if less complicated, is much less considerate. "I believe," says Officer Cole of Boston, "in using all other means to reform truants before bringing them before the court; my experience has been, that a judicious use of the lock-up is one of the most effectual methods of checking truancy." Even if he must come to sentence and an imprisonment, the child should not be sent invariably to a House of Reformation. "What we want," says the School Committee of Concord, "is a home, a farm-school, which shall inflict no stigma on the character, and where there are no older sinners to teach every vile habit, and where unruly youth can be sent to receive a wise and saving discipline." † This is an admirable suggestion, and one that might be pushed further, so as to propose the treatment of truants in families rather than in any schools or institutions. In our day, at the university, the student corresponding to the school truant was liable to be rusticated; but, instead of going into purgatory with others, he went alone, under the guidance of some angelic Alumnus, who would read Juvenal with him, and refit him for the academic sphere. If the truant cannot expect so soft a fall as this, it need not be so hard as to cripple him for life. At all events, he should not be thrown in among others worse than himself, or even as bad as himself, unless his punishment is the first object and his reformation the second. No straggler gets back to his regiment by being incorporated with a mass of other men as much out of line as he is. Moreover, the child, once placed under restraint, should be allowed, we think, to shorten his term by good behavior. A scale of marks, like those of the Irish prisons, would be a ready means of proving his disposition; and if it were favorable, he should be encouraged by the hope of earning a release within the period for which he was sentenced. It ought to be his effort, as well as the effort of those who have him in charge, to obtain his restoration to school; just as it should be the purpose, in punishing any offence, to restore the offender to the place where he belongs, and not to cut him off from it for life. Mr. Philbrick's Second Report, p. 39. †Thirteenth Annual Report of the Board of Education (Mass.), School Committees' Reports, p. 72. Compulsory education has its opponents everywhere. They dwell upon the rights of the father, insisting that to compel him to send his child to school is to break up his authority as the head of his family, and therefore to break up the family itself, and thus destroy the corner-stone of society. They pronounce the system contrary to free institutions, a violation of the laissez-faire principle which is their essence, a substitution of force for reason, which is their safeguard, and, as M. Guizot writes in explanation of his not adopting it during his Ministry of Public Instruction, one of "those rules which bear the mark of the convent or the barrack." They declare it to have been the creature of centralization, as of Sparta in ancient times or of Louis XIV. in modern times, and that to adopt it, where the individual is not already swallowed up in the state, will insure his being speedily devoured. Many of these points were made at a session of the International Social Science Congress, consisting of delegates from all parts of Europe, and meeting at London in 1862. The majority of the Congress decided against compulsory education. Against this decision may be set that of another Congress, the International Workingmen's, assembled a few months ago at Lausanne. Representing the class which suffers, if any does, from the infraction of parental and popular rights involved, as is said, in compulsory education, the Congress, after a discussion of considerable heat, committed itself to the system with but one reservation, that the education. should be national, not denominational. It is a long step forward towards the general establishment of the system when such a body declares in its favor; for should their constituents follow their lead, the ground of opposition would be gone. The late gathering of the British Social Science Association at Belfast took up the question, and, if we are rightly informed, generally approved the arguments in behalf of compulsory education. Such we may judge to be the current of opinion among the educated still more than among the uneducated classes of Europe. Whether there is any opinion among ourselves strong enough to create a prevailing current in the same direction is doubtful; the popular prepossessions against it are * Mém. pour Servir à l'Hist. de Mon Temps, Tome III. p. 61. very evident. As for the history of the system, on which its opponents rely a good deal, the facts are on the side of its advocates. It began in Europe with the Reformation; in America, thirty-five years after the English occupation, with the first Colony whose charter gave power to introduce it; on both sides the ocean, therefore, it is associated with the growth of liberty. One of the blows dealt against the ancient régime by the French Revolution was the establishment of compulsory education; and though the sweep of the Revolution may have been but a déluge de mots, as it has been called, its surges show what was thought liberal by those to whom liberalism was a matter of life and death. Its liberal character is still more fully supported by the recent development of the system in Massachusetts, where centralization and its train are not supposed to be making much headway. The child, it is to be further noted, has his rights, and, as far as they relate to education, the system of compulsion protects them. The father has his duties, and, as far as they relate to education, the system enforces them. To enforce the father's duties is not, we take it, to invade his rights, not to undermine the family, not to undermine society, not, in fine, to bring about any of the evils conjured up by the opponents of compulsory education. On the contrary, it would seem that the system, instead of being an assault upon the individual, or upon the family, or upon society, is, to the extent of its influence, a defence of all the three.