persecuted because I am a dissenter; that my father was commercially
persecuted for being a dissenter,—he could not rent a farm on equal
terms; that my grandfather was probably excluded from holding office
for being a dissenter; and my great-grandfather, if a dissenter, would
have been thrown into jail for attending a conventicle. But it may be
said, ‘Why rake up old sores?’ Simply because the same persecuting
spirit remains, and if the dissenters were not so strong in numbers,
and consequently in political power and wealth, the same things would
be done again.” He added that no farmer should be a dissenter. He
himself belonged to a Liberation society. He wondered at the apathy of
the Americans in not sympathizing with them in their efforts against an
established church. (I have given my friend’s words from my notes, but
I suspect that the date at which Quakers and others were imprisoned in
England was not so recent as that of the gentleman’s great-grandfather.)
The following anecdote was given to me by another person, also a retired
farmer. It concerns a man of some distinction, now dead, and who did not
bear the name which I assign him. This as well as others are substitutes.
My friend told me that when Carter Gray rented a mill from Lady Letitia
Robyn he also rented from her a large farm, which he conducted to much
profit. He built schools in his neighborhood and also a dissenting
chapel, and the clergy got at the Lady Letitia and induced her to take
the farm from him. But she did not take away the mill. Carter Gray was
so popular that although a dissenter he was appointed a magistrate. The
lord lieutenant of the county has the recommendation for magistrates and
had declared against a dissenter, but Lord John Russell is supposed to
have been in Mr. Gray’s favor. “Lord John was a great liberal,” added my
acquaintance. “Until his persevering action in Parliament the dissenters
had a hard time of it.”
* * * * *
In the English village I describe, I called at the modest residence
of the dissenting minister. He had studied at the Baptist Theological
Seminary in London. I found him to be interested in several of our home
authors. Among his books were the complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson
(London: Bell & Daldy). He said that there is no one he honors more than
Emerson, except, perhaps, their own Carlyle. He said that he had in his
theological library Channing’s works and another man’s, Beecher,—Ward
Beecher. “I have a great admiration for that man.” He had Lowell’s poems,
and rejoiced in Lowell. He spoke of the “Biglow Papers,” and of the pious
editor’s creed, repeating,
“I du believe in principle,
But oh! I du in interest.”
TAXES AND TITHES.
The rates for the poor, for repair of roads, for police (for there is a
policeman in every village), and for the county prison amounted in the
parish I speak of to about two shillings and sixpence in the pound of
the assessed annual value of the land. As the pound is twenty shillings,
the assessment consequently is over twelve per cent.
The burden of supporting the poor, while much lighter than in Ireland,
must be far heavier than in our country. Huntingdonshire is one of
the smallest counties in England. In 1871 it contained less than
seventy thousand people, and at the time of my visit had four unions
or poor-houses. But this does not altogether represent the amount of
poverty. In another farming region, I understood that the farm-laborer,
even though he be sober, honest, and industrious, seldom or never lays
by enough to support his family in his age, but becomes partially or
entirely dependent on parish relief. But out-door relief in the parish I
have been describing, and perhaps in England generally, is granted only
to the aged; young people must go into “The House.” There they pick oakum
and work garden ground. Children are put out at fourteen or earlier, if
they have passed in the school “the fourth standard.” No child is allowed
during the period that school is open to go to work under the age of ten.
* * * * *
Tithes in this parish of Haddenham cum Stonea average about one dollar
and eighty cents to the acre. If there were sufficient land attached
to the rectory for the income to support Mr. Rounce there would be no
tithes, but there are only sixty acres of glebe land, and the living is
worth, as I have stated, about six thousand dollars yearly. The sixty
acres of glebe land bring in about five hundred dollars, hence the
remainder is to be raised by tithes.
I have spoken of Jackson, the carpenter with whom I boarded. He was a
dissenter, and they attended the chapel. He rented, however, six acres of
land, and his tithes to the English Church were about ten dollars yearly.
