ence combined have served as preservatives against | ercises. Whenever a party of Etonians are pitted at tangible dangers. But in so far as the affluent classes cricket or running against a party of lads of a lower are concerned, this is but a small portion of the benefits class, the difference is at once perceptible. Again, the they have conferred. The habits generated in these facility with which the young men educated at Oxford classes by the advancement of knowledge, at a time of and Cambridge-unapt though the system of education increased diffusion of knowledge, have been favourable pursued in these two great seminaries be to prepare to a general healthy condition of the individual system, them for the real business of life-work their way into alike calculated to ward off the attacks of disease and the routine of legal or diplomatic business, is well to baffle them when they are incurred. Any per- known. There is something in the strengthening inson whose memory can carry him back for forty years, fluence of good and delicate feeding, clothing, and and who has had opportunities of observing, may re- lodging, combined with exercise of the physical and member the deficient ventilation, the small rooms, and mental faculties, sufficient to strengthen, not to exthe number of inmates in each room, which character-haust, persevered in for generations, that ennobles the ised even the houses of the landed gentry. In towns race of the human animal, just as careful grooming the evil was still greater. But it would require to and crossing the breed judiciously, ennobles the horse. carry the retrospect still farther back-to the time What is here spoken of, is not the power of such a when Rousseau in France, and Davy and Edgeworth in process to confer genius, or true nobility of disposition; England, commenced their crusades against unhealthy but to bring out in perfection all the average commonabsurdities in the dress and manner of living of the place qualities of the human being. In any country, wealthier classes-to imagine the whole amount of a superiority of this kind is discernible in the domithe improvement which has been effected in this re- nant caste; and as mere human animals, there is no spect. The improved taste of the wealthier classes has country in the world that can produce a race equal to contributed to improve their morals; and, in return, the young gentry of England. the better regulation of their conduct has tended to improve their general health. The practice of deep drinking, which universally prevailed, has almost ceased to exist among the affluent classes. Literary and scientific pursuits, if they do not always guard against low debauchery, save many from it, and enable still more to recover, after yielding for a time to temptation. An interesting paper, published by M. Benoiston de Chateauneuf, entitled ' On the Duration of Life in the Rich and in the Poor,' corroborates these views. The author has made, on the one hand, an abstract of the deaths of 1600 persons of the highest rank, among whom are 157 sovereigns and princes; on the other hand, he has taken from the civil registers of Paris, the deaths of 2000 persons in the 12th arrondissement, which contains a population of workmen of all kinds-ragmen, sweepers, delvers, day-labourers, &c.—a class subjected to pain, anxiety, and hard labour, who live in want, and die in hospitals. Out of these materials he has constructed a table showing the per-centage of mortality among the two classes at different ages, and has added a column indicating the per-centage among the middle or easy classes. He found that, between 25 and 30, the deaths per cent. were among the rich, 0; among the common class, 141; among the poor, 2-22: from 50 to 55among the rich, 181; among the common class, 268; among the poor, 2:58: from 75 to 80-among the rich, 809; among the common class, 10:32; among the poor, 14:59. At this last age the column showing the deaths among the poor stops for want of materials-they had all died off; the column showing the deaths of the common class extends to the age of 90; that of the rich to 95. The same conclusion is indicated by contrasting the annual mortality shown by the annual average of deaths among the English middle classes who have insured their lives with the Equitable Society, and the annual average among the negro slaves. Among the former, it was only 1 in 815 from 1800 to 1820; whereas it has been calculated that one negro slave dies annually out of 5 or 6. Some facts would almost seem to show, that the education enjoyed by the more affluent classes-the cultivation their minds received, partly from direct tuition, partly from their social circumstances gave the mind an increased power of vitality. An officer of high rank in the service of a German state made this remark to the writer, when speaking of the disastrous retreat from Moscow, in which he had taken a part. The officers, he said, uniformly stood out longer than the privates, although the previous habits of both parties had led him to expect the reverse. Literary men, and artists who have attained to anything like a competence, are also a long-lived generation. The remark has been often made, of the greater facility with which young men, belonging to the class vaguely called gentlemen,' generally attain to superior adroitness in athletic ex Limits to the Effects of Wealth. The limits to this favourable condition of the affluent classes in England, are to be sought partly in deficient knowledge and deficient habits of self-control; partly in a redundancy of numbers compared with property, which affects them in common with all other classes, though not exactly to the same extent. The deficiency of knowledge may be detected in several noxious practices still persevered in, such as tight-lacing on the part of the fair sex. The want of proper habits of selfcontrol is a more deeply-rooted evil, inasmuch as it has its root in a physical fact too much overlooked by reasoners upon morals. When named, it will be found to be