* All education is a development, an opening through the ignorances and errors that lie between us and the life before It begins within, but works outwardly, and leads us forth from encompassing obstructions to broader ground and clearer skies. Compulsory education does the same, in breaking a way for children or for classes whose training is obstructed, and setting them fast in the direction of light and truth. .... SAMUEL ELIOT. * Mr. Fraser (p. 41, note) quotes from the report of the Superintendent of Connecticut Schools as follows: "It is a question.. whether the safety of the State and the best interests of society do not require that some measures shall be adopted which shall insure the attendance of all of school age not justifiably absent. The services of the older children may be of some value to the parent or employer now, but it is not a wise arrangement, or one just to the child or the State, which robs one of his birthright under a free, intelligent government, or the other of the power, security, and wealth which educated minds bring." ART. VI.—1. Progress of the Working Class. 1832-1867. By J. M. LUDLOW and LLOYD JONES. London: Alexander Strahan. 1867. 2. Les Associations Ouvrières de Consommation, de Crédit, et de Production en Angleterre, en Allemagne, et en France. Par EUGENE VERON. Paris: Hachette et Cie. 1865. 3. Le Mouvement Coopératif à Lyon, et dans le Midi de la France. Par EUGÈNE FLOTARD. Paris: Librairie des Sciences Sociales. Noirot et Cie. 1867. 4. Les Sociétés Coopératives en Allemagne, et le Projet de loi Français. Par FRÉDÉRIC REITLINGER. Paris: E. Dentu. 1867. 5. Le Mouvement Coopératif International. Étude Théorique et Pratique sur les Differentes Formes de l'Association. Par EUGENE PELLETIER. Paris: Guillaumin et Cie. 1867. Their History, Organization, and Management; based on the recent German Work of EUGENE RICHTER. Specially adapted for Use in the United States. New York: Leypdolt and Holt. 1867. 6. Co-operative Stores. 7. The History of Co-operation in Rochdale. By GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. Sixth Edition. "London Book Store." 1867. 8. Co-operation in its different Branches. Tracts of Chambers's Social Science Series. London and Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers. 1861. 9. Trades Unions and the Commission thereon. By HENRY D. LE MARCHANT, Barrister at Law. London: Richard Bentley. 1867. 10. The Co-operator: a Fortnightly Record of Co-operative Progress by Workingmen. London: F. Pitman. 1867. 11. The Friendly Societies' Journal and Co-operative Guide. Published Monthly. London: James Horsey. 1867. 12. La Cooperation. Journal du Progrès Social. Paris: Abel Davaud. 1867. THE press, in England, France, and Germany, has during the past seven years teemed with books and pamphlets upon the co-operative movement. It has been treated from nearly every point of view by lecturers and writers on political economy. It has in each of these countries periodical publications of its own, entirely devoted to reports and explanations of its working, and to the elucidation of its principles. It has, moreover, engaged the attention of a large body of reformers who are not specially connected with the working classes. It has excited amongst them an amount of interest such as no other movement of modern times has called forth, and with their assistance and encouragement it is effecting a social revolution of the first magnitude. There were in Great Britain, at the end of the year 1866, seven hundred co-operative societies of one sort or other, containing nearly two hundred thousand members. During the same year the amount received on shares by these societies was upwards of $3,000,000, while the total amount invested in them since the beginning of their operations is estimated at $6,700,000. These sums are of course in gold. It must be borne in mind, too, that the returns made to the Registrar of Friendly Societies are somewhat imperfect. Numbers of small associations exist all over the country, which, through ignorance or carelessness, make no return at all, so that the above estimate is certainly below the mark. In Germany, where the movement has shown itself mainly in the establishment of co-operative banks, there is a Central Bureau, forming a sort of federal head of all the associations throughout the country. From the returns of this office, which are also imperfect, for the same reason that the English registrar's returns are imperfect, we learn that there were, at the close of 1865, over one thousand associations known to be in existence. Of these five hundred and fifteen had made formal returns to the bureau, showing the number of members to be one hundred and seventy-three thousand five hundred and eleven; the total amount of capital owned by them, $3,750,000; while that held by them on deposit or as loans was no less than $13,811,559. It must be remembered that these are only the co-operative banks. There are no accurate returns of the others, which are of all sorts, but they are supposed to number about three hundred and fifty. Of these about two hundred are co-operative stores, containing about thirty-nine thousand members. We doubt if any full returns of the French societies are to be had. The movement in France is still in its |