Formerly Quakers resisted the payment of tithes. A friend told me that
his father, uncle, and grandfather were imprisoned in the county jail for
non-payment. When he himself farmed three hundred and twenty-two acres,
he paid five hundred and twenty pounds rent and one hundred and twenty
pounds for tithes. This money was generally seized from him. He had
land in three parishes, and numerous warrants were out against him. The
officers would come with cart or wagon, and seize his grain while he was
threshing. In his father’s time they would have green boughs, and stick
one into every tenth shock of grain or hay. But Friends have now given up
this contest, and pay tithes quietly. Apparently he did not think them
burdensome.
* * * * *
Tolls on roads were abolished in England only a few years ago, and the
expense now falls on the landholder. We do not often see in our country
such a road as connects the two villages which I describe under the name
Haddenham and Stonea. It is a highway in splendid form and order, with a
wide grassy margin and a ditch on each side. On one is a wide, gravelled
footpath, and fine green hedges separate the road from the fields.
SCHOOLS.
There are three schools in these two villages. One of them is a Dame
school, or an unpretending private one, which I did not visit; but
the two principal ones deserve attention from the students of our
institutions and of English ones. They are public schools, although
people pay for tuition. That in Haddenham is a National school, that
in Stonea a British school. In the former, Mr. Rounce, the rector, is
manager, and the doctrines of the Church of England are taught. The
other, the British school, is under charge of a board, or of a committee,
of which several members are dissenters.
I first visited the National or Church of England school. Eighty-one
names were upon the roll and fifty in attendance at one of my visits.
(Some little ones were at work in the fields, weeding, or perhaps
hay-making.) Pupils may enter at two years. The printed form issued by
government asks, “How many have you under three?” And by the obligatory
law the schools can claim them at five.
Upon the walls of the school were several maps, a large printed copy of
the Creed, large tablets of the Commandments, and little pictures from
the Bible, with perhaps a few from natural history. The blackboard was an
insignificant one, about four feet square. I observed the small amount of
blackboard surface provided, and the youngest teacher said that in the
British schools there is blackboard on the sides of the room.
There was in the school a little picture of the royal family. “We teach
them loyalty to the queen,” said one of the teachers.
Connected with the school was an infant department. Here the blackboard
measured about one foot by eighteen inches. There were a few objects upon
the walls, but there seemed to me a general bareness of appliances for
instruction.
This school is an endowed one, having fourteen acres of land; it has
always been a National school, or one where the principles of the
Church of England are taught. Five years ago it became a government
school,—_i.e._, it has become an “efficient elementary school” under the
government; it is examined by a government inspector, and for children
coming up to the government standard the school receives a small sum
in payment on each. These “results,” as they are called, all pass
into the rector’s hands, as manager of the school, to be appropriated
either toward the payment of teachers or for school apparatus. Here all
apparatus is paid for from this fund.
For instruction of children farmers pay four cents a week for each child;
others two. The parish pays for pauper children. The amount of the
endowment and the government grant are not even enough, I am told, to pay
the principal; and the two assistants are paid by the rector.
National or, in other words, Church of England schools are also visited
by a diocesan inspector, appointed by the bishop to report their progress
in “Holy Scripture, Prayer-Book, and Catechism.” This school having been
reported very good last year, a gift of about seven dollars was made to
the teacher and monitor.
Instruction must be given for four hundred sessions yearly, equivalent to
two hundred days.
Some teachers in government schools receive pensions, but as the number
of pensions in England and Scotland is limited to two hundred and
seventy, there are not enough for all. Before leaving this school, I may
mention that I made some inquiry about the chapel, which stood not far
off. One of the teachers answered, “I know nothing about dissent; I never
go into those places.”
