfather's knee, and ran towards his mother, calling her fondly by name. The old man at once knew that his deceased son's widow stood before him, in his own house, and for the first time! "I have come, sir," she said, "not for myself, but for my child. I must take him home with me, though I thank you for your kindness to him, which I have just seen, and the sight has touched my heart. But I am his mother, and I was charged by one whose memory I shall ever revere," here a tear trickled over her cheek, "to bring him up tenderly and lovingly; and therefore I must take him home again." "It must not be," said the old man, "I love the child, so let this be his home henceforward. He reminds me of past times, and makes my heart feel young again. Leave him to me, I beseech you. I tell you I love the lad, and he will be a blessing to me in my old age." "I am sorry to say no, but I cannot, must not, part with the boy. Though he is your grandchild, he is my I love him and shall cherish him as a mother only can do, but I also love him the more for his dead father's son. Bake." "Was Speak not of him," said the old man, sobbing. "Why should I not?" said Lilly, earnestly. he not tender, kind, and good, and honoured by all? Ab, sir, could you but know the affection he bore for you, and how it cut him to the heart that you should have cast him and us off from your love! But you never can know now." The old man hung down his head but spoke not. "He died at peace with all men and with you. He would have wished to hear one kind word from you in his last hour, but you had repulsed him, and left him no room to hope that you would ever be reconciled again. He wished to tell you that though he had never once rued marrying me-for we were happy, and I tried to be a patient, loving wife-yet he was wrong to cross you as he did-" "God bless him! Ah!" he cried, "but 'tis too late. I was cruel-yes! let me confess it to you, woman whom I have wronged. I was hard-hearted, unkind, and inconsiderate, with my poor son." And as he sobbed aloud, the child clung to his mother as if in fear. "I was cruel and stubborn, and the devil edged me on. This cursed pride of mine was hurt, and it has been my torture and agony. I killed him-alas, alas! my lost son! may God forgive me for my crime!" "Grieve not so, dear father-will you let me call you by that name ? "Bless you, my daughter, come to my arms. Kiss me, my children." And Lilly hung round the old man's neck, and the child came between his knees and looked up kindly in his face; and Bessie cried for very fulness of joy. So reconciliation and peace came to all at last. The old man's heart was righted again; and though often agonized by remorse, he tried to supply to the widow and her family the loss they had sustained, and make up for the suffering he had caused to his son by his tender care for those he had left behind him. Happily they lived together for many years under the same roofthough Bridget's dream was over, and she ceased to be of the group-and the old man at last closed his eyes in peace, with Lilly by his side. ACTS OF KINDNESS. In the intercourse of social life, it is by little acts of watchful kindness recurring daily and hourly—and opportunities of doing kindnesses if sought for are for ever starting up,-it is by words, by tones, by gestures, by looks, that affection is won and preserved. He who neglects these trifles, yet boasts that, whenever a great sacrifice is called for he shall be ready to make it, will rarely be loved. The likelihood is, he will not make it ; and if he does, it will be much rather for his own sake, than for his neighbour's. Many persons, indeed, are said to be penny-wise and pound-foolish! but they who are penny-foolish will hardly be pound-wise; although selfish vanity may now and then for a moment get the better of selfish indolence. For wisdom will always have a microscope in her hand.--Guesses at Truth. THE PAST AND THE FUTURE. The world has arrived at a period which renders it the part of fashion to pay homage to the prospective precedents of the Future, in preference to those of the Past. The Past is dead, and has no resurrection; but the Future is endowed with such a life, that it lives to us even in anticipation. The Past is, in many things, the foe of mankind; the Future is, in all things, our friend. the past, is no hope; the Future is both hope and fruition. The Past is the text-book of tyrants; the Future, the Bible of the free; those, who are solely governed by the Past stand, like Lot's wife, crystallized in the act of looking backward, and for ever incapable of looking forward.-White Jacket. SELF-DECEPTION. For bits of broken glass are his own merits and fortunes, and Many a man has a kind of kaleidoscope, where the they fall into harmonious arrangements and delight him, often most mischievously and to his ultimate detriment, but they are a present pleasure.