t danger in virtue of modern social
arrangements lest parents should forget their highest duties to their
children, and children cease to honour their parents in the good
old-fashioned way. We confess, therefore, that we are jealous of the
proposal to take away from the father the proud privilege of paying for
his children's schooling, even though it may sometimes cost him an
effort to do so.

It may be said, of course, that every man does pay indirectly, because
he pays according to his means to the taxes of the country, and that
therefore the proposal only gives him of his own. The argument is
defective, because it ignores the fact that whatever a man may pay
indirectly in taxes, there is a conscious effort in finding the pence
for the children's schooling, which morally is of great importance. But
the argument fails also on other grounds: it assumes that all men have
children equally; it asserts that the married man with his five children
has no more responsibility than the elderly spinster who lives next
door; it supposes that the parents have not a special interest in their
children, distinct from that which can be felt by any other person
whatever. It may be further urged, that if a man pays for his children
while they are in process of education, the pressure comes upon him when
he is in full vigour, and most able to bear it; whereas if the payment
of pence be commuted for a perpetual tax, the pressure becomes one of a
lifelong character, and is not relieved when the powers of earning begin
to diminish.

We do not deny that painful cases have occurred, and are likely to still
occur, in which parents are summoned before the magistrates for the
non-attendance of children at school. But free education will not get
rid of these painful cases. Already arrangements are made by law for the
payment of fees for very poor parents who make the proper application;
and if there be any obstacle in the way of the smooth working of the
law, the matter should be looked into and the law amended; but the great
difficulty in the way of good attendance on the part of very poor
children lies, as we apprehend, not more with school-pence, than with
school-clothes, and school-dinners. Attendance cannot be enforced
completely all round, unless free education comprise in its idea free
food and clothing, as well as free books and lessons.

We cannot but fear also lest the remission of school-pence should be
another step towards the destr