An Essay on the Evils of Popular IgnoranceFoster, John
Philosophy
An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance
Foster, John
Education; Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Literacy; Missions -- India; Religious education
We may add to the representation, the manner in which they spend the part
of their time not demanded for the regular, or the occasional, exercise of
their industry. It is not to be denied that many of them have too much
truth in their pleading that, with the exception of Sunday, they have
little remission of their toils till they are so weary that the remainder
of the time is needed for complete repose. This is particularly the case
of the females, especially those who have the chief cares and the actual
work of a family. Nevertheless, it is within our constant observation that
a considerable proportion of the men, a large one of the younger men, in
the less heavily oppressed divisions of our population, do in fact
include, for substance, their manual employments within such limits of
time, as often to leave several hours in the day to be spent nearly as
they please. And in what manner, for the most part, is this precious time
expended by those of no mental cultivation? It is true, again, that in
many departments of labor, a diligent exertion during even this limited
space of the day, occasions such a degree of lassitude and heaviness as to
render it almost inevitable, especially in certain seasons of the year, to
surrender some moments of the spare time, beyond what is necessary for the
humble repast, to a kind of listless subsidence of all the powers of both
body and mind. But after all these allowances fully conceded, a great
number in the class under consideration have in some days several hours,
and in the whole six days of the week, on an average of the year, very
many hours, to be given, as they choose, to useful purposes or to waste;
and again we ask, where the mind itself has been left waste how _is_ that
time mostly expended?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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