a very commonplace fact: it is, that every successive generation begins the world with as little experience as that which preceded it. Every one of us starts from as mere a state of ignorant barbarism as the child of the savage. We are forewarned of much by the instruction of those who have been taught by their own experience, or the experience of those who went before them; but there is much of which it seems impossible to forewarn us. The passions are fully developed before the reflecting powers; and every individual seems destined to experience a period of his existence in which imagination and passion are strongly and thrillingly awakened, while the guiding power of reason is yet dormant. This is the most dangerous, as it is perhaps the most pleasant, period of life; and it is one which is most dangerous with regard to that very class which is so highly favoured in other respects. Penury, or the necessity of daily labour, may restrain the less affluent classes at this period of life; but the younger branches of the affluent class have no such substitute for the control of reason; and in proportion as their general healthiness is higher, so their passions are developed, it may be, with greater intensity. It is at this period that many of the more favoured class make shipwreck of their health, incurring diseases which cling to them through life, if they do not bring it to a premature close. The influence of economical circumstances upon the affluent classes, in regard to their moral and physical welfare, is quite as striking as their influence on the less fortunate classes, though somewhat different in kind. The anxiety occasioned to the upper classes by the prospect or actual pressure of pecuniary embarrassment, is of a much more harassing and exhausting kind than what is suffered by the poor. Pride, and all the other secondary feelings, with ranging imagination, add to their torments; and their occupations generally demanding a steady exercise of the faculties of combination and investigation, and keeping their minds continually on the stretch even in the time of prosperity-this addition renders their burthen more than they can bear, and the whole man breaks down beneath the weight. Excessive mental exertion, even | under the most favourable circumstances, is known to be productive of fatal effects. Even children of affluent and fortunate parents have been sacrificed to the vanity which was gratified by their displays of precocious talent. The cupidity which grows upon men struggling to maintain their place in society, increases this evil by forcing on the acquirements of children, in the hope of seeing them able, at a comparatively early age, to provide for themselves. Caspar of Berlin published in 1834 a tabular statement of his observations on the sanitary tendency of various occupations, which serves to throw some light on this intricate question : Of 100 Theologians, there have attained the age of 70 and upwards, Agriculturists and Foresters, Superintendents, Commercial and Industrious Men, Military Men, Subalterns, Advocates, Artists, Teachers, Professors, Physicians, 42 40 35 35 32 32 29 28 27 24 That physicians should stand lowest in this scale of vitality, not, considering their exposure to contagion, to be wondered at; and the high grade of theologians is equally intelligible, from their certain though moderate income, and the equanimity favoured by their pursuits. It is, however, startling at first view to find the average duration of life among commercial men so little elevated above that of military men, in a table constructed in a country where war had raged at no remote period. The last fact seems to establish that the agitation of mind produced by mercantile uncertainties and difficulties is scarcely a less destructive agent than the sword. per for school attendance, we should conclude that about one-sixth of the whole population of such a country should be at school. Most of the German states make an approach to the organisation of the Prussian system; and we find that in Austria there was, a few years ago, one school for every 275 families. But the object of the governments in supporting education in Prussia and Germany generally, is said to be of a narrow kind-a species of drill, for the purpose of conferring the accomplishments of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and to train the young to a subserviency to the government itself. Education was in a low state in France till the general peace of 1815, since which time it has become a government object, and made a rapid advance. The elementary schools instructed 737,369 pupils in 1815; in 1828, this number was raised to 1,500,000; being one-twentieth of the population. It is calculated, however, that more than one-fourth of the people of France are still unable to read or write. In England and Wales, in 1818, there were 4167 endowed schools, 14,282 unendowed schools, and 5162 Sunday schools, educating in all 644,000 children, or one-sixteenth of the population. Of 11,000 parishes, 3500, or nearly a third, had no school whatever. Since then the number of both schools and scholars has been greatly increased. In 1838 the following returns were made to parliament : Under the annually increasing grants for educational purposes, probably from a tenth to an eighth of the There is perhaps a point in the development of na-people of England and Wales are now receiving school tional wealth and civilisation at which mortality shows instruction. Nevertheless there are still from 800,000 a tendency to increase. Such an idea is naturally to 1,000,000 of young persons unprovided with the awakened when we learn that the mortality of Eng- means of elementary tuition. land is now slightly greater than it was some years ago. The proportion of deaths to persons in the decade 1821-31, was 1 to 49; that of the decade 1831-41, according to the population returns, 1 to 44'5; and that of the six years ending 1844, 1 to 46. EDUCATION. The statistics of education have an obvious value in their