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Untitled Article
way , in the hopes of turning that five into fifty ; for the journey , though long , was far from being dull , and was generall y very interesting . Nor were we so much troubled , as in the evidence of the previous Session , by the narrow-minded garrulity of sundry old women , who were determined that no one should be wiser than themselves . We do not pretend to give an abstract of the evidence , but only to notice a few points .
The Rev . J . C Wigram , Secretary of the National School Society , who is the first witness , says that it is extremely difficult to keep children at the National Society ' s schoolsonly one-third of the scholars attend regularly . The causes are , first , and chiefly , the indifference of parents ( the indifference of the children is not thought of ); secondly , removals of families ; thirdly , high wages , when the parents become high ; fourthly , low wages , when the children ' s work is wanted and they have not
clothes : fifthlv . indifference , after mere " readiner and writing is clothes ; fifthly , indifference , after mere reading and writing is attained . He forgets to say anything of the dislike of the scholars to bad tuition ; but remarks , that the schools are not too full , though many children remain uneducated . " Feed and clothe the children , " he says , " and they will remain five years ; otherwise not above a year and a-half at school .
Mr . Henry Dunn , the next witness , gives a detail of the habits and customs of Betlmal Green , where , it seems , twothirds of the inhabitants are kept in extreme poverty by hard drinking , and nine-tenths do not go to church ; they will buy and read the Poor Man \ s Guardian , and they will not buy and read religious tracts ; they will not even read the latter , although they are furnished with them gratis . In Twigg ' s Folly , Betlmal Green , more than half the children are not
educated at all . The next witness , Mr . Wilderspin , confines his evidence chiefly to infant schools , respecting which he has certainly more practical knowledge , and generally more correct views , than any person of the present day . Infant schools being a thing of yesterday , we were surprised to find that there are 2 , 000 in Great Britain and Ireland , containing 64 , 000 pupils ;
but it is to be regretted that a great proportion of these schools are excessively ill-conducted ; in fact we may say , that infant schools are wretchedly managed with one or two exceptions : we might almost say , that the whole of the schools of this country are shamefully mis-managed , with the exception of these one or two infant school * . With scarcely any exceptions
children are invariably treated , in schools , like brutes , or , at bent , like machines . Mr . Wilderapin finds that the prejudices against infauit schools are going away rapidly ; the clergy , who used to oppose them atrongly , are becoming less hostile ; and parents , who used formerl y to consider that the best plan that cguld be adopted with little children w& * tQ wop them up for
Untitled Article
Education Report , 71
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1836, page 71, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2654/page/7/
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