To which are to be added eight vested schools not included in the above, making the total number of schools on the 31st December 1841, 2727.

The Irish national system at first met with great opposition, in consequence of religious party-spirit; but this obstacle is gradually giving way. The Presby terian Church in Ireland has 300 schools in connection with the national board, and the Irish Society is stated to be about to form a similar connexion with respect to about 60 schools under its charge. About 20 Poor-Law Schools have recently come under the superintendence of the board. It may here be mentioned, that at a great proportion of the elementary schools in Ireland, one penny a-week is paid by each pupil for education.

Education is actively conducted in America, and it is calculated that about a sixth of the population are at school. In most of the states, schools are supported by a tax on property, and the superintendence is intrusted to committees of the rate-payers. In those of New England, the schools are as one to every two hundred of the inhabitants-a proportion, perhaps, exceeded in no part of the world.

} 2,719 Number of children in attendance upon the 2337 schools in operation, Expected attendance upon the 382 building schools,

281,849
48,356

330,205

* Of an edition of Euclid published by the editors of the present

work, by far the largest proportion of copies is sold in Ireland. Mr Bichens, in a report on the Poor Laws, asks, "Where in England could the ordnance surveyors find persons amongst the lowest class to calculate the sides and areas of their triangles, at a halfpenny a triangle, as they do in Ireland, and plenty of them?" † In this sum is included 10,096 whose persuasion was not

sive improvements being effected in the art of edu cation by those who were practically acquainted with it. The importance of leaving a certain latitude of choice to individuals (parents, or the more advanced young men or women), is apparent from the experience of the Glasgow Mechanics' Institution. The most uniformly successful classes have been those of mechanics (or natural philosophy) and chemistry ; and a large proportion of the operatives who attended them have been engineers, and others engaged in processes which are best conducted by those who understand something of their principles. Human beings are most easily seduced to undergo the toil of learning (for though to pick up fragments of information be agreeable, to devote the continuous attention necessary to understand a subject thoroughly is at first a task) by the conviction that what they are learning can be turned to profitable account. Having learned one subject thoroughly, they acquire a liking for the effort, and are more easily induced to extend their researches. It is good not to attempt too much at first. Get every one to learn something that may benefit them in their occupations; none who have learned this thoroughly, be it what it may, will stop there.

CRIME.

