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ful labourer is generally in early boyhood, or rather in childhood, transferred at once, and for life, from the schoolroom to the field or manufactory-from the exercise of the mind to the labour of the body, and from the society of fellow learners to that of fellow workmen. Thus reading and such like pursuits give place altogether to manual employments, and the mind becomes first indisposed to, and then almost incapable of any mental exertion.

Now the obvious remedy for this evil seems to be, to endeavour to render the transfer from the school to a course of uninterrupted manual labour more gradual, or rather less sudden and complete than it generally is. Thus in agricultural districts children may be permitted, as indeed they often are, to go to work at the seasons when they can be employed, and when not wanted in the field to return to school. And young men who in summer and autumn are engaged in labour from morning to night, may during winter spend their otherwise unoccupied evenings in keeping up and improving the knowledge gained at school. Thus the mental faculties may be kept in exercise, and the employment of the mind combined with the labour of the body, and the powers of the two may grow and strengthen together and be made mutually subservient to one another. The actual progress in school learning under such a system may at the time appear less, and the attendance at school be less regular, but the knowledge actually acquired would be more lasting, and the discipline of the school might even be extended to the field. And surely with a little forethought and arrangement, something similar might be devised for those engaged in workshops and manufactories. It is true that in the latter, employment is not regulated as in husbandry by the seasons; but the fluctuations of trade. upon which employment in manufactories depends, are scarcely less frequent than the changes of the year, and certainly not less liable to extremes. And when at such periods numbers can only be partially employed, what greater mitigation of the evil to the young than a system which would afford them an opportunity of turning to good account at so important a part of their lives, an interval which would otherwise be misemployed, and of keeping up and adding to the learning already acquired? As regards that early part of life when children are first employed in manufactories, it would certainly be a very great advantage for them, and could occasion but comparatively little loss either to their parents or masters, if they spent only half the usual time at work, and the other half at school. Thus the best of their bodily strength would be expended in labour without injury or exhaustion, and at the same time their minds would be exercised and cultivated; they would earn considerably more than the expense of schooling, and be laying the foundation for becoming better work men by uniting the improvement of their moral and rational powers with the acquisition of manual dexterity and habits of labour. One probable advantage would be that the regular attendance and strict order absolutely required in the manufactory, would at least in some degree be extended to the school. Another benefit would be that the masters of the manufactories would have a more direct interest in the schools, and would thus have an opportunity of manifesting concern for the welfare of their youthful work-people beyond what may now appear, when their atten

tion is mainly directed, as far as the management of their mills requires it, to obtaining the greatest amount of labour at the least cost. It may be objected that the organization of such relays of youthful workers would occasion more trouble and superintendence than the produce of their labour would repay.

But it is obvious that the principal trouble would be in its first adoption and establishment, and that this might soon be overcome. The regard for the good of the children which such a system, if voluntarily adopted, would indicate on the part of the masters, would ensure the good-will and co-operation of the parents. The working by relays is, we believe, no novelty in manufactories even as regards children, since the limitation of their hours of labour by Act of Parliament. Skill similar to that so successfully and perseveringly applied to purposes of art, will we may venture to hope, be willingly applied with no less diligence and success to the higher purposes of promoting the temporal and spiritual welfare of the rising generation of artisans, by so regulating their hours of labour, and subdividing their employments, as to afford them opportunities of employing the mind as well as the body, and of increasing in wisdom as they increase in stature. the subject is too important to be passed over with a mere cursory notice. We will, however, at present only add with reference to the proposed plan at Manchester, that, as it appears to us, its promoters will do but little by it towards improving general education there, unless they can combine a certain amount of early remunerative employment with regular attendance at school.

But

THE CAMBRIDGE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL.

IN our Journal for August we extracted at length from the First Annual Report of the Industrial School, recently established at Cambridge, in the Victoria Road. From it we endeavoured to show the professed object of the school, the means used by its promoters to accomplish their object, and the effect which up to that time had been produced by their labours. For information upon these points we must therefore refer our readers to what we there recorded. We at the same time expressed our hearty good wishes for the success of the institution, and our desire to render our pages in every way subservient to the promotion of the important work in which its supporters are engaged.

