They must
either increase the parent's wages to the amount of the loss he thus
sustained, or they must make it up to him from a rate. Then, again,
those who were at all conversant with agriculture knew that if they
deprived the farmer of the labor of children, agriculture could not be
carried on. There was no machinery by which they could get the weeds out
of the land."--_London Times_.
The light which this statement furnishes is not hid under a bushel. The
argument deserves a more logical form, and I proceed gratuitously to
give the author the benefit of a scientific arrangement. "If a national
system of education is adopted, the children of my tenants will be sent
to school; if the children of my tenants are sent to school, my turnips
will not be weeded; if my turnips are not weeded, I shall eat fat mutton
no more."
After this from a statesman, we need not wonder that a correspondent of
Lord John Russell writes, "That a farmer near him has been heard to say,
he would not give anything to a day-school; he finds that since
Sunday-schools have been established the birds have increased and eat
his corn, and because he cannot now procure the services of the boys,
whom he used to employ the whole of Sunday, in protecting his
fields."--_London Times, April 13th, 1856._
Now, I do not go to England for the purpose of making an attack upon her
opinions; but, as kindred ideas prevail among us, though to a limited
extent only, the folly of them may be seen in persons at a distance,
when it would not be realized by ourselves.
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