invited, stimulated, to take a portion of the task of education into their own hands. With communities, as with individuals, education cannot be a one-sided matter, in which the instructor arouses the pupil; there must be exertion on the part of the latter also. The mistake of some governments, especially the Prussian, has been to hold the people as entirely passive: they have drilled rather than educated. Almost every thing that has been hitherto done in Great Britain to promote education has been the result of private enterprise: even the majority of endowed schools are the fruits of private enthusiasm in the cause of education. A paper by Mr Long, in the second volume of the Journal of the Central Society of Education, estimates the annual income of endowments in England, for purposes of education, at £1,500,000; and shows the want of a proper power, invested in some individual or body, for the purpose of assisting, directing, and correcting all who are intrusted with the management of such charity property. Educational amateurs may be deficient in skill, but funds left to support schools require some one to administer them, and to adapt the mode of dispensing them to the perpetually altering circumstances of society. A table of the mechanics' institutions and other popular associations in England for promoting and diffusing science and literature, has been published in the Statistical Journal. It is defective, but it shows approximatively what has been done by private effort for the higher education of the people. The total number of societies is stated to be 112; of 91 of these the annual income has been ascertained, and it amounts to £36,793, 14s. This is a slender provision for the intellectual wants of the adults of England, and what is more, its influence is limited, in a great measure, to those who, strictly speaking, do not belong to the working-classes. In the Glasgow Mechanics' Institution, a majority of the attendants on the lectures are shopmen, individuals employed in warehouses, and even some students the middle classes. Of the operatives who attend, the mechanics form a considerable proportion. The Mechanics' Institation of Liverpool, one of the most flourishing institations of the empire, is, both in its elementary schools and its lectures for adults, frequented and supported almost, if not quite, exclusively by the middle classes. The facts mentioned seem to justify these conclusions:That national education requires the operation of government only as public trustee, and of the people themselves, trying to procure the kind of education their wants prompt them to seek; that the duty of government is to insist that education shall be universal, and to provide such superintendence and means of general control as are necessary for enforcing this precept; that the duty of the people, in their respective districts, is to carry into effect the general directions government. The business of government is to see By far the greater proportion of English crimes are that the necessary funds are provided, the necessary against property. Taking the average of the five years establishments for training teachers and pupils kept before 1839 (22,174), it appears that 84.5 per cent. up, and the attendance of children enforced. The busi- were thefts and frauds, the small proportion of 7 per ness of the people is to appoint teachers, and to take cent. of these being accompanied by violence. precautions for their discharging their duties conscien- offences against property and person, in which malice tiously. The details of tuition are best left to the was involved, as murder, maiming, arson, and injuries teachers, care being taken that they are previously edu-to cattle, there were about 6 per cent. A class called eated for their profession. Success in teaching depends, sexual offences gave 2, and offences against the state, in it a great measure, upon the enthusiasm and ability of which was included coining, 64 per cent. the teacher; and the most successful method is that which is best adapted to the peculiar character of the teacher. Some teach more efficiently by one method, of a teacher's ability by looking at results-at the kind chers by another. The public judge most correctly of scholars he turns out. Some such organisation of the whole country for educational purposes, as is indicated in these general terms, would, by giving a controlling cation; by leaving to the people the appointment of females. power to government, ensure equal diffusion of eduteachers, and by leaving, to a certain extent, to indidhals the to the age of offenders, wonderfully uniform results Live the interest which en bete at their own have been found, as will appear from the following table, handiwork; and by leaving the methods to the choice giving the centesimal proportion at each period of of well-trained teachers, would give scope for progres- life :-

Crime is the result of various causes-as, first, the natural or original disposition of the culprit ; second, the moral atmosphere in which he has lived; and, third, the temptations placed before him. Generally, all of these causes are more or less concerned in crime, so that it becomes a very complex question. When we apply statistics to the investigation of crime, we are met by the further difficulty, that only a certain portion of the whole of the offences committed are known to us, and that the proportion known must vary in different countries according to the efficiency of the legal apparatus applied to the detection of crime. Statistics has, nevertheless, afforded some curious and valuable knowledge on this subject.

The number of persons annually committed or bailed to take their trial in England and Wales, has for a number of years past been on the increase; but chiefly, it is believed, in consequence of the increased efficiency of the laws. For the five years before 1839, it was 22,174 on an average; in 1840, it was 27,187. The last sum was an increase of 45 per cent. on the number for 1830, which was 18,657. It is important to observe, that these are not summaries of the whole offences of their respective years. There is, besides, a larger number of offences, which are tried summarily before magistrates. For example, in 1837, in addition to 17,090 persons convicted upon regular trial, there were 59.374 summary convictions.

Of

The counties in which committals are year after year fewest, are those of Wales, the four northern ones, Cornwall, and Derby; those in which they are most numerous, are Middlesex, Essex, and Warwick.

There are some crimes which women are not, from various causes, liable to commit; but the gentler does not appear to be the honester sex; for the proportion of female to male committals for theft without violence, is as 84 to 73 per cent., a difference of one-sixth against

In the inquiries which have been made with regard

The large proportion at the periods of adolescence and youth must be considered as strictly owing to a greater tendency to crime; for the proportions of human beings at those ages to the whole population are different, the persons from 16 to 20 being as 10 per cent., and those from 20 to 30 as 15 per cent., of the entire nation. It is calculated that amongst the persons living in England and Wales, from 17 to 21 years of age, there is one committal for 232; while from 41 to 50 there is one for 941; and above 60 one for 3391 individuals. We thus see how great an influence the strong and unregulated feelings of youth exercise in inducing criminality.

