may observe that this course has been productive of the happiest and most encouraging results.

The advantages thus offered-such as the use of an extensive library and news-room, medical dispensary, sick and burial clubs, clothing society, allotment-gardens, recreation society, band and choral societyare largely used and highly appreciated, and are therefore constantly increasing, both in extent and efficiency. Here, too, several additional arrangements, of a practical economical character, have been adopted; such as the establishment of a public bakehouse, where is made bread of a good, wholesome quality, both better in kind and more economical in the means of its production than is in ordinary cases to be obtained by the poor of the working classes.

In connection with the bakehouse, I have made arrangements for the supply of tea, coffee, and soup, during winter, at low prices. I have opened a coal depôt, at which the poor only may purchase small quantities of good fuel at cost price.

As a political economist myself, I am fully aware of the objections which may be justly raised against any unwise interruptions of the ordinary channels of supply and demand. But we must recollect that, upon the common principles of trade, the prices of all articles of consumption are materially enhanced by the retailers to the poor, who must be compensated for their additional trouble, and for the loss they may sustain by the subdivision of their commodities into small parcels, and where credit is given to cover the extra risk of pecuniary loss. To meet this additional tax upon their impoverished means, the working classes have formed co-operative societies; which, buying largely at wholesale prices, are able to retail to small customers upon lower terms than some of the smaller shopkeepers can offer.

In the establishment of the bakehouse in my own district, my aim has been to secure for the poor of the working classes a good, wholesome article, at a moderate price; and, by offering an advantage to the retailers of bread, I have secured to them the almost entire distribution.

I have also been anxious to help and encourage working-men to form the habit of saving, and I have therefore established a penny savings bank, in which the pecuniary savings of juveniles and adults. are received. The bank has been very successful, and the number of depositors steadily increases. Many boys contribute to the bank, generally to scrape together the means of gratifying a boyish fancy. One ambitious lad wanted a watch; others, perhaps, a toy or instrument of sport. An objection may be taken that, to teach boys to save for the indulgence of their own pleasures, is not the way to in

culcate provident habits. But there must always be an inducement— a special object for which to save. A married man regards his wife and family; a single man looks forward to being married and becoming a householder; but a boy, who laughs at the idea of sickness and -old age, saves, in the first instance, for some article of youthful desire. Implant the habit of saving in fresh young soil, and afterward it will not be difficult to train it in the right direction.

At present there remains one great and important object which I have in view for promoting habits of forethought and prudence amongst the working classes. It is the institution of a provident society, which shall place within reach of an industrious, prudent workman the following benefits:

1. The provisions of an ordinary sick club. 2. Provision in cases of protracted illness. 3. An assurance against severe accidents. 4. A pension for old age, by means of government annuities. 5. Deferred sums, payable at any given age. 6. An ordinary life assurance, to the extent of £200.

But this object I can not accomplish alone. An association somewhat analogous to that of an assurance company is required, which shall cover a sufficiently large area and variety of occupation to produce an equable result. For this purpose I am promoting the formation of a large society, upon a permanent representation basis, which shall include the whole of the West Riding of Yorkshire. I broached the scheme during the autumn of last year, through the medium of a pamphlet, and met with encouraging success. An influential provisional committee was formed, which includes the names of many of the nobility, clergy, gentry, and manufacturers of the Riding, representing all classes and parties. At present, the rules and regulations of the proposed society are being matured by an executive committee.

I employ about 1100 children in my works, between the ages of eight and thirteen, all of whom, in accordance with the requirements of that act, attend school for five days in the week, and for three hours each day, Now, although their attendance at school can not but be, under any circumstances, beneficial, I have discovered that, owing to the entire ignorance of the children when they first become employed, and to the too early cessation of the period when they are by law compelled to attend school, the results are not so satisfactory as could be desired. I have endeavored to remedy these evils by establishing an infant school, as a preliminary to factory education, and for children from three to eight years of age. A charge of two pence per week is made; and since the school has numbered 380 infants it has been almost self-supporting.

Supplementary to the factory schools, I have instituted a workingman's college, for the education of evening classes of youths and adults above thirteen, the period when the factory education required by law ceases. The college is under the superintendence of trained and certificated masters, and there are now about 150 students.

