35
think that education is likely to impede his subjects either in fighting or working; and the conduct of the conscripts, a large portion of whom is taken from a superior class of society to that which forms the mass of modern armies, clearly justifies his opinion. The principal objections which I have ever heard advanced against the education of the poor would be removed if it became general. A man who can read and write now may be discontented with his condition, and wish to rise above it; but if all his fellow labourers possessed the same advantage, his relative situation in society would remain the same as before, and the only effect would be that the condition of the whole mass would be elevate and improved!
In the fear that any great expences in the first erection of schools should indispose the country gentlemen to the whole system, I should recommend all practicable economy in
