TO 1837.]

SOCIAL EFFECTS OF POPULAR EDUCATION.

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endeavour to justify their own criminal conduct, as well as that of those who suffered, and even to fortify themselves through unbelief of the truths of religion, or to

they were not what they considered justly done by.

"From all that the deputation saw of several of the national schools, they could not but regard them as a means of diffusing light more powerful than any other in existence. We are not of the number who would dis-justify themselves and those who suffered by feeling that sociate religion from national instruction; and this is not done in these institutions. Hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholic children, who would have grown up in entire ignorance of the word of God, are brought to know much important truth by the extracts they use; and the operations of mind in Ireland must be different from those in all other countries if, by knowing a portion of what is found salutary, inquiry is not excited after what remains to be known. A part of the Bible read and understood, will lead to inquiry after other parts of it; so that a vast change in the moral circumstances of the country is, we think, at no great distance. They add that the national schools are noble institutions, which afford as much facility for evangelical instruction as, under the circumstances of the case, could possibly be looked for."

The feeling of humanity that gained grouud among the masses powerfully affected the middle classes, by whom mainly all ameliorating agencies were brought to bear upon society; and juries taken from that class very often refused to convict when the punishment of death would have followed their verdict. The consequence was that the state of public feeling produced by the practical inculcation of Christianity, and the diffusion of knowledge through Sunday-schools, day-schools, mechanics' institutions, circulating libraries, and cheap periodicals, compelled our legislature to change its system, despite the obstinate resistance of Lords Eldon and Ellenborough, hardened by a long official familiarity with the destructive operation of legal cruelty. How fearful the amount of

The social effects of popular education, contrasted with that destruction was we may infer from the calculation of the evils of popular ignorance, prove that there is nothing| in which our rulers should take a deeper interest, or be more anxious to encourage and support, because nothing tends more to the security of life and property, and to the peace and prosperity of the community. Ignorance is a prolific curse, which exerts a malign influence in every direction. When a nation is ignorant, its rulers will be ignorant, or will be forced to act as if they were, pursuing a policy fraught with misery to the people. It is impossible to read the history of our criminal code without being continually shocked with the ignorance, barbarity, and cruelty of both houses of parliament. When any particular species of crime prevailed, or forced itself upon public attention, they could do nothing better than increase the terrors of the law, by enacting sanguinary punishments, out of all proportion to the guilt of the offenders. This vindictive severity caused humanity to revolt against the law, and to make it odious. This feeling gained ground rapidly, as the benign spirit of Christianity began to pervade the masses through the medium of education, making the great principles of justice and mercy familiar to them, and establishing in the public mind a standard of right, by which the spirit of our laws was judged and condemned. The labours of Romilly and Mackintosh had contributed largely to bring about an altered state of feeling in parliament; while philanthropic individuals in private life, like Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, who devoted themselves to the work of prison reform, materially aided in bringing about the mitigation of our criminal code, which has had such beneficial results. Mrs. Elizabeth Fry visited Newgate two days after the execution of a woman named Fricker, and instead of finding, as she expected, the whole of the criminals awfully affected by what had passed, she found a spirit of pity and lamentation over the sufferer, with such an impression that the punishment exceeded the crime, that it excited a feeling of great displeasure, and even bitterness, not only towards the laws, but towards those that put them into execution; and so far from softening the heart, or leading it from evil, it appeared to harden them, and make them

Mr. Redgrave, of the Home Office, who stated that had the offences tried in 1841 been tried under the laws of 1831, the eighty capital sentences would have been increased to 2,172; that is, in the course of ten years 2,100 lives would have been sacrificed on the gallows with no other effect than to increase the number of criminals, and to brutalise the populace. But it should be recollected that previous to this period some of the most sanguinary enactments had been repealed; and that even where juries convicted, and judges recorded sentence of death, the sentences were but rarely executed. For example, in three years after 1820 the capital convictions in England and Wales were 3,070, the executions 152, or about 1 in 20. In the three following years the capital convictions were 4,076, the executions 223. In ten years from 1820 the executions were 729. In ten years-from 1831 to 1841-they were only 216. In three years preceding 1830, 22 persons were hanged for horse stealing, 9 for sheep stealing, and 6 for larceny in dwelling-houses. In the following two years which intervened before the abolition of capital punishment, two persons only were executed for these offences. Mr. Redgrave gives the following succinct history of the mitigation of the criminal code during the reigns of George IV. and William IV., in a series of enactments which were extorted from a reluctant legislature by society, humanised through the education of the masses: -In 1826, 1827, and 1828, Sir Robert Peel carried several very important bills for the consolidation and amendment of the criminal laws, but these bills did not abolish capital punishments. That statesman, indeed, made it a matter of boast that he did not constitute any new capital felonies, and pointed out an instance in which he had abated the capital punishment by increasing the sum constituting it a capital offence to steal in a dwellinghouse from 403. to £5, and by widening the technical description of a dwelling. In 1830 Sir Robert Peel brought in his Forgery Bill, and petitions were poured into the house from all quarters against the re-enactment of the severe penalties for this offence. Sir James Mackintosh again took up the subject, and moved that the

