REPORT OF THE POOR-LAW COMMISSIONERS ON THE TRAINING OF PAUPER

CHILDREN.

LIKE most of the documents that emanate from the Poor-law Com- missioners, this volume contains a good many notions, put forth in a prolix style : the subject of the Report, however, is of great consequence ; and many of the facts contained in its " Appendices " are curious in themselves, and useful for the light they throw upon national character and modes of life, and even upon human nature

It is estimated upon data tolerably certain, that there are in the workhouses of England 61,570 children under sixteen ; of which number, 56,835 are between the ages of two and sixteen years. Some of these children are only temporary residents, but the great majority are actually or virtually orphans—illegitimate, the off- spring of the dead, the self-exiled, the transported or impri- soned, or the impotent poor. With the exception of a few Unions where the Board of Guardians are intelligent and liberal, and cir- cumstances favour their efforts to establish an independent school, these children are cooped up in workhouses exposed to the moral contamination of the permanent paupers, always of the poorest, and many too frequently of the most abandoned class. The work- house schoolmaster is very often a pauper, not always capable even of reading ; always unqualified for the situation. Where a pro- fessed master is employed, he is seldom equal to the difficult task of teaching and breaking-in a tribe of ill-trained pauper urchins ; and that for several reasons. The salary offered is insufficient, or respectable teachers have a dislike to the idea of living in a work- house ; and when both of these difficulties are conquered, differ- ences arise between the workhousemaster and the schoolmaster, the latter not brooking any interference from the former. In the few instances where Guardians have been so liberal and so lucky as to get qualified teachers, some resignations have taken place through these disputes, which seem inevitable.

To remedy these evils, it is proposed to establish District or Central Schools for several Unions, where all children deprived of parents, or whose parents are not in a condition to support them, should undergo a course of moral, educational, and in- dustrial training. The objection of expense is met by two classes of arguments ; one economical, one moral. In the long run, it would be as cheap or cheaper with regard to the direct expenditure. Taking the thirty-nine Unions of Norfolk and Suffolk, Dr. KAY calculates, (pp. 31, 32,) that the expense of aver- age schoolmasters and industrial teachers for each Union would cost more by 4,8001. than the salaries and maintenance of the most efficient persons that could be obtained for four District or Central Schools. The estimate is no doubt framed to favour DP. KAY'S views, for we do not suppose that the thirty-nine Unions would be at the charges he sets down ; but the mere cost of teaching is not the whole expense of pauper children. "How are they to be got rid of when they grow up ?" was a question constantly present to the parish-officers ; and they hit upon the apprentice-system, giv- ing from 51. to 151. or even 201 as an apprentice-fee. the conse- quence of this was to tempt small tradesmen, needing a little money, to take apprentices they did not want, and whom they were obliged to give up in a short time. It is true, the parish got rid of its own pauper, but only to throw him upon some other : Spitalfields has been an especial sufferer in this way, through the number of weavers acting as petty masters. The sums paid in a year for apprenticing paupers are roughly estimated at 43,0001. for the kingdom, which under a better system might be saved. In the Contract Pauper School at Norwood, and especially in the Limehouse School of Industry of the Stepney Union, (which was principally established through the exertions of Mr. G. F. Youso,) as well as in a few other places with a repute for good training, no difficulty is found in getting respectable situations for the children without a fee. But, putting aside expense, the right of the children to be saved from moral and social degradation is argued upon higher grounds. " A child," says Dr. KAY, " cannot be a pauper in the sense in which the term is commonly under- stood ; that is, he cannot be indigent as the consequence of his own want of industry, skill, frugality, or forethought ; and he ought not therefore to be taught to despise himself?' It is also argued, that these pauper children in due time beget a race of paupers, and cause a considerable part of the pauperism of the country. One frightful point is just indicated—that many of these children are doomed to certain infamy and death. It is stated by several witnesses, that the cruelty, neglect, or scanty fare generally expe- rienced by parish-apprentices, drives many of them upon the world, the boys to thieving, the girls to prostitution: One solitary touch throws a faint light upon a fearful system— "Do the masters, when the apprentices have worked out their time, gene- rally concern themselves much about their future welfare ? "—" Very few instances of that have ever come under my notice. I have known some. There are females in the parish who engage a considerable number of ap- prentices to assist them in tambourin" : they, like the rest, go to a distance for the apprentices in order to obtain the premiums, and., as soon as their time is expired, (if they work out their time,) instead of employing them at wages, they turn them adrift, and seek other apprentices. The same occurs with the lint-makers."

