I recently was reading a little book called "Cottage Economy" written by William Cobbett in 1833. I was surprised to hear him say so much on the subject of education. I think his thoughts have relevance in this day and age where we have learned to depend so heavily on an unhealthy and expensive agro-giant system of sustainment. Read on to see what he has to say about education. Read the book if you are curious about cottaging. As for my own home school today; after history and before math, we are learning to make bagles.
11. "
Education means
breeding up,
bringing up, or
rearing up; and nothing more. This includes every thing with regard to
the
mind as well as the
body of a child; but, of late years, it
has been so used as to have no sense applied to it but that of
book-learning, with which, nine times out of ten, it has nothing at all
to do. It is, indeed, proper, and it is the duty
[Pg 9] of all parents, to teach, or cause to be taught,
their children as much as they can of books,
after, and not before, all
the measures are safely taken for enabling them to get their living by labour,
or for
providing them a living without labour, and that, too, out of the
means obtained and secured by the parents out of their own income. The taste of
the times is, unhappily, to give to children something of
book-learning,
with a view of placing them to live, in some way or other,
upon the labour of
other people. Very seldom, comparatively speaking, has this succeeded, even
during the wasteful public expenditure of the last thirty years; and, in the
times that are approaching, it cannot, I thank God, succeed at all. When the
project has failed, what disappointment, mortification and misery, to both
parent and child! The latter is spoiled as a labourer: his book-learning has
only made him conceited: into some course of desperation he falls; and the end
is but too often not only wretched but ignominious.
12. Understand me clearly here, however; for it is the duty of parents to
give, if they be able, book-learning to their children, having
first
taken care to make them capable of earning their living by
bodily labour.
When that object has once been secured, the other may, if the ability remain, be
attended to. But I am wholly against children wasting their time in the idleness
of what is called
education; and particularly in schools over which the
parents have no control, and where nothing is taught but the rudiments of
servility, pauperism and slavery.
13. The
education that I have in view is, therefore, of a very
different kind. You should bear constantly in mind, that nine-tenths of us are,
from the very nature and necessities of the world, born to gain our livelihood
by the sweat of our brow. What reason have we, then, to presume, that our
children are not to do the same? If they be, as now and then one will be, endued
with extraordinary powers of mind, those powers may have an opportunity of
developing themselves; and if they never have that opportunity,
[Pg 10] the harm is not very
great to us or to them. Nor does it hence follow that the descendants of
labourers are
always to be labourers. The path upwards is steep and long,
to be sure. Industry, care, skill, excellence, in the present parent, lay the
foundation of
a rise, under more favourable circumstances, for his
children. The children of these take
another rise; and, by-and-by, the
descendants of the present labourer become gentlemen.
14. This is the natural progress. It is by attempting to reach the top at a
single leap that so much misery is produced in the world; and the
propensity to make such attempts has been cherished and encouraged by the
strange projects that we have witnessed of late years for making the labourers
virtuous and
happy by giving them what is called
education.
The education which I speak of consists in bringing children up to labour with
steadiness, with
care, and with
skill; to show them how to
do as many useful things as possible; to teach them to do them all in the best
manner; to set them an example in industry, sobriety, cleanliness, and neatness;
to make all these
habitual to them, so that they never shall be liable to
fall into the contrary; to let them always see a
good living proceeding
from
labour, and thus to remove from them the temptation to get at the
goods of others by violent or fraudulent means; and to keep far from their minds
all the inducements to hypocrisy and deceit.
15. And, bear in mind, that if the state of the labourer has its
disadvantages when compared with other callings and conditions of life, it has
also its advantages. It is free from the torments of ambition, and from a great
part of the causes of ill-health, for which not all the riches in the world and
all the circumstances of high rank are a compensation. The able and prudent
labourer is always
safe, at the least; and that is what few men are who
are lifted above him. They have losses and crosses to fear, the very thought of
which never enters his mind, if he act well his part towards himself, his family
and his neighbour.
16. But, the basis of good to him, is
steady and[Pg 11] skilful labour. To assist him in
the pursuit of this labour, and in the turning of it to the best account, are
the principal objects of the present little work. I propose to treat of brewing
Beer, making Bread, keeping Cows and Pigs, rearing Poultry, and of other
matters; and to show, that, while, from a very small piece of ground a large
part of the food of a considerable family may be raised, the very act of raising
it will be the best possible foundation of
education of the children of
the labourer; that it will teach them a great number of useful things,
add
greatly to their value when they go forth from their father’s home, make
them start in life with all possible advantages, and give them the best chance
of leading happy lives."
