tend with that opposition which their waywardness of disposition presented to the civil and political institutions of society. With minds vague and uncultured, and, in many instances, clouded by a confused sort of fanaticism, they merged into a political coalition with those who had hitherto been the exclusive participators of superior liberty and privilege they had never been equal to, or enabled to struggle into, employments which might have pervaded them with an intellectual estimate of the considerations attached to freedom in person and property. It is education that must confer this knowledge; and the impressions it conveys are always calculated to render men moral and useful members of the community. In reference to an agricultural people, or indeed any people in the lower ranks of life, it is better if education can be administered so as to infuse, at the same time, a spirit of industry.

In a semi-civilized condition, as our agricultural peasantry doubtless must be considered to be in, any system of education to be devised must, necessarily, be such as will conform to their wants and exigencies. That they are, too generally, in a ferment of opposition to their employers is true; but what is to remedy this constitution of things in time to come if education will not? The defective morals, the long-indulged custom of vicious propensity, and the obstinacy which is engendered by ignorance, as a fatal parent, are all to find in this their proper antidote. The untoward habits of the parents are to be combatted in the persons of their children. It may be said that the desires of a contented and prosperous peasantry are naturally few. The most prevalent of these are, constituted order; domestic comfort and happiness; a regulated medium of compensation for labour performed; and a plain course of scholastic tuition for their children, which shall embrace reading, writing, religious instruction, and arithmetic. If they possess what is here enumerated

they will have obtained all the advantages immediately necessary for their wants and condition. The fatuity under which our present peasantry have hitherto laboured is to be guarded against for the future. Children are more peculiarly public property: to make them beneficial citizens of society; and, concurrently, useful members of that circle in which it has pleased God to place them, is a manifest and imperative duty. To children, then, let the blessings of education be extended, in conjunction with a plan of industry which shall inure and restrict them to the pursuits of agriculture from their youth.

I am of opinion that an industrial system of education, based on the allotment of land for the purpose of raising marketable productions of husbandry, must obviously advance the interests of agriculture in general. I shall, presently, endeavour to show that, under certain circumstances, children enrolled in a public school shall not only be equal to plant and hold land in cultivation, so as to bring a yearly fund in aid of paying their teachers' stipend, but also to enhance the value of that land to such an extent, by means of their individual labour, as to render it capable, in the lapse of a few years, of expunging whatever funds the body politic had expended for their education, principal and interest; and also to accumulate an increasing surplus-fund, to remain at the credit of the institution.

The great desideratum is, that the parents should become stationary in their locations, of which there seems to be some apparent evidence. The general body of the late apprentices are still resident on estates and large settlements, and are now divesting themselves of any further desire of changing their place of abode. Many, who, after the expiry of the apprenticeship system, had emigrated from the scene of their former labours, have, after many devious and unprofitable wanderings, chosen to return. They have, after the vicissitudes of a few years of adverse fortune, been ulti

mately convinced that their true interest consisted in a return to their childhood's home, or former permanent location-to their anciently recognized stability of conduct and character; and to their intermitted friendly attachments. Others, who had purchased small quotas of land, have now ascertained that the remuneration attendant on day labour, is more sure and certain than the dubious and long-anticipated income resulting from one's own petty cultivation.

They have learnt that such things do exist, as taxation, over-stocked provision markets, and an out-wearing of their limited portions of land, inducing sterility for time to come. These also have resorted to labour on the estates.

To the general mass of sable agriculturists, a plan of education for their children, founded on the principle of the child's liquidating his own educational charges, without any drain on the means of the parent, is highly acceptable. Indeed, there can be little or no exception taken at a mode which, while it inculcates the efficacy of industry on a young mind, also ennobles and exalts it in its self-appreciation, by adducing the nature and value of an obligation. Cannot a child be sensible of conscious pride? What incites a spirit of emulation, a burning wish to excel, but this feeling? That a child of ten years of age, by industrious agricultural effort, on a properly concerted plan, and under the direction of a discreet and experienced teacher as his Superintendent, can be made to refund, ultimately, the expense of his learning, is no paradox. The simplicity of a combination does not deprive it of energy. In their childish freaks, their games and sports, children strive to equal and outdo their co-ordinates. In their joint labours, would they do less? A boy of ten or twelve years of age, in this country, is already acquainted with the practical principles of planting in a degree equal to his strength and capacity-I mean the son of a labouring man, or of a white or coloured individual, who is

a small settler.

Such a boy has his own little provision ground; he takes delight in planting and keeping it clear of noxious weeds, and in diligently cultivating it, until his joy is consummated by receiving the value of its matured products. If, then, the bare idea that he acts not unlike a man, while he imitates him in the use of the hoe and other light implements-in the thrifty culture and care of his plants, be an exerting stimulus to a boy of ardent feeling, how much greater scope shall this sensibility acquire, when, to the mere manual action, is superadded the self-applauding reflection, that, by means of his individual energies, he is assiduously reaping for himself a benefit that is to grow with his years and strengthen with his strength.

The plan I have to suggest is one made up of Education conjoined to Agricultural Industry alone, without the smallest reference to any branch pertaining to the Handicraft labours of the Artisan or Manufacturer. I have taken it upon a middle scale, in order to exhibit the system; but it is capable of being amplified and branched into several divisions within the bounds of a parish, so as to meet the wants or circumstances over which its influence may be called to extend. A general detail of the mode I have the pleasure to submit, for "the establishment and conducting of Industrial Schools adapted to the wants and circumstances of an Agricultural Population," would be as follows:—

1st.-Let a parish be divided into districts, in each of which a school might be established, sufficiently central to command a good attendance of pupils from the vicinity around.

2nd.-Purchase 20 acres of land in each district where the people were solicitous of having an agricultural school established, and would, in the offset, comply with the terms to be hereafter specified.

3rd.-Erect thereon a suitable school-room, with an apartment at one end for the teacher: also the necessary outhouses.

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4th.-Appoint a teacher (a married man, whose wife should assist him) of sufficient acquirement, good moral character, and active, stirring disposition; to be recommended by any two or more magistrates, or by six freeholders, of the annual value of £30, derived solely from land income.

5th. Let the children to be educated at this seminary be not under ten, nor exceeding sixteen, years of age; all under the former age to be at the expence of their parents, and the teacher's perquisite. No school to be established unless it can commence with at least fifty scholars properly attached to it-the number of pupils on the establishment not to exceed one hundred. Pupils of twelve years of age, and upwards, to be in the proportion of three to two of the others.

6th. The parents of such children as may be candidates for enrolment are required to sign a specific contract, binding the children, for whom they are natural guardians, to the institution (or rather to a regular attendance thereat,) for the space of three or four years, as may be stipulated by the teacher. The provisions of this contract to be, that the parents, in such case contracting, shall be indemnified from all manner of charges for the education of their children.

7th. Let not less than six acres of land, in the first instance, be laid off in subdivisions of one-sixth of an acre each : one subdivision to be allotted to each boy of twelve years of age, and upwards; one to be portioned between two under that age; and one to be appropriated to two female pupils. Let this land be partitioned, and planted through in coffee, chocolate, &c., at regular spaces, by means of the joint labour of the teacher and his pupils. The teacher will then consign the respective portions to their individual cultivators, to fill the intermediate spaces with the various articles of tillage that could, without detriment to the grand staple, be raised there. on their industrial duties.

From this period, they enter

The aggregate industrious eco