affluent classes it is much the same, but among the
working-classes it is materially different. Accord-
ing to the factory returns, there exists a more widely
diffused instruction in Scotland than in England: in
the former country, out of 29,486 operatives, 95-8 per
cent. could read, and 53 per cent. could write; while
in the latter, out of 50,497 operatives, only 86 per cent.
could read, and 43 per cent. could write. We have
seen above that, in proportion as education was diffused
through the whole community, the proportion of cri-
minals to the total of the population was diminished;
and this holds good in Scotland. But the mere exten-
sion of intellectual education to individuals of a class
in which improved economical circumstances and self-
education in moral respects has not induced that moral
sense shown to be elicited in civilised communities,
does not raise these individuals to the same eleva-
tion in the moral scale that the same education would
do under more favourable circumstances. To produce
the full benefit of education, it is the class, not merely
the individual, that must be educated. An educated
individual, belonging to an uneducated class, either
continues to associate contentedly with his original
companions, and retains their comparatively low stan-
dard of morality, combined with the increased power
lent him by education-he has as feeble a restraint upon
his conduct as they have, with much more power to do
harm-or he attempts to associate with those above him
in circumstances, though only equal in acquirements,
and, failing in the attempt, sinks down to his former
social level, soured against society, and prepared for
any act of outrage. The petty pilferers are, for the
most part, supplied by the destitute and uneducated
class; the more daring and dangerous offenders by
those who have moved in a more affluent sphere, and
fallen from it by their imprudence or vices. The lesson
read by the different degrees of education possessed by
Scotch and English criminals, is the necessity of edu
cating classes as well as individuals.

The connexion of education or non-education, and of poverty, with crime, has excited much attention during the last few years. It is abundantly clear that some school learning may exist where the moral department of education has been neglected, or where the temptations to error may be very great. The education of inere reading and writing may only supply the means of committing a crime-as forgery-instead of tending to restrain from it. Yet it certainly does appear that criminals are generally uneducated in all ordinary respects. Mr Rawson, Secretary of the Statistical Society of London, has found that, of every 100 offenders in England and Wales, 354 per cent, could neither read nor write; 54.2 per cent. could read and write imperfectly; 10 could read and write well; and only 4, or less than a half, per cent. had received a good education. In Scotland, out of 8907 offenders, 20-2 per cent. could neither read nor write; 59-2 could read and write imperfectly; 18-2 per cent. could read and write well; and 24 had received a superior education. Mr Bentley, author of a History and Directory for Worcestershire, has shown the relation of non-education to crime in a different way. It appears from his tables, that the six English counties having the greatest proportion of schools are Cumberland, Durham, Middlesex, Northumberland, Rutland, and Westmoreland, in which the schools are one for every 727 inhabitants, and the criminal offenders one for every 1156 inhabitants. The six counties that have the smallest proportion of schools are Chester, Dorset, Hereford, Lancaster, Northampton, and Somerset, in which the schools are one for every 1540 inhabitants, and the criminal offenders one for every 528; that is, out of a people having twice the number of schools, there is not in proportion half so many criminals as where the schools are deficient. A comparison of the number of schools in the six most criminal, and the six least criminal, of the English counties, leads to the same conclusion. In Essex, Gloucester, Hertford, Chester, Somerset, and Warwick, we find one criminal offender in the lists of government for every 499 inhabitants, and only one school for every 1069 inhabitants; on the other hand, in Cornwall, Cumberland, Derby, Durham, Northumberland, and Westmoreland, we have only one criminal to every 1309 inhabitants, while we have one school for every 839 inhabitants. In other words, there are six counties in England which have nearly three times the amount of crime found in six other counties; and the counties in which the least crime is found have one-fourth more schools than the counties in which crime abounds.