-Friends in Council. The hair of the artist turns white, but his eye shines clearer than ever, and we feel that age brings him maturity not decay. So it would be with all, were the springs of immortal refreshment but unsealed within the soul; there they would see from the lonely chamber window, the glories of the universe; or, shut in darkness, be visited by angels.-M. Fuller. "What are those teeth for grandmamma?" said little Red Riding-Hood to the Wolf. "What are those laws for?" might many a simple man ask in like manner of his rulers and governors. And in sundry instances, I am afraid, the Wolf's answer would not be far from the truth.-Guesses at Truth. 144 HOPE FOR THE BEST. It smileth at shadows and fears, Dispel the dark yoke from your breast; Will do little in guiding us back, Meet misfortune as you would a stranger; But meet the foe full in the face! ON SEEING WILD FLOWERS SOLD IN A TOWN. With the balmy breath of summer skies, Far away-in the dingles wild, No ruder touch on your beauty fell, Each fragile bell was a polished cup, Or graceful goblet of crystal dew, Where the moonbeams slept at night! Oh, sad it was from those green sweet bowers, To the city's glare, and heat, and dust, Your slender stalks are drooping low, And your fragrant blossoms pass from earth, But if one home, 'mid the thousands here, If ye speak of forest, hill, or stream, If your odours cheer the desolate heart, That fram'd the glorious lily flower, Then is not your radiance wasted, Or your perfume vainly given; But bright gifts brought from earth's festal bowers, LUCINDA ELLIOTT, DIAMOND DUST. WE are too apt to mistake the echoings of our own vanity for the admiration and applause of the world. THOSE Who have had the most forgiven them should be the least addicted to slander. THE nerve which never relaxes, the eye which never blenches, the thought which never wanders-these are the masters of victory. NOTHING Controls men so much as the placid brow and untrembling lip. POVERTY is the only load which is the heavier, the more loved ones there are to assist in supporting it. EITHER the future or the past is written in every face, and makes us, if not melancholy, at least mild and gentle. CHILL penury weighs down the heart itself, and though it sometimes be endured with calmness, it is but the calmness of despair. OVER-EARNEST asseverations give men suspicion that the speaker is conscious of his own falsities. WHOEVER arrogates to himself the right of vengeance shows how little he is qualified to decide his own claims, since he demands what he would think unfit to be granted to another. A FOOL never has thought; a madman has lost it; and an absent man is, for the time, without it. Or all others, a studious life is the least tiresome; it makes us easy to ourselves and to others, and gains us both friends and reputation. SOME people are never quiet, others are always so, and they are both to blame; for that which looks like vivacity and industry in the one is only a restlessness and agitation; and that which passes in the other for moderation and reserve is but a drowsy and inactive sloth. THE essence of things is seldom so much regarded as external and accidental appendages. AN argument proposed with noise and blustering may break the head, and dismount the brain, but it never makes impression on the understanding. Truth, like a gentle shower, soaks through the ears, and moistens the intellect. CONSIDER not what might have been, but what is now to be done. THE first steps that introduce us to the enchanted garden of love are so full of pleasure, the first prospects so charming, that every one is willing to recall them to his memory. Each party seeks a preference above the other; each has loved sooner, more devotedly; and each, in this contest, would rather be conquered than conquer. KNAVERY and folly have often the same symptoms. THERE are few higher gratifications than that of reflection on surmounted evils, when they were incurred nor protracted by our fault, and neither reproach us with cowardice nor guilt. not A SHORT prayer reaches heaven-a hint to those who want favours not to molest others with long letters and loud complaints. AMBITION-A mental dropsy, which keeps continually swelling and increasing until it kills its victim. As nightingales love most to sing near an echo, so does the heart speak loudest near tones of music. To a man under the influence of emotion, nature is To the satiated ever a great mirror full of emotions. and quiescent alone, she is a cold, dead window for the outward world. WORDS never can express the whole that we feel, they give but an outline. Printed by JOHN OWEN CLARKE, at 121, Fleet Street, London, and published by CHARLES Coox, at the Office of the Journal, 3, Raquet Court, Fleet Street. STATE OF POPULAR EDUCATION. BY DR. SMILES. THE annual publication of the "Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education," reminds us from time to time of the extremely defective provision made for the education of the people of this country. The