The Claims of Labour Part 4

But how strange it is that men should require to be urged to this good work of education. The causing children to be taught is a thing so full of joy, of love, of hope, that one wonders how such a gladsome path of benevolence could ever have been unfrequented. The delight of educating is like that of cultivating near the fruitful Nile, where seed time and harvest come so close together. And when one looks forward to the indefinite extension that any efforts in this direction may probably enjoy, one is apt to feel as if nothing else were important, and to be inclined to expend all one's energies in this one course. Indeed, it is hard to estimate the enormous benefit of enabling a man to commune with the most exalted minds of all time, to read the most significant records of all ages, to find that others have felt and seen and suffered as himself, to extend his sympathy with his brother-man, his insight into nature, his knowledge of the ways of G.o.d. Now the above is but a poor description of what the humblest education offers.

Let us now consider the subject of "the school-room" more in detail.

And, the first remark I have to make, is, that we should perpetually recal to mind the nature of our own thoughts, and sensations, at the early periods of life in which those are whom we are trying to educate.

This will make us careful not to weary children with those things which we long to impress most upon them. The repet.i.tion of words, whatever they may contain, is often like the succession of waves in a receding tide, which makes less of an inroad at each pulsation. It is different when an idea, or state of feeling, is repeated by conduct of various kinds: that is most impressive. If a child, for instance, is brought up where there is a pervading idea of any kind, manifested as it will be in many ways, the idea is introduced again and again without wearisomeness, and the child imbibes it unconsciously. But mere maxims, embracing this idea, would very likely have gained no additional influence with him from being constantly repeated: that is, at the time; for, in after years, the maxims may, perhaps, fasten upon his mind with a peculiar strength, simply from their having been often repeated to him at an early period of his life. But at present this repet.i.tion may be of immense disservice.

You cannot continue to produce the same effect by words, that you did on first using them; and often you go on hammering about a thing until you loosen what was fast in the first instance. It is well to keep such reflections steadily in mind as regards religious instruction for the young, and, especially, as regards religious services for them. Go back to your own youth, and recollect how little command of attention you had yourself, how volatile you were, how anxious to escape all tedium, how weary of words, how apt to dislike routine. Then see whether you make sufficient allowance for these feelings in dealing with the young; and whether it might not be possible to give them the same holy precepts, to communicate the same extent, or nearly so, of religious instruction, and yet to ensure their love for the times, and places, and circ.u.mstances, of this communication. You must allow that you do a very dangerous thing indeed, when you make that wearisome which you wish to be most loved. I must confess that it has often struck me, that we insist upon too much religious attendance from children of a tender age; and, considering what we know of the impatience of the human mind, I cannot but think that such a system is often most prejudicial. I say these things with much hesitation, and some fear of being misunderstood; and I do not venture to enter into details, or to presume to say what should be the exact course in so difficult a question. What I wish, is to draw the attention of those engaged in instruction to a point of view which may sometimes escape them, or which they may be tempted to neglect for the sake of appearances, the household G.o.ds of this generation.

There is one maxim which those who superintend schools should ponder well; and that is, that the best things to be learnt are those which the children cannot be examined upon. One cannot but fear that the masters will be apt to think school-proficiency all in all; and that the founders and supporters of schools will, occasionally, be tempted by vanity to take most interest in those things which give most opportunity for display. Yet the slightest inferiority of moral tone in a school would be ill compensated for by an expertness, almost marvellous, in dealing with figures; or a knowledge of names, things, and places, which may well confound the grown-up bystander. That school would in reality be the one to be proud of, where order was thoroughly maintained with the least admixture of fear; where you would have most chance of meeting with truthful replies from the children in a matter where such replies would criminate themselves: and where you would find the most kindly feeling to each other prevalent throughout. Yet these are things not to be seen on show days, that cannot be got up for exhibition, that require unwearied supervision on the part of masters and benefactors, that will never be attempted but by those who, themselves, feel deeply the superiority of moral excellence to all else. Such teachers will see how the kindness of children to each other may be encouraged. They will take more notice of a good-natured thing than a clever one. They will show, how much, even in the minutest trifles, truth and fort.i.tude weigh with them. They will be careful not to stimulate an unwholesome craving for praise in their pupils. They will look not only to the thing done, but also to the mode and spirit of doing it. That this spirit and mode may be the means of generating and guiding future endeavour will be a main object with such instructors. The dignity of labour, the independence of thrift, the greatness of contentment, will be themes dwelt upon by them, in their loving foresight for the future welfare of the infant labourers entrusted to their care. To endear holy things to these little ones would delight such teachers far more than to instil the utmost proficiency in any critical or historical knowledge of the sacred writings. Not that the two things are in the least degree incompatible. Far from it, indeed!