connection with many questions regarding the civilisation of countries. It is clear, however, that the state and amount of education in a country is a highly complex question; for, first, there may be much education of a poor and inadequate kind; and second, there may be conditions favourable to education in some countries, and not in others-as, for instance, the natural character of the people, the tendency of the political and social institutions, and the direction which the energy of the people chiefly takes, as towards war, commerce, or art. The numbers at school are also liable to be affected by the ratio of the increase of population; for where there is a rapid increase of people, there is always a greater than usual proportion of the young. Prussia, where the most perfect of all national systems of education exists, as far as organisation is concerned, contained, according to a census taken some years ago, 12,726,823 inhabitants, of whom 4,767,072 were under fifteen years of age. It is reckoned that, out of 100 children from one day to fourteen years of age complete, there are 43 of full seven and upwards -a legal age for attendance at school in Prussia. This would give 2,043,030 children in Prussia liable by law to attend school. It was found, in point of fact, that 2,021,421 did attend, being only a shortcoming of 21,609, a small enough allowance for contingencies. Thus if we were to take Prussia as a criterion for old states, where the population does not advance rapidly, and consider the years between 7 and 15 as those pro The registration of marriages, by which the parties are required to sign their names on being united, has supplied within the last few years a means of testing the proportion of those ignorant of writing throughout England and Wales. Of the 121,083 couples married during the year ending June 30, 1839, there were 40,587 men, and 58,959 women, who, being unable to write their names, were obliged to sign by marks. The proportion of men unable to write was thus 33, of women 49 per cent.; medium, 41. The number unable to write was least in the metropolis, and next to it in the northern counties; and greatest in Lancashire, Bedfordshire, Monmouthshire, and Wales. The trustworthiness of this test was confirmed by the registration of the ensuing year, when amongst the 124,339 married couples, 41,812 men, and 62,523 women, were found to sign with marks; and the proportion in the various districts was also nearly the same. It is to be remarked, that a large portion of the married couples recorded in these years must have consisted of persons who passed their educational years in times when the means of instruction were much less extended than they now are. A few years hence, the proportion of both men and women attesting the marriage-register with marks' will probably be much diminished. Scotland, unlike England, possesses a national system of education, there being a legally-endowed school in every parish, under the care of the clergy. Returns to parliament in 1834 gave the following view of education in Scotland: The whole emoluments of the teachers of the parochial schools was £55,339, being at an average an income of £45, 11s. 91d. to each. The aggregate sum was com- | national system at first met with great opposition, in posed of endowments, £29,642; fees, £20,717; other consequence of religious party-spirit; but this obstace, emoluments, £4979. Taking 68,293 as the number of we are happy to observe, is gradually giving way. pupils in the parochial schools (it was, however, the greatest attendance), each costs the public 15s. 74d. per annum. In the same year, the Sabbath School Union for Scotland taught 63,326 children. -and there was no county, except Peebles, where the parochial schools were the most numerous. Only onefifth of the teachers and one-fourth of the scholars were under the parochial system. It is also to be remarked, that some of the schools returned as parochial were merely under the care and patronage of parochial clergymen, by whom they had been established. The returns were considered as not quite complete, and the number attending school in 1834 was computed as being more probably 323,154, the proportions in the two different classes of schools being nearly the same. Notwithstanding the political agitations and poverty which have long depressed Ireland in many respects below the level of the sister kingdoms, it has certainly for many years been above at least England with respect to the elementary instruction of its people. The ability to read and write is observably much more diffused in Ireland than in England; and it is often remarked with surprise, of Irish peasants of the humblest appearance, that they possess an acquaintance with the classics and the elements of geometry.* Till 1831, education in Ireland was chiefly left to private enterprise and the efforts of a few religious societies: the government in that year established a Board for National Education, which has since been a channel for the application of a considerable amount of public money to this purpose. In 1835, a return to the Commissioners of the Education Board gave a computed total of children attending school in Ireland at 633,946, the population being at the same time computed at 7,954,100; so that the proportion under school instruction appeared to be about 1 for every 12.5 inhabitants. Since then, the national system has made great advances. The following synopsis, drawn up from the reports of the Commissioners, shows the progress down to December 31, 1848: The average number of pupils in each school is 125, and it is hoped that this will increase as the prosperity of the country revives. The number of applications for grants to new schools in 1848 was 636, of which 402 were granted and 234 rejected. The total amount of salaries paid to teachers for the year 1848 was £57,013, being an increase of expenditure, as compared with the year 1847, of £6621. The appointment of paid monitors has been found a very successful experiment, and the number has accordingly been increased, the salaries varying from £4 to £7 a year. The Irish *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?' Education is actively conducted in America, and it is calculated that about a seventh of the popula tion are at school. In most of the states, school's are supported by a tax on property, and the superin. tendence is intrusted to committees of the rate-payer. 