Exhibition in Hyde Park may show that Britain can make more perfect machines than any European nation; the Agricultural Society's Show in the Home Park, Windsor, may exhibit our superiority in the breeding and rearing of stock; but these Minutes of Council show, that while we make perfect machines and breed first-rate cattle, the rearing, training, and education of our men and women, especially the lower strata of the labouring classes, is about the worst in Europe. Their children are worse educated, are harder worked, and die sooner, than in almost any other civilized country. Half the children born alive into the world in our manufacturing towns, die under six years of age. Manchester cotton prints may be unrivalled, yet of every 1,000 children born in Manchester, 570 die before the age we have named. Leon Faucher says of this appalling fact, "not one of our great cities, thank God, presents so sad a spectacle!" But of those children of the labouring classes who survive, the education is most inefficient and discreditable. In many districts, not one-half of the children receive any school training whatever; there are many parishes in the agricultural districts without a single school; and in many others, the schools are only kept alive by the exertions of the parish clergymen, the great landholders contributing the most petty sums, in many cases refusing to give a farthing. The Government Inspectors report the general poverty of the schools all over the country, the difficulty of raising funds for their support, the low remuneration of the teachers, the low ages of the children attending school, the inefficiency of the instruction given, and the urgent necessity which exists for a permanent provision being made for the education of the children of the poor. The secretary of the Board of Education, in his general report, laments that "the extreme indifference which is found in meeting the most necessary expenses of schools for the labouring classes, has hitherto sufficed to bar, in most of them, every inlet of liberal education," and that "the difficulty of raising funds for education is almost everywhere com men. [PRICE 1d. plained of." "Our funds are low," is the constant deprecatory language as to any amount which the Inspector suggests should be applied. The Rev. Mr. Mitchell avers that the indifference of the great owners of property to the education of the people, is " on the increase," and he gives numerous instances of this shameful want of sympathy on the part of propertied He mentions one landowner who draws £4,000 a-year from a parish, and subscribes £7 towards education; another whose rental is £3,000 a-year, gives twenty shillings. Of three other large landowners in the same district, one only supports the school; and in another parish, of which a noble earl is lord of the manor, seven-tenths of the children of the parish belonging to his estate, he refuses to give a penny towards the school, either for its building or maintenance, and his tenants follow his example. The colleges at Cambridge are the principal owners of the land in another parish, and these also refuse to subscribe a farthing towards local schools of any kind. The dean and chapter of a cathedral possess 800 acres of land in another parish, and they too, though repeatedly applied to, will not contribute anything towards the schools. So that Mr. Mitchell's conclusion is that "unless some additional means be devised to support working-class schools in this district, they must all fall to the ground. The expense is thrown almost entirely on the clergy, and as the funds are very deficient, the teachers are of the worst description, and the books and apparatus are very inferior. The habits of indolent listlessness and careless indifference to instruction, and the general want of good moral tone, are such, that I think the schools almost an evil rather than a blessing." But The great defect of the present ministerial system of education, creditable though it be in many respects, is this, that it fails to touch the most destitute and ignorant of all districts,-inasmuch as it is an indispensable condition of making a grant for educational purposes, that a certain amount, two-thirds, should first have been subscribed in the locality itself. the most destitute districts are precisely those where the desire for education is the least felt,-where the great landlords are absentees, and have no sympathy with the labourers on their estates,-where the farmers or residents care nothing about education, and the labourers, even if they desired education, (which in their ignorant state they do not), can spare nothing out of their weekly wage of from 7s. to 88. And even in those districts where the parish clergyman exerts himself to erect a school, and a spasmodic effort is made to maintain it, the funds are in very many cases altogether inadequate for the purpose, and if the schools are not closed again altogether, they only maintain