creasing its habits of virtue and probity. In twenty years we may fairly contemplate that there will scarce be an individual to be found who will not possess the means of making himself acquainted with his duty to God and man.
The blessed effects of a general system of education, I hold equally high with Mr. Whitbread, and consider it as the foundation on which is to be built any system for bettering the condition of the people of England. Whatever can lead men to curb their passions and teach them to oppose the future to the present, must be attended with the most important results to their happiness.
Disposed as I am to look to education as a most powerful auxiliary, so great is the evil with which we have to contend, that it would not, in my humble opinion, be safe to confide in any plan that did not offer not only an equal but extended scale of support for the afflicted.
I am neither called on nor disposed to enter into the discussion of any abstract principles. It matters not whether every human being be entitled to a support from the produce of the earth; or that the most imperious duty on man after the payment of debts is the exercise of charity. I am disposed to allow every latitude that can be required to the claims of misery, and to agree that the exercise of benevolence is the highest source of human enjoyment.
Nor is the axiom less true that it is an imperious duty, binding on every mortal, to exert his utmost endeavours for the support of himself and those he has contributed to bring into the world. By the sweat of his brow man is ordained to earn his bread. No claim can honestly be set up for relief till every effort has been made and failed. The neglect of this principle has brought on the nation the evils it now endures; unless the consent and opinion of the working classes can be brought back to a recognition of this truth, it is in vain to look for relief from any remedy that can be proposed.
