clever, educated, literary men, with no conduct whatever,--wasteful,
improvident, drunken, and vicious. It follows, therefore, that education
must be based upon the principles of religion and morality.

Nor has the poverty of the people so much to do with their social
degradation as is commonly supposed. The question is essentially a moral
one. If the income of the labouring community could be suddenly doubled,
their happiness will not necessarily be increased; for happiness does
not consist in money. In fact, the increased wages might probably prove
a curse instead of a blessing. In the case of many, there would be an
increased consumption of drink, with the usual results,--an increase of
drunken violence, and probably an increase of crime.

The late Mr. Clay, chaplain of the Preston House of Correction, after
characterizing drunkenness as the GREAT SIN, proceeds: "It still rises
in savage hostility, against everything allied to order and religion; it
still barricades every avenue by which truth and peace seek to enter the
poor man's home and heart.... Whatever may be the predominant cause of
crime, it is very clear that ignorance, religious ignorance, is the
chief ingredient in the character of the criminal. This combines with
the passion for liquor, and offences numberless are engendered by the
union."

The late Sir Arthur Helps, when speaking of high and low wages, and of
the means of getting and spending money, thus expresses himself on the
subject, in his "Friends in Council":"My own conviction is, that
throughout England every year there is sufficient wages given, even at
the present low rate, to make the condition of the labouring poor quite
different from what it is. But then these wages must be well spent. I do
not mean that the poor could of themselves alone effect this change; but