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. The edccation imparted is under a general, not party or sectarian management; and every attempt made by religion denominations to acquire a special control over the public schools has been promptly checked. The affected belief that this unsectarian education would lead » irreligion and discontent has been completely falsited It is acknowledged by the rich,' says Sir Charles Lyel in his recent Visit to the United States," that when the free schools have been most improved, the people are least addicted to intemperance, are more provident, have more respect for property and the laws, are more conservative, and less led away by Socialist or other revolutionary doctrines. So far from indolence being the characteristic of the labouring-classes, where they are best informed, the New Englanders are rather too much given to overwork both body and brain. They make better pioneers when roughing it in a log-house in the backwoods, than the uneducated Highlander or Irishman, and the factory girls of Lowell, who publish their "Offering" containing their own original poems and essays, work twelve hours a day, and have not yet petitioned for a ten-hour bill.' In surveying the statistics of education, we must keep in mind a few considerations by which the character and effects of education are liable to be much affected. Education is not certain to produce good effects, but only those which its directors contemplate and seek to bring about. It is a means of conferring certain accomplishments upon the mind, and modifying it to certain ends, inclinations, and habits of thinking and feeling. Its efficacy, even where well directed, is liable to be greatly modified by the character of the people amongst whom it is operating: for instance, a European people of good stock, and amongst whom all refining social agencies have long been at work, will show better results with a certain apparatus of school instruction, than a people newly emerged from barbarism. Above all, our expectations of moral results must be governed by the degree in which the moral department of education is attended to. Intellectual education gives only aptitude and information; it requires a training of the moral being, of the heart as well as head, to produce good conduct. It has been seen that Prussia stands at the head of all the countries adverted to, with respect to the preportion of the population attending school. It is excelled in this respect by the United States of America, where, it is computed, there is a school for every 200 souls. England and Scotland have probably a nisth of their inhabitants at school-a considerably smaller proportion. But reckonings of schools and scholars are only a means of ascertaining a portion of educational influences. It cannot be doubted that, besides all the benefits, such as they are, of school learning, the youth of this country enjoy an immense advantage in the influence which the free institutions, the humanity, and the tone of mind resulting from an old-established civilisation, must exercise upon them. In a national system of education, the central government should possess but a slight, if any influence, and the business of both arranging and supporting should be left as much as possible in the hands of the people themselves. We beg to submit the following general views on this subject: Anything done by government, as the organ of society, to promote universal education, must be based upon the actual state of educational efforts in the country. The people must everywhere be encouraged, invited, stimulated, to take a portion of the task of edu cation into their own hands. With communities, as | sive improvements being effected in the art of eduwith individuals, education cannot be a one-sided matter, cation by those who were practically acquainted with in which the instructor arouses the pupil; there must it. The importance of leaving a certain latitude of be exertion on the part of the latter also. The mistake choice to individuals (parents, or the more advanced of some governments, especially the Prussian, has been young men or women), is apparent from the experience to hold the people as entirely passive: they have drilled of the Glasgow Mechanics' Institution. The most unirather than educated. Almost everything that has formly successful classes have been those of mechanics been hitherto done in Great Britain to promote educa- (or natural philosophy) and chemistry; and a large protion has been the result of private enterprise: even the portion of the operatives who attended them have been majority of endowed schools are the fruits of private engineers, and others engaged in processes which are enthusiasm in the cause of education. A paper by Mr best conducted by those who understand something of Long, in the second volume of the Journal of the Cen- their principles. Human beings are most easily seduced tral Society of Education,' estimates the annual income to undergo the toil of learning (for though to pick up of endowments in England, for purposes of education, fragments of information be agreeable, to devote the at £1,500,000; and shows the want of a proper power, continuous attention necessary to understand a subject invested in some individual or body, for the purpose of thoroughly is at first a task) by the conviction that assisting, directing, and correcting all who are intrusted what they are learning can be turned to profitable with the management of such charity property. Edu- account. Having learned one subject thoroughly, they cational amateurs may be deficient in skill, but funds acquire a liking for the effort, and are more easily inleft to support schools require some one to administer duced to extend their researches. It is sound philothem, and to adapt the mode of dispensing them to the sophy not to attempt too much at first. Get every one perpetually altering circumstances of society. A table to learn something that may benefit him in his occuof the Mechanics' Institutions and other popular asso-pations; none, who have learned this thoroughly, be it ciations in England for promoting and diffusing science what it may, will stop there. 