* * * * *
The school in the other village of Stonea (Haddenham cum Stonea) was
called the British school, and was much larger, having one hundred and
forty pupils. The room was large and well lighted, and there was an
appearance of thrift and animation in the scholars. It is not under the
control of the Church of England; neither are members of that church
excluded from its management. It is managed by a committee of seven,
of whom two or three are members of the church. The services of the
committee, including the secretary, are gratuitous. The school has
an income of three hundred dollars, drawn from a gift in land, made
many years ago for the free education of village-born children. This
sum is supplemented by subscription. This school also is visited by
the government inspector, and a certain sum is paid, according to the
attainments of the children, called, as I have said, “the results.” The
committee decides what shall be done with this sum.
The school funds are further supplemented thus: In the village the
children pay two cents a week. Those out of the village pay, if laborers,
four cents for the first child, and two for each of the others. Persons
of means pay twelve cents a week, but there are very few such.
Members of the Society of Friends, “who have always been active
in education,” raised a general subscription for building a new
school-house, and the government added a grant; “the government would
always thus assist to build a public school.”
Religious instruction is not obligatory here as in the National school;
it is at the option of the committee, who have decided to have Bible
instruction for the first hour in the morning. The government allows any
one who brings a written request from his father to absent himself from
this instruction. No such case has ever arisen here. It may in towns
where there are Free-thinkers and Catholics.
This school is plentifully supplied with blackboards. The principal
difference that I observed in instruction between this and some public
ones I have known at home was in arithmetic. A series of six small
practical arithmetics was in use. At the close of each were examination
questions. Here is the last in Standard 6, the highest: “If 27 men build
54 roods of garden wall in 26 days, how many roods will 32 men, working
equally well, build in 39 days?” Perhaps twice in a week they have mental
arithmetic. Here is the last question in Standard 5, mental: “A yard at
half a guinea an inch?”
These elementary schools in villages are mixed, or for both sexes; in
towns they are not. By the act of 1870, a pupil must enter school at
five (education being obligatory), and remain until thirteen. There
are, however, six standards in the school, and a pupil who wishes to go
to work sooner may demand a certificate if he has finished the fourth
standard, and is not obliged to finish the term.
I asked of one of the teachers or monitors in this British school whether
she had ever visited the other, the National school. She replied that she
would not like to go there. She seemed to fear that she would be thought
a spy. The rector does not visit this British school. “Unfortunately,”
said one to me, “in our country the Church of England people think
themselves above everybody else, and unless they can have the management
of affairs will have nothing to do with them. The rector feels that he
ought to have the management of the school, and is sore on that point;
but it has been a successful school for forty years, and nothing that the
rector can do can injure it.”
I asked, “Has the teacher of the National school ever visited this one?”
“No; where the rector does not go, his people may not. We have tried
every means to unite with them, but without effect. All the exertions
here are for the good of the school, but in the other village for the
good of the church. They want a teacher who will serve them in the
school, the Sunday-school, and the choir.”
But on this parish controversy a few words were spoken to me by a
diligent member of the Established Church. He said, “The rector thinks
he ought to be one of the trustees of the British school, as a bequest
upon which it is in part founded says that the clergyman of the parish
shall be one of the trustees, but they say that they will wait until
the trusteeship is vacant.” The place was filled, I understood, by the
former rector, who, as I have said, was described as a tiny little man; a
clever, very learned man; a stanch liberal in politics, over eighty years
of age.
* * * * *
Afterwards, in Manchester, I met a person who spoke further on the
subject of public schools. I give what he said, as drawn from my notes,
on his own authority; for although it does not especially concern the
parish of Haddenham cum Stonea, yet it does the general subject of
English schools.
He said that the members of the Church of England support National
or Church of England schools. The Roman Catholics support their own.
The dissenters support unsectarian British schools, which receive
all denominations. There is yet another class of elementary ones,
namely, School Board schools. These boards are elected by the rate- or
tax-payers. The schools are established in districts where there are not
enough others to educate the children. It not unfrequently happens that
a Church school or a British one which is unable to support itself, in
spite of the government assistance before described, is turned over by
its conductors to the school board. In Manchester this board has now in
its schools about two-fifths of the children.