Besides a working-man's college, I have opened, with even more success, evening classes for young women; reserving one evening in each week for industrial training, and for the cultivation of useful domestic arts, which are too often neglected in the manufacturing districts. About 160 young women diligently attend these classes, which are conducted by a well-trained and zealous schoolmistress.

In concluding this paper, I will only add, that I am fully convinced, by the result of the experiments I have thus made, and their uniform success, that it is possible to make the people feel that their own and their employer's interests are identical; provided the latter, who may be considered the stewards, under God, of the commercial wealth of the nation, will acquit themselves of their responsibilities toward those who, under the order of Providence, are intrusted to their care.

3

XVIII. EDUCATIONAL MISCELLANY.

THE PRIMER.

The earliest printed book used in the tuition of youth was the "Primer” (Primarius, Latin,) a small prayer-book, in which children were taught to read, and the Romish book of devotions in the monastic schools. At the Reformation the "Primer" was retained, but the requisite changes were made. In 1545, Henry VIII. ordered to be printed an English "form of Public Prayer," entitled the "Primer," said to be "set furth by the Kinge's majestie, and his clergie, to be taught, lerned, and red." A copy of this rare book is extant: it was once the property of Sir John Clark, priest of the chapel of Leedsbridge, and founder of the school. This appears from the following autograph note in the "Calendar:" "This day I began the schole at Leeds, July 4, 1563."

It would be hard to say when the contents of the "Primer" were changed from sacred to secular: the change was probably very gradual, more especially as the primers printed to this day contain occasional prayers, the good seed which can not be sown too early in the mind of childhood. The accounts of the grammar schools of the sixteenth century contain much interesting evidence of the value attached to school-books by the care which is directed to be taken of them. Thus, in the corporation records of Boston, in Lincolnshire, in 1578, it was agreed that "a Dictionarye shall be bought for the scollers of the Free Scoole; and the same boke to be tyed in a cheque, and set upon a desk in the scoole, whereunto any scoller may have accesse as occasion shall serve." There are later entries of the corporation purchasing dictionaries for the use of the school; besides presents of dictionaries, lexicons, grammars, folio English Bibles, &c.-(Thompson's History of Boston.)

THE HORNBOOK.

Another "dumb teacher" was the Hornbook, of which a specimen exists, in black-letter, of the time of Queen Elizabeth. It appears to be at least as ancient as 1570, is mounted on wood, and protected with transparent horn. "The letters may be read, through the horn,

That makes the story perfect."-Ben Johnson.

There is a large cross, the criss-cross, and then the alphabet in large and small letters. The vowels follow next, and their combinations with the consonants; and the whole is concluded with the Lord's Prayer and the Roman numerals. The Arabic numerals are not given. Shakspeare thus refers to the cross-row of the Hornbook:

"He hearkens after prophecies and dreams;
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G;
And says, a wizard told him that by G

His issue disinherited should be."-Richard III.

Again, in "Love's Labour's Lost," act v. scene 1, Moth, the page to Armado, says, in describing Holofernes the schoolmaster, "He teaches boys the Hornbook."

Cotgrave has, "La Croix de par Dieu, the Christ's-crosse-rowe, or horne-booke, wherein a child learnes it;" and Florio, ed. 1611, p. 93, "Centuruola, a childes horne-booke hanging at his girdle."

Middlehill, are two genuine Locke, in his "Thoughts on Hornbook and Primer," and

In the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps, at Hornbooks of the reigns of Charles I. and II. Education," speaks of the "ordinary road of the directs that "the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments he should learn by heart, not by reading them himself in his Primer, but by somebody's repeating them before he can read."

Shenstone, who was taught to read at a dame-school, near Halesowen, in Shropshire, in his delightfully quaint poem of the Schoolmistress, commemorating his venerable preceptress, thus records the use of the Hornbook:

"Lo; now with state she utters her command;

Eftsoons the urchins to their tasks repair;
Their books of stature small they take in hand,

Which with pellucid horn secured are

To save from finger wet the letters fair."