dation, and we urge the industrious, the trading, philanthropic classes to advocate reproductive emment for paupers. The question is one of great ortance; it is between feeding the people and putting n in the way of feeding themselves, between industry idleness, wages and alms, self-respect and degrada

CHAPTER VII.

STATE OF EDUCATION.

VARIOUS circumstances have tended to direct attention to the educational condition of Suffolk. The Poor Law

Commissioners have stated that, out of 1,219 in-door paupers, 10 only could read and write well, 281 could read and write imperfectly, and 928 could neither read nor write. The criminal tables have shown that nearly 80 per cent. of our felons were without education. The Registrar General's Reports have exhibited 46 per cent. of the men, and 52 per cent. of the women, who were married, as unable to write their own names; and, lastly, the "Church School Inquiry" has pointed out numbers of parishes in which "the educational wants are very great," and the necessity of schools is most urgent.

The above facts are of themselves sufficient in importance to invest any inquiry into the extent and efficiency of education in this district with a more than ordinary degree of interest; and, in addition, we may safely affirm that the past history and present condition of the facilities for instruction in this county are subjects over which the social and moral reformer may well ponder. It is now nearly half a century since George III. stated it as his wish that every child in his dominions should be taught to read the Bible. The religious bodies in Suffolk, as elsewhere, undertook that this wish should be realised, and, as this undertaking was

one certainly not of insurmountable character, it may well excite astonishment that, after the lapse of so long a period, thousands of our present inhabitants, Suffolk born, have never been taught the mystery of the alphabet. The efforts of all parties, after forty years of agitation, have left us a large mass of uninstructed ignorance to deal with, and it may be fairly asked, Why is the desired end so far from being accomplished?

Until recently, such an inquiry as we now propose into the state of education could not have been undertaken. Prior to 1851 the materials did not exist. At the taking of the census in that year it was wisely resolved to obtain all the information possible respecting schools and scholars in each of the Poor Law districts. The materials thus collected at once exhibited the extent of instruction. From other sources we shall be able to show the efficiency of this instruction, and the facts thus brought together will, we hope, afford the means of giving a fair answer to the question, Why, in the middle of the nineteenth century, are the laboring poor of this county comparatively uninstructed?

The result of the census inquiry into the state of education in this county may be thus summarily stated. Returns were received from 1,070 day schools, containing 41,331 scholars (398 public, with 27,387 scholars; and 672 private; containing 13,944 scholars); from 541. Sunday schools with 37,470 scholars; and from 38 evening schools for adults, having 835 pupils.

But the Census Report states that mention was made by the enumerators of the existence throughout England and Wales of 1,206 other day schools (107 public and 1,099 private) and 377 Sunday schools from which no returns were obtained. It is reasonable to assume that a fair proportion of these schools, (11 public, and 17 private day schools, and 8 Sunday schools) belong to Suffolk, and that each of these schools contained upon an average as many scholars as did

RISE OF PUBLIC DAY SCHOOLS.

207

each of the schools that made returns. The educational census for this county may, therefore, be thus exhibited:

The public have now the opportunity of ascertaining whether the Educational position of Suffolk is satisfactory or not, although, before deciding this question, it is necessary to inquire what number of children out of the population of Suffolk in 1851 ought to have been found at school, the duration of school attendance, the age of the scholars, and the character of the instruction afforded in our day schools.

A preliminary inquiry may be made as to what has been the progress of education during the present century. Public Day Schools are almost entirely the creation of this century. Great changes in the scholastic influences have occurred during the period. Popular education received its first impulse in this county in 1809, when Henry Alexander, Esq., of Ipswich, established a day school for girls on the plan of the British and Foreign School Society. This step led to a general movement among the friends of Education in Ipswich, and in January, 1811, a public meeting was called for the purpose of establishing a society to educate the "Children of the Poor." The school long known as the Lancasterian School was the offspring of this meeting. Churchmen and Nonconformists were united in this movement, which was confined to the education of boys. The year 1811 also gave birth to another movement. In the girl's school, instituted by A. Alexander, Esq., no catechism

or creed was allowed to be introduced. Some conscientious members of the Established Church objecting to this exclusion, they unitedly established a school for girls, in which the Church Catechism was taught in addition to the usual rudiments of education. The success of the Lancasterian party stimulated the High Church members into an educational movement, and in February, 1812, the Ipswich schools of the "National Society for Educating the Children of the Poor on the Principles of the Established Church" were opened. At Bury St. Edmund's a similar movement took place at the same period; the friends of Joseph Lancaster established their school in 1811, and the National Schools were opened in 1812.

Religious zeal stimulated some persons. to support schools that were exclusively Church Schools, and the same zeal roused others to use their influence on behalf of schools in which the Bible without note or comment was the only religious school book, and the zealous advocate of popular enlightenment strove earnestly to increase the number of scholars. In the towns of this county education for the people was thus firmly based, and the Educational Returns, which were called for a few years after, exhibit the extent to which popular education then existed, allowance being made for errors of omission. The number of schools and scholars, according to the Parliamentary Returns of 1818, was as under :

Truth compels us to remark that the exertions made to extend education among the poorer classes, were not