If the board wishes to establish a new school it has first to obtain
leave from the committee on education of the Privy Council, belonging
to the general government or to the ministry for the time being. The
policy of the government is to prevent school boards from supplanting
the sectarian schools; they are only allowed to supplement them, and no
matter how poor the sectarian school may be, there is no way of getting
it closed so long as Her Majesty’s inspector pronounces it efficient.
The reports of the inspectors show that Board schools are improving more
rapidly than others.
When by the act of 1870 these schools were first established they were
regarded by the conductors of the others with contempt, especially
by those of the Roman Catholic and Church schools; but such has been
their progress within this brief period that they are now regarded with
jealousy.
As to the prices charged by the Board schools, they must submit the
payment of their proposed fees to the committee of Privy Council. The
others mentioned may charge up to eighteen cents a week for instruction.
If a private school be inefficient, the school board may prosecute the
parents of the children. But this applies to schools which teach pupils
at less than eighteen cents per week; such as the old “Dame schools,” now
nearly extinct, at least in Manchester.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Ways of living in England differ from those I am accustomed to in points
before mentioned, such as the large number of meals, and the short hours
of farm labor. A Lancashire youth complained that they clemmed or starved
him in America on three meals a day. In this rural region those who can
afford it take four, tea being in the afternoon and supper before going
to bed.
Of articles of furniture I especially noticed two. One of them, which is
nearly universal in England and Ireland, is entirely out of date where
I live. It is the old-fashioned dressing-glass, which swings in a frame
and stands upon a table. I do not remember its absence in any house that
could afford it. Another article that I saw more rarely, but in both
England and Ireland, was the canopy over the head of the bed. Of one I
saw the framework was of heavy wood, with curtains at the side running on
rings. A straight piece of the same material hung down behind the head
of the bed. At my hotel in Cork this canopy was of faded blue damask;
at the carpenter’s in the village, of faded red, and above trimmed with
heavy woollen fringe. A handsomer one was on my bed in London. Perhaps
this canopy is all that remains of curtains that formerly surrounded the
bed.
* * * * *
I have spoken of mangling as used in England. Mrs. Jackson, the
carpenter’s wife, hired a woman to come to the house once a month
to wash. It took them both two days to do it, and Mrs. Jackson paid
regularly about twenty-four cents a day; or if the woman made a long day,
twenty-eight. In harvest she must pay higher. (When Benton, the farmer
with whom I boarded, heard me speak of our paying washer-women here
seventy-five cents or a dollar, he said that before he would pay so much
he would turn his shirt or throw it into a pool and give it a slop wash.)
After Mrs. Jackson’s clothes were dried she took them to a neighbor’s
to be mangled. The mangle is not unlike a great wringer with rollers;
and if the clothes are damp, it rolls them smooth. Mrs. Jackson’s
neighbor allowed people to do their own mangling at “tuppence ha’penny or
thruppence,” according to the size of the basket. This is a great saving
of fuel, and Mrs. Jackson said that they look just as well.
* * * * *
Active sports seem to have more prominence in England than in our own
country. At Haddenham I called toward evening at the teacher’s, and found
that he had gone to play cricket. And young Benton, son of the farmer,
had gone too. He seemed actively engaged in business, but one morning
he was up early, as he wished to go that day to a cricket-match, eleven
miles distant. At Benton’s, mention was made of one of their relatives,
who had been much given to cricket and other sports, and who had gone to
Canada. He said that if he had worked as hard in England as he did in
America, he would have got on there.
Yet Benton, the farmer, thinks it strange that I do not want to see the
races in their county town.
Skating is a favorite amusement. On a meadow near by, which is always
covered with water in the winter, they have skating-matches. On the fens
are great skaters, I hear, and people come from all parts to compete with
them.
