it is not enough to rush headlong into any new scheme that may be proposed, be it Benefit Societies, Savings’ Banks, Infant Schools, Mechanic Institutes, or any other.  Circumstances have forced this nation to do, by its manufacturers, an undue portion of the dirty and unwholesome work of the globe.  The revolutions among which we have lived have unsettled the value of all kinds of property, and of labour, the most precious of all, to that degree, that misery and privation are frightfully prevalent.  We must bear the sight of this, and endure its pressure, till we have by reflection discovered the cause, and not till then can we hope even to palliate the evil.  It is a thousand to one but that the means resorted to will aggravate it.

     Farewell, ever affectionately yours, W. WORDSWORTH.

Quere.—­Is the education in the parish schools of Scotland gratuitous, or if not, in what degree is it so?[35]

[35] Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 183-92.  G.

(d) EDUCATION OF DUTY.

Letter to the Rev. Dr. Wordsworth.

=Rydal= Mount, April 27. 1830.

MY DEAR BROTHER,

Was Mr. Rose’s course of sermons upon education?  The more I reflect upon the subject, the more I am convinced that positive instruction, even of a religious character, is much over-rated.  The education of man, and above all of a Christian, is the education of duty, which is most forcibly taught by the business and concerns of life, of which, even for children, especially the children of the poor, book-learning is but a small part.  There is an officious disposition on the part of the upper and middle classes to precipitate the tendency of the people towards intellectual culture in a manner subversive of their own happiness, and dangerous to the peace of society.  It is mournful to observe of how little avail are lessons of piety taught at school, if household attentions and obligations be neglected in consequence of the time taken up in school tuition, and if the head be stuffed with vanity from the gentlemanliness of the employment of reading.  Farewell.

W. W.[36]

[36] Memoirs, =vol=. ii. p. 193.  G.

(e) SPEECH ON LAYING THE FOUNDATION-STONE OF THE NEW SCHOOL IN THE VILLAGE OF BOWNESS, WINDERMERE, 1836.

Standing here as Mr. Bolton’s substitute, at his own request, an honour of which I am truly sensible, it gives me peculiar pleasure to see in spite of this stormy weather, so numerous a company of his friends and neighbours upon this occasion.  How happy would it have made him to have been eye-witness of an assemblage which may fairly be regarded as a proof of the interest felt in his benevolent undertaking, and an earnest that the good work will not be done in vain.  Sure I am, also, that there is no one present who does not deeply regret the cause why that excellent man cannot appear among us.  The public spirit of Mr. Bolton has ever been remarkable both