In the words of the slaveholders, they are " used up," and as rapidly as the imported Negroes in Cuba, if not more so. Yet the crying evil of orphans bartered in their youth to toil and half star- vation, and then " turned adrift" to seek, without fault or levity of their own, an infamous subsistence and a premature death, are ne- glected by philanthropists though under their eyes, whilst they are gazing at the far-off islands of the West, or sending others to inhale the mortiferous miasma of the Niger.

The reader who would pursue the subject through its details should procure the volume, if he can : in the interim, we will en- deavour to give some general idea of its contents and their cha- racter.

Immediately following the Report, is a collection of evidence by AIL CHADWICK, tending to show the advantage of education to the workman, both in a moral and an industrial view. Here the cri- tical remark occurs, that it has an unreal appearance to see one person sitting down to ask another his opinions, when be evidently knows already what those opinions will be, and his questions con- tain the answer. These examinations, however, contain some of the largest points in the book, and pithily expressed. Mr. Escims, an engineer of Zurich, thus estimates the

NATURAL INTELLIGENCE OF WORKMEN OF DIFFERENT NATIONS.

"I class the Italians first; next the French ; and the Northern nations very much on a par."

"Do you include the English as of the Northern family ? "—" Yes, I do." " What are the more particular natural characteristics of the several classes of workmen ? "—" The Italians' quickness of perception is shown in rapidly comprehending any new descriptions of labour put into their hands, of quickly comprehending the meaning of their employer, of adapting themselves to new circumstances, much beyond what any other classes have. The French work- men have the like natural characteristics, only in a somewhat lower degree. The English, Swiss, German, and Dutch workmen, we find, have all much slower natural comprehension."

" What, however, do you find to be the differences of acquirements im- parted by specific training and education ? "—" As workmen only, the prefer- ence is undoubtedly due to the English ; because as we find them they are all trained to special branches, on which they have had comparatively superior training and have concentrated all their thoughts. As men of business or of general usefulness, and as men with whom an employer would best like to be surrounded, I should, however, decidedly prefer the Saxons and the Swiss, but more especially the Saxons, because they have had a very careful general education, which has extended their capacities beyond any special employment, and rendered them fit to take up, after a short preparation, any employment to which they may be called. If I have an English workman engaged in the erection of a steam-engine, he will understand that and nothing else: he will understand only his steam-engine."

SCPERIORITY OF ITALIAN INTELLECT AND INFERIORITY OF EDUCATION.

"The effects of the deficiency of education is most strongly marked in the Italians ; who, with the advantage of superior natural capacity, are of the lowest class of workmen, though they comprehend clearly and quickly, as I have stated, any simple proposition made or explanation given to them, and are enabled quickly to execute any kind of work when they have seen it per- formed once ; yet their minds, as I imagine from want of development by training or school education, seem to have no kind of logic, no power of systematic arrangement, no capacity for collecting any series of observations and making sound inductions from the whole of them. This want of the capacity of mental arrangement is shown in their manual operations. An Italian will execute a simple operation with great dexterity ; but when a number of them are put together all is confusion; they cannot arrange their respective parts in a complicated operation, and are comparatively inefficient except under a very powerful control. As an example of this, I may mention, that within a few years after the first introduction of cotton-spinning in Naples, in the year 1830, the spinners produced twenty-four hanks of cotton- yarn from No. 16 to 20 per spindle, which is equal to the production of the hest English hands; and yet up to this time not one of the Neapolitan opera- tives is advanced far enough to take the superintendence of the operations of a single room, the superintendents being all Northerns."