When we come to speak of educating classes, we are brought to the consideration of their economical condition. In Bristol, an inquiry into the educational statistics of the city showed that, out of nearly 10,000 adults, taken indiscriminately among the workingclasses, 22.5 per cent. could neither read nor write; 25-6 could read only; 519 could read or write. In a wretched part of the parish of Marylebone in London, it was found that 25 per cent. could neither read nor write, and 75 per cent. could either read, or read and write; and in two other portions of the same parish, inhabited principally by Irish labourers and their families, 49 per cent. could neither read nor write, and only 41 per cent. could read, or read and write. Among 1022 able-bodied and temporarily disabled paupers above the age of 16, the inmates of several union workhouses in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Kent, whose attainments were ascertained with precision, 465 per cent, could neither read nor write, 18 read imperfectly, 30 read decently, 5.3 read in a superior manner; and the same, 66-4 could not write, 15.4 could write imperfectly, 16-9 write decently, and 1-3 write well. It thus appears, that poverty and want of education, as well as crime and want of education, go in company,

On the last point it is necessary to guard against misconception. There may be a district poor in sources and with respect to the style of living of t inhabitants, and yet crime may not abound in it. The department of Creuse is one of the poorest in France. yet it presents the fewest crimes. M. Quetelet dra the important distinction, that a set of people livi steadily on small means, but knowing contented with what they have, are not poor, in t sense in which a people are poor who, seeing we and luxury around them, and exposed to the severes The different distribution of educational acquire-sufferings from the occasional failure of employme ments among the convicts of England and Scotland are thereby demoralised.

is striking, and requires for elucidation some inquiry

no better, a

into the proportional diffusion of knowledge among Printed and published by W. and R. CHAMBERS, Edinbur the whole community in each country. Among the

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INFORMATION FOR THE
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CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S
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SOCIAL ECONOMICS OF THE INDUSTRIOUS ORDERS.

prevail. When practical men are consulted, we hear of an afflicting number of instances in which the higherwaged workmen are considered as securing little if any more comfort to their families, than the other class, and perhaps not so much. We have heard masters of works declare that their men, at 25s. a-week, did not, as a class, maintain their households, or educate their children, so well as those who had little more than half the sum. In a recent return from the Savings' Bank of Dundee, it appears that, while there is £1189 deposited by 108 male weavers, a class whose wages average 8s. weekly, and £425 by 36 hecklers, a class whose average wages are 12s., there is only £637 from 56 mechanics, men whose wages range from 18s. to 30s. Such facts, and we believe many of the like nature might be adduced, seem to prove that the working-classes have much more in their power for the promotion of their physical and moral well-being than is generally thought. Admitting fully that many are ground to the dust by poverty, we cannot doubt that a far larger proportion have all but the will to take the proper means for preserving their independence.

Iris surely a deplorable feature in the condition of a large portion of the working-classes in this country, that they have little or no provision made against the necessities which arise to themselves or their families in the event of sickness, a failure of employment, or death. With some this is not the case, but it is the case with many; and the result is, that these persons have never more than a thin partition dividing them from the realms of want and dependence. The effect which this is calculated to have need not be largely insisted on, for want and dependence are universally allowed to bring many evils. What is there to be expected from the moral nature of one who is every now and then obliged, perhaps, to ask for gratuitous medicine and medical attendance-to take bread from a parish officer or the managers of a charitable subscription to trust to the pity of neighbours when ever any thing like an exigency arises in his familyin short, is, for the supply of a great part of his needs, a stipendiary upon his fellow-creatures? These things are evidently irreconcilable with true manly dignity, with political independence, and with an upright bearing in any of the relations of life. The destitution of such individuals is commiserated when it arises-every humane person, who is himself above want, feels bound to contribute to its relief: the claim from suffering rean to him who suffers in the smallest degree less, is irresistible. But while it is allowed that the need, when it does exist, must and ought to be relieved, all must likewise see that, in the effort to diminish one immediate and clamant evil, another is introduced. The working man is morally deteriorated by ceasing to be independent. Better, clearly, that this portion of the community were to place themselves, by efforts of their own, above all need for such degrading aid.

