Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/62

The Story of the House of Cassell

greatest credit to his liberality, but also to his good sense, as his remarkable success proves. He has given considerable sums by way of premium for the production of works by competition, in some cases as much as £100 and £200. It would be endless to enumerate the works which he and others have brought out upon this plan. One very remarkable publication of this class is the literature by working men (the Working Man's Friend), or essays on every variety of subject by working men, proving undeniably the benefits which they have derived from their studies, and also proving that they have not been distracted for one hour from their daily toil. That those works have encouraged a taste for reading among thousands who never read before, and have afforded the means of gratifying it, cannot be denied."

Brougham watched with close attention every effort to spread learning among working men and carefully observed its results. Whenever there occurred a striking example of successful self-education he used it to illustrate his general educational theory. In the speech just quoted he mentioned a tract on "Capital," written by a working man. No student of economic science at the English, "nay, at any of the Scotch universities, where it is more cultivated," could have produced, he said, "a better-reasoned tract, or one showing more entire acquaintance with its principles."

The working man in this instance was John Plummer, an obscure inhabitant of a Midland manufacturing town. Born of parents who were stay-makers struggling with poverty in the East End of London, he caught a fever in his early childhood which made him deaf and lame. The cripple, who could not share their games or hear their cries, was contemptuously neglected by the neighbouring children. He solaced the loneliness of his boyhood with what smattered reading he could get, and in his teens contrived to join an art school in Spitalfields and obtain some tuition in designing. The family moved to Kettering, where he became a factory "hand." But his love of reading did not leave him. He continued to

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