All I mean to insist on is, that such teachers will perceive what are the great objects of culture: and how subservient even the best knowledge is to the apprehension of duty. They will see, too, more clearly the necessity of bearing in mind the pre-eminence of moral and religious culture, when they reflect that many of their pupils come from places which cannot be called homes, where scarcely anything like parental love sustains or informs them, and where, perhaps, confusion, discontent, and domestic turbulence prevail.

We may remark, as bearing upon this subject, that singing lessons should be greatly encouraged in schools. There are several merits connected with this mode of instruction. It employs many together, and gives a feeling of communion; it is not much mixed up with emulation; the tenderest and highest sentiments may be unostentatiously impressed by its means, for you can introduce in songs such things as you could not lecture upon; then it gives somewhat of a cultivated taste, and an additional topic of social interest, even to those who do not make much proficiency; while to others, who have a natural ability for it, it may form an innocent and engaging pursuit throughout their lives.

With respect to the intellectual part of teaching, I have not much to say: and it is a branch of the subject which has engaged, and is engaging, the attention of men who are much more capable of speaking about it than I am. The only thing which it occurs to me to mention is, that one would like to see a great deal of manual teaching, with a view not only to the future profit, but also to the future pleasure and instruction of the children. When you think that many of them will be artisans, whose only occupation, perhaps, will be to perform some one process of manufactures, requiring next to no thought or skill, it becomes the more necessary to educate their hands as well as their heads.

Man is an animal very fond of construction of any sort; and a wise teacher, knowing the happiness that flows from handiwork, will seize upon opportunities for teaching even the most trivial accomplishments of a manual kind. They will come in, hereafter, to embellish a man's home, and to endear it to him. They will occupy time that would, otherwise, be ill spent. And, besides, there are many persons whose cleverness lies only in this way; and you have to teach them this or nothing.

3. THE PLAYGROUND.

This is a place quite as important as the school-room. Here it is, that a large part of the moral cultivation may be carried on. It is a great object to humanize the conduct of children to each other at play times without interfering with them, or controlling them, too much. But we have, before, gone over the motives which should actuate a teacher in his moral guidance; and it needs only to remark, that the playground is a place where that guidance is eminently required; and where the exigencies for it are most easily discerned.

Those games should not be overlooked which are of a manly kind, and likely to be continued in after life. This brings us naturally to think of the playgrounds for children of a larger growth. Hitherto there has been a sad deficiency in this matter in our manufacturing towns, and almost everywhere else. Can any thing be more lamentable to contemplate than a dull, grim, and vicious population, whose only amus.e.m.e.nt is sensuality? Yet, what can we expect, if we provide no means whatever of recreation; if we never share our own pleasures with our poorer brethren; and if the public buildings which invite them in their brief hours of leisure are chiefly gin palaces? As for our cathedrals and great churches, we mostly have them well locked up, for fear any one should steal in and say a prayer, or contemplate a n.o.ble work of art, without paying for it: and we shut people up by thousands in dense towns with no outlets to the country, but those which are guarded on each side by dusty hedges. Now an open s.p.a.ce near a town is one of nature's churches: and it is an imperative duty to provide such things. Nor, indeed, should we stop at giving breathing places to crowded mult.i.tudes in great towns. To provide cheap locomotion, as a means of social improvement, should be ever in the minds of legislators and other influential persons. Blunders in legislating about railroads, and absurd expenditure in making them, are a far greater public detriment than they may seem at first sight.

Again, without interfering too much, or attempting to force a "Book of Sports" upon the people, who in that case, would be resolutely dull and lugubrious, the benevolent employer of labour might exert himself in many ways to encourage healthful and instructive amus.e.m.e.nts amongst his men.

He might give prizes for athletic excellence or skill. He might aid in establishing zoological gardens, or music-meetings, or exhibitions of pictures, or mechanics' inst.i.tutes. These are things in which some of the great employers of labour have already set him the example. Let him remember how much his workpeople are deprived of by being almost confined to one spot; and let him be the more anxious to enlarge their minds by inducing them to take interest in any thing which may prevent the "ignorant present," and its low cares, from absorbing all their attention. He has very likely some pursuit, or some art, in which he takes especial pleasure himself, and which gives to his leisure, perhaps, its greatest charm: he may be sure that there are many of his people who could be made to share in some degree that pleasure, or pursuit, with him. It is a large, a sure, and certainly a most pleasurable beneficence, to provide for the poor such opportunities of recreation, or means of amus.e.m.e.nt, as I have mentioned above. Neither can it be set down as at all a trifling matter. Depend upon it, that man has not made any great progress in humanity who does not care for the leisure hours and amus.e.m.e.nts of his fellow-men.

