Bell and Lancaster,of whom I shall have to speak,were rival claimants for the honour of initiating a new departure in education.The controversy which afterwards raged between the supporters of the two systems marked a complete revolution of opinion.Meanwhile,although the need of schools was beginning to be felt,the appliances for education in England were a striking instance of the general inefficiency in every department which needed combined action.
In Scotland the system of parish schools was one obvious cause of the success of so many of the Scotsmen which excited the jealousy of southern competitors.
Even in Ireland there appears to have been a more efficient set of schools.
And yet,one remark must be suggested.There is probably no period in English history at which a greater number of poor men have risen to distinction.
The greatest beyond comparison of self-taught poets was Burns (1759-1796).
The political writer who was at the time producing the most marked effect was Thomas Paine (1737-1809),son of a small tradesman.His successor in influence was William Cobbett (1762-1835),son of an agricultural labourer,and one of the pithiest of all English writers.William Gifford (1756-1826),son of a small tradesman in Devonshire,was already known as a satirist and was to lead Conservatives as editor of the The Quarterly Review.John Dalton (1766-1842),son of a poor weaver,was one of the most distinguished men of science.Porson (1759-1808),the greatest Greek scholar of his time,was son of a Norfolk parish clerk,though sagacious patrons had sent him to Eton in his fifteenth year.The Oxford professor of Arabic,Joseph White (1746-1814),was Son of a poor weaver in the country and a man of reputation for learning,although now remembered only for a rather disreputable literary squabble.
Robert owen and Joseph Lancaster,both sprung from the ranks,were leaders in social movements.I have already spoken of such men as Watt,Telford,and Rennie;and smaller names might be added in literature,science,and art.The individualist virtue of 'self-help'was not confined to successful moneymaking or to the wealthier classes.One cause of the literary excellence of Burns,Paine,and Cobbett may be that,when literature was less centralised,a writer was less tempted to desert his natural dialect.I mention the fact,however,merely to suggest that,whatever were then the difficulties of getting such schooling as is now common,an energetic lad even in the most neglected regions might force his way to the front.
IV.THE SLAVE-TRADE
I have thus noticed the most conspicuous of the contemporary problems which,as we shall see,provided the main tasks of Bentham and his followers.
One other topic must be mentioned as in more ways than one characteristic of the spirit of the time.The parliamentary attack upon the slave-trade began just before the outbreak of the revolution.It is generally described as an almost sudden awakening of the national conscience.That it appealed to that faculty is undeniable,and,moreover,it is at least a remarkable instance of legislative action upon purely moral grounds.It is true that in this case the conscience was the less impeded because it was roused chiefly by the sins of men's neighbours.The slave-trading class was a comparative excrescence.Their trade could be attacked without such widespread interference with the social order as was implied,for example,in remedying the grievances of paupers or of children in factories.The conflict with morality,again,was so plain as to need no demonstration.It seems to be a questionable logic which assumes the merit of a reformer to be in proportion to the flagrancy of the evil assailed.The more obvious the case,surely the less the virtue needed in the assailant.However this may be,no one can deny the moral excellence of such men as Wilberforce and Clarkson,nor the real change in the moral standard implied by the success of their agitation.But another question remains,which is indicated by a later controversy.The followers of Wilberforce and of Clarkson were jealous of each other.Each party tried to claim the chief merit for its hero.Each was,I think,unjust to the other.The underlying motive was the desire to obtain credit for the 'Evangelicals'or their rivals as the originators of a great movement.Without touching the personal details it is necessary to say something of the general sentiments implied.In his history of the agitation,(47)Clarkson gives a quaint chart,showing how the impulse spread from various centres till it converged upon a single area,and his facts are significant.
That a great change had taken place is undeniable.Protestant England had bargained with Catholic Spain in the middle of the century for the right of supplying slaves to America,while at the peace of 1814English statesmen were endeavouring to secure a combination of all civilised powers against the trade.Smollett,in 1748,makes the fortune of his hero,Roderick Random,by placing him as mate of a slave-ship under the ideal sailor,Bowling.About the same time John Newton (1725-1807),afterwards the venerated teacher of Cowper and the Evangelicals,was in command of a slaver,and enjoying 'sweeter and more frequent hours of divine communion'than he had elsewhere known.
He had no scruples,though he had the grace to pray 'to be fixed in a more humane calling.'In later years he gave the benefit of his experience to the abolitionists.(48)A new sentiment,however,was already showing itself.