a painful struggle for existence, and furnish an education to the children who frequent them, of the most miserable description. In hundreds of cases the school is only carried on by the clergyman subscribing the amount required to make up the school-fund, often to the extent of one-third and even one-half of his entire income. But see what the schools actually are when set to work. The Rev. Mr. Mosely goes so far as to say, that some schools are built and maintained, not for the purpose of promoting education, but for stopping it! They are "established and conducted on the principle that education is a bad thing, of which as little should be given as possible, and that, if bad schools are not established, good ones will be." Mr. Marshall, in his report, also speaks of schools founded by benevolent ladies in rural districts, who not only profess to confine the subjects of instruction within a very narrow range, but who do so on principle, and think that "too much knowledge," as they say, "is a bad thing for poor people." The education given in such places, as well as in many of the national schools, is of the meanest kind; and the Rev. Mr. Mitchell, in his report, alleges, that parents who have been educated at such useless schools, have derived so little advantage from them, and acquired so great an aversion to them, that they will not allow their children to attend them on any account. Of one place he says, Nothing can be more miserable than these schools. The master and mistress, man and wife, are totally incompetent. The children are shamefully ignorant, and the supply of books and apparatus is lamentably defective. No school at all would be better." And again of Norfolk, "It is evident that this part of Norfolk is in a most lamentable state of ineducation, arising from defect of funds, consequent bad teachers, deficiency of books and maps, which the teachers, however, would not know how to use, even if they had them." The Rev. Mr. Blandford describes the boys' national school at Nottingham as not only useless in its present state, but positively mischievous, there being the appearance of education without a shadow of the reality." In several districts in Leicestershire he found many equally miserable schools, signally failing in producing any effect in elevating the intelligence of their neighbourhoods, Mormonism and other objectionable isms growing up under their deadly shadow. Bad as the schools are, there is, in by far the majority of cases, the utmost difficulty in raising even the small funds requisite for their support, and the dread of personal responsibility deters many persons from taking a part either in the building of better schools or from undertaking the improvement of those already established. Bad as this state of things is, in some of the most populous districts education is even going backward! The Rev. Mr. Kennedy reports, that little or no progress is going forward in Lancashire. Population is rapidly on the increase, but few additional schools have been built, and those in existence are badly supported. The want of funds leads to the appointment of inefficient teachers,-to scanty supplies of books and apparatus,-and to dirty, unhealthy, and repulsive rooms. In the crowded iron-manufacturing and pottery districts of Staffordshire, the Rev. Mr. Norris reports that the average age of the children attending school is diminishing, and at the time at which they ought to be commencing school training, they leave it, after one year's schooling, and rarely return again. In the schools of the mining and manu facturing districts above-named, and also in Yorkshire, as reported by the Rev. Mr. Watkins, not more than 17 in every 100 children are above 10 years of age! Of course, the education given under such circumstances is a mere burlesque, not worthy of the name. All the inspectors concur in deploring this lamentable feature of the times; and several of them suggest legislative enactments on the subject. The children are usually taken from school for the purpose of being put to labour, both in the agricultural and manufacturing districts; and there does not seem to be any sufficient reason why the same legislative protection should not be thrown around them, as has been done in the case of factory children of a certain age, on whose employers it is obligatory to reserve a certain portion of their time daily for the purpose of school education. There are similar cases, in which children have already been protected against the indifference to their best interests of their own parents. Another lamentable feature of our educational state is, the deficiency of normal schools, and the positive falling off in pupil teachers. The diocesan training schools are only half full; the qualifications of applicants are declining rather than advancing; the training schools are for the most part too limited in their means to be able to furnish teachers with that efficient education which