While we are upon this matter, I will mention something which borders closely upon it, though it applies to the consumer rather than the manufacturer. Most men would think it much, if it were brought home to them, that from any carelessness of theirs, some person had suffered unnecessary imprisonment, if only for a day. And yet any one, who encourages unreasonably late hours of business, does what he can to uphold a system of needless confinement, depriving thousands of that healthful change of pursuit which is one of the main aliments both for body and soul, and leaving little time or opportunity for any thing to grow up in their minds beyond the rudest and most trivial cares and objects.

4. THE WORKMAN'S HOME.

That the workman should have a home, which, however humble it may be, should yet afford room and scope for the decencies, if not for some of the comforts and refinements of civilized life, is manifestly essential, if we wish to preserve the great body of the people from a state of savageness. There is an important and original remark on this subject in the Hand Loom Weavers Report of 1841:

"The man who dines for 6d. and clothes himself during the year for 5. is probably as healthily fed, and as healthily clad, as if his dinner cost two guineas a day, and his dress 200 a year. But this is not the case with respect to habitation. Every increase of accommodation, from the corner of a cellar to a mansion, renders the dwelling more healthy, and, to a considerable extent, the size and goodness of the dwelling tends to render its inmates more civilized."

Indeed, if civilization does not show itself in a man's home, where else is it likely to take much root with him? Make his home comfortable, and you do more towards making him a steady and careful citizen, than you could by any other means. Now only look around, and see how entirely this has been neglected, at least, until within a recent date. Our workers are toiling all day long, or, if they have leisure, it is mostly accompanied by pecuniary distress: and can you expect in either case that they will busy themselves about those primary structural arrangements without which it is scarcely possible to have a comfortable home? Many of the things, too, which are needful for this end, require capital, or, at least, such conjoint enterprise as can hardly be expected from the poor. Take any individual workman. Suppose there is defective drainage in his street, or, as often happens, no drainage at all, what can one such man do, even if at all alive to the evil? When you consider the dependent condition of the labouring cla.s.ses, and how little time they have for domestic arrangements of any kind, does it not behove the employer of labour to endeavour that his workmen should have opportunities of getting places to live in, fit for human beings in a civilized country? I use the phrase "employer of labour," in its widest sense; and at once say, that there are many things bearing upon the comfort of the habitations of the poor, which both the local authorities and the imperial government ought to look to. Is there not a strange mockery in the fact, stated in the Sanitary Report, that "the annual slaughter in England and Wales from preventible causes of typhus which attacks persons in the vigour of life, appears to be double the amount of what was suffered by the allied armies in the battle of Waterloo?" Must we not say again that the careless cruelty of the world almost outweighs the rest?

I have hitherto abstained from vexing my readers with details; nor do I wish now to do more than draw their attention to a few extracts from public doc.u.ments respecting the habitations of the poor. I take the following from the Hand Loom Weavers' Report in 1841.

"The First Annual Report of the Registrar-General, showed for the year 1838 a variation of the annual mortality in different districts of the metropolis, amounting to 100 per cent.; a difference nearly equal to that which exists between the most healthy and the least healthy portions of the world. The inquiries inst.i.tuted at the same time by the Poor Law Commissioners into the physical causes of fever in the metropolis, have traced the comparative mortality of the unhealthy districts princ.i.p.ally to the presence of impurities, the want of ventilation, and the bad construction of houses.

"The following extracts from Dr. Southwood Smith's Report on Bethnal Green and Whitechapel, show both the causes and the intensity of the evil.

'It appears,' says Dr. Southwood Smith, 'that in many parts of Bethnal Green and Whitechapel, fever of a malignant and fatal character is always more or less prevalent. In some streets it has recently prevailed in almost every house; in some courts in every house; and in some few instances in every room in every house. Cases are recorded in which every member of a family has been attacked in succession, of whom in every such case several have died; some whole families have been swept away. Instances are detailed in which there have been found in one small room six persons lying ill of fever together; I have myself seen this, four in one bed, and two in another.

'The room of a fever patient in a small and heated apartment in London, with no perflation of fresh air, is perfectly a.n.a.logous to a standing pool in Ethiopia full of bodies of dead locusts. The poison generated in both cases is the same; the difference is merely in the degree of its potency. Nature with her burning sun, her stilled and pent up wind, her stagnant and teeming marsh, manufactures plague on a large and fearful scale. Poverty in her hut, covered with her rags, surrounded with her filth, striving with all her might to keep out the pure air and to increase the heat, imitates nature but too successfully: the process and the product are the same; the only difference is in the magnitude of the result.

