Miscellaneous Papers | Page 8

to introduce among the most
miserable and neglected outcasts in London, some knowledge of the

commonest principles of morality and religion; to commence their
recognition as immortal human creatures, before the Gaol Chaplain
becomes their only schoolmaster; to suggest to Society that its duty to
this wretched throng, foredoomed to crime and punishment, rightfully
begins at some distance from the police office; and that the careless
maintenance from year to year, in this, the capital city of the world, of a
vast hopeless nursery of ignorance, misery and vice; a breeding place
for the hulks and jails: is horrible to contemplate.
This attempt is being made in certain of the most obscure and squalid
parts of the Metropolis, where rooms are opened, at night, for the
gratuitous instruction of all comers, children or adults, under the title of
RAGGED SCHOOLS. The name implies the purpose. They who are
too ragged, wretched, filthy, and forlorn, to enter any other place: who
could gain admission into no charity school, and who would be driven
from any church door; are invited to come in here, and find some
people not depraved, willing to teach them something, and show them
some sympathy, and stretch a hand out, which is not the iron hand of
Law, for their correction.
Before I describe a visit of my own to a Ragged School, and urge the
readers of this letter for God's sake to visit one themselves, and think of
it (which is my main object), let me say, that I know the prisons of
London well; that I have visited the largest of them more times than I
could count; and that the children in them are enough to break the heart
and hope of any man. I have never taken a foreigner or a stranger of
any kind to one of these establishments but I have seen him so moved
at sight of the child offenders, and so affected by the contemplation of
their utter renouncement and desolation outside the prison walls, that
he has been as little able to disguise his emotion, as if some great grief
had suddenly burst upon him. Mr. Chesterton and Lieutenant Tracey
(than whom more intelligent and humane Governors of Prisons it
would be hard, if not impossible, to find) know perfectly well that these
children pass and repass through the prisons all their lives; that they are
never taught; that the first distinctions between right and wrong are,
from their cradles, perfectly confounded and perverted in their minds;
that they come of untaught parents, and will give birth to another
untaught generation; that in exact proportion to their natural abilities, is
the extent and scope of their depravity; and that there is no escape or

chance for them in any ordinary revolution of human affairs. Happily,
there are schools in these prisons now. If any readers doubt how
ignorant the children are, let them visit those schools and see them at
their tasks, and hear how much they knew when they were sent there. If
they would know the produce of this seed, let them see a class of men
and boys together, at their books (as I have seen them in the House of
Correction for this county of Middlesex), and mark how painfully the
full grown felons toil at the very shape and form of letters; their
ignorance being so confirmed and solid. The contrast of this labour in
the men, with the less blunted quickness of the boys; the latent shame
and sense of degradation struggling through their dull attempts at infant
lessons; and the universal eagerness to learn, impress me, in this
passing retrospect, more painfully than I can tell.
For the instruction, and as a first step in the reformation, of such
unhappy beings, the Ragged Schools were founded. I was first attracted
to the subject, and indeed was first made conscious of their existence,
about two years ago, or more, by seeing an advertisement in the papers
dated from West Street, Saffron Hill, stating "That a room had been
opened and supported in that wretched neighbourhood for upwards of
twelve months, where religious instruction had been imparted to the
poor", and explaining in a few words what was meant by Ragged
Schools as a generic term, including, then, four or five similar places of
instruction. I wrote to the masters of this particular school to make
some further inquiries, and went myself soon afterwards.
It was a hot summer night; and the air of Field Lane and Saffron Hill
was not improved by such weather, nor were the people in those streets
very sober or honest company. Being unacquainted with the exact
locality of the school, I was fain to make some inquiries about it. These
were very jocosely received in general; but everybody