production-so precious as man.

Even an untu

tored Indian from the plains of Africa will fetch a hundred pounds in the slave-markets of America; but how much more valuable were a civilized, instructed, and indefatigable European! Yet see how he is depreciated! We give nothing for an article. with which we are already abundantly supplied, not even for air or water, though indispensable to support life. But an Englishman has become less valuable than either element; he is not only without price but has actually become what algebraists call a negative quantity, that is, something worth less than nothing, and a premium has positively been offered for his expatriation!

Messrs. Whitbread, Pitt, Rousseau, and Dr. Price, therefore, were wrong in maintaining, without reference to circumstances, that a multitude of people constitute the wealth of nations; men are only valuable when scarce when they are in demand, not when the supply of them is redundant.

It is worthy of remark, that while vague and unphilosophical notions on population were being coun→ tenanced in the English House of Commons, much sounder principles were inculcated by the Constituent Assembly of France. A committee of that enlightened and patriotic body laid down the following doctrine:

"An excessive population, without a proportional demand for its labour, and without abundant productions to supply its wants, cannot but be an overwhelming incumbrance to a state: for necessarily

this excessive population must divide amongst its greater numbers all these advantages which one less extensive would have found amply sufficient for its wants. In such a case it must be an inevitable consequence that the wages of labour must fall from the competition of workmen ; whence a complete state of indigence must result to those persons who cannot find employment at all, and an incomplete subsistence for those who may be fortunate enough to find it."

The tendency of competition to reduce wages and abridge the comforts of the working classes is here clearly and succinctly announced. A much safer criterion of national happiness than an increase of population is liad down in the proposition, that "the true test of the prosperity of a state is the decrease of its mortality, as compared with the number of its births."

A. D. 1797. Dr. Bell publishes a pamphlet under the unassuming title of an Experiment in Education, explaining the system of teaching he had introduced in 1789 into the charity-school over which he presided at Madras. The Reverend author had frequently observed the advantages attending the mode of teaching by writing in sand practised from time immemorial in all the native schools of Malabar. He thence resolved to adopt the practice, but met with difficulties from the confirmed habits of the teachers, who were grown up men; and on that account had recourse to the plan of teaching by the elder boys, whose habits and prejudices were more

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easily overcome, and whom he was able with little difficulty to qualify as instructors to the rest. adopting this expedient he did systematically what had been done more or less before in most European chools. But Dr. Bell had the great merit of overcoming a specific difficulty in education--the prejudices of adults against sand-writing-by substituting boys. The same benevolent individual also introduced the method of reading and pronouncing by syllables instead of the common way: thu's teaching the art of spelling with greater ease and correctness.

Dr. Bell's plan was communicated, as already stated in 1797, and in the following year Mr. Joseph Lancaster brought into general notoriety the principles of the Madras system. From these individuals arose the National School Society, and the British and Foreign School Society; the name of the latter being adopted by the supporters of the Lancasterian plan, after separation from its founder. The chief distinction between the Bell and Lancaster schools is, I believe, that in the former the learning of the church catechism and attendance at a place of worship of the Church Establishment are indispensable conditions.

A. D. 1798. The publication of An Essay on the Principle of Population by Mr. Malthus, forms an epoch in the progress of economical science. The main propositions of this gentleman are, that there is a tendency in mankind to increase faster than the means of subsistence; and secondly, that this tendency is checked, either by the misery occasioned

by deficiency of food, or by the moral intelligence which controls the full indulgence of the procreative passion when hurtful to happiness.

Of a portion at least of this philosophy, it may be truly said, that it is nearly as old as the creation, and must have been recognised by the earliest of the human race: but the author was the first to show by a masterly inquiry into the past and present state of mankind, the practical application of his principles to the wellbeing of society. In this respect he rendered a service of inestimable price, and gave a new character to morals and legislation. Contrary to previously established maxims it became manifest that the great merit in governments and individuals consists, not in augmenting the number of people, but the means of subsistence; if the latter is provided, the former follows as unfailingly as harvest does the seed-time.

Had this important doctrine been set forth less with an air of novelty and more as admitted and selfevident truth, as it had been done by Wallace, Smith, Franklin, Young, and other anterior writers, it would not perhaps have encountered the severe and lengthened opposition it has experienced.

After all it may be doubted whether Mr. Malthus embraced the whole of his science. He established incontestably the tendency of mankind to multiply to excess, and its deteriorating consequences; but he did not sufficiently appreciate the operation of another principle of our nature. The important truth overlooked by the author of the Essay on Population

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is, that man is a reasoning and self-loving creature, and though there is a natural tendency in him to increase his number, there is also in him a natural tendency to devise expedients for meeting and controlling its hurtful consequences. The doctrine of population, therefore, is not, as its philanthropic expounder assumed, irreconcilable with the doctrine of human improvement; neither does it afford any ground for the paralyzing inference that all projects of social amelioration are vain, save the single one of limiting the multiplication of our species.

A. D. 1802. An act of this year, still in force, the 42 Geo. III. c. 73, provides, that in all woollen and cotton mills and factories in the United Kingdom, in which three or more apprentices, or twenty or more other persons are employed, apprentices shall have two complete suits of clothing yearly; that the hours of working shall not exceed twelve hours, exclusive of meal-times, for which three hours are allowed; that they shall be instructed every day for the first four years of their apprenticeship, in reading, writing, and arithmetic; that the apartments of male and female shall be kept distinct, and two only sleep in one bed; that the rooms shall be washed with quicklime and water twice a year, and kept well aired; that at Midsummer sessions two visiters shall be appointed, to report the condition of such mills and factories; and that copies of the act shall be fixed up in two conspicuous parts of the building.