6 abolish the Board without substituting any better institution in its place. The secretary's testimony to the spirit of the school committees on the subject of religious instruction, is in these words :-' It 'will ever remain,' says he, an honour to the Commonwealth ' of Massachusetts, that among all the reports of its school 'committees for the last year, so many of which are voluminous ' and detailed, and a majority of which, probably, were prepared by clergymen belonging to all the various denominations in 'the state, there was not one which advocated the introduction ' of sectarian instruction or sectarian books into our public 'schools; while with accordant views-as a single voice coming 'from a single heart-they urge, they insist, they demand, that 'the great axioms of a Christian morality shall be sedulously taught, and that the teachers shall themselves be patterns of the virtues they are required to inculcate.' The opposition, therefore, proceeded from a different source, and it exhibited itself most formidably in the legislature. On the 7th March 1840, the majority of a committee appointed by the House of Representatives to report on the subject of Education, recommended that the Board should be abolished, the Normal schools suppressed, and the 10,000 dollars returned to Mr Dwight, who had presented them to the State for the institution of these schools; and they reported the draft of a bill to carry their recommendations into effect! We do not enter into the arguments by which the committee attempted to support their recommendations, because they are neither interesting nor instructive with reference to this country. The minority of the committee, consisting of two members only, presented a separate Report, which contrasts favourably with the malignant spirit and illogical composition of that of the majority. The propositions of the majority were finally rejected by a vote of 248 members to 182. In February 1841, a fresh attack was made on the Board in the House of Representatives; but it also failed. The vote stood thus-for the Board, 131; against it, 114; giving a majority in its favour of 17. It is mentioned in the Boston newspapers that this division took place in a thin house, and in circumstances otherwise unfavourable to the friends of education; but, nevertheless, it is considered as fatal to the opposition. If the motion to abolish the Board and the Normal schools had passed both Houses of the legislature, and if no better institutions had been substituted in their stead, the cause of Democracy would, by that act, have sustained a severer blow in Europe than it has suffered since the enormities of the French Revolution. Massachusetts presents the most favourable specimen of Democracy in the New World; she boasts of industry, wealth, religious zeal, and a comparatively enlightened population. Had her legislature extinguished these institutions, and reverted to the previously existing educational arrangements, we should have been justified in inferring that democracy instinctively hates light, refinement, and civilization; and that its native atmosphere is that of ignorance, selfishness, and passion. The better spirit, however, prevailed; and we trust that the continued and increasing success of this scheme, will hasten the day when practicable measures for public instruction may be adopted in our own country, and supported by the liberal and good of all political and religious opinions.. The following Table is, in several respects, both curious and interesting. It contains the aggregate result of the school returns of Massachusetts' for the year 1840; and presents, in a condensed form, the moral statistics of that state, drawn from the most recent and authentic sources. It indicates the proportions of the population between the ages of four and sixteen to the whole number alive, in a country in a state of rapid increase; and it shows the rate at which the teachers, male and female, are remunerated, and the attendance at the schools. The valua⚫tion' includes all the real and personal property of the people, estimated at their actual worth. No. of towns which have made returns, (the total number of towns → is 307,) Population, (1st May 1887,) Valuation, (1830,) No. of public schools, No. of scholars of all ages in the schools, Average attendance in the schools, 301. 696,197. 207,404,358 dollars, 26 cents. 179,268. 7,844. No. of persons between 4 and 16 years of age, No. over 16, who attend school, Average length of time of the schools in months and days, No. of teachers (summer and winter terms) { Average salaries paid per month, to males, including board, Average value of board per month, Average salaries per month, exclusive of board,... * VOL. LXXIII. NO. CXLVIII. 11,834. 7, 10. males, 2,378. females, 3,928. 33 dollars, 8 cents. - females, 12 75 males, 8. 92 - females, 5 85 of males, 24 14 J- females, Aggregate of months during which they were kept open, 78. 775 3,701. 57,458 dollars, 59 cents. No. of unincorporated academies, private schools, and schools kept to No. of incorporated academies, Average number of scholars, Aggregate paid for tuition, prolong common schools, 1,308. Besides the sums raised for Education, the people of Massachusetts tax themselves for support of the Poor. În 1838, there were, in the whole State, 15,069 paupers, who were maintained at an expense of 325,092 dollars, 7 cents. The average weekly cost of each pauper in the almshouse was 23 cents, or 3s. 5d. Sterling. ART. VII. 1. Speech of the Right. Hon. Henry Labouchere, March 12, 1841. 2. Speech of the Right Hon. Lord John Russell, May 7, 1841. 3. Speech of the Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, May 18, 1841. 4. Speech of the Right Hon. Henry Labouchere, May 10, 1841. 5. Speech of the Right Hon. Francis Baring, May 17, 1841. 