The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1862-01-14 00:00:00

LORD STANLEY ON RAGGED SCHOOLS,-

Lord Stanley, M.P.' presided at the openin of t
Kirkdale Industrial Ragged Schools on W nesday.
His lordship, in opening the proceedings, said
we read what our town missionaries and others similarly
employed have told us as to the number of those in
whom the most elementary notion of religion is absent
—not beeause it has been rejected—(hear, hear)—but
because it has never been presented to them—(lmar,
hear) ;—when we have it stated on good sanitary
authority that, in certain large towns, one half of the
children of the poorest clue die before the age of five :
when another ii.quiry shows that, in • town selected by
way of experiment, the infantine mortality in that class
was three fold what it was among the healthier inhabi-
tant.; when we compare the enormous disproportion of
the death rate between the healthy and what are called
the low quarters of the same city, it YBBllllB only too
clear that whatever may have been done (and much
has been done) to make life dearer to those born to
hardship and toil, there remains yet more to accom-
plish, and it is far too early as yet to boast of the
results which have been achieved. (Applause.) I be-
lieve the practical experience of all who have had to do
with schools of this kind bears me out in saying that
of the boys and girls taken here, and at other schools
of the like sort, there is not one in fifty who, if these
schools were not open to them would ever cross the
threshold of any other. (Applause.) Then comes the
inquiry--does the school answer its purpose? Does it
show • satisfactory return for the outlay of toil and
labour and money upon it? That question is best
answered by a simple statement of facts. There are
now in attendance 360 children, and it is confidently
expected that the number will soon reach 500. The
schools themselves will hold 700: The buildings and
fittings have cost in round numbers £3,000, the land
being given; and the annual outlay per head is from
twenty to twenty-two shillings, in which is included
net only the cost of construction, but also that of
supplying to about 100 of the number one meal • day.
I think, therefore, the management cannot be charged
with waste : and what has been the result? Thirty of
those children now under teaching, snd likely
to do well, were habitual street beggars, whom,
in all human probability, • few year. of that
mode of life would have rendered permanently
unfit for steady application to any honest pursuit.
Others are either orphans or worse than orphans, chil-
dren of criminal parents, to whom, unless rescued, crime
would have become hereditary profession. Although
the school is not yet five years old many have left it,
and are now in situations, conducting themselves well;
and though it is too early to obtain much positive
evidence as to the change which the school has effected
in the neighbourhood, I will cite one instance, that of a
working man (a tailor by trade) who, having watched
the working of the school, and judging of it by his own
knowledge, has, in a spirit of self-sacrifice, snore honour-
able, because more costly, than the easy liberality of the
rich, givei, to it besides other assistance his free and
unpaid services as a teacher in his own business for one
day in every week. (Cheers.) Policy ought to show us
the importance of disproving by our action the accusation
which rises even too readily to the lips of patient
poverty, that the rich know nothing and ear, little for
the sufferings of the poor. And lastly, there is a motive
powerful with some of us beyond all these,
not powerless I trust with any, a motive
motive to which standing here I shall only faintly
allude—a motive founded on the belief that wealth is
only • temporary trust, that poverty is only a temporary
trial, that the largest material resources involve the
heaviest moral responsibilities, and that service rendered
to the humblest and ineanest of mankind is rendered
to the Author of our common being. (Loud ap-
plause.)
The Rey. Canon Stowell and other gentlemen wins.
quently addressed the meeting.
His lordalsip then proceeded to a new free public play-
ground (entitled the Stanley Public Playground) the
site for which was given by his father, the Earl of
Derby, and which has been fitted up with gymnastic
and other apparatus by Mr. C. P. Melly, of Liverpool.
Lord Stanley formally opened the ground, and after-
wards the members of the Liverpool Athletic Club went
through • variety of gymnastic feats.

those