sort of shed with an earth floor, about 100 young persons of both sexes, from 10 to 18, "all behaving with the greatest propriety and decorum." Of the Ragged School connected with the Birmingham New-Meeting Domestic Mission, we shall say more hereafter. We hail all these indications of a growing sense of the necessity of some check, besides physical force and restraint, against the appalling amount of vice which is an incubus on our country; yet we cannot but feel that the schools we have been noticing, as they are, are lamentably inefficient. We turn with much greater hope to the admirable Industrial Schools in operation in Aberdeen; and though our readers may have met with the account of them in Chambers's Journal, yet it appears to us so important that they should be extensively known, that we will extract a report of them from Mr. W. Chambers's speech at Manchester, at a public meet ing recently held there, with a view to establish similar schools in that

town.

"About 3000 children appear before the criminal tribunals of England annually, and I can state with certainty that an equal proportion, if not a much greater, appears before the criminal tribunals of my own country (Scotland). The cause of this is extremely obvious. The child, utterly neglected by its parents, sent into the streets to beg, or to support itself by any means it can, imperceptibly falls into habits of crime. From begging, the transition is exceedingly easy to thieving. This continues, and perhaps at seven or eight years of age the child appears in the police court; at ten, it advances to the assizes; and at twelve or fourteen, it makes its appearance before the central criminal court or the high court of justiciary, there to be dealt with by the formalities of law-either sent for a given period to the hulks, or confined to prison, there, perhaps, to be trained into a much worse member of society than he went in. This circumstance has been forcibly impressed upon the magistrates of the principal towns in Scotland. There being, unfortunately, a very imperfect system of poor-laws there, children are left very much to their own resources, and in Aberdeen, about the close of 1841, it was found that 280 children were in the daily commission of vagrancy, begging and thieving. Articles put out at shop doors were pilfered; market women coming into the town suffered various

losses from these poor creatures; and it was found utterly impossible, by any repressive measures, to put them down, At length it occurred to my friend Sheriff Watson, that some means should be adopted to prevent this horrible aspect of vice. He began to feel ashamed at sitting as a judge upon mere infants. He considered he was not fulfilling the duties of life, that he was not doing that for which God had endowed him with faculties, in sitting, condemning, incarcerating and punishing little creatures who could not be said to possess any thing like moral responsibility. Fully impressed with these feelings, he induced a few individuals to unite with himself in establishing what was called a School of Industry. He began with not more than £100. That was the utmost sum that could be raised for the purpose. The children were immediately invited to attend; they were invited to come, on this principle, We will give you a comfortable apartment to sit in, you shall have three meals a day, you shall have a little easy employment, and you shall have intellectual, moral and religious instruction.' That invitation was pretty generally attended to; and by the efforts of benevolent individuals a considerable number of children were collected. Their attendance was altogether voluntary, and, of course, altogether gratuitous; but the success of the establishment was very marked indeed. It aimed merely at reducing the number of criminals appearing at the police or sheriff's courts; and here is a passage which I partly quote from the report of the inspector of prisons:

"During the first six months 106 boys were admitted, and the average daily attendance was 37. Afterwards the average increased from 40 to 50. The removal of so many boys from the streets not only occasioned a perceptible diminution in the swarms of street beggars, but the superintendent of police reported that subsequent to the opening of the school a considerable decrease in juvenile delinquencies had taken place. This was corroborated by the inspector of prisons, who in his seventh report to Parliament observes, that during the half-year ending 20th May, 1841, 30 boys under fourteen years of age were committed to prison in Aberdeen, but that during the halfyear ending 20th May, 1842, the number was only six.'

"This was an exceedingly gratifying fact. It proved the efficacy of the

movement. To render the advantage still more general, a school was established for girls separately, chiefly through the exertions of some benevolent ladies. That also proved eminently successful; it was well attended by vagrant girls, who, in my opinion, are equally, if not much more, the objects of commiseration than boys. It was very curious that, notwithstanding the success of these two schools, there were still a few who did not come; notwithstanding all the invitations that were offered, and all the inducements held out, a certain number of children perversely, either from their own inclinations or that of their parents, refused to attend. This will be found the case every where, I believe, and it became painfully apparent that nothing would do for this substratum but the employment of force. A remedy was to be found; complaints must be avoided. Accordingly, a school of an exceedingly novel kind was established, namely, a school to which children should be taken by the police. It was announced in Aberdeen that upon a certain day every child found begging about the streets would at once be marched off, by a police-officer, to a certain school. Perhaps this was, in some degree, an encroachment upon what may be called the liberty of the subject; but cases of this kind must be met with extraordinary efforts. Fortunately, under some local police act, the magistrates had authority of this kind to repress vagrancy and begging. I believe any police act will give this power. Accordingly, on the day in question, there were 60 or 70 children found begging, every one of whom was taken to this new school. The first thing was to wash and give them some food; they were all kept upon some trifling employment, and at night they were sent home with this injunction, You may either come back or not to-morrow morning, just as you like; if you like, you need never come back.' Singular to say, the next morning they nearly all came back voluntarily. From that day to this, nearly every child has as regularly gone back to that school as if it had been commenced upon the voluntary principle; in other words, it came to this, that in reality compulsion was employed only on one day. The parents saw it was useless to go on begging and loitering from day to day about the shop-doors; for, if they did, the children would be at once marched off to this receptacle for them. The

