e, as children, must first have been to school, and properly taught
there; whereas we have allowed the majority of the working people to
grow up untaught, nearly half of them unable to read and write; and then
we expect them to display the virtues, prudence, judgment, and
forethought of well-educated beings!

It is of the first importance to teach people cleanly habits. This can
be done without teaching them either reading or writing. Cleanliness is
more than wholesomeness. It furnishes an atmosphere of self-respect, and
influences the moral condition of the entire household. It is the best
exponent of the spirit of Thrift. It is to the economy of the household,
what hygiene is to the human body. It should preside at every detail of
domestic service. It indicates comfort and well-being. It is among the
distinctive attributes of civilisation, and marks the progress of
nations.

Dr. Paley was accustomed to direct the particular attention of
travellers in foreign countries to the condition of the people as
respects cleanliness, and the local provisions for the prevention of
pollution. He was of opinion that a greater insight might thus be
obtained into their habits of decency, self-respect, and industry, and
into their moral and social condition generally, than from facts of any
other description. People are cleanly in proportion as they are decent,
industrious, and self-respecting. Unclean people are uncivilized. The
dirty classes of great towns are invariably the "dangerous classes" of
those towns. And if we would civilize the classes yet uncivilized, we
must banish dirt from amongst them.

Yet dirt forms no part of our nature. It is a parasite, feeding upon
human life, and destroying it. It is hideous and disgusting. There can
be no beauty where it is. The prettiest woman is made repulsive by it.
Children are made fretful, impatient, and bad-tempered by it. Men are
degraded and made reckless by it. There is little modesty where dirt
is,--for dirty is indecency. There can be little purity of mind where
the person is impure; for the body is the temple of the soul, and must
be cleansed and purified to be worthy of the shrine within. Dirt has an
affinity with self-indulgence and drunkenness. The sanitary inquirers
have clearly made out that the dirty classes are the drunken classes;
and that they are prone to seek, in the stupefaction of beer, gin, and
opium, a refuge from the miserable depression caused by the foul
cond