Accordingly, we now take the earliest opportunity of noticing an account which we have received of a public meeting, holden in the Town Hall at Cambridge, on the 28th of October, for the purpose of giving greater publicity to the principles and objects of this Industrial School. The mayor, who acted as chairman, stated that he had been induced, by reading the First Annual Report, to visit the school, and that that visit had materially increased his interest in it; and that he believed, if the institution were carried out to a much greater extent, an incalculable amount of benefit would be conferred upon the town and neighbourhood.

The first resolution moved was to the effect, that the condition of the poorer classes in England is such as to render institutions of the nature of Industrial Schools desirable. In supporting this, it was shown that schools in which there is a combination of moral instruction and industrial training will do much towards the diminution of that great extent of juvenile delinquency that is complained of in the reports of the Inspectors of Prisons; and that the object of the Industrial School is to train boys, after their release from the National School, so that they may go into the world with habits of industry, and with some skill in trade. It was also observed, by another speaker, that mere physical want is not the grand evil we have to contend against, but vice, idleness, and the want of self-command; that, having seen a good deal of the worst part of large cities, he had always been struck by the vast amount of energy displayed by the blackguard classes, but had looked in vain for industry or order; and that one admirable feature in the present school is, that it does not reject boys because they have been bad before, but, on the contrary, has open arms for

outcasts.

The second resolution was, that the plan of the Cambridge Industrial School is well adapted to the circumstances of the town, and deserving the warm support of the inhabitants. In moving this, the speaker said, it was natural to think that Cambridge should set an example in educating the poor, and that he trusted it would be followed all over England; and he ventured to suggest, that many undergraduates would do well if they would just take a walk to the Industrial School, or the Victoria Asylum, and there learn one of the important parts of a clergyman's duty. It was remarked, by another speaker, how exceedingly well adapted the institution is to boys who are running about without occupation or object, and who are a firstrate material to work upon-active, and energetic, and with plenty of fire if it could be properly directed. These boys have probably been at the National School, where they have got tired of their books; and the combination of out-door and in-door education, under the same master, is just the thing for them. But the moral influence exercised over the boys is perhaps the most important feature in the institution. They are tempted to enter it by the prospect of benefit in this world, and the opportunity is taken of teaching them something with regard to the world to come.

The third resolution was to the effect, that the success of the institution has been highly encouraging, and warrants the hope that the most sanguine expectations of its promoters will be realized. This resolution was moved and seconded by two clergymen, the Rev. H. Goodwin and the Rev. W. F. Witts, with whom the idea of the school originated, and to whose exertions it is greatly indebted. Mr. Goodwin, before speaking of the school itself, first adverted to several prejudices against it. It had been objected, that they were training a class of operatives who were not required, and who, if required, would be produced, and that by thus violating the rules of political economy they were doing a great deal of mischief. To this he replied, that they were not introducing a score of new and unnecessary gardeners, tailors, and shoemakers into the town every year; but taking idle boys and making them