consequence of all these various efforts, first of the schools of industry, one for boys and the other for girls, and next the soup-kitchen school-so called from its being held at a place where soup was formerly given out to the poor in a time of great distress-was, that, in point of fact, crime had been extirpated at its very roots. By the reports of the commissioners and other authorities in the city of Aberdeen, published a few months ago, it appeared that the benefit had not been confined to Aberdeen, but that it had spread over the whole county. The police had scarcely any thing to do. The police judge had a sinecure; and upon that day I was in Aberdeen, the ordinary circuit of justiciary took place, and I was told the whole business was over in an hour, for there was literally nothing to do."

Mr. C. states that these schools are maintained successfully to the present time, and that "the working men of Aberdeen are so impressed with favourable feelings towards the institution, that they have lately had a meeting, and raised among themselves the sum of £300 for it." A speaking fact! The Girls' School is conducted on the same principles.

"The girls, instead of growing up in the streets a disgrace to society and looking forward to a life of vice and misery, are clean and tidy; they are instructed in household duties; each takes her turn in cleaning the house, ironing, washing and keeping accounts. In point of fact, they were instructed as to domestic service. Having received their instruction during the day, at night they go home, and the first thing they do is to clean their mother's house. One very interesting circumstance was told to me-that in many instances children are the means of reclaiming drunken parents-little children by telling a simple story actually winning them from that odious vice. We therefore find these little girls making the most effectual moral appeals. They were not dressed finely; there was no uniform, which he held to be an utter abomination. There was none of that wretched system of dressing up children like buffoons in yellow stockings and all that. The children are taught to mind their own clothes, which is a most important requisite; and the girls are kept to the use of the needle. They are not fine; they are not ragged, because they are taught to cure their raggedness; therefore, besides being cleanly, their clothes are whole."

The plan of a School of Reformation, by substituting habits of industry, in tellectual culture, and good moral and physical influences for bad ones, has been carried out more effectually in other countries. We learn from the Reports of the late revered Dr. Tuckerman, that such a school was opened near Boston in 1826, under the superintendence of the Rev. Mr. Wells; it was destined for those unhappy boys who were exposed to bad moral influences; they were entirely removed from their homes, and employed in various kinds of work, as well as in receiving instruction. The success of the training given was great, a large proportion of the boys becoming respectable characters. "We live together," says Mr. W., " as a family of brethren, cheerful, happy, confiding; and, I trust, in a greater or less degree, pious. Thus our institution assumes the nature of a school of moral discipline." A Farm School in Thompson's Island, United States, has been attended with equally happy results; a judicious union of bodily exercise and mental culture has prepared the boys most successfully to enter on the duties of life, and the conduct of most of them on leaving the school has given satisfaction. Many similar institutions exist in Prussia and Saxony under the name of Redemption Institutes; and at Mettray, near Tours, is one called an Agricultural Colony, of which an interesting account may be found in the Christian Teacher, No. XVI., N. S., p. 208. In Munich, Germany, all boys found in the streets asking alms, are taken into an asylum for that purpose. As soon as they enter the door, and before having been cleaned or their dirty clothes removed, a portrait of each one is taken, representing him in the same form as when found begging. When the portrait is finished, he is cleansed and presented with a new and neat suit of clothes. After going through a regular course of education, appointed by the directors of the asylum, the boys are put to a trade, at which they work until they have earned enough to liquidate all their expenses from the first day they entered the institution. When this is completed, they are dismissed from the institution to gain their own livelihood. At the same time, the portrait taken when they first entered is presented to them, which they swear they will preserve as long as they live, in order that they may remember the abject condition from which they have

been redeemed, and the obligations which they are under to the institution for having saved them from misery, and given them the means of feeding themselves for the future. Space does not permit us to extract from Horace Mann's Educational Tour a touching account of the "Rauhe Haus" at Hamburg, in which the power of Christian love to subdue the most froward is strikingly developed. We must refer our readers to Dr. Hodgson's reprint of this work, p. 77.