We do not profess here to inquire into the primary causes of the unendowed condition of the workingclasses; but we can readily see various immediate ones, as intemperance and bad management of resources. The tavern bill of the whole operative class in the United Kingdom must be an enormous one. Of above thirty-one millions of gallons of spirits prepared in one recent year, and for which twenty millions of pounds sterling would be received, we cannot assume less than two-thirds to have been consumed by the workingclasses. These classes probably expend in this way three times the whole cost of the religious establishment of the country. In Glasgow, there is a tavern or But then the working-classes realise such small spirit-shop for every fourteen families; and the sheriff ns, that they can spare nothing for this purpose." calculates that not fewer than thirty thousand of the This may be said; but it is at the best partially true. inhabitants go to bed drunk every Saturday night. In A great portion of the working-classes do most unques- the parish of St David's in Dundee, while there are but tionably, in ordinary times, realise enough to enable 11 bakers' shops, there are 108 for the sale of liquors. them to spare a little by way of provision for the future. In the parish of Lochwinnoch in Renfrewshire, three many, most creditably to themselves, make such or four times more money is spent in this way than is provision, it may fairly be presumed that others, required for the support of religion and education. baving the same wages, could do so also, if they were The value of ardent spirits consumed in the parish of lang. We may still more confidently presume, that, Stevenston in Ayrshire, with a population of 3681, exwhen some with comparatively small wages are able ceeds the landed rental by £3836. These are startling to save, those who are better off could save also. Now, facts, telling, if they tell any thing, that a large portion often happens that the labourers of least skill, and of the earnings of the working-classes is worse than who are least liberally remunerated, contribute as thrown away. Now, though it is well, certainly, to comlargely to savings' banks as their better paid brethren. passionate and relieve the sufferings of all who need, we Where this is the case, and the circumstances of the cannot but be equally sensible that it is proper to tell men are otherwise equal, we cannot doubt that the the plain truth, and say that for much of this suffering ter class make a less economical disposal of their our countrymen have themselves to blame. There has Clearly, they have only to imitate the frugal been of late years a hollow kind of cajolery practised conduct of the small-wage class, in order to have ample towards them, discreditable to all parties, and of a bans for making the provisions in question. On this dangerous tendency. We dismiss this entirely, and conaubject, from various causes, many erroneous notionsceive it to be both paying them a greater compliment

income.

Savings' Banks are enabled, after paying all charges upon their establishments, to give a considerably higher rate of interest than the ordinary banks, or even the greater part of private savings' banks, allow on deposits. The highest interest which the law allows the National Security Savings' Banks to pay, is 24d. per cent. per diem, or £3, 8s. 54d. per cent. per annum; the difference between this and the rate allowed on the money invested by them in government securities being reserved as a fund for the payment of the officials of the banks and other necessary expenses. The rate of interest which is generally paid by these banks, is 3 per cent., or £3, 6s. 8d. per cent. per annum; and whatever is left, after defraying all charges, is allowed to accumulate as a surplus fund.

Previous to the commencement of the present century, such of the humbler classes as were given to saving had no proper place of deposit for their spare funds, which they were obliged, therefore, to keep in an unfructifying hoard in their own possession, exposed to the risk of loss, or had to consign to some neighbour, who, though thought safe, might turn out to be much the reverse. At the same time, in the want of a proper place for the deposit of spare money, those who might save, but did not, lacked one important requisite to their doing so. About 1805, it occurred to some benevolent minds that an important benefit would be conferred on these classes, if there were institutions of the character of banks, but on a modest scale, in which the poor could deposit the smallest sums they could, from time to time, spare, certain of being able to draw them forth when they pleased, with accumulated interest. Savings banks were accordingly established, first in England, and afterwards in Scotland and Ireland, whence they quickly spread to America and France. They were generally conducted by associations of benevolent persons, who gave the security of their own credit for the accumulated sums, and held forth every temptation in the way of liberal interest, courtesy, and promptitude in management, to induce the workingclasses to resort to them.