capital punishment be struck out from the bill. He was transportation, and in the following year for sacrilege and unsuccessful; but in the last stage of the measure Mr. Spring Rice was enabled to defeat the ministry by a majority of 151 to 138, and to remove the sentence of death from the bill. It was, however, restored by the Lords, and the bill, as altered, was suffered to pass the House of Commons at the end of the session. In 1832 two most important bills for abolishing capital punishments were passed. Mr. Ewart, assisted by the government, was able to carry a bill abolishing the punishment of death in cases of horse, sheep, and cattle stealing, and larceny in a dwelling-house. He was opposed by Sir R. Peel, and an amendment was made in the Lords, subjecting these

letter-stealing. This was the state of the criminal law when Lord John Russell brought in bills for its mitigation, founded on the report of a committee which the government had appointed. The little progress which Sir S. Romilly and Sir J. Mackintosh had made in opposition to the governments of their day will be seen by the foregoing sketch, as well as the extensive and salutary changes which followed. Lord John Russell's bills effected an extensive abolition of the sentence of death, and a mitigation of the secondary punishments. He was enabled to abolish capital punishments in all cases but murder, and attempts to murder, where dangerous bodily injuries are

offences to the fixed penalty of transportation for life. At the same time, ministers brought in a bill for abolishing capital punishment in cases of forgery. The bill was introduced into the Commons by the Attorney-General, and into the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor. It passed into a law, but an amendment was made in the House of Lords, under the protest of the Lord Chancellor, excepting the forgery of wills and powers of attorney to transfer stock, which offences were left capital. In 1833 Mr. Leonard carried his bill for abolishing capital punishment for housebreaking, executions for which offence were continued down to 1830. In 1834 Mr. Ewart carried a bill for abolishing capital punishment for returning from

effected; burglary and robbery, when attended with violence or wounds; arson of dwelling-houses, where life is endangered; and six other offences of very rare occurrence. The number of capital convictions in 1829 was 1,385; and in 1834, three years after the extensive abolition of capital punishments, the number was reduced to 480. Only four years have elapsed, says Mr. Redgrave, since the passing of these acts, as to which we as yet know the result; and the "Criminal Tables" reveal their very important operation upon the criminal procedure. These tables show the capital convictions under the existing laws to have been reduced, if we deduct the number of offences committed in 1838, before the passing of the act of that year, to a

TO 1837.]

EFFECTS OF EDUCATION ON CRIME.

number not exceeding that of the executions in a like period up to the end of 1829. The effect on the secondary punishments has been very great. The proportion sentenced to transportation for life was reduced from 1 in 20 to 1 in 86; and the effect of the change in the chief punishments has been visible down to the bottom of the scale.

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instruction that had been imparted to persons committei for trial-distinguishing, 1st. Persons who can neither read nor write. 2ndly. Persons who can read only, or read and write imperfectly. 3rdly. Persons who can read and write well; and, 4thly. Persons who have received instruction beyond the elementary branches of reading and writing. The result of a comparison upon this point, By means of the classification of offences, which took during thirteen years from that date, has been all that the place for the first time in 1834, it has been possible to most sanguine friends of popular education could desire, ascertain the effects of education upon crime; and the and more than they could have anticipated. Out of result has been most satisfactory, falsifying the evil prog- 335,429 persons committed, and whose degrees of innostications of the enemies of popular instruction, and struction were ascertained, the uninstructed criminals

proving that, instead of stimulating the faculties merely to give greater development to criminal propensities, and greater ingenuity to offenders, it really operates as an effective restraint; insomuch that crime is confined almost entirely to the uneducated. The classes into which offences are divided are the following:-1st. Offences against the person. 2nd. Offences against property, committed with violence. 3rd. Offences against property committed without violence. 4th. Malicious offences against property. 5th. Forgery, and offences against the currency. 6th. Other offences not included in the above classes.

were more than 90 out of every 100; while only about 1,300 offenders had enjoyed the advantages of instruction beyond the elementary degree, and not 30,000 had advanced beyond the mere art of reading and writing. Then, with regard to females, among the 30,000 that could read and write, there were only about 3,000, or 10 per cent. of the female sex; and among those who had received superior instruction, there were only 53 females accused of crimes, throughout England and Wales, in thirteen years-that is, at the rate of four persons for each year. In the year 1841 not one educated female was committed for trial out of nearly 8,000,000 of the sex In 1835 returns were first obtained of the degree of then living in this part of the United Kingdom. In the

paralleled achievements, in the way of self-extension, she has lately proved her inexhaustible vitality."

disturbances which took place in Cheshire, Lancashire, the purpose of displaying by what wonderful, almost unand Staffordshire, as appeared by the trials that were held in 1842, out of 567 persons tried, there were only 73 who could read and write well, and only one person who had received a superior education—a fact full of instruction as to the duty of the state in respect to the education of the people. There is another fact worth mentioning. "In fifteen English counties, with a population of 9,569,064, there were convicted 74 instructed persons, or 1 to every 129,311 inhabitants; while the twenty-five remaining counties of England and the whole of Wales, with a population of 6,342,661, did not among them furnish one conviction of a person who had received more than the mere elements of instruction. It will be remembered as a most interesting fact-one which speaks irresistibly in favour of a general system of educationthat not one of the 109 was a female."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

