William Ewart Gladstone and His Contemporaries

RAGGED SCHOOLS-HELPING HANDS.

of which we are now speaking. As early as 1842 the movement had been accelerated by an earnest band of young men and women, who saw that the only way to achieve an improvement in the condition of the most debased part of the community was to obtain a direct and immediate influence over children who were either utterly neglected or had been abandoned by their natural protectors, and were living in want, misery, and vice. The Ragged School Union had begun, in fact, to exercise a paternal interest in these little waifs and strays of society, and one of the earliest of these associations carried on its work in Field Lane, near Smithfield, once the known haunt of thieves and the receivers of stolen goods-a district historically notorious for the evil exploits of desperadoes whose fate was written in the Newgate Calendar. At the eighth annual meeting of the supporters of this school in 1850 the report stated that 320 children had been received into the school during the preceding twelve months; that the girls were well instructed in knitting and needlework, and that the boys would shortly be able to furnish shoes to the school at the cost price of the material. The collection and donations at the meeting amounted to £40. The sixth annual meeting of the Ragged School Union was held a fortnight afterwards at Exeter Hall, when Lord Ashley took the chair; and it was then stated that there were 94 schools in operation in London and the large towns, with 1350 teachers, the number of children in attendance being on weekdays 5174, on week-evenings 5093, and on Sunday evenings 10,366. There were 156 paid teachers and 1200 scholars in industrial classes. The subscriptions had increased to £520, from £338 in the previous year, and the donations, without including an "emigration fund” and a legacy of £1000, amounted to £1631.

There had been no more decided proofs of the great social advances of the nation than the number, variety, and extent of the charitable and benevolent efforts which had grown into established institutions. These, though they were necessarily impoverished by some diminution of their funds during the time of war and consequent depression, were still well

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supported, as we have seen, and other beneficent organizations were temporarily formed to relieve the distress occasioned by the calamities of the war itself. Directly the pressure of the time was removed by the declaration of peace, much of the public rejoicing seemed to take the form of thank-offerings for the support of those charities which were directed to the alleviation of the condition of the poorest and most ignorant portion of the community, and various societies were formed for meeting the wants of those who were friendless and neglected. To date forward a little for the purpose of showing the rapid growth and influence of the Ragged School movement alone, we may notice as a comparison with the figures just given, that by the end of 1858 the committee of the Ragged School Union had in connection with them 137 Sunday-schools with 21,051 scholars, 110 day-schools with 14,827 scholars, 130 week-evening schools with 8662, making 377 schools with 44,540 scholars; but as most of the Sunday-scholars attended during the week, only the latter were reckoned as the real numbers, and the returns were therefore 23,000 children under week day and evening instruction. Lord Ashley, who had then become the Earl of Shaftesbury, was still at the head of the organization, and the working of the scheme was complete; arrangements having been made for the proper inspection and control of the schools, the provision of instructors for the day-schools,—the Sunday and some of the evening schools being conducted by voluntary teachers, and even for assisting in getting employment for the older children, and for helping the parents by mothers' meetings, tea-meetings, Christmas treats, penny-banks, and other auxiliaries. The schools were for the "gutter children." No qualification was required but that of need, and when once the school had hold of these children it kept hold, unless the boy or girl wilfully broke away. In 1857 and 1858 nearly 4000 of these young fledglings had been reared and placed in situations; nine shoeblack brigades had been formed, and the three principal brigades, the Red, Yellow, and Blue, consisting of 190 lads, had in 1858 earned £3227, or about £17 each per annum. Other crossing

sweeping brigades were afterwards formed; | upon which all could feed. To them those doc

a class of boys who are now known as street orderlies, and employed in sweeping the roads. As numbers of these children were both houseless and destitute, fifteen refuges had been established, containing 538 inmates-boys or girls who had been wanderers, sleeping in the markets or under railway arches, and pilfering or begging to keep themselves from starvation. By one refuge, twenty-one boys (in one year) were saved from crime, and were started fairly in life; some entered the army, others the navy; others became servants, or obtained employment in city shops and warehouses. A boy, who, as early as 1848 went to Australia from one of the first refuges, sent £5 to the ragged school of which he had been a member, and in 1858, when a regular emigration scheme had been established, the matron took ten girls to Canada, placed them in service, returned and took twenty-five more. The clergy of all denominations took up the movement, for it was above and beyond sectarianism. The Rev. William Tyler of Mile End, a wellknown Congregationalist minister, and the Rev. Hugh Allen, incumbent of St. Jude's, Whitechapel, were at that time among the foremost in the good work in the midst of that part of London where the dense mass of misery and ignorance demanded hearty unremitting effort; and they were well supported by an army of earnest helpers, who gave their time, and many of them their money, to the

cause.