Deposits of from one shilling to thirty pounds may be received by these banks, but no individual depositor is allowed to lodge more than thirty pounds in one year, or than £150 in whole. Charitable and provident institutions may lodge funds to the amount of £100 in a single year, or £300 in all; and friendly societies are permitted to deposit the whole of their funds, whatever may be their amount. Compound interest is given on the sums lodged, the interest being added to the prin cipal at the end of each year in some banks, and the end of each half-year in others, and interest afterwards allowed on the whole. Any depositor may receive, on demand, the money lodged by him, if it do not amount to a considerable sum; and even in that case it will be returned on a few days', or at most two or three weeks', notice. Practically, in Edinburgh at least, payment is always made on demand.

The wisest and most effectual provisions are made for ensuring the proper management of the affairs of these banks. Each must have a certain number of trustees and managers, whose services are performed gratuitously, besides a treasurer, actuary, cashier, clerks, &c.; all of whom must give security, by bond, to such amount as the directors of the establishment For some years, this joint-stock but still private may judge sufficient. No portion of the funds invested security was found to be sufficient for the purpose; in government security can be withdrawn, except on but, when it was understood that millions had found the authority of an order signed by several of the trus their way into savings' banks, it became apparent that tees and managers. Detailed reports of the transac something else was necessary in order to maintain the tions of each bank must be periodically forwarded to confidence which had at first been felt. The govern- the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National ment was therefore induced to frame a variety of sta- Debt, and also exhibited to the depositors at the bank tutes for the better regulation of savings' banks, and office. It may be of use to add, that the money dep one in particular by which its own security was given sited is consigned daily to the safe custody of a back, for the safe keeping of the deposits. This was done such as the Bank of Scotland, and is thence regularly under the guidance of the best intentions towards the transferred to the Bank of England. Any doubt, there industrious classes, who generally are depositors in fore, as to the security which is offered, would be que savings' banks, and with as little interference as pos- absurd. When the perfect safety of the system is consible with private and local management. A sub-trasted with the insecure practice of placing money at stantial benefit was also conferred, in the fixing of a rate of interest rather above the medium of what could be expected in a country under the particular circumstances of the United Kingdom with regard to capital. By the above-mentioned acts, it is directed that all the funds deposited in National Security Savings' Banks must be paid into the Bank of England on account of government, and that the money so invested shall bear interest at the rate of £3, 16s. 04d. per cent. per annum, whatever may be the fluctuations in the value of the public funds during the term of investment. Depositors are thus afforded the best of all securities, namely, that of the whole British nation; while the National * Various rules are appointed by the legislature for the mation and management of savings' banks. An association of persions desirous of forming one in any place are enjoined first to persoa set of rules for the management, and to submit these to

the approval of a barrister appointed by government, without
whose certificate they cannot enjoy a legal status, or any of the
advantages which the legislature has thought proper to hold out
for the encouragement of such institutions. The present certi-
fying barrister is John Tidd Pratt, Esq. A fee of one guinea is
charged for the revision of the rules and certificate. The ma-
nagers, trustees, and treasurer, must act gratuitously, the only
paid officer being the actuary or clerk, who is obliged to give

security for the money passing through his hands.

interest in the hands of private persons, as is unbal pily too often done, no one in his senses would for a moment hesitate which mode of disposal he shoud prefer.

Under both the old and new systems, savings' barks have been highly successful in their object, and money deposited in them reaches an amount which one who regarded the habits of the working-clas thirty-five years ago could have anticipated. In the total sum was a trifle within twenty-two In 1837, it was stated that the accumulations in th bank at Exeter alone, reached £800,000. At the s time, Manchester and Liverpool respectively sho bank ha £280,000 and £345,000. In November 1841, a accumulated £221,816: at the same period, after screwhat briefer career, that of Glasgow showed balance of deposits amounting to £173,204. In when the total accumulations in England (inclusive Wales) amounted to £13,582,102, the number of positors was 434,845, a very considerable proporti it must be owned, of the whole population. The 3 rage deposit of each person was at that time £31. In Scotland, the average deposits are less, perhaps consequence of the comparatively recent introdu of the national security system. At November 184