industrious boys. Then it was said that they would injure the smaller tradesmen by apprenticing boys, so to speak, to the school. But, so far from injuring them, it would be an advantage to the small tradesmen to take boys as apprentices who had already at the school got some knowledge of a handicraft, and it was notorious that a boy apprenticed to a tailor or shoemaker was a loss to his master at first, cutting away good cloth or good leather. But it never was the intention of the promoters of the school to make either tailors or shoemakers, but that the boys should learn the use of their hands. And, for this reason, it would be a good thing, if they had money enough, to have a carpenter's shop or a forge. But they had no desire to make tradesmen. Again, several subscribers, and a Government Inspector, had said, "It is all very well; but the boys will eat your heads off." They thought it impossible to give the boys a dinner every day. But facts are stubborn things. Now for more than a year the boys had had a very plentiful dinner every day, at a price which he should have scarcely conceived it possible to supply it. The poor, too, themselves had objected to send their boys to the school. But they had outgrown that difficulty, and they might now have as many boys as they pleased; and he thought he should rather astonish the magistrates if he were to state the names of some of them. He thought the institution might serve as an example for other places. He had had several applications for information; and at Ramsgate an Industrial School had been established upon the Cambridge model. In speaking of the actual working of the school and its effects upon the boys, he said, although it was to a certain extent a reformatory institution, and did not refuse any simply because they had been in trouble, still it was not merely reformatory. They took boys who could get no employment: that was the simple title to admission. The general character of the boys when admitted was very rough, and the effects produced upon them should be estimated with respect to that character. The effect produced with respect to steadiness of working habits was truly marvellous. Boys who had been mere idlers were now in thorough good working order, and, if hired out, were worth a great deal more than before. They had, too, in a remarkable manner given up their bad habits, such as using bad language. One poor boy had said to him, "You would not think so bad of me, if you knew the sort of life I have led, and the constant sound of blasphemy in my ears." And, besides giving up bad habits, they had been brought to adopt good ones. Some had been led to attend the Sunday School; and there was one instance of a boy having become a good Sunday-school teacher. With respect to the moral effect produced, he would mention the case of a boy who had been in gaol more than once, whose widowed mother, after he had been in the school two or three months, came and expressed with tears her gratitude for the result to the boy, and said that he used to be a perpetual torment to her, but for the last month or two he had been a real comfort. Now such things could not occur alone, and they might rest assured that, if such a moral influence was produced upon one unsatisfactory boy, other as great results were produced. But the success of such institutions would depend, in a very great degree, upon the efficient character of the master. The committee might go and superintend at certain

2

times, but, after all, it was the master who was there constantly at work, and unless he were an efficient person no good would come of it. He wished people to go and look at the school themselves, and see if a great moral work was not going on. He did not wish to make out that the boys were angels; but he did mean to say that, by God's help, they should not be the devils they might have been had there been no Industrial School. They wished the school to be considered a place for boys who were not able to get anything to do, from whatever cause that inability might arise; and that it might be impossible for any boy to say that he was idle because no man would hire him. They wished a boy in trouble not to consider himself quite an outcast when he came out of gaol, and not to have an excuse for saying, "If we are not thieves, what are we to do for a living?" They wished the school, also, to be a kind of nursery for emigration. Thus, a young person aged nineteen, who had recently applied at the school upon the subject, and was ignorant of the kind of employment that would be of use to him abroad, was recommended to attend the Industrial School for the winter, and then present himself as a candidate for a free passage next year. He concluded by saying that hitherto they had paid their way, but that they now required further assistance, as they found that they could not manage fifty boys without extending their present building.

He

Mr.Witts, in seconding the foregoing resolution, said that, about six years ago, Mr. Goodwin and himself were walking along the lanes in St. Giles', when they saw 15 or 20 boys, from 13 to 19 years old, idling about and using shocking language, and that then the design of this institution first entered their heads. He passed through the same parts that day, and did not see one boy idling there. This was satisfactory, but their success was not quite complete. At present they only gave boys their dinner; they boarded them, but they did not lodge them. But there were cases in which reformation was impossible, unless boys were removed from their parents; in which the "home influence was too strong for them to strive against. He did not anticipate lodging the boys on a large scale, but he hoped they should be able to lodge a few of the extreme cases. He had, for instance, in his mind's eye the case of a boy whom he had known for seven years, and had been trying to reform, but without success. got him to attend the National School, and he would behave there well for a week, and then break out again as bad as ever. He then got him to the Industrial School, from which he had been expelled two or three times; and at last it was found impossible to do anything with him, and yet for some days he would be as good as possible. Still he believed that boy might be reclaimed, but not without greater machinery than they had at present. It was for extreme cases like that that he was anxious to establish the dormitory system. He had recently visited Industrial Schools at Aberdeen, Perth, and Edinburgh, and there they had asked him how it was possible to reclaim boys without lodging them. In Scotland, the boys were much younger; they left off at 13 years old there, the very age at which they began at Cambridge. The prison returns showed that the most difficult age to deal with boys was from 13 to 18. He concluded by recommending the Industrial School as an institution in which they were endeavouring to

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