will fit them for their functions. The reason of the low order of applicants for training as teachers is this, that the remuneration offered to schoolmasters for the labouring classes in this country, is considerably below the average earnings of mechanics and artizans. The mechanic's wage is double that of the schoolmaster. The Rev. Mr. Mosely says the average pay of teachers of the national schools in York, Durham, and Chester, does not reach the rate of twenty shillings a week; many not more than fifteen shillings a week; and this in districts where the ordinary wages of skilled workmen are from £60 to £70 a-year, and where many earn, with their families (a source of income from which the schoolmaster is precluded) from £100 to £150. In Wilts the average annual pay of the teachers in the national day schools is only £28, and in Berks it is as low as £23 per annum ! Now, it cannot be expected that an intelligent man, well-educated and competent to teach, will hire himself out to this kind of work, at wages less than that of a mechanic. There are always abundance of openings in this commercial country for well-educated young men, where the remuneration offered is double or three times that of the schoolmaster. Hence, while apprentices in all other occupations are increasing, apprentices to the art of teaching are falling off; young men shun an office so laborious, responsible, and ill-remunerated; and the result is, that the schools are for the most part taught by such men as can be got hold of,-persons who have failed in everything else, broken-down tradesmen, men who have lost an arm or a leg, and are thus disabled from occupying more remunerative offices, or by dames who seek to eke out a scanty living by teaching the young idea how to shoot. Doubtless there are many efficient schools in various parts of the country, of which the inspectors speak in high terms; but we think we are justified in saying that these schools are exceptional, and that the whole educational state of our country, and the provisions made for the instruction of the labouring classes, are extremely discouraging and unsatisfactory. The cause of this inefficiency is not far to seek. It consists in the great deficiency of means for the purpose of education. The poor cannot afford the money to pay for the education of their children, and even though they had the money, not knowing the value of education (having next to none themselves), many of them will not furnish the means. Heretofore the schools for the labouring classes have been mainly supported by begging money from subscribers. But this, too, has failed; the richest men pay least, many of the largest owners of property will not subscribe a farthing. The source is fluctuating and uncertain. This manner of maintaining the schools for the children of the people is further open to the objection, that it is given as a charity,-often not so much for the purpose of really educating the people, as for some ulterior, though we shall not say inferior, object. Occasionally, after some convulsive effort has been made by a religious body, a considerable sum of money is raised, and a handsome school is erected; but, in the course of a few years, zeal waxes cold, the subscriptions fall off, and the school becomes utterly inefficient for all educational purposes. In some districts, there are already more school-houses built than are sufficient for the accommodation of the whole juvenile population of school ages. But they are mostly half empty, the education given is bad, and a large number of them may be set down as miserable failures. The question now before the public is,-How are the means of efficient education of the children of the poor to be provided,-for all are agreed that these children ought to be educated, and must be educated. Public opinion points to a local rate for educational purposes as the true method of securing this provision. This is the basis of the two educational schemes projected at Manchester,--the one Mr. Cobden's, the other Mr. Richson's plan. The main point of difference is, in how far the religious element should be combined with the secular element, in the education given. Probably this may not be settled without an experiment being made of the combination of the religious with the secular; but many are of opinion that the issue of such experiment can only be in the adoption of a purely secular system of education, leaving parents and ministers, as is their special duty, to impart religious instruction. We see that the Rev. Mr. Wade, of Kidsgrove, Staffordshire, throws out a doubt, in a letter to one of the education inspectors, whether the present practice in the national schools, has not "too much encouraged parents to neglect their proper duties, to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; and whether we have not, to the detriment of the children, imposed upon ourselves a heavy obligation by taking charge of them both in school