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 middleclasses. Of the operatives who attend, the mechanics form a considerable proportion. The Mechanics' Institution of Liverpool, one of the most flourishing institutions 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. CRIME. 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 rather 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. In 1842 the number was 31,309; in 1843, 29,591; in 1844, 26,542; in 1845, 24,303; in 1846, 25,107; and in 1847, 28,833. 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. By far the greater proportion of English crimes are against property. Taking the average of the five years before 1839 (22,174), it appears that 84.5 per cent. were thefts and frauds, the small proportion of 7 per cent. of these being accompanied by violence. Of offences against property and person, in which malice was involved, as murder, maiming, arson, and injuries to cattle, there were about 6 per cent. A class called sexual offences gave 2, and offences against the State, in which was included coining, 63 per cent. 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 of government. The business of government is to see that the necessary funds are provided, the necessary establishments for training teachers and pupils kept up, and the attendance of children enforced. The business of the people is to appoint teachers, and to take precautions for their discharging their duties conscientiously. The details of tuition are best left to the teachers, care being taken that they are previously educated for their profession. Success in teaching depends, in a great measure, upon the enthusiasm and ability of 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, others by another. The public judge most correctly of a teacher's ability by looking at results-at the kind of scholars he turns out. Some such organisation of the whole country for educational purposes, as is indicated There are some crimes which women are not, from variin these general terms, would, by giving a controlling ous causes, liable to commit; but the gentler does not appower to government, insure equal diffusion of edu-pear to be the honester sex; for the proportion of female cation; by leaving to the people the appointment of to male committals for theft without violence, is as 84 to teachers, and by leaving, to a certain extent, to indi- 73 per cent., a difference of one-sixth against females. viduals the choice of what should be taught, would keep alive the interest which men take in their own handiwork; and by leaving the methods to the choice of well-trained teachers, would give scope for progres 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. In the inquiries which have been made with regard to the age of offenders, wonderfully uniform results have been found, as will appear from the following table, giving the centesimal proportion at each period of life: 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 cominittal 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. The connection 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, a late return showed that out of 8907 offenders, 20-2 per cent. could neither read nor write; 592 per cent. could read and write imperfectly; 182 per cent. could read and write well; and 24 per cent. 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. The different distribution of educational acquirements among the convicts of England and Scotland is striking, and requires for elucidation some inquiry into the proportional diffusion of knowledge among the whole community in each country. Among the affluent classes, it is much the same, but among the working-classes it is materially different. According to the factory returns, there exists a more widelydiffused 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 criminals to the total of the population was diminished; and this holds good in Scotland. But the mere extension of intellectual education to individuals of a class in which improved economical circumstances and selfeducation in moral respects has not induced that moral sense shown to be elicited in civilised communities, does not raise these individuals to the same elevation 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 standard 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 conveyed by the different degrees of education possessed by Scotch and English criminals, is the necessity of educating classes as well as individuals. 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, 30-2 read decently, 53 read in a superior manner; and of the same, 66'4 could not write, 15'4 could write imperfectly, 16:9 write decently, and 13 write well. It would appear, then-taking statistics in their present imperfect state as our guide that poverty and want of education, as well as crime and want of education, are intimately if not inseparably associated. On the last point it is necessary to guard against a misconception. There may be a district poor in resources and with respect to the style of living of the 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 draws the important distinction, that a set of people living steadily on small means, but knowing no better, and contented with what they have, are not poor, in the sense in which a people are poor who, seeing wealth and luxury around them, and exposed to the severest sufferings from the occasional failure of employment, are thereby demoralised, |