The Press.
London, England, 1857-01-10 00:00:00

RAGGED SCHOOLS.

Loan GREY, yesterday week, presided at the annual
meeting of the Newcastle Ragged an 1 Industrial
Schools. His lordship, in the course of his address
on the occasion, unpin the following remarks upon
the advantages of these excellent institutions :

Can there be any charitable undertaking which has
stronger claims upon our warmest sympathies ? Is it not
fearful to think that children are left to grow op neglected
and untaught, or rather instructed in what is evil—
children who are formed by nature and are fitted to be
trained up to become useful and happy members of the
community, and to be prepared for that higher existence
for which their Almighty Creator intended them ? I am
sure there is no right-minded man who can for a moment
consider how great is the evil, how urgent the necessity of
applying a remedy, who does not feel that it is the bounden
duty of all, so tar as our means and ability extend, to pro.
mote this attempt to correct this crying evil. And even
if the higher motives of a sense of duty and charity
were wanting, we ought to be induced to do so by the
lowest consideration--that of our own interest. Need I
tell you how great and how just an alarm has lately been
created in the public mind by the unusual prevalence of
crimes of great atrocity; need I tell you how much all
classes of society starer from the multiplication of crimes
of that description ; and need I further observe to you
that, while the attempt to repress these crimes by any
punishment hitherto devised has as yet met with very par-
tial success, there is every reason to believe that some con-
siderable check, at all events, will he opposed to this
increasing evil if some means can be found by which it
shall be prevented that the criminals who now crowd
our gaols should obtain annually fresh supplies from
neglected children who are educatrd to the profession of
crime.

DR. GurimiE, at a recent ragged•school meeting
in Edinburgh, gave the following interesting account
of his labours and his pupils:—

When I began the work of ragged schools in Edinburgh,
I found some 2,0(X) or 8,0:H) children playing about the
streets. These children were the seedlings and the young
plants that afterwards grew into hardened criminals. They
were begging by thousands; they were up every morning
like a cloud of locusts, and spread themselves over the
city. You had them at every corner. What I said was
this—" You can't expect the parents to send these children
to school, because they have no money to pay for them ;
you can't expect the parents to send them to school, be-
cause the children have to support themselves, and more
than that to support a drunken father or mother, and feed
the parents with the fruit of their mendicancy." I thought
that if I could set np a school, and in that school not only
educate the children but clothe and feed them, and, where
the home is very bad, house them—for we never like to
separate parent and child in Scotland if we can prevent it
—we will cure the evil. We opened our ragged school, we
gave the children food—you are near enough Scotland to
know what porridge is—we give them porridge in the
morning, soup for dinner, and porridge in the evening, and
it would do any man's heart good to see the potent powers
of porridge. When we began our ragged schools they
were swarming with juvenile beggars. ion will walk the
streets of Edinburgh now for miles and hours, and you
will not see a juvenile beggar at all. The Government is
tiow to give us Ws. a year for every child of the abandoned
and criminal class that we feed and educate, and you may
depend upon it this is the true cure for our present evil
Education on the one hand and temperance on the other

MR. THACKERAY this week has continued his series
of lectures at the Marylebone Institute. The room
on these occasions has been fully attended. Mr.
Thackeray's lectures are amusing, but, in the opinion
of persons well able to judge, Mr. Thackeray has
merely skimmed the surface of the period he treats.
His matter wants depth and research. The lectures
are to be repeated next week.
PROFESSOR FARADAY delivered his fifth lecture on
Attractions at the Royal Institution on Tuesday.
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales was
present.
THE LECTURE SEASON OF THE ARCHITECTURAL
ExoisrrioN was opened on Tuesday evening by
Professor Donaldson, who chose for his subject
"The Architectural Magnificence of Rome." The
sacred and secular buildings of the ancient Romans
formed the divisions of his subject, and, in speaking
of each, Professor Donaldson expatiated warmly on
their grandeur and beauty, and took occasion to con-
trast the temples, the Forum, the Coliseum, and the
Circus with the puny and comparatively insignificant
buildings of London. For illustration of the lecture
there were numerous drawings and plans and a large
map of Rome, as well as several beautiful photo-
graphs. The audience nearly filled the large room in
which the Architectural Exhibition is held.
THE ODONTOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON held
their first meeting on Monday evening last, at :12.t,
George-street, Hanover-square, when a large muster
of the leading practitioners of dental surgery met
together. Some preliminary bus-iness having been
gone through, Mr. Cartwright delivered an able ad-
dress, in which, after glancing at the progress of
dental surgery during the last century, he took a
review of the present position and prospects of the
profession, and strongly urged the necessity of a
liberal education in conjunction with the special qua.
lification required for those who would practise this
department of surgery with credit and success. He
then referred to the circumstances connected

THE PRESS.

with the presentation of a memorial to the
council of the College of Surgeons by cer-
tain members of the profession (including
himself), stating the reasons which led to the adop-
tion of that proceeding. The advisability of maintain-
ing the connection of dental with general surgery
was strongly insisted upon, and it was held that a
voluntary separation from the College of Surgeons
could not be but disadvantageous to the body of den.
tists. The great need of a society formed on the
model of other scientific societies as a point of union
amongst the praztitionera of dental surgery, and as a
medium for the communication of experience and
the discussion of professional subjects, was pointed
out, and the president concluded by expressing his
conviction that there objects would ha fully attained
by the establishment of the Odontological Society.
He then urged upon the members the necessity of
cordial co-operation in furthering the purposes of the
society by the contribution of papers of interest, and
by attendance at the meetings. Several interesting
preparations illustrative of dental pathology were exhi-
bited, and there was a good display of instruments
and appliances interesting to the profession.

SIR HENRY RAWLINSON delivered a lectnre on
Thursday night in St. Martin's-hall of considerable
length, and of a very erudite character, on " Recent
Oriental Discoveries in relation to the Bible." The
Lord Mayor presided. The three points on which
Sir Henry mainly argued were the ethnology,
geography, and history of the country of Babylon.
He showed how the slab-stones and other monu-
ments found in Palestine by himself and Eastern
explorers verified the statements in the Bible, and
mentioned a number of singular remarkable coin-
cidences between the Assyrian discoveries and the
accounts in Scripture. To assist him in his lecture
the walls of the hall were hung with numerous
engravings, descriptive of the landscape scenery of
Palestine and Syria, and on the platform was a model
of an ancient temple and a slab with the cuneiform
characters.

ih.