The late Sir Arthur Helps, when speaking of high and low wages, and of the means of getting and spending money, thus expresses himself on the subject, in his “Friends in Council":"My own conviction is, that throughout England every year there is sufficient wages given, even at the present low rate, to make the condition of the labouring poor quite different from what it is.  But then these wages must be well spent.  I do not mean that the poor could of themselves alone effect this change; but were they seconded by the advice, the instruction, and the aid (not given in money, or only in money lent to produce the current interest of the day) of the classes above them, the rest the poor might accomplish for themselves.  And, indeed, all that the rich could do to elevate the poor could hardly equal the advantage that would be gained by the poor themselves, if they could thoroughly subdue that one vice of drunkenness, the most wasteful of all the vices.

“In the living of the poor (as indeed of all of us) there are two things to be considered; how to get money, and how to spend it.  Now, I believe, the experience of employers will bear me out in saying, that it is frequently found that the man with 20s. a week does not live more comfortably, or save more, than the man with 14s.,—­the families of the two men being the same in number and general circumstances.  It is probable that unless he have a good deal of prudence and thought, the man who gets at all more than the average of his class does not know what to do with it, or only finds in it a means superior to that which his fellows possess of satisfying his appetite for drinking.”

Notwithstanding, however, the discouraging circumstances to which we have referred, we must believe that in course of time, as men’s nature becomes improved by education—­secular, moral, and religious—­they may be induced to make a better use of their means, by considerations of prudence, forethought, and parental responsibility.  A German writer speaks of the education given to a child as a capital—­equivalent to a store of money—­placed at its disposal by the parent.  The child, when grown to manhood, may employ the education, as he might employ the money, badly; but that is no argument against the possession of either.  Of course, the value of education, as of money, chiefly consists in its proper use.  And one of the advantages of knowledge is, that the very acquisition of it tends to increase the capability of using it aright; which is certainly not the case with the accumulation of money.

Education, however obtained, is always an advantage to a man.  Even as a means of material advancement, it is worthy of being sought after,—­not to speak of its moral uses as an elevator of character and intelligence.  And if, as Dr. Lyon Playfair insists, the composition between industrial nations must before long become a competition mainly of intelligence, it is obvious that England must make better provision for the education of its industrial classes, or be prepared to fall behind in the industrial progress of nations.