No. XVII.

ENDOWED SCHOOLS AT CHESTER,

THE income of the Blue Coat School * at Chester, had for several years been applied to the maintenance and education of thirty boys, who were admitted at nine years of age, and kept in the house for four years. This provision had proved to be extremely inadequate to its object; the greater number of the poor of that city being left entirely destitute of instruction. In 1783, the trustees adopted a beneficial extension of the charity: and in the course of that, and of the ensuing year, they opened a day school, in a wing of the hospital, for the instruction of one hundred and twenty boys in reading, writing, and accounts. This they call the Green School, from the circumstance of each of the boys wearing a green bonnet. Two masters were engaged, one at 351. the other at 30l. a year; and they have proved quite equal to the care of the one hundred and twenty boys. The whole expense of teaching * Reports, No. LXI.

these boys, including their bonnets, &c. is not more than eighty guineas, or 14s. a year, each.

In order to provide for this expense, the # Trustees diminished the number of boys in the Blue Coat School, from thirty to twenty-five; and at the same time extended the benefit of that school to a great increase of objects, by reducing the time of continuance to two years, and by selecting the best behaved and most deserving boys of the Green School for all the vacancies in the Blue Coat School; so that twelve or fourteen of the best boys of the former school are annually placed upon the founda tion: the consequence of which is, that there is hardly any poor boy in that city, but may obtain a place in the Blue Coat School, if he perseveres in a course of industry and good

behaviour.

This is of the greatest importance; as it extends the benefit, not only of instruction, but of (what is much more efficacious) emulation and example, to almost every lad in Chester. The boys are now admitted at nine years of age into the Green School, upon the nomination of the subscribers, who appoint scholars in rotation, according to the amount of their

contributions to the charity. At the end of two years these boys are publicly examined for the Blue Coat School; after which, if their merit does not entitle them to one of the vacancies on the foundation, they remain in the Green School two years more; and are then dismissed at an age proper to be placed out in service. But if their progress has been such as to entitle them to a vacancy in the Blue Coat School, they are clothed and maintained there for two years, and at the expiration of that period, if they have made a competent progress in reading, writing, and accounts, and (in case the sea is their object) in navigation, they are placed out, with an apprentice fee of 31. each, in husbandry, the sea service, or in some useful trade or occupation.

Upon the former plan, the funds of this charity provided in ten years, an education for seventy-five children: in the present mode,*

* Dr. Haygarth, who was the proposer of the Green School, suggested in 1797, a further improvement in it: that, in addition to their other learning, the greater part of the boys should alternately be instructed and employed in the needle manufacture, in a large unoccupied room, which is over the school. There is a want of occupation for boys at Chester, though there is already an established needle manufactory there, which might furnish employment, and finish the work. As to the Blue Coat boys, it was proposed that part

besides the increased motives for good beha viour and attention, three hundred and sixtytwo poor children of Chester receive an edu cation during the same period. This has been attended with no additional expense: the degree of benefit, however far exceeds any thing that could have been attained upon the former system; for the terms of succeeding to the Blue Coat School, offered equally to all, supplies that stimulating incentive to human exertion, without which the best framed estab lishments lose their vital principle, and degenerate into visionary and noxious theory.

Similar attention has been paid to the female children in that town. It had been ascertained by Dr. Haygarth, and some others, who were in the habit of visiting the habitations of the poor of Chester, that the girls there, as in many other towns, were extremely destitute of useful employment; and that of those from nine to of age, in one parish, three fourths could not sew at all, and not one of them so well, as to make a single article of dress. They were equally ignorant of knitting and spinning;

thirteen years

of their profits should be laid up for their use and advancement in life, and those of the boys of the Green School paid over to their parents.

and so unskilful in the common occupations of life, as to be disqualified for domestic servants, and for most other offices in society, and to have very few means of earning an honest livelihood.

It

It was calculated that four schools, of forty girls each, to be taught for four years, from the age of nine to thirteen years, in addition to a school already existing for maintaining and educating eight girls, would nearly provide for all the poor girls in Chester, who were unemployed, of a proper age for instruction, and in want of charitable aid for their education. was therefore proposed that the girls should change their school every year, and (besides their being taught to read in all the schools, and attending the parish church twice on Sunday), that they should learn in the first year to knit, in the second to spin, in the third to sew, and in the fourth to wash and get up linen; the four schools being placed near the centre of the city, so that the scholars might, without inconvenience, go each year to a different school. In this manner it was calculated that, in the whole, the education of forty two girls would be annually completed.

The knitting, spinning, and sewing schools