PREFACE.

The entire absence of criticism on the decennial tables contained in the report of Mr. Horace Mann on the Census of Religious Worship has filled the writer with equal surprise and concern. For a period of nearly three years, hardly a week has passed without some injurious step on the part of the Government, some disastrous admission on the part of a friend, some daring rhodomontade on the part of a foe—all of which have owed their origin more or less directly to the false and mistaken view of the Church’s position engendered by the still more erroneous and misleading statistics so widely disseminated by the Census report. Nor is there any prospect that the evil will diminish—at least, until the next Census. On the contrary, the idea that the Church has proved a failure seems to gain strength, and the policy of friends and foes alike appears to shape itself with special reference to that assumed fact.

The writer does not wish to obtrude upon the public his own calculations as if they were absolutely correct; but he is satisfied that the account he has given of the relative growth of Church and Dissent during the past half century is, if anything, an understatement so far as the former is concerned. Had Mr. Bright’s very remarkable return fallen sooner in his way he would probably have much modified his estimate relating to Dissent; but, as the case was already sufficiently strong for the main object he had in view, namely, to demonstrate the monstrous fallacy of the official report, he did not think it worth while to alter his calculations. His own conviction, however, is that the gross number of additional sittings supplied by Dissent is much more accurately represented by the table given in page 24 than by that in page 20.

The Census report on Education offers a tempting subject for remark; but the writer has not thought it necessary to go further into the matter than he has done in the note on page 27. For the reasons there stated, it will appear that there are no grounds whatever for asserting that the parents of this country neglect to provide their children with the means of instruction any more than they neglect to provide them with food or clothing. In every class which by any stretch of the term can be called “respectable,” parents do supply their children with what they consider a sufficient education; and their idea of what is sufficient is, after all, not much lower, everything considered, than prevails amongst the middle classes, who, in a country like this, must always fix the standard. The result of the Census goes to show that the Legislature has adopted the right course—that the way to obtain as large a number of attendants at school as possible is to subsidise, not to supersede, private exertion; and that it is even possible to fix the rate of subsidy too high; for all experience proves that parents will not enforce regular attendance, unless they feel that if their children stay away from school they will not receive something for which they have paid. Whether the Government ought to hold its hand until children of a certain class are brought to the prison schoolmaster is quite another and a different question; for it is clear that under any circumstances those unfortunates must be treated in an exceptional manner. Even if we had a national system, children belonging to “the dangerous classes” would not be admitted to the common schools; for no respectable person, however humble, would allow his sons or his daughters to associate with the offspring of habitual thieves or beggars.

It is proper to add, in order to account for certain local illustrations, which it has been thought advisable to retain, that the substance of the following pages first appeared in a somewhat different form in the Nottingham Journal.

December, 1856.