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Mr Francis Horner at the same meeting declared, that of the 7,000 children educated in Lancaster's own school in the Borough road, not one had ever been charged in a court of justice with any criminal offence.
With the great educational movement which afterwards took place, and the endeavour to make the state in some degree responsible for the training of the people, Lord Brougham's name must for ever be nobly associated. With him (one of the most scientifically educated men of his day), rested the task of arguing away the absurd prejudice, that if the lower classes were instructed, they would disdain to work; with him rested the long struggle against the abuses of charitable trusts, and bequests for educational purposes; the sacredness of which was so little understood, that Lord Kenyon remarked of the grammar schools, that "everything was neglected except the receipt of salaries and emoluments;" and Lord Eldon, that "all over the Kingdom, charity estates were dealt with in a manner amounting to the most direct breach of Trust." There was no such tranquil admission on all sides as exists to-day, that the State is bound to watch over and secure to its poorer millions the inestimable blessing of education. Lord Brougham was flouted and opposed; and in nothing did he encounter more opposition or greater odium, than in his attempt to prevent this embezzlement of the property of the poor. With most pertinacious energy he made himself their pioneer to knowledge; and most assuredly, when the balance of usefulness is struck in his dazzling and eccentric career, the triumph can never be denied him of having been a main means of securing to future generations of Englishmen, the first of life's blessings both in date and degree; that early and orderly training which lifts a toiling man above the level of a toiling brute; which teaches him to use the powers of his soul in addition to the powers of the body; which makes slumber and food no longer the sole refreshment of the intelligent artisan, and throws a light into the labourer's cottage beyond the common light of day.
It is not because I undervalue the help thus given at a later
