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have not selected them merely as poets: in the Radicalism of Nicoll, in the Chartism of Massey, there are warnings too grave to be despised. In Nicoll's Puir Folk, in Massey's The People's Advent, we have expressed, as a poet only could express them, those feelings ground into the hearts and minds of the class of whom these men form a part. True, this class cannot express their thoughts-but they can feel them. "I write my heart in my poems," declares Nicoll: I do not think now as I thought when writing some of my poems, declares Massey, but I reprint these poems as they expressed what I then felt, and what my class feel still. What matters it whether these feelings be well or ill founded-they are in the hearts of the people; they will abide in their hearts, gaining strength, festering into convictions, becoming a Creed, a Faith, a Faith acting by violence, bloodshed, hatred, and destruction, to all above them in the social scale. We do not seek to check the democratic spirit amongst the great, enduring, wonderful Working Classes of these Kingdoms; but we do most earnestly desire to see that spirit directed to its proper, safe, and wisest end-and this can only be accomplished by proving to these classes that they are an integral portion of the Nation, and by treating them as such; this can be achieved by Education, and by spreading amongst employer and employed a more accurate knowledge of their relative interests and duties.

These are great questions; questions upon which only practical politicians should write; but we have a politician, practical and wise; one who is intimately acquainted with this subject in its full bearing upon master and workman. Mr. Charles Morrison, whose excellent Essay on the Relations Between Labor and Capital was reviewed in our last Number,* thus writes of this question:

"The growth of the democratic element, whether directly by the lowering of the qualifications for the suffrage, or indirectly, through the moral influence of the masses, means the preponderance of the interests of labour, over the interests of property. If then the working classes, or that portion of them, whose superior intelligence and activity tend to make them the representatives of the rest, very generally believe, that the rate of wages and other arrangements between themselves and the other classes, are unfair and disadvantageous to themselves, and that a better state of things is attainable, it is

* See IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, Vol. IV. No. 16, p. 793. Art. "The Future of The Working Classes."

natural that they will use both their legal right or their actual though not legally recognized power to attain it. And as their whole condition, and that of their families, and almost their daily bread are at stake upon the results of such an attempt, as any belief of the injustice of social arrangements which they may entertain, will be constantly irritated into indignation by the contrast which their own general poverty and frequent distress present to the immense masses of wealth amidst which they live, and as agitators will never be wanting to fan their smouldering passions into flame, it is to be expected, that they will bring to the struggle a greater intensity of excitement than is seen in the most animated of merely political contests. If then they should entertain erroneous ideas upon such subjects; if they should attribute to the faults of individuals or of social arrangements, those evils of their condition, which are in fact, the result of inevitable natural laws, or of their own conduct; if they should believe that these evils are to be remedied by measures, which are in truth, unjust, impracticable, and pernicious; it is difficult to over-rate the amount of mischief and confusion which they may produce, by acting upon such views before they shall be finally undeceived on all those points."

Mr. Morrison, after explaining the principles upon which trade should be conducted, contends that the working classes should be taught,

"That neither idleness, luxuries nor expensive vanities and tastes, are required, for happiness-that the man who has comfortable diet, clothes, and lodging, freedom from oppression, and a moderate share of leisure and means for mental improvement, has as good a chance of happiness as external circumstances can furnish him with-are trite and admitted maxims which are not the less true and important, because they are ignored in most men's practice. Looking to man's animal structure, physiologists would certainly pronounce that a very considerable amount of muscular labour is condusive to its perfect action: and looking to his double nature it is hardly less certain that much occupation of the body in useful labour, is a great prevention and cure for manifold disorders of his moral being."

We like this practical plan by which Mr. Morrison would solve this economic riddle. Doubtless if men of experience such as his had applied some portion of their time to elucidating these questions, the country would thereby be served. All philosophy, and all metaphysics, will never settle these difficulties. The science and the practice are here at issue, and here, as ever, practice is triumphant. "Ipsos tamen politicos multo

If the reader desires to learn how this identification in interest, of employer and employed, can be accomplished, he will find the secret fully disclosed in the succeeding paper, devoted to an account of the Factory Schools of Price's Patent Candle Company, directed by J. P. Wilson, Esq.-Ed.

*

felicius de rebus politicis scripsisse, quam philosophos dubitari non potest," declares Spinosa; and this admission is but the confession of those qualities making up the great points of statesmanship in the instances afforded by Machiavelli, by Bacon, and by Edmund Burke.

This is no digression from our subject. If Poets of Labor tell us that they sing the feelings of their fellows; if they write, as they declare, their hearts in their poems, and if he who wrote in 1836, is exceeded in strength and genius by him who wrote in 1854, surely a Poet of Labor is something more than a Poet-he becomes a teacher to his readers-a teacher to the statesmen of his country. These cannot, unless they be forgetful of every duty of a statesman, permit the growth of such a spirit as that which Massey indicates; they cannot suffer ignorance, springing from their own neglect, to produce its terrible results-hatred and crime-ending in a veritable "People's Advent."

