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.