tables give the nature of the crimes committed, the number of persons apprehended, the arrests for drunkenness, the thousands of juvenile offenders, "painfully on the increase," under the age of sixteen. If such is the amount of ignorance existing among those only who have come within the grasp of the law, what is the condition of the whole population that has furnished them? These are some of our neglected and destitute children. 'The multitudes of them that exist in our country have never yet been numbered; no attempt has yet been made by the Government to ascertain how many hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of them may exist among us. Were inquiries made from the authorities of every workhouse in the kingdom, information might be obtained of the multitudes who come there without any education, to be a burden on the country. Were the gaol officials interrogated throughout the kingdom, we might learn how many of the untaught ones had taken their first degree in crime. These children are ours; they cannot help themselves; they form a part of our society; they will become the people of our land; it is not their fault that they exist in this state of degradation; ignorance cannot heal itself. For our own sakes, as well as theirs, we ought to take measures to prevent their growing up thus uncared for. If we neglect the duty imposed upon us by our greater privileges and talents, they will unconsciously inflict upon us a dreadful revengea constantly increasing supply of pauperism and crime. They are even now doing so. Mackay's powerful poem, "The Souls of the Children," is no exaggeration, no fiction. Hitherto no national effort has been made to rescue the children. "All refused to listen ; Quoth they-We bide our time: ' And the prisons teemed with victims, Spread reeking to the sky." Are then our neglected and destitute children to be educated? It is a great national question, and we doubt not that, if fairly and clearly put to the people, they would with one voice decide that in no manner could the public money be better employed; that if any portion of it is to be devoted to the education of the population, to this portion of it, above all, it should be liberally given. Hitherto, however, no attempt has been made by the Educational Council to stimulate, or even to aid, efforts made in this direction. Until 1856 there was a steady refusal on the part of the Council even to recognise the existence of the class. The liberal provision then made for them was speedily withdrawn, and another minute was substituted, which gave a small fraction of what was granted to pay the school for industrial work only. The Revised Code, while nominally open to schools of all kinds, virtually is unavailable for schools adapted to the wants of these children. It Y must be at once evident to persons possessing even ordinary acquaintance with the condition and habits of the portion of society from which our destitute and neglected children spring, that an educational test, compliance with which requires the greatest effort in children of the wage class, whose parents endeavour to send them regularly to school and appreciate instruction, cannot be complied with by those miserable little ones, whose condition causes them to be irregular, and makes application most difficult. Besides, the necessity of having a staff of certificated teachers alone prevents the applicability of the Revised Code to the neglected class. I will not trouble the Section with a repetition of what I have repeatedly endeavoured to lay clearly before it-viz., why regulations intended for schools for the wage class are utterly unsuitable to these; how the reiterated applications for help have received constant refusals; and what are the real requirements of schools for our neglected and destitute children. I may only briefly state that in schools intended for them, intellectual culture, and good instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, are essential, with a sufficient and able teaching power; but it is also necessary that there should be industrial training, such as will develop their physical powers, and prepare their muscles for work; that there should be moral and religious instruction; and that every appliance should be employed, by playgrounds, baths, washing apparatus, and such other agencies as experience may suggest, to civilise as well as educate. At all times and in all places I shall be ready, when called upon, to enter fully on the subject. On the present occasion I shall confine myself to answering some of the objections, which have at different times been made, against giving pecuniary educational help from the parliamentary grant to the destitute and neglected children. The first arises from the difficulty of absolutely defining the class. If they cannot be defined in words which will convey a distinct idea to the official mind, it is necessary only, as I have endeavoured to show, for one who wishes to arrive at the truth, himself to visit the localities where they abound, and the schools which contain them when partially civilised. Enough has already been said, it is hoped, on this subject. There can be no doubt of the existence of this mass of ignorance in our country. Secondly. The Ragged Schools are the only ones which have attempted to act on this part of the population, and a strong prejudice unfortunately exists against them in official quarters. They have been called "bad schools," calculated to "degrade" instead of elevating the children, likely to interfere with the sound education of the higher or wage class, and to drag them down to the lower, instead of elevating the inferior class to theirs. The validity of this last reason we utterly deny. When ragged schools are conducted as they should be they elevate a neighbourhood, instead of degrading it, and thus render a benefit to the better class, who, if they have proper feelings, never send their children to an inferior school to save the weekly payment. With respect to the neglected children themselves, who can attend no other school, they have been greatly elevated in the social scale, as we who have long worked in these schools can testify; for we have seen our ragged children grow into respectable sailors, labourers, soldiers, and even tradesmen, themselves being now the parents of children whom they take care to have well educated. These schools elevate, instead of degrading. With respect to the other accusation, that they are "bad schools," we sorrowfully admit their inefficiency, both in number and in condition; for there never have existed funds (except when they are under the immediate patronage of so distinguished a personage as Lord Shaftesbury), to conduct them as they should be conducted; these schools are necessarily very expensive, if they are good. This is not a reason for refusing help, which has been acted on by the Government in other cases. Some thirty years ago, when the educational condition of the labouring population was very low, the schools inefficient and the teachers uneducated, the Government did not on that account leave the labouring population to suffer an evil which they could not themselves remedy, but applied the public money to stimulate and aid voluntary effort in such ways as then appeared most judicious, in order to raise the educational status of the country. Great success attended their efforts then. We only ask that a similar course should be pursued now towards schools which are needed, but which they now consider inefficient. Such a plea that Ragged Schools are bad or