It may be said with truth that the Ragged School movement, then the supreme effort of "the Voluntary principle" in education, averted incalculable evils during the time that the people, or at all events the children of the people, were perishing for lack of knowledge, while a national scheme of instruction was prevented by the irreconcilable hostility of the various religious bodies; but it also rendered a national system of education eventually possible by showing that sectarian differences could be merged in the contest of a great work, and that even religious instruction could be imparted on a broad and recognized basis to children whose moral and intellectual needs, like their physical hunger, demanded bread

trinal distinctions which were the causes of contention that had so long kept their souls hungry, were evidently inapplicable, and in relation to ragged schools the sects for the most part tacitly agreed to be unsectarian.

The Ragged School movement, as it was called, was not alone in the effort to provide the means of education and moral and religious instruction for poor and abandoned children. Other agencies were also at work, and it may very well be understood that earnest men of all shades of political opinion were deeply interested in their success. Mrs. Gladstone had long been associated with charitable efforts of a distinctly practical kind for the relief of distress and for the rescue and protection of friendless and homeless boys and girls; and Mr. Gladstone gave such institutions his aid, and was ready to advocate their claims when his onerous parliamentary duties permitted. It would take us beyond these limits to give a list, or a description, of the special objects of the large number of societies and organizations for relieving ignorance and distress which sprung up during the period. Numbers of them still exist, and successfully carry on largely increased work. We may, however, refer to one local effort to advance education which was afterwards destined to secure good results, and to lead to wider and more organized systems of instruction. The district lying between Saint Luke's and Barbican, including Whitecross Street, Golden Lane, and Chequer Alley, was, and is still in many respects, one of the worst and most povertystricken in London-a congeries of lanes, courts, and blind alleys, a puzzle map of crime and destitution, consisting of a large number of foul and wretched tenements inhabited by a dense population. Some efforts had been previously made by a few good women belonging to the Wesleyan Methodists to improve the moral condition of the people of the neighbourhood by holding religious meetings and endeavouring to establish schools and missions; but in 1854 the incumbent of the parish (St. Thomas Charterhouse), the Rev. William Rogers, ascertaining that there were in his district 2386 children of the lowest

GLADSTONE ON THE EDUCATION OF NEGLECTED CHILDREN.

215

ously with, but directly referable to and spring-
ing from the wealth of the population of the
west, and all the numerous demands which
that wealth created, fostered, and multiplied.
They had sung, during the ceremony of that

class between the ages of 10 and 14 who did | continually going on, not only contemporane-
not attend any school whatever, addressed a
letter to Lord John Russell, then president of
the council, calling his attention to their wild
condition and the unmixed poverty of the
district. The result was that the Committee
of Council on Education voted a grant of two-day, a psalm, in which it was said that "chil-
thirds of the expenses of erecting a new school
for the special benefit of the poorest children
in the district. In reliance upon this support
a freehold site in Golden Lane was procured,
and plans were prepared for a building con-
taining three school-rooms, and capable of
accommodating 1000 children. To obtain the
remaining third part of the expense, viz.
£2817, an appeal was made to the various
public bodies and the friends of education in
general. The stone of the building was laid
by Mr. Gladstone in May, 1856, and his ad-
dress on the occasion was significant, as show-
ing how the subject should be regarded. Ad-
verting to an observation made in the course
of the proceedings by the Rev. Mr. Rogers,
in reference to the relations between the
west and east of London, he said he heartily
wished that the great mine which that
topic opened up was now, or ever had been,
thoroughly worked, and that those who in-
habited the western portion of the metro-
polis were alive to the immense responsibility
which attached to them in reference to vast
masses of the population of this city, who
were as completely unknown to the inhabi-
tants of the magnificent squares and streets of
London as if they were not fellow-countrymen,
or even fellow-Christians, and who might be
better known if they inhabited the remotest
quarters of the globe. He did not think it
was recollected, but he took it to be undeni-
ably true, that he who built a square or a
street of palaces at the west end of London,
not only virtually brought a class into exist-
ence, and adjacent streets filled with the dwell-
ings of tradesmen, and other streets, more
remote and more humble, filled with the dwell-
ings of labourers, who waited upon those
tradesmen, but likewise that the quarter of
Belgravia filled the quarter of Bethnal Green;
and that in the east of London the constant
growth and progress of the population were