The following is from an Englishman, Mr. ASHTON, of Hyde, Cheshire.

EDUCATION ON CAPITAL.

"How have you found the opinions of this class of workpeople [the more educated] on the subject of large capital ? "—" They appear to be quite aware that it is for their advantage; they find that in connexion with large capital they get the best wages and the most constant work. They have seen the concerns in which small capital is embarked uncertain, irregular in their pay- ment of wages, making frequent reductions, and stopping in periods of pressure, whilst concerns conducted with large capitals are carried on. Indeed, in con- sequence of some Chartist agitation, we had a discussion on this subject with some of our workpeople. I said to them, Suppose, according to the Chartist proposal, there was a division of property, are you sure that you would be the better for it ? ' It was shown to them that the share of each would not be enough to manufacture with, and must soon disappear. They were fully aware that it would not do to carry on such business by a company or by co- operation, but that it was impracticable to carry on such concerns otherwise than by one individual, by unity of control, and the constant energy of in- dividual interest. I said to them, After the Chartists have divided my money amongst you, and have spent it, you will begin to want work : will you not again apply to me as a capitalist for work? and what must he my answer ? that I have no money to go and buy cotton with ; consequently there will be an end to your wages as well as to the capital with which work and wages are provided for you.''

CAPITAL ON EDUCATION.

"At first the expenditure in schooling was chiefly given from a desire to make the workpeople happy ; but we have found that, had it all been done simply as an investment of capital, it would have been a highly profitable one. 'I would not as a pecuniary speculation consent to take less than 7,0001. for my set of workmen, upwards of eight hundred, in exchange for the uneducated and uncultivated workmen of another manufacturer opposite. We find the steadiness of the men induces steadiness of work, and comparative certainty in the quantity and quality of the produce.'"

The next section of the volume consists of the Reports of va- rious Assistant Poor-law Commissioners, in answer to a string of queries on Pauper Education, circulated by the Board. Some of these reports are brief and business-like affairs, in which the sta- tistics of the Commissioner's district are given with a few com- ments. Others are more elaborate, embracing reports upon par- ticular schools, examination of masters, the theories and practices of different founders of educational systems, and the copious com- ments of the writer. Of these the amplest are Dr. Kar's pro- ductions; which, though frequently commonplace, contain a good deal of curious matter, illustrative of the nature of children and the respective characteristics of the sexes. It seems that " tender- ness," to use the words of a master who reclaimed a whole bevy of unruly raggamuffins, is the first element, and a laxity of discipline, gradually tightened. More important from first to last is moral influence—to impress the pupils with a confidence in your inten- tions, and an opinion that what they are taught is for their advan- tage. The evidence also tends to show that human nature is sound at bottom ; that the vice of these children is attributable to their circumstances, and reformation practicable if taken in time. The (limited) experience of the witnesses, however, fixes this point at twelve years. The same necessity of early training had been noticed by one of Mr. CHADWICK'S witnesses : he found that logic, or the power of mental arrangement, could rarely be acquired by workmen whose education had been neglected in youth. A considerable part of the volume is occupied with an account of the experiment of Dr. KAY and Mr. TM"NELL on their " Train- ing School at Battersea" ; including a narrative of their Continen- tal tour of inquiry, a history of the formation and economy of their school, with some account of its progress, and lists of queries and examinations. Of all these subjects, the most interesting is .the history of the school; which has, though a long way off, something of a Robinson Crusoe character, and also contains several curious physical examples of the effects of labour in the open air on per- sons accustomed to sedentary occupations. The other parts of this section are either dull or technical; and though the peculiar circumstances attending this experiment of Dr. KAY and Mr. Ter- NELL may justify its publication, yet we must question the propriety of making the public the publishers of individual views : and we no- tice this practice the more distinctly because the Poor-law Com- missioners have a knack of giving official publicity to almost any lucubration addressed to them, which contains some single fact, or some crotchet the author wishes to see carried out.