inefficient, by no means affects the general argument. I do not here plead for Ragged Schools as now generally conducted-indeed I should prefer dropping that name and adopting another; I would only urge that the neglected and destitute children ought to be educated; that the education given them should be adapted to their wants; and that effective pecuniary aid should be given from Government funds, with suitable inspection, to enable voluntary benevolent effort to cope with the gigantic ignorance which now exists. Other objections which have been urged against giving Government educational aid in the education of neglected and destitute children, spring from misapprehensions, which it is hoped have been removed by the facts which have been advanced in this paper. But it is necessary to notice one other, which involves an important principle. When failing to impress on the Educational Council the claim of this portion of the population to a fair share of the parliamentary grant, and the great evil of leaving the most ignorant in utter degradation, while abundant aid is given to those who can help themselves, we have frequently been told that those of our children who are destitute, can go to workhouse schools, and that if we require schools for the others, we can certify the schools under the Industrial Schools' Act, and thus obtain sufficient aid to carry on both a ragged school and a school for children sentenced by the magistrate. Now, were such a course as the last proposed expedient or practicable, it would not produce the effect suggested, of raising funds for the ragged schools; because the Government allowance for each child sentenced under the Industrial Schools' Act is 5s. a week, which is now found insufficient for the expenses of educating, maintaining, and clothing each child, and requires to be supplemented from other sources. A Ragged School could not, therefore, be properly supported by help derived from the Government allowance for some sentenced children received into it, without withdrawing from them what ought in justice to be devoted to them. But the Ragged Schools, or free schools for neglected and destitute children, are for those who come voluntarily, and wish to be improved: and such children ought not to be associated with those who are placed under legal sentence. Besides this, the two schools are of a totally different character-the one being a simple day-school, and the other a boarding-school. The system adopted in each is unfit for the other, and even the localities and premises adapted to each differ in toto. The proposal to apply the Certified Industrial Schools' Act to the tens of thousands of children who exist in dense ignorance in our country, is simply impossible, because the children do not necessarily commit acts which would bring them under the provisions of that law; and if they did it is absurd to suppose that the magistrates of Bristol, Manchester, or any large town, could or would sentence thousands of children annually to such schools, or that the Government would allow the continuance of an Act which clothed and fed children from the public treasury, at an expense of £13 per annum, simply because they required education which might be provided them at a cost of £1 per annum. Equally untenable is the suggestion that destitute children should be sent to a workhouse school. If they are not actually paupers they cannot be relieved, even in the matter of education, by the parish funds, and surely we ought not to desire that they should be pauperised. But even if their parents are actually receiving out-door relief, it by no means follows that their children will receive education; on the contrary, as the law now stands, it is most probable that they will not. Providing education for children whose parents receive out-door relief, or who, being orphans, receive it themselves, is not compulsory on guardians, and therefore is seldom given by them. This proposal is therefore untenable. The tens of thousands of our neglected and destitute children remain untaught and ignorant. Voluntary Christian effort has done its utmost, but cannot unaided grapple with the enormous evil. Let the Government efficiently help this as it has done other departments of education, and abundance of voluntary effort will support it. One pound given annually for the education of each of these children, in a school where they would receive a true and useful education, adapted to their requirements, would save the country £13 per annum for education in a certified industrial school; £16 in a reformatory; and from £30 to £40 per annum in a convict prison. I earnestly entreat the Educational Section to solicit the attention of the Government to this most important subject, and to request that a full investigation of the extent and nature of the ignorance which pervades our land may be made in the Educational Committee, which has not yet completed its sittings, and a proper provision made for these children. We have "bided our time" in this matter of the neglected and destitute children. The consequence has been, what has often been predicted, "beggary, filth, and crime" have seized the children, and established themselves in our midst. Let us all strive to rescue from them these children, and have them educated! Each one of these has powers within him, given him by the Creator, and he is cruelly injured if, in a Christian and civilised country, he is left to grow up to maturity without the power of unfolding his higher nature. Let us all feel the sacred duty of helping those neglected ones. All have immortal souls, and are the children of the same Heavenly Father! All are born free and equal in our land; all may become useful members of the community if properly educated! Let the State no longer leave untouched the plague-spot in our midst, or neglect the thousands who cannot rise unaided, if they would, from the slough of despondency and ignorance which pollutes our country. Government Treatment of Ragged Schools. By HENRY CARTWRIGHT, F.S.A., Barrister-at-Law. Of all the momentous questions which have persistently claimed the attention of the English people of late years none has involved more interests, social and political, than that of public education. Thinking men have made this the theme of their consideration, both in and out of Parliament. Some have made it a stepping-stone to power and popularity, whilst others have used it as a peg to hang new-fangled notions and crotchety theories upon. Unlike reform and other purely political questions this has been considered as one both admitting of and calling for an eminently practical treatment, and the results have been various. Among others we have had a Public School Commission and a new Minute of the Board of Education, to which we may add a formal inquiry into the subject of education, not in its once-accepted sense as the method of imparting a certain amount of book-knowledge on sacred and secular subjects, but in its modern interpretation as including the whole process of training the young, physical, moral, intellectual, industrial, and religious, so that in maturer years they shall form honest, industrious, law-worthy citisens, robust healthy men, and sound christians. The results of the inquiry were in many respects, startling, and have in numerous instances led to several experiments with a view to amelioration. The first great point in the inquiry was to find an adequate test or standard by which to measure the amount of education in a given instance. The examination system was naturally proposed to be |