6. Speech of the Right Hon. Viscount Palmerston, May 27, 1841. 7. Common-Sense View of the Sugar Question. London, 8vo. 1841. THE HE history and the prospects of the manufacturing industry of Great Britain, have long excited mixed feelings of pleasure and of pain, of pride and of regret, of satisfaction and of uneasiness, in all thinking minds. We have raised the value of British industry far beyond the value of that of any other European community. We have accumulated a capital far exceeding, both positively and in relation to our population, that of any other existing nation, or indeed of any nation whose history is known. Though struggling with a bad climate and a moderately fertile soil, that industry and that capital have made our land more valuable than any other country of equal extent. In no portion of Europe does the whole amount of wages bear so large a proportion to the whole number of labourers; or the whole amount of profit to the whole number of inhabitants; or the whole amount of rent to the whole cultivable area: So far as wealth has been our object, we have been successful beyond the dreams of avarice. And our success has not been obtained by the sacrifice of present enjoyment. We have not grown rich by parsimony. Whatever may be thought of some portions of our own Countrymen, the English, and they form the bulk of the population of Britain, are not a saving people. In every occupation and in every rank-among labourers, mechanics, shopkeepers, capitalists, and proprietors-there is a tendency to the display and the consumption of wealth little known on the Continent. The Government has been still more extravagant than its subjects; so that we have exhibited the strange spectacle of a nation rising rapidly to enormous wealth in the midst of profuse public and private expenditure. But sacrifices we have made, and they are very serious ones, both as they affect our present happiness, and as they endanger, at no remote period, our future welfare; and we have diminished the advantages of our position, aggravated the difficulties which are necessarily incidental to it, and multiplied tenfold its dangers, by legislative errors which we are now beginning, we trust not too late, to rectify. Some dangers, some difficulties, are, as we have said, incidental to our position. What they are, will be best seen by comparing the state of our labouring population with that of the nations which surround us. In every other portion of Europe, indeed in every other portion of the civilized world, the bulk of the free population are occupiers or proprietors of Land; employing themselves partly in raising food for their own consumption, and partly in rough manufactures for their own use. The cottage of the French Paysan or of the German Bauer, is a much worse habitation than that of the English labourer-but it is his own. He feeds on the inferior vegetables, or on a bread which would be rejected by an English beggar-but they come from his own garden or his own field. His dress is coarse and ill-madebut his linen has perhaps been grown, spun, and woven in his own house; and his woollen garments are often the produce of his own sheep. He is not a diligent workman-but he is almost always working. He does nothing well-but a great many things tolerably. Both his labour and his skill are diffused, instead of being, like the Englishman's, concentrated. Such a population may be ill-fed, ill-clothed, and ill-lodged; but it is at least secure of employment. The only accidents to which it is subject, are the accidents of the seasons. Such a population necessarily acquires habits of economy and prudence. Every head of a family is to a certain degree a capitalist. He is accustomed to make present sacrifices for future objects; to reserve a portion of his crop for seed; and to proportion the daily consumption of the remainder to the number of days that must elapse before the harvest recurs. The greatest of all improvidences, improvident marriage, is repressed, partly by the comparative unproductiveness of the labour of women and children-partly by the difficulty of procuring a house and land for a new family, except on the death of a previous occupant-partly by legal restrictions and still more effectually by the customs which these different causes have produced. Such a population has almost always a deep respect for property and for authority. Every man values highly his own small possessions, and reverences the law which protects them. And even if the law become oppressive instead of protective, a scattered peasantry have neither the knowledge, the habits, nor the opportunities, which would enable them to combine in resisting it. A tranquil, unadvancing, indolent, but frugal and contented poverty, with little to hope, but still less to fear, is the state of the great mass of the inhabitants of continental Europe. On the other hand, in Britain, particularly in England, the very large majority of the population consists of labourers hired by the week or by the day, dependent for subsistence solely on their wages, and for their wages solely on the will of their master. Both the skill and the diligence of the British workman are unrivalled; hence, when these admirable qualities are well directed, the high value of his labour, and the large amount of his wages. But the skill and diligence of each individual can be applied to only a few purposes, and are useful only under numerous and complicated conditions. The continental workman may in general be compared to the tools which he uses-his axe or his spade,-an instrument of no great efficiency, but always fit for independent use. The British workmen, and more especially the most numerous classes, those employed in manufactures, resemble the component parts of the vast machines which they direct. Separately taken, they are as useless as a |