Page images
PDF
EPUB

917

3. The Twentieth Report of the Commissioners of Na-

tional Education in Ireland, (For the year 1853.) With

Appendices. Presented to both Houses of Parliament

by Command of Her Majesty. Dublin: Thom. 1854.

4. Education in Great Britain, Being the Official Report

of Horace Mann of Lincoln's Inn, Esq., Barrister-at-

Law, To George Graham, Esq., Registrar-General; with

Selected Tables. London: Routledge and Co 1854.

5. Religious Worship in England and Wales, Abridged

from The Official Report Made by Horace Mann, Esq.

to George Graham, Esq., Registrar-General. London:

Routledge and Co. 1854.

6. Education Reform; or, The Necessity of a National

System of Education. By Thomas Wyse, Esq., M.P.

London: Longman and Co. 1836.

7. National Education; Its Present State and Prospects.

By Frederick Hill. London Charles Knight. 1836.

8. The Social Condition and Education of the People in

England and Europe; Shewing the Results of the Pri-

mary Schools, and of the Division of Landed Property,

in Foreign Countries. By Joseph Kay, Esq., M.A. of

Trinity College, Cambridge; Barrister-at-Law; and late

Travelling Bachelor of the University of Cambridge.

London: Longman and Co. 1850.

9. Public Education as Affected by the Minutes of the

Committee of Privy Council, from 1846 to 1852; with

Suggestions as to Future Policy. By Sir James Kay

Shuttleworth, Bart. London: Longman and Co. 1853.

10. Suggestive Hints Towards Improved Secular Instruc-

tion, Making it Bear upon Practical Life. Intended for

the Use of Schoolmasters and Teachers in our Elemen-

tary Schools, for those engaged in the Private Instruction

of Children at Home, and for others taking an Interest

in National Education. By the Rev. Richard Dawes,

A.M., Dean of Hereford. Sixth Edition. London:

Groombridge. 1853.

11. Special 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 Eight

other Pamphlets on this important Subject. By James

P. Wilson, Esq, Managing Director of the Company.

1851 to 1854.

THE

IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. XVI-DECEMBER, 1854.

ART. I.-THE FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSES. An Essay on the Relations Between Labour and Capital. By C. Morrison. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. 1854.

Although we, of the present day, can hardly compete with those golden ages of literature which have preceded, there is yet one cause of pride and congratulation peculiar to us, sufficient to more than outweigh in true glory all that the distinguished works of our literary predecessors could lay claim to. Within the last few years, the noblest object which could occupy the mind or pen of man, the moral and social reformation of the humbler classes, the elevation of his fellow man, has been the subject of enquiry and discussion, of thought and industry. Even our writers of fiction have, with a singular zeal and earnestness, forced upon the public mind the monstrous anomalies in our social system, and exercised an influence for good, the importance of which it is impossible to estimate. Until but very recently there was an utter absence of information on matters connected with the well being of the great masses. No doubt, individuals amongst those who have preceded us have done much, and in some instances might almost put us to the blush in dispensing charity, in relieving the sick, the destitute and the needy.

Occasionally too the sufferings of the ill-paid and over worked artizan have, incidentally to the developement of their plots, been painted by dramatists and novelists. It has, however, been reserved for the present generation to inaugu rate a species of literature, in its fiction systematically aiming at the education of our humbler fellow men, by calling attention with painful accuracy to their privations and mental and physical wretchedness, and in its more serious works upon

VOL IV.-NO XVI.

51

the social frame work discussing, and pointing out the means by which these privations and this wretchedness may be avoided, and a great and natural amelioration of the vast human family may be effected. In offering these observations we do not lose sight of the immense number of tracts and essays, purporting to have this object in view, produced by the French Revolution; we look upon these however, (as all who have considered them with care and as experience has proved them,) as the lucubrations, in most instances, of designing knaves, for political or selfish purposes, and in the few cases, of hot-headed fanatics and visionaries, actuated more by a desire of putting some private scheme into practice and of experimentalizing, than by motives of pure humanity and christian charity.

There is one prejudice in the public mind which must be removed, one general misconception which must be set rightthat with regard to what is called Political Economy. It is generally supposed to be one of those abstruse sciences, the difficulties of which are enhanced by the use of peculiar terms with arbitrary meanings, much more difficult and uninteresting and much less important to the public at large, than cubic equations, the differential calculus, or the theory regarding the polarization of light. Not alone the humbler classes know nothing of it, but with the exception of those who have received a University education, but very few of the middle or upper classes are at all acquainted even with its more general principles. That with several of its branches there is some accuracy in these notions, as to its difficulty, is true; but with regard to those great and immutable laws which regulate the prices of human food, and raiment, and all other articles necessary for man's support or comfort, which fix the rate of wages, and the remuneration which the workman shall receive from his employer, whether domestic servant, farm laborer, manufacturing operative, or skilled tradesman and mechanic, those great truths which elucidate the problems as to the causes of want and plenty, of brisk employment and consequent prosperity to the middle class, and comfort to the masses, and of stagnation of trade, and consequent bankruptcy and suffering to one class, and of actual famine to the other, to acquire a general knowledge, nay more to understand the reasons and universality of these rules, is within the grasp of the ordinary intelligence of mankind, and requires for a

« PreviousContinue »