hough they derive their
subsistence from a naturally unfruitful soil; but, on the contrary,
where popular education is neglected in a commonwealth, and its future
citizens, as a consequence, grow up in ignorance, idleness, and vice,
squalid poverty and flagrant crime will become prevalent throughout a
wretched and degenerate community, that is scarcely able to gain a mere
subsistence from a naturally productive soil.

In further confirmation of the truth of the proposition that education
diminishes crime, I will introduce the following statistics, gleaned
from various official documents respecting prisons. According to returns
to the British Parliament, the commitments for crimes in an average of
nine years in proportion to population are as follows: In Manchester,
the most infidel city in the nation, 1 in 140; in London, 1 in 800; in
all Ireland, 1 in 1600; and in Scotland, celebrated for learning and
religion, 1 in 20,000!

The Rev. Dr. Forde, for many years the Ordinate of Newgate, London,
represents _ignorance_ as the first great cause, and _idleness_ as the
second, of all the crimes committed by the inmates of that celebrated
prison. Sir Richard Phillips, sheriff of London, says that, on the
memorial addressed to the sheriffs by 152 criminals in the same
institution, 25 only signed their names in a fair hand, 26 in an
illegible scrawl, and that 101, two thirds of the entire number, were
_marksmen_, signing with a cross. Few of the prisoners could read with
facility; more than half of them could not read at all; the most of them
thought books were useless, and were totally ignorant of the nature,
object, and end of religion.

The Rev. Mr. Clay, chaplain to the House of Correction in Lancashire,
represents that out of 1129 persons committed, 554 could not read; 222
were barely capable of reading; 38 only could read well; and only 8, or
1 in 141, could read and write well. One half of the 1129 prisoners were
quite ignorant of the simplest truths; 37 of these, 1 in 20 of the
entire number, were occasional readers of the Bible; and only _one_ out
of this large number was familiar with the Holy Scriptures and
conversant with the principles of religion. Among the 516 represented as
entirely ignorant, 125 were incapable of repeating the Lord's Prayer.

In the New York State Prisons, as examined a few years ago, more than
three fourths of the convicts had either received no education or a very
imperfect one. Out of 842