the want of which
accompanies civilization. Once now and then he writes a letter, and
must have pen, ink, and paper; only a pennyworth, but then a penny
is a coin when the income is twelve or fourteen shillings a week.
He likes a change of hats--a felt at least for Sunday. He is not
happy till he has a watch. Many more such little wants will occur to
anyone who will think about them, and they are the necessary
attendants upon an increase of social stature. To obtain them the
young man must have money--coins, shillings, and pence. His
thoughts, therefore, are bent on wages; he must get wages somewhere,
not merely to live, for bread, but for these social necessaries.
That he can live at home with his family, that in time he may get a
cottage of his own, that cottages are better now, large gardens
given, that the labourer is more independent--all these and twenty
other considerations--all these are nothing to him, because they are
not to be depended on. Wages paid weekly are his aim, and thus it is
that education increases the value of a weekly stipend, and
increases the struggle for it by sending so many more into the ranks
of competitors. I cannot see myself why, in the course of a little
time, we may not see the sons of ploughmen competing for clerkships,
situations in offices of various kinds, the numerous employments not
of a manual character. So good is the education they receive, that,
if only their personal manners happen to be pleasant, they have as
fair a chance of getting such work as others.

Ceaseless effort to obtain wages causes a drifting about of the
agricultural population. The hamlets and villages, though they seem
so thinly inhabited, are really full, and every extra man and youth,
finding himself unable to get the weekly stipend at home, travels
away. Some go but a little distance, some across the width of the
country, a few emigrate, though not so many as would be expected.
Some float up and down continually, coming home to their native
parish for a few weeks, and then leaving it again. A restlessness
permeates the ranks; few but those with families will hire for the
year. They would rather do anything than that. Family men must do so
because they require cottages, and four out of six cottages belong
to the landowners and are part and parcel of the farms. The activity
in cottage building, to which reference has been made, as prevailing
ten or twelve years since, was solely on the part of the landowne