dren and the fruit of the womb are an heri-
tage and gift that cometh of the Lord." They
knew those words were founded deep in the
truths of the Divine Word. But there was
no man who walked through the streets of
London, and especially the more wretched
parts of it, who did not feel that those words
were a trial of his faith. When they con-
sidered what human nature was, and at what
cost it had been redeemed-when they reflected
what destinies were open to it-how many and
great were its vicissitudes-and how severe
were its temptations and its trials, it was ter-
rible to think of the amount of labour that re-
mained undischarged. And yet "children
and the fruit of the womb are an heritage and
gift that cometh of the Lord;" and, difficult
though it might be, yet it was not impossible
to carry home to the hearts and minds of men,
and into the houses of every class of the com-
munity, the blessed and comforting conscious-
ness of that truth, so that, instead of a trial of
faith, it should, on the contrary, become the
daily food and support of fathers and mothers,
who, though it might be their lot to earn their
bread-and perhaps scanty bread- by the
labour of their hands and the sweat of their
brows, might see their offspring growing up
in the faith, fear, and love of God. He be-
lieved those who, with him, adhered to the
principle that it was wise to draw payment
from the labouring classes, so called, for the
education of their children, were yet prepared
to go along with the founders of this school
when they were dealing with a class who were
not called the labouring class,-by whom he
meant, independent of their vocation, persons
who had fixed abodes,--but with a floating sea
of human life, in which were tossed up and
down a huge mass of less fortunate beings, not
inaptly termed "the Arabs of modern civiliza-
tion"-great masses of energy and animal and
mental life, but untamed and unreclaimed;

and he did not for a moment question the wisdom of the principle with which they threw open the doors of their school to that class of the population, and bade them come and receive freely the knowledge which they offered them. Mr. Rogers had in a jocular way observed that among other inducements to his undertaking this work, was the belief that he was to some extent laying the foundation of Christian eloquence in London, seeing that, dealing, as he would do, chiefly with the children of costermongers, he might go far to put an end to that coarse clamour which in this metropolis distracted the minds of those who had sermons to prepare, and prevented them producing efforts worthy of their theme. He (Mr. Gladstone) ventured to go one step beyond that, and say that he knew not why those schools should not lay the foundation of a great deal of other eloquence. He knew not why those ragged boys whom they caught in the street and sought to educate, should not themselves, under the hands of skilful workmen, become contributors to that Christian eloquence the extension of which they all desired. Mr. Rogers, in a pamphlet he had written, had referred to a day when it might fairly be proposed to connect this school with the hierarchy of schools above it, and had well remarked that " a child of this district would have an opportunity of acquiring a good sound practical education, without being a burden to his parents; and, if found worthy to be draughted off to Dulwich College, in accordance with the will and intentions of Alleyn, the universities would be open to him; and who knows whether, at some future time, a denizen of this poor, despised, and degraded district of St. Thomas Charterhouse might not mount the woolsack or fill the see of Canterbury?" Such things had happened before now, and might occur again. In this free country the paths of preferment were open to all. It might be said that every man had “a clear stage and no favour." Many of those who had filled the see of Canterbury had been enabled to point to the lowliness of their origin. The church, even in the worst possible times, had been ever ready to befriend the virtuous and the learned. There was no period when

it had not been the privilege and the hope of the poor to rise to eminence by meritorious labours in her service. He hoped that it would never be otherwise, and that the path of the priesthood, adorned at that moment by so many conspicuous examples of piety and learning, would ever be the path in which man might gratify his natural tendency to expand his energies and bestow benefits on his fellow-creatures.

