wicked; abandoned of all help but this; speeding downward to destruction; and
UNUTTERABLY IGNORANT.
This, Reader, was one room as full as it could hold; but these were only grains in sample of
a Multitude that are perpetually sifting through these schools; in sample of a Midtitude who
had within them once, and perhaps have now, the elements of men as good as you or I, and
maybe infinitely better; in sample of a Multitude among whose doomed and sinful ranks (oh,
think of this, and think of them!) the child of any man upon this earth, however lofty his
degree, must, as by Destiny and Fate, be found if at its birth, it were consigned to such an
infancy and nurture, as these fallen creatures had!
This was the Class I saw at the Ragged School. They could not be trusted with books; they
could only be instructed orally; they were difficult of reduction to anything like attention,
obedience, or decent behaviour; their benighted ignorance in reference to the Deity, or to any
social duty (how could they guess at any social duty, being so discarded by all social teachers
but the gaoler and the hangman!) was terrible to see. Yet, even here, and among these,
something had been done already. The Ragged School was of recent date and very poor; but
he had inculcated some association with the name of the Almighty, which was not an oath,
and had taught them to look forward in a hymn (they sang it) to another life, which would
correct the miseries and woes of this. The new exposition I found in this Ragged School, of the
frightful neglect by the State of those whom it punishes so constantly, and whom it might, as
easily and less expensively, instruct and save; together with the sight I had seen there, in the
heart of London; haunted me, andfinally impelled me to an endeavour to bring these
Institutions under the notice of the Government; with some faint hope that the vastness of the
question would supersede the Theology of the schools, and that the Bench of Bishops might
adjust the latter question, after some small grant had been conceded. I made the attempt; and
have heard no more of the subject from that hour.
The perusal of an advertisement in yesterday's paper, announcing a lecture on the Ragged
Schools last night, has led me into these remarks. I might easily have given them another
form; but I address this letter to you, in the hope that some few readers in whom I have
awakened an interest, as a writer of fiction, may be, by that means, attracted to the subject,
who might otherwise, unintentionally, pass it over.
I have no desire to praise the system pursued in the Ragged Schools: which is necessarily
very imperfect, if indeed there be one. So far as I have any means ofjudging of what is taught
there, I should individually object to it, as not being sufficiently secular, and as presenting too
many religious mysteries and difficulties, to minds not sufficiently prepared for their
reception. But I should very imperfectly discharge in myself the duty I wish to urge and
impress on others, if I allowed any such doubt of mine to interfere with my appreciation of the
efforts of these teachers, or my true wish to promote them by any slight means in my power.
Irritating topics, of all kinds, are equally far removedfrom my purpose and intention. But, I
adjure those excellent persons who aid, munificently, in the building of New Churches, to
think of these Ragged Schools; to reflect whether some portion of their rich endowments
might not be spared for such a purpose; to contemplate, calmly, the necessity of beginning at
the beginning; to consider for themselves where the Christian Religion most needs and most
suggests immediate help and illustration; and not to decide on any theory or hearsay, but to
go themselves into the Prisons and the Ragged Schools, and form their own conclusions. They
will be shocked, pained, and repelled, by much that they learn there; but nothing they ccm
learn will be one thousandth part so shocking, painful, and repulsive, as the continuance for
one year more of these things as they have been for too many years already.
Anticipating that some of the more prominent facts connected with the history of the Ragged
Schools, may become known to the readers of The Daily News through your account of the