and church." The Rev. Mr. Mitchell also, in his report, speaks of the worst class of schools in his district, as those "conducted by men who, having no real qualifications, assume an extra-religious tone as a cloak for their deficiencies; and who deceive their well-meaning employers by professions which, it is evident, they have neither the power nor intention to fulfil." Some ludicrous instances of the kind of religious instruction given by the teachers referred to, are contained in the inspector's reports, which show, that on the whole, ministers and clergy do not act very wisely in entrusting to such persons the early religious training of their flocks. The reports of the inspectors also furnish some startling illustrations of the inefficiency of the religious instructions given in Sunday schools, on which we have hitherto so much depended for the training of our juvenile population. Mr. Porter, in his "Tables of the Nation," has shown, that only ten out of every hundred persons brought before a court of justice had been instructed in secular knowledge, and could read and write; but the Rev. Mr. Mosely, in his educational report, states, that from a return received from the Gaol Chaplains of England, not less than 63 in every 100 prisoners had attended Sunday Schools, and 50 in every 100 for not less than three years. A circular to the matrons of penitentiaries had also elicited the fact that 75 per cent. of the inmates had been scholars of Sunday schools. The reader can draw his own inferences from these facts, the application of which we do not here insist on. It may be sufficient to cite the views of the Rev. Mr. Temple, principal of the Kneller Training School, as to the special advantages of secular knowledge. "What should be aimed at," he says, "is this,-To raise the degraded mass which ferments in the lowest ranks of society, from their present condition of utter helplessness, to some sense of their duties to others and to themselves, and of their power to discharge them. At present, the labourer, if a bad season interferes with the crop on which he has been accustomed to live, is prevented by ignorance, and still more by prejudice, from availing himself of many of the substitutes which he might bring within his reach. If a change of trade, or taxation, changes the destination of capital, he is unequal to the slightest attempt at the corresponding change in the destination of his labour. The religious truths which might support him in the struggle to get his bread, are too often deadened and lost, because addressed to an intellect and a heart too sluggish to comprehend them. His country has little hold on his affections, for he knows nothing of her history, and the range of his ideas canot take in so much with which he has no active concern. His ideas of comfort are not sufficiently high to spur him to real energy for his own sake, or foresight for his children. He lives recklessly from day to day; he marries recklessly, without thinking how he will provide for his family; and he returns to the workhouse in his old age, after having burdened his country with more than himself." In the meantime, we seem to have arrived at a general concurrence in opinion of nearly all the friends of extended and improved education of the people, -1. That a greatly increased provision of means is necessary. 2. That such provision must be regular and permanent, capable of expansion in proportion to the increase of population. 3. That the most efficient method of providing such means is by a system of local rating for educational purposes in like manner as for the maintenance of the destitute poor. Nearly all the Government Inspectors of Education, in their last reports, speak favourably of a local rate, and Messrs. Mitchell, Blandford, Kennedy, Morell, and Fletcher, strongly recommend it. Were the last-named gentleman's suggestion adopted,-to apply the funds so raised "avowedly for secular instruction only, though in anxious desire for the union with it of the religious instruction on which it may not enter,"--and were Government to bring forward a plan founded on such a basis, we do not doubt that it would be cordially supported by a vast majority of the moral force of the country, receive parliamentary sanction, and become one of the noblest monuments of its promoters. THE DERBY BABIES. PART I. BY ELIZA METEYARD, INTO one of the smaller, though loveliest, of the Derbyshire dales, the richest sun of June shed down its warm and golden glory; on the rippling stream, half brook, half river; on the still meadows, and their margins fringed with the blue of the brook-lime and the forget-me-not; on the primitive old ivied church, the few scattered rustic cottages, and so went onward golden till it was paled and lost amidst the sleepy shadows of the heathery hills. It was the morning of Whitsun Tuesday-that much-prized old country holiday. The majority of the country folks were off to a neighbouring wake, |