It may be mentioned here that the Rev. William Rogers, who afterwards became, and while these words are being written is still, the rector of Bishopsgate, made no mere fanciful allusion when he spoke of the connection of such schools with the higher educational institutions of the country. He has lived not only to see scholarships for the higher institutions become a recognized distinction for the poorest class of children who receive primary instruction in board schools, but has assisted, by his personal influence and indefatigable exertions, in the cause of popular education, both to extend the advantages of Dulwich College, and to establish several schools of a high character for the value of their teaching, perhaps the most important being that of the Middle Class Schools Corporation, occupying a large building in Cowper Street, City Road (near his old district), where from 1000 to 1200 boys receive a sound and complete education under the direction of competent masters.

In all the efforts which were made for the improvement of the condition of the people Prince Albert took an earnest and active part. Not only was he occupied in the endeavour to establish schools and museums of science and art, that the mechanic and the labourer might acquire a knowledge both of things outside their daily occupation and of the principles and construction of the machinery amidst which so much of their time was passed; but he took a genuine interest in the humble efforts of his Windsor labourers to master the art of writing, and himself examined their copy-books. He early saw that the rapid overgrowth of our great cities, where the want of home comforts and of wholesome recreation for the labouring classes was rapidly developing vice, disease,

PRINCE ALBERT ON RECREATION AND EDUCATION.

and discontent to an alarming extent, was a problem which, if not effectively dealt with, must in the end become fatal to the habits and physical development of the people, and even dangerous to the state. The magnitude of the difficulties which surrounded this subject was not with him, as it is with many, a reason for doing nothing. He was among the first to show what could be effected in the way of improving the dwellings of the working-classes, not only by the cottages built upon the royal estates at Osborne and Balmoral, but by model lodging-houses erected in the metropolis itself. It was his conviction that, under a proper system, these would pay, and indeed that they must be made to pay, otherwise no permanent improvement could be established anywhere, and still less could any wide measure of progressive amelioration be hoped for. On mere philanthropy the prince was not disposed to lean; but he believed that a mighty change would be initiated if men of kind hearts and sound business heads could be persuaded to invest their capital in providing on reasonable terms homes for the sous of labour, in which the decencies, at least, and the main comforts of domestic life might be within their reach. His views on this subject, regarded at first as somewhat Utopian, have since become accepted truisms. Many of the great employers of labour throughout the country have proved to their own satisfaction the prince's favourite axiom, that the capital sunk in good houses for those who work for them would prove an excellent investment in itself, while at the same time it secured them better workmen and better work. And the success which has attended the building of some of the "model dwellings" and houses for the working-classes in London and other large cities has at all events kept the subject alive, and still calls attention to the necessity for finding remedies for the want of sanitary arrangements in overcrowded neighbourhoods, and the necessity for providing for tenants evicted in order to carry on what are called metropolitan improvements.

Another subject of the greatest interest to the prince was the everyday amusements of the people. That in this country these are

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too often of a debasing kind is obviously less the fault of the people themselves than of the fact that they are driven to seek in the publichouse and the tavern the light, the warmth, the companionship, and the recreation which are not readily to be found elsewhere. How to enable the labourer to dispose of his leisure pleasantly and rationally is a problem of which even now people generally are little more than beginning to seek the solution. Mechanics' institutes, reading-rooms, and public libraries go but a small way to meet the exigencies of the case, and these indeed are only possible in the great centres of population. Something of a much simpler kind the prince felt to be required; some place where the cheerfulness of the public-house could be provided without its drawbacks. The idea has recently been developed into those working-men's clubs and coffee palaces which have been established in many quarters with excellent effect. But so far back as 1857 the idea had been started, and advocated by several philanthropicallyminded men, and it was then designed to provide places in which the labouring classes might spend their leisure, men and women meeting together for sober social enjoyment. In discussing the possible establishment of such a place the prince said it should be a reformed public-house. He quite agreed that there should be smoking, but did not agree that it need be in a separate room. He said that it was most important that the wife and family should come there, as well as the labourer himself. The women of England were excellent wives and mothers. Now they had to do their best to keep their husbands from the public-houses; with such an institution they might encourage them to go there and go with them. As to the mingling of class with class, he doubted whether it could be carried out. The lower classes would always feel a restraint in the presence of the higher classes.

The part taken by Prince Albert in the opening ceremony of the Manchester Exhibition in 1857 was another opportunity for expressing his deep interest in everything calculated to raise and elevate the nation, and the same desire was manifested by the part he took in an educational conference held

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William Ewart Gladstone and His Contemporaries: Fifty Years of ..., Volumes 3-4