'But the magnitude of the result in London, if that magnitude be estimated by the numbers attacked, is not slight. From returns received from the Bethnal Green and Whitechapel Unions it appears that during the last year there occurred of fever cases,

In the Bethnal Green Union 2,084

In the Whitechapel Union 2,557

Total 4,641

The state of things described above by Dr. Southwood Smith is by no means confined to the metropolis; nor, even, is it to be seen in its worst form there. Mr. Chadwick says, "the most wretched of the stationary population of which I have been able to obtain any account, or that I have ever seen, was that which I saw in company with Dr. Arnott, and others, in the wynds of Edinburgh and Glasgow." I forbear to add their detailed report, which, as regards Glasgow especially, represents a loathsome state of filth and wretchedness. If we go now to the manufacturing towns of England, the evidence is of a similar character.

"The following extract," says the Sanitary Report, "is descriptive of the condition of large cla.s.ses of tenements in the manufacturing towns of Lancashire. It is from the report of Mr. Pearson, the medical officer of the Wigan Union."

"From the few observations which I have been enabled to make respecting the causes of fever during the two months which I have held the situation of house-surgeon to the Dispensary, I am inclined to consider the filthy condition of the town as being the most prominent source. Many of the streets are unpaved and almost covered with stagnant water, which lodges in numerous large holes which exist upon their surface, and into which the inhabitants throw all kinds of rejected animal and vegetable matters, which then undergo decay and emit the most poisonous exhalations. These matters are often allowed, from the filthy habits of the inhabitants of these districts, many of whom, especially the poor Irish, are utterly regardless both of personal and domestic cleanliness, to acc.u.mulate to an immense extent, and thus become prolific sources of malaria, rendering the atmosphere an active poison."

Dr. Edward Knight, speaking of some parts of the town of Stafford, says,

"These parts of the town are without drainage, the houses, which are private property, are built without any regard to situation or ventilation, and constructed in a manner to ensure the greatest return at the least possible outlay. The accommodation in them does not extend beyond two rooms; these are small, and, for the most part, the families work in the day-time in the same room in which they sleep, to save fuel.

"There is not any provision made for refuse dirt, which, as the least trouble, is thrown down in front of the houses, and there left to putrefy."

Mr. William Rayner, the medical officer of the Heaton Norris district of the Stockport Union, thus describes a part of that town:

"There are forty-four houses in the two rows, and twenty-two cellars, all of the same size. The cellars are let off as separate dwellings; these are dark, damp, and very low, not more that six feet between the ceiling and floor. The street between the two rows is seven yards wide, in the centre of which is the common gutter, or more properly sink, into which all sorts of refuse is thrown; it is a foot in depth. Thus there is always a quant.i.ty of putrefying matter contaminating the air. At the end of the rows is a pool of water very shallow and stagnant, and a few yards further, a part of the town's gas works. In many of these dwellings there are four persons in one bed."

We might have hoped that country districts at least would have been free from the evils occasioned by contracted building, want of ventilation, want of drainage, and the like; but this is far indeed from being the case. The following is from the report of Mr. Aaron Little, the medical officer of the Chippenham Union:

"The parish of Colerne, which, upon a cursory view, any person (unacquainted with its peculiarities) would p.r.o.nounce to be the most healthy village in England, is in fact the most unhealthy. From its commanding position (being situated upon a high hill) it has an appearance of health and cheerfulness which delights the eye of the traveller, who commands a view of it from the Great Western road; but this impression is immediately removed on entering at any point of the town. The filth, the dilapidated buildings, the squalid appearance of the majority of the lower orders, have a sickening effect upon the stranger who first visits this place. During three years' attendance on the poor of this district, I have never known the small pox, scarlatina, or the typhus fever to be absent. The situation is damp, and the buildings unhealthy, and the inhabitants themselves inclined to be of dirty habits. There is also a great want of drainage."

Mr. John Fox, the medical officer of the Cerne Union, Dorsetshire, gives the following evidence:

"In many of the cottages, where synochus prevailed, the beds stood on the ground-floor, which was damp three parts of the year; scarcely one had a fire place in the bed-room, and one had a single small pane of gla.s.s stuck in the mud wall as its only window, with a large heap of wet and dirty potatoes in one corner. Persons living in such cottages are generally very poor, very dirty, and usually in rags; living almost wholly on bread and potatoes, scarcely ever tasting animal food, and consequently highly susceptible of disease and very unable to contend with it. I am quite sure if such persons were placed in good, comfortable, clean cottages, the improvement in themselves and children would soon be visible, and the exceptions would only be found in a few of the poorest and most wretched, who perhaps had been born in a mud hovel, and had lived in one the first thirty years of their lives."