One of the strongest arguments against the Established Church, and against religious or educational endowments generally, is their tendency to produce apathy and indifference in the minds of those who benefit by them—to paralyse private exertion and check individual zeal, from the assurance felt that they are not necessary to the support of a cause already sufficiently provided for by the state; and no doubt that would be the case to a great extent, and has been the case, where there was no room for competition or rivalry by other churches and parties. But when there is freedom for the development of dissenting bodies, and the growth of institutions on the voluntary principle, the zeal of established churches also comes forth to supplement and extend its regular agencies, and then the advantages conferred by its endowments come to be more fully appreciated and turned to account. Accordingly, during the last two reigns, the revived activity of Social Progress (continued)—The Religious Life of England-Mr. Horace Dissenters served to rouse the clergy and laity of the Mann's Report on Religious Worship-Expansive Power and Vitality of the Church of England-Denominational Rivalry-Renewed Activity Established Church, leading them to put forth extraordiof Dissent; its Effect on the Established Church-Co-operation of nary exertions in order to meet the growing spiritual the Voluntary Principle-Increase of Places of Worship-Church Ex-destitution arising from the rapid increase of population, tension; its Cost-Religious Societies in connection with the Establishment-The Evangelical Party-Missionary Operations-Nonconformist for which old parochial arrangements and existing church Communities—The Independents, their Institutions and Missions-The accommodation were altogether inadequate. The sentiBaptists, their Institutions and Missions-The Wesleyan Methodists, ment began to prevail that the relief of spiritual destitution and their Progress-The Centenary-Other Methodist Bodies-The Society of Friends-Unitarians-Moravians-Roman Catholics-Irving- must not be exclusively devolved upon the state, but deites-Substantial Unity of Protestant Denominations-Societies based manded also the efforts of private zeal and liberality; in on the "Catholic" Principle-Church Accommodation-Number of other words, the co-operation of the voluntary principle, Sittings required by the Population-Proportion furnished by the Dis- which of late years has produced astonishing results. In senters-Proportion of Attendants in the different DenominationsProportion of Attendants to Sittings-Numbers who neglect Public 1831 the number of churches and chapels of the Church of Worship-The Working Classes, their Religious Condition-Causes of England amounted to 11,825; the number in 1851, as their Estrangement from our Religious Institutions-Social Distinctions returned to the census officer, was 13,854, exclusive of The Pew System - Free Seats - Proposed RemediesEvidences of Social Reformation-The Leaders of Religious Progress-223 described as being "not separate buildings," or as

in Church

Exeter Hall.

"used also for secular purposes," thus showing an increase, THE report of Mr. Horace Mann on religious worship, in in the course of twenty years, of more than 2,000 churches. connection with the census of 1851, is one of the most im- Probably the increase is, in reality, still larger, as it can portant and remarkable documents ever issued by the hardly be expected that the last returns were altogether government. It differs strikingly from the dry, perfunc- perfect. The greater portion of this increase is attributable tory manner in which such statistical reports are generally to the self-extending power of the Church-the state not drawn up. Entering upon the subject heartily, he traces having in the twenty years contributed, in aid of private the religious life of England through all its changes and benefactions, more than £511,385 towards the erection of revolutions from the earliest times to the present, present-386 churches. If we assume the average cost of each new ing the results of extensive inquiry and great labour in an admirably condensed form, investing his résumé with the interest which only a sympathetic mind can impart to such details. In writing of each sect, one might suppose that he held its peculiarities and imbibed its spirit, so accurate is his knowledge, and so friendly his tone. But when he speaks of the Established Church, his language is that of a dutiful son towards a venerated mother. Speaking of the principal developments of religious sentiment, apart from the Established Church, at present prevalent amongst us, he says:"How far some of these and others of a less numerical importance are substantially accordant with the teaching of the Church of England will be seen in the more detailed notices. That church herself-unaltered in her doctrines, discipline, and polity since 1688-demands but a very brief description further, and that chiefly for

edifice to be about £3,000, the total sum expended in this interval (exclusive of considerable sums devoted to the restoration of old churches) will be £6,087,000. The chief addition has occurred, as was to be expected and desired, in thickly-peopled districts, where the rapid increase of inhabitants has rendered such additional accommodation most essential. Thus, in Cheshire, Lancashire, Middlesex, Surrey, and the West Riding of Yorkshire, the increase of churches has been so much greater than the increase of the population, that the proportion between the accommodation and the number of inhabitants is now considerably more favourable than in 1831. In the ten years between 1821 and 1831 there was an addition of 276 churches; from 1831 to 1841, 667 were added; and such was the zeal for church extension in the ten years ending in 1851, that the increase was nearly 1,200, or more than

PROGRESS OF THE DISSENTING BODIES.