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 cm 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, includhig, 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 jocosity received in general; but everybody knew where it was, and gave the
right direction to it. The prevailing idea among the loungers (the greater part of them the
very sweepings of the streets and station houses) seemed to be, that the teachers were
quixotic, and the school upon the whole "a lark". But there was certainly a kind of rough
respect for the intention, and (as I have said) nobody denied the school or its whereabouts, or
refused assistance in directing to it.
It consisted at that time of either two or three—Iforget which-miserable rooms, upstairs in a
miserable house. In the best of these, the pupils in the female school were being taught to read
and write; and though there were among the number, many wretched creatures steeped in
degradation to the lips, they were tolerably quiet, and listened with apparent earnestness and
patience to their instructors. The appearance of this room was sad and melancholy, of course-
-how could it be otherwise!—but, on the whole, encouraging.
The close, low chamber at the back, in which the boys were crowded, was so foul and stifling
as to be, at first, almost insupportable. But its moral aspect was so far worse than its
physical, that this was soon forgotten. Huddled together on a bench about the room, and
shown out by some flaring candles stuck against the walls, were a crowd of boys, varying
from mere infants to young men; sellers of fruit, herbs, lucifer-matches, flints; sleepers under
the dry arches of bridges; young thieves and beggars—with nothing natural to youth about
them: with nothing frank, ingenuous, or pleasant in their faces; low-browed, vicious, cunning,