Mr. James Gane, the medical officer of the Uxbridge Union, says,

"I attribute the prevalence of diseases of an epidemic character, which exists so much more among the poor than among the rich, to be, from the want of better accommodation as residence, (their dwellings instead of being built of solid materials are complete sh.e.l.ls of mud on a spot of waste land the most swampy in the parish; this is to be met with almost everywhere in rural districts) to the want of better clothing, being better fed, more attention paid to the cleanliness of their dwellings, and less congregated together."

Mr. Thomas H. Smith, the medical officer of the Bromley Union, states:

"My attention was first directed to the sources of malaria in this district and neighbourhood when cholera became epidemic. I then partially inspected the dwellings of the poor, and have recently completed the survey. It is almost incredible that so many sources of malaria should exist in a rural district. A total absence of all provisions for effectual drainage around cottages is the most prominent source of malaria; throughout the whole district there is scarcely an attempt at it. The refuse vegetable and animal matters are also thrown by the cottagers in heaps near their dwellings to decompose; are sometimes not removed, except at very long intervals; and are always permitted to remain sufficiently long to acc.u.mulate in some quant.i.ty. Pigsties are generally near the dwellings, and are always surrounded by decomposing matters. These const.i.tute some of the many sources of malaria, and peculiarly deserve attention as being easily remedied, and yet, as it were, cherished. The effects of malaria are strikingly exemplified in parts of this district.

There are localities from which fever is seldom long absent; and I find spots where the spasmodic cholera located itself are also the chosen resorts of continued fever."

It appears from the Sanitary Report, from which I have made the above extracts, and which was presented to Parliament in 1842, that there were then 8000 inhabited cellars at Liverpool; and that the occupants were estimated at from 35,000 to 40,000. Liverpool is called a prosperous town. People point with admiration to its docks, and its warehouses, and speak of its wealth and grandeur in high terms. But such prosperity, like the victory of Pyrrhus, is apt to suggest the idea of ruin.

Thirty-five thousand people living in cellars! Surely such things as these demonstrate the necessity there is for making great exertions to provide fit habitations for the poor. Each year there is required in Great Britain, according to the Sanitary Report, an increase of 59,000 new tenements, "a number equal to that of two new towns such as Manchester proper, which has 32,310 houses, and Birmingham, which has 27,268 houses." In these large increments of building, is it not essential that there should be some care for the health and the morals of the people? Is it not a question which even in a selfish point of view affects the whole empire?

I am aware that there are great difficulties in the way of any general measure for regulating buildings. The first difficulty which occurs, one which, of itself, forms a limit to building regulations, is, that if you carry them beyond a certain extent, the poorer cla.s.ses are driven, by the increased expense, from the occupation of cottages to that of rooms, which would be anything but a gain. Besides, it is obvious, on other accounts, that any regulations with respect to building must be introduced with great care, especially in an old country, and where the buildings, which you would be most anxious to modify, are those which will be erected in the immediate vicinity of ground already densely covered with houses. The Liverpool Improvement Act affords a curious instance of, what appears to me, absurd and impatient legislation on the subject of building. By some of its provisions a certain description of cellar in that town will be thrown out of occupation on a given day.

Now, where are the inhabitants of these cellars to go to? You might as well legislate that no food except of a certain quality should be sold; but it does not seem likely that this would secure the maintenance of the population so legislated upon. Inconsiderate measures of this kind occasionally put even wise interference out of countenance. Still, I must contend that much good may be done by some simple building regulations of a sanitary nature. Much may be done indirectly, all of which is nearly sure to be good. For instance, it is very desirable to lower the taxation upon building materials. Then, again, wherever the window-tax can be modified, with a view to benefit the dwellings of the poor, it should be done. Mr. Biers, a witness examined before the Select Committee in 1842 on Building Regulations, says,

"The preamble of this Act (the Bill, I believe, then under consideration) sets out that it is for the purpose of preventing disease and giving better ventilation; now, it would much increase the advantages of poor people if a rider or addition was made to the 17th section, for the purpose of giving a better ventilation without being liable to the tax-gatherer. I have added to this section, 'And, for the purpose of promoting health and better ventilation, it is provided, that all window-lights or cas.e.m.e.nts, not being between the outside brick or stone reveals of greater dimensions than one foot wide and three feet high, shall not be a.s.sessed to the window duties, whether the same be glazed or not, provided the room or appurtenance is not used for a sleeping or dwelling apartment.'"