CHAPTER LIX.

'REFORMATION IN A FLOOD.'

ON June 10, 1870, men's minds were suddenly turned away from thought of political controversy, by a melancholy announcement in the morning papers. The Irish Land Bill, the question of national education, the curiously ominous look of affairs in France, where the Emperor had just been obtaining by means of the plebiscite 'a new guarantee of order and liberty;' the terrible story of the capture and massacre of young English tourists by Greek brigands in the neighbourhood of Marathon; these and many other exciting topics were forgotten for the hour, and the thoughts of millions were suddenly drawn away to a country house near the Gad's Hill of Shakespere, on the road to Rochester, where the most popular author of his day was lying dead. On the evening of June 8, Mr. Dickens became suddenly seized with paralysis. He fell into an unconscious state and continued so until his death, the evening after. The news was sent over the country on the 10th, and brought a pang as of personal sorrow into almost every home. Dickens was not of an age to die; he had scarcely passed his prime. Born early in February 1812, he had not gone far into his fiftyninth year. In another part of this work an attempt

1812-70.

DEATH OF CHARLES DICKENS.

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;

has been made to do justice to Dickens as a novelist here it is only necessary to record the historical fact of his death and of the deep impression that it made. No author of our time came near him in popularity; perhaps no English author ever was so popular during his own life. To an immense number of men and women in these countries, Dickens stood for literature; to not a few his cheery teaching was sufficient as philosophy and even as religion. Soon after his death, as might have been expected, a certain reaction took place, and for a while it became the fashion to smile quietly at Dickens's teaching and his influence. That mood too will have its day and will pass. It may be safely predicted that Dickens will be found to have made a firm place in English literature, although that place will probably not be so high as his admirers would once have claimed for him. Londoners were familiar with Dickens's personal appearance as well as with his writings, and certain London streets did not seem quite the same when his striking face and energetic movements could be seen there no more. It is likely that Dickens overworked his exuberant vital energy, his superb resources of physical health and animal spirits. In work and play, in writing and in exercising, he was unsparing of his powers. Like the lavish youth with the full purse in 'Gil Blas,' he appeared to believe that his stock could never be spent. Men who were early companions of his, and who had not half his vital power, outlived him many years. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, although his own desire was to be laid quietly in Rochester

churchyard. It was held that the national cemetery claimed him. We cannot help thinking it a pity the claim was made. All true admirers of Scott must be glad that he rests in his dear and congenial Dryburgh; most of the admirers of Dickens would have been better pleased to think that he lay beneath the green turf of the ancient churchyard, in venerable and storied. Rochester, amid the scenes that he loved and taught so many others to love.

Nothing in modern English history is like the rush of the extraordinary years of reforming energy on which the new Administration had now entered. Mr. Gladstone's Government had to grapple with five or six great questions of reform, any one of which might have seemed enough to engage the whole attention of an ordinary Administration. The new Prime Minister had pledged himself to abolish the State Church in Ireland and to reform the Irish Land Tenure system. He had made up his mind to put an end to the purchase of commissions in the army. Recent events and experiences had convinced him that it was necessary to introduce the system of voting by ballot. He accepted for his Government the responsibility of originating a complete scheme of National Education. Meanwhile, there were many questions of the highest importance in foreign policy waiting for solution. The American Government did what every cool and well-informed observer must have known they would do; they pressed for a settlement of the claims arising out of the damage done by the Alabama and other Southern cruisers which had been

1870.

THE BLACK SEA OPENED.

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built in English dockyards and had sailed from English ports. In the mid career of the Government the war broke out between France and Prussia. Russia took advantage of the opportunity to insist that the Treaty of Paris must be altered by the cancelling of the clause which formally and in perpetuity' refused to every Power the right of having a fleet in the Black Sea. Each of these questions was of capital importance; each might have involved the country in war. It required no common energy and strength of character to keep closely to the work of domestic reform, amid such exciting discussions in foreign policy all the while, and with the war-trumpet ringing for a long time in the ears of England.

Mr. Forster's Education Bill may be said to have been run side by side with the Irish Land Bill. The Government undertook a great and a much-needed work when it set about establishing a national system of elementary education. The manner in which England had neglected the education of her poor children had long been a reproach to her civilisation. She was behind every other great country in the world; she was behind most countries that in nowise professed to be great. Prussia and nearly all the German countries were centuries in advance of her; so were if not actually all, of the American States. We have already shown in these pages, by what pitiful patchwork of compromises and make-shift expedients England had been trying to put together something like a plan for the instruction of the children of the poor. Private charity was eked out in a parsimonious

some,

and miserable manner by a scanty dole from the State; and as a matter of course, where the direst poverty prevailed, and naturally brought the extremest need for assistance to education, there the wants of the place were least efficiently supplied. For years the statesmanship of England had been kept from any serious attempt to grapple with the evil by the doctrine that popular education ought not to be the business of a Government. The idea prevailed that education conducted by the State would be something unEnglish; something which might do very well for Germans and Americans and other such people, but which was entirely unsuited to the manly independence of the true Briton. It therefore came about that more than two-thirds of the children of the country were absolutely without instruction. One of the first great tasks which Mr. Gladstone's Government undertook, was to reform this condition of things, and to provide England for the first time in her history with a system of National Education. On February 17, 1870, Mr. Forster introduced a bill, having for its object to provide for public elementary education in England and Wales. The basis of the measure was very simple, but also very comprehensive. Mr. Forster proposed to establish a system of School Boards in England and Wales; and to give to each board the power to frame bye-laws compelling the attendance of all children, from five to twelve years of age, within the school district. The Government did not see their way to a system of direct and universal compulsion. They therefore fell back on a compromise, by