Now it would be manifestly impossible to attempt to establish such schools as these for the reception of all the uneducated children in England, nor do we believe that it would be desirable thus so completely to remove from parents their responsibility, except in very peculiar cases. We are not even sure whether it is well to provide the children with an amount of food for which the value of their work is so very inadequate a remuneration. It would be rather a premium to the idleness and improvidence of the parents, thus to relieve them from the charge of providing their children with food, and we should recommend that only a simple meal should be given, which may be considered as paid for by the work done. Be this as it may, we do strongly urge the necessity of speedily establishing in all populous neighbourhoods, dayschools to which the most dirty and ragged shall be welcome, where there shall be a judicious interchange of work and study, and where moral and religious training shall supersede the necessity of severity of punishment. It may be said that Government ought to establish such schools: we will not enter on that question, but we know that individual exertion may do much; that it is the spirit that quickeneth; and that earnest Christian efforts will be crowned with success in God's own good time.

With respect to the manner in which such schools should be conducted, we

cannot do better than refer to the excellent Report of Mr. Brooks, the NewMeeting Missionary, Birmingham. He strongly feels the importance of the master's endeavouring to become acquainted with the circumstances and wants of the children, and making them at once sensible that they are not a separate and despised caste; and urges that a desire should be excited in their minds of improving their condition by their own efforts, and that they should be encouraged to bring their little savings

to deposit for the purchase of articles of clothing. This is a very useful step towards improving their condition and giving them some self-respect. Moral force is to be the only one employed: confidence must be inspired by kindness, and the scholar must be led to feel that his master has an unfeigned love for him, which prompts him even in the infliction of punishment. Children will perhaps not believe this, if stated in so many words to them, but they may be made to feel it, and acknowledge it, by the conduct of their instructor. Mr. Brooks was surprised to find the police in attendance at one of the London Ragged Schools which he visited the strongest proof that could be given that the spirit of Christian love was not the ruling one; and he could not help contrasting the singular disorder and want of respect there, with his own orderly and busy school. Providing some useful manual occupation for the children is a very important point; the girls may be taught to sew, and to mend their own clothes; but some regular work should be found for the boys also, in which a considerable part of every day should be employed; their desultory, idle habits will thus be checked, and they may thus be prepared to gain their livelihood; it will also be found a useful change for those whose minds are but little accustomed to mental effort. The master should be experienced in the art of teaching; it must not be supposed that because the scholars are very ignorant, an illinstructed master will be sufficient for them; on the contrary, such scholars require peculiar tact and skill in the way of communicating knowledge. As the common school routine will be generally found impracticable, the master must know how to vary his method with circumstances, to keep all fully employed, thus calling into healthy exercise the energy and activity which has been fostered and applied to bad purposes in their previous course of life; and he must endeavour to awaken their minds to the pleasure of intellectual acquirements, by making the acquisition of knowledge as agreeable to them as possible. Pictures, and objects of natural history or of manufactures, will be found very useful aids. The introduction of singing is often of great value, by tranquillizing the mind, and inspiring good and gentle feelings. The religious training of these children is one of the most difficult and at the same time important

parts of their education. Mr. Brooks truly says, "I have found it next to useless to address these ignorant and vicious little beings in a formal religious style; their minds are not yet sufficiently enlightened, and the greatest care is required not to raise a feeling of contempt, in addition to their present indifference, for all that is holy and solemnly important. They cannot be preached into goodness, but must be slowly and almost imperceptibly trained to it. No amount of scriptural texts crammed into their minds by countless repetitions will ever make them practical Christians: there is but one way, and that is patient perseverance in rational instruction: they may be drilled to mechanical movements, but their minds cannot be drilled into a love for Christian truth, or submission to God's law.

* Experience has proved that the best way to impress their minds with religious truth and human duty, is to weave the instruction into a simple narrative or story; the various incidents, if well managed, serve effectually to keep up the interest, and enable them to see how religion and duty may be rendered practicable in real, everyday life."-The beautiful stories of the Bible, "the auto-biography of human life," especially if illustrated by pictures, are admirably adapted for this purpose. Let the master be himself truly religious, and let him earnestly watch for opportunities of instilling into the minds of the children the great truths of religion,-let him make them feel that its sanctions guide his own life and conduct, and he cannot fail to imbue his pupils with it. We might say much more on this interesting subject, but must conclude, earnestly entreating our friends to give it their serious consideration, and hoping that they will determine not to let the matter drop, until each in his own sphere has done something towards carrying the bread of life to these perishing and helpless ones, and thus hastening the blessed time when the knowledge of God shall cover the earth.

"Spiritual Statistics," derived from the Congregational Calendar for 1847.

In London and the suburbs there are 133 Independent chapels. The Congregational Board of London numbers 139 members. There are also 74 Baptist chapels. The Board of Baptist ministers numbers 52. The Baptist churches in the United Kingdom