But If This Matter Were Regarded In England As It Is
Regarded In Massachusetts, Or Rather, Had It From Some Prosperous
Beginning Been Put Upon A Similar Footing, 800,000l. Would Not Have
Been Esteemed A Great Expenditure For Free Education Simply In The
City Of London.
In 1857 the public schools of Boston cost
70,000l., and these schools were devoted to a population of about
180,000 souls.
Taking the population of London at two and a half
millions, the whole sum now devoted to England would, if expended
in the metropolis, make education there even cheaper than it is in
Boston. In Boston, during 1857, there were above 24,000 pupils at
these public schools, giving more than one-eighth of the whole
population. But I fear it would not be practicable for us to spend
800,000l. on the gratuitous education of London. Rich as we are,
we should not know where to raise the money. In Boston it is
raised by a separate tax. It is a thing understood, acknowledged,
and made easy by being habitual - as is our national debt. I do not
know that Boston is peculiarly blessed, but I quote the instance,
as I have a record of its schools before me. At the three high
schools in Boston, at which the average of pupils is 526, about
13l. per head is paid for free education. The average price per
annum of a child's schooling throughout these schools in Boston is
about 3l. for each. To the higher schools any boy or girl may
attain without any expense, and the education is probably as good
as can be given, and as far advanced. The only question is,
whether it is not advanced further than may be necessary. Here, as
at New York, I was almost startled by the amount of knowledge
around me, and listened, as I might have done to an examination in
theology among young Brahmins. When a young lad explained in my
hearing all the properties of the different levers as exemplified
by the bones of the human body, I bowed my head before him in
unaffected humility. We, at our English schools, never got beyond
the use of those bones which he described with such accurate
scientific knowledge. In one of the girls' schools they were
reading Milton, and when we entered were discussing the nature of
the pool in which the devil is described as wallowing. The
question had been raised by one of the girls. A pool, so called,
was supposed to contain but a small amount of water, and how could
the devil, being so large, get into it? Then came the origin of
the word pool - from "palus," a marsh, as we were told, some
dictionary attesting to the fact, and such a marsh might cover a
large expanse. The "Palus Maeotis" was then quoted. And so we
went on till Satan's theory of political liberty,
"Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,"
was thoroughly discussed and understood.
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