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William Cobbett was one of the most prominent public figures of the early nineteenth century. He championed the labourer and local entrepreneur against what he dubbed The THING, that shadowy nexus of corporate bosses, Whitehall bureaucrats and cabinet ministers that even then made sure the Commons knew what was expected of them. Here, he tells us that much of the trouble came from his fellow MPs’ lack of a proper education.
There is a little hop-garden in which I used to work, when from eight to ten years old; from which I have scores of times run to follow the hounds, leaving the hoe to do the best that it could to destroy the weeds; but the most interesting thing is a sand-hill, which goes from a part of the heath down to the rivulet. As a due mixture of pleasure with toil, I with two brothers used occasionlly to disport ourselves, as the lawyers call it, at this sand-hill. Our diversion was this: we used to go to the top of the hill, which was steeper than the roof of a house; one used to draw his arms out of the sleeves of his smock-frock, and lay himself down with his arms by his sides; and then the others, one at head and the other at feet, sent him rolling down the hill, like a barrel or a log of wood. By the time he got to the bottom, his hair, eyes, ears, nose and mouth were all full of this loose sand; then the others took their turn; and at every roll, there was a monstrous peal of laughter.
I had often told my sons of this while they were very little, and I now took one of them to see the spot. But that was not all. This was the spot where I was receiving my education; and this was the sort of education; and I am perfectly satisfied that if I had not received such an education, or something very much like it; that, if I had been brought up a milksop with a nursery-maid everlastingly at my heels, I should have been at this day as great a fool, as inefficient a mortal, as any of those frivolous idiots that are turned out from Winchester or Westminster school, or from any of those dens of dunces called colleges and universities. It is impossible to say how much I owe to that sand-hill; and I went to return it my thanks for the ability which it probably gave me to be one of the greatest terrors, to one of the greatest and most powerful bodies of knaves and fools, that ever was permitted to afflict this or any other country.