* * * * *
One of the strongest evidences of a higher state of civilization than
ours (and perhaps of a different climate) is that Mrs. Benton, the
farmer’s wife, told me that she had never seen a man without stockings
in her life. All the children in the British school (I think in both
schools) wore both shoes and stockings, and some woollen stockings,
though the month was July. However, the teacher said that in the north of
England children go barefoot; and I had just come from Ireland, where I
had heard of laborers’ children that passed the winter without stockings
or shoes.
* * * * *
In our own country I had read or heard of English farmers who rode
in handsome vehicles, who wore silk hats, who occasionally drank
champagne. But great farmers, cultivating hundreds of acres, must be
capitalists. Of course there will be less luxury in straitened times. I
heard, however, that a respectable farmer would never go to church, or
especially to a funeral, places where he wished to show respect, without
a silk hat. At market he might wear one of felt or straw.
Other matters being equal, the retired farmer is more nearly one of the
gentry than the retired tradesman. In the parish of Haddenham cum Stonea,
where I dwelt, perhaps the only person that came within that charmed
circle, the nobility and gentry, was the rector of the church, and he
did not stand high in it. I heard of the daughters of one clergyman who
invited another to dine, and told him that it would be a nice party,
“nobody who did not keep a footman or lady’s-maid.” If a distinguished
dissenting minister like Spurgeon should come to a country town to
lecture, in all probability he would not be socially noticed by the
nobility and gentry.
A young Englishwoman told me that her sister, who lived in our country,
said that the Americans are more polite than the English; and two
Englishmen who had travelled here spoke of the many attentions which they
had received.
* * * * *
In this region of eastern England villages are found bearing names
derived from the Saxon. I have called this parish Haddenham cum Stonea.
The syllable ham comes from the Saxon, and means a dwelling, hence our
word home. The syllable _ea_, in Stonea, means water.
Said the dissenting minister, “There is no part of England where the
people are freer and more independent in thought than in these eastern
counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Huntingdon, and parts of Cambridge and
Lincoln.” And he inferred that from these counties our Pilgrim fathers
must have sprung. About fifty miles from the parish I describe lies the
city of Boston, from which came Mr. Cotton, the preacher in whose honor
our own city of Boston was named.
“The last struggles of the Anglo-Saxons against the Normans were in these
counties,” said one. “At Ely, then an island in the centre of the fens,
Hereward fortified himself for a while, and made the last struggles
against the Normans.”
An acquaintance who had visited America remarked to me that the district
of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, where we were, is typically
agricultural; that there are very few resident gentry; therefore the
social life of this region more resembles that of the United States than
does that of most other sections of England.
In this county of Huntingdonshire was born Oliver Cromwell, and at
its town of St. Ives he lived. In this section he probably raised his
celebrated soldiers called Ironsides. But the conservatives of England do
not admire Cromwell. About twenty years ago in his native county it was
found impossible to raise means to erect his statue.[169]
* * * * *
On this side of the county are no county families bearing the title
Esquire. ⸺ Farrar, Esq., north of us, is a great landed proprietor, with
an income of about two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. The
Earl of S. and the Duke of M. are also large landed proprietors. The
Duke of Bedford owns an estate in Thorny Fen of perhaps ten to fifteen
thousand acres. My friend who tells me this thinks that the estate,
however, is in another county from this. He understands that the duke
expects each tenant to take one thousand acres and to keep a hunter. The
duke is a liberal in politics.
The subject of politics was alluded to in the opening of this article, in
the remarks of Jackson, the carpenter. Another acquaintance said, “If you
go to a nobleman or great landed proprietor to rent a farm, you must be
deferential and, as a general thing, you must vote on his side. If a man
is a liberal, he must go under a liberal landlord; and if a tory, under a
tory. Perhaps one-third of the House of Lords are liberals,” he added.
Benton, the farmer, did not tell me his political opinions. He said that
the ballot is secret. But he added that a man’s political opinions have
not now anything to do with renting the land.