Let us not be understood as at all contemning Gerald Massey because he has published poems written when his heart was imbittered by grief and misconception-he were a knave to suppress them. Publishing them as we have them now, with the declaration of his preface, he is a patriot, as truly as he is thoroughly a Poet. If he but continue unspoiled by the just approbation with which his poems have been received, he will yet be as great a poet as he is now an honest, out-speaking man; and as he has taught that Labor has its Chivalry, so it may come to pass that he will yet be the Laureate of that Chivalry.

SCHOOLS.

SECOND PAPER-FACTORY SCHOOLS.*

1. Sperial Reports By The Directors to The Proprietors of Price's Patent Candle Company, Respecting that Part of the Proceedings of the Annual General Meeting of the Company, 24th March, 1852, which has reference to the Educational, Moral, and Religious Charge to be Taken by the Company Over the Persons, (and Especially the Young Persons) in its Employment; with Nine other Pamphlets on thisImportant Subject. By James P. Wilson, Esq. Managing Director of the Company. 1851 to 1854. 2. Education In The Mining Districts: Report On the Factory School, of Messrs. John Bagnall and Sons, at Gold's Hill, Wednesbury. From "The Midland Counties Herald, Birmingham and General Advertiser;" Thursday, January 11th, 1855.

The author of that remarkable book, The Claims of Labour, has wisely observed-" We say that Kings are God's Vicegerents upon earth; but almost every human being has at one time or other of his life, a portion of the happiness of those around him in his power, which might make him tremble, if he did but see it in all its fulness:" these are words of gravest import; declaring a truth which all should know, declaring a truth upon which one man has acted, and upon which many are worthily proceeding. And yet, plain as the principle that employer and employed have mutual duties and mutual rights to be discharged by each to each, they generally act as if the sole bond between them consisted in the payment and receipt of wages. Hence the strikes, the lock outs, and the whole barbaric code of artizan honor-where the impotent gold of the master is matched against the impotent poverty of the workman.

Fortunately, however, there are some men who, remembering the sage counsel of Fuller, know that "well may masters consider how easie a transposition it had been for God, to have made him to mount into the saddle that holds the stirrup; and made him to sit down at the table, who stands by with a

For the first paper of this series-National Schools-being a history of the English and Irish systems, from Bell and Lancaster, to the publication of the Lords' Report on Irish National Schools, 1854, see IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, Vol. IV. No. 16, p. 1042.

trencher," and endeavour to perform their duties towards their work-people; and in doing so, in rendering their people happier and better, a feeling of identification in interest and in well being springs between employer and employed; and the general business of the establishment is thereby incalculably benefited. We are not, in this paper, to argue upon abstract points; we are not now to concern ourselves, or to vex the reader by fancied cases, and glowing accounts of theoretic or supposed utopias; but we are about to write the narrative, a simple and plain one, of Price's Patent Candle Factory School, as founded and conducted at Belmont Factory, Vauxhall, London.

Price's Patent Candle Company, like all other joint stock Companies, is guided, in its manufacturing and trading departments, by Managing Directors-and the gentlemen holding this office, in this particular Company, are Mr. James P. Wilson, and his brother, Mr. G. F. Wilson; our references shall be, however, chiefly to the former.

"What kind of man," we asked an esteemed mutual friend, "is Mr. Wilson ?" "James Wilson," he replied, " is one of the best men living, he has all Cobbett's good-sense and ability, and none of Cobbett's rascality;" and, beyond all doubt, when the reader shall have concluded the reading of this paper, he will admit that Mr. James Wilson is as good and true a Christian as he is an able, judicious, earnest man.

On the 29th day of May, 1851, a Committee was appointed, by the Board of Directors, for the purpose of making the following inquiries :

"First. To inquire and report to the Board the nature and extent of education at present available both to the children and adults employed at the Company's works. Secondly. The outlay that has been incurred on this account to the present time and from what source. Thirdly. The nature and extent of religious instruction available for the work-people and their families in the employ of the Company, and the facilities afforded them for attending public worship or otherwise, and Fourthly. Generally to suggest the course which it may be expedient for the Company to adopt on these heads, and the nature of the propositions which it may be advisable to submit for the sanction of the proprietors."

On the 18th day of March, 1852, this Education Committee, reported to the Board of Directors, that, assisted by Mr. Moseley, the Government Inspector of Schools, they had inspected the day and night Schools of the Factory, founded and supported by Mr. James P. Wilson; that the total number

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