The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-22 00:00:00

LORD DERBY WV RAGGED SCHOOLS.

At the laying of the foundation stone of an industrial
, ragged school and church at Kirkdale, near Liverpool, on
Saturday, the Earl of Derby said—" I believe that in the his
tory of the world no country already possessed of so large a
population has increased with the same rapidity that this
country has in the course of the last half century. This is
the more remarkable, because that rapid increase which has
gone on from day tl day —and I may say from hour to hour
—is .the effect not only of the excess of births over deaths
within the country, but of the excess of the births against
the deaths and beyond the deaths—that constant stream of
emigration which is constantly being poured forth from our
redundant population to lay the foundation of future em-
pires, and to add to the population and to add to the wealth
of our widely-extended colonies and of other friendly States.
(Cheers.) Nor is there any more certain test than the rapid
increase of population of the physical well .being of a coun-
try ; and those who can look back for the same lengthened

period that I can, or even those who can look back for a
much shorter period of years, must be well aware that, to -
gether with that great increase in the numbers of our popu-
lation, there has been a corresponding increase in the physi-
cal comforts of the great body of the people. (Hear, hear.)
I do not say—far from it—that there is not among the
working-classes much undeserved suffering ; but this I do
say, that, taking the middle and working classes as a whole,
it is inconceivable, except to those who have actually wit-
nessed it, what a change has taken place in their condition,
in their comforts, in their clothing, in their food, and in all
the habits and conveniences of life within the course of the
last 25 or 30 years. We have in this well-being of our country
great cause for congratulation and thankfulness to Him who
is the giver of all good. But if we turn from the physical well-
being of the population to their moral progress and their reli-
gious advancement, I doubt whether we have equal cause to
congratulate ourselves in that point of view. The truth is,
and the truth ought to be spoken—we are at this moment
suffering from the supineness and from the apathy of our

ancestors. Years ago the vast increase of the population

was looked upon, no doubt, with triumph and with satisfac-
tion, as adding to the power and wealth of the country ;

but it was looked upon without a due appreciation of the
greatest moral and social and religious consequences which
must flow from an increase of an ill-educated and irreligious
population. I do not say that this has been the case univer-

sally. I do not say that it has been the case in many of the
country districts where a great increase of the population

has not taken place, and where there is little room for the
exercise of those kindly sympathies between the upper and

lower classes which are the cherished bonds of union laetween

the various classes in this country—(hear) ; but it is in

the great towns, it is in those great hives of industry to
which our redundant populations flock for employment, to
the influx of population and the increase of buildings, with

regard to which you have only to turn your eyes around
you and survey what is going on in this neighbourhood,
which has caused this population to increase beyond the
possibility of the means of religious and moral superintend-
ence and instruction. In these great towns there is little
room, comparatively speaking, for the social intercourse
between high and low, rich and poor. The immense size
of the parishes, and of the townships, and the immense
numbers of the population bailie efforts of the most zealous
ministers, whether belonging to the Established Church or
to those numerous Dissenting sects of whom, widely as I
differ from them, I wish to speak with all gratitude and all
respect for their exertions in the cause of education and of
religion. (Cheers.) But here a population, I say has
grown up which has mocked at all our efforts, which has
defeated all our endeavours, which has outgrown all our
means, moral and pecuniary ; and, although it is
quite true that the present generation is awaken-
ing to a painful and an active consciousness

of this great evil, and of the necessity of ap-
plying a remedy, our difficulties in doing so
are much the greater inasmuch as a longer time has elapsed,
and we are not combatting. now the origin and the first
seeds of a disease, but we are contending against a well-
established and systematic disease, which is gaining strength
almost exceeding that which we can apply as a remedy to
prevent it. It is true, again, that from these causes the
vast population in our great towns, and in the suburbs
of those great towns, is growing in a state of practical
heathenism—l am afraid I must say, in the indulgence of
the grossest sensuality, and of that intemperance which
statesmen, judges, and magistrates all combine in stating
to be the predominant cause which fills our gaols, and
wastes us with a criminal population. (Cheers.) It is true
that for the criminal population of this country a milder
and wiser system of punishment is prevailing. We have
learned to substitute a better discipline for those Bangui-
nary scenes which not fifty years ago loaded our scaffolds
with criminals, and relieved the population at the expense
of a vast number of unhappy criminals' lives. Some per-
sons, indeed, may believe that the present system runs in
the opposite direction, and that this great indulgence is a
portion of our criminal discipline ; but, be that as it may, the
object which is uniformly held in view now with regard to
the criminal population is not indiscriminating vengeance,
but it is, if possible, the improvement and the reformation
of the convict. (Applause.) But it is painful to say that,
so far as adult criminals are concerned, so long as those
remain who have been long practised in the habit of vice
and crime, the best directed efforts and the wisest discipline
are comparatively insufficient to restore them to a
better state of mind ; and too few, comparatively speak-
ing, of those advanced in life who are subjected to this dis-
cipline are really, permanently, and in the heart brought
to a true sense of their guilt, and to a sincere and
earnest reformation. But with regard to the younger
classes, those who are not hardened in crime, those who
are seduced by bad example and encouraged by idleness
and vicious habits to enter upon the paths of crime, a more
hopeful course is opened, and a more cheerful prospect may
be entertained for those invaluable institutions which, under
the name of reformatories, combine the advantages of penal
confinement with those of a moral and an industrial educa-
tion. (Cheers.) Again, for the poorest and absolutely desti-
tute class of the community the workhouse schools furnish
no contemptible amount of education, of discipline, and of
training. But there is a class of the population untainted
with crime, above the condition of the absolutely destitute
poor, yet below the scale of what may be called decent
poverty, for which neither in criminal reformatories—for
which they are not fit subjects—nor in the workhouse—to
which they either are not admitted or are unwilling to enter
—is any provision made, and who, except by the instrumen-
tality of that of which I am laying the first stone to-day,
must grow up inevitably, from idleness to vice, and from
vice probably to swell the lists of our criminal population.
It is for that portion of the community—who, I repeat, are
untainted by vise hitherto—it is for them that the hand
of well-directed and well-devised charity has contrived
these invaluable institutions—(hear, hear)—in which they
will receive, in the strictest sense of the word, a true,
a moral, and a religious education." (Cheers.) After
alluding to the benefits conferred upon society by
such institutions, his Lordship said— " The object
of all fitting education is to suit the child and afterwards the
man for fitly discharging his duty in the state of life to
which it has pleased God to call him, and fit him to be a
good and faithful subject here, a useful member of society,
and so to live that, through the mercy of God, he shall
enter upon a higher and holier state of existence hereafter.
(Renewed applause.) Wisely, then, you do not in these
schools attempt any very high flight of knowledge with any
very great expanse of science. Wisely, most wisely, do
you devote a very considerable portion of each day, not to
the acquisition of mental knowledge, but to the acquisition
of those habits of industry which are to form the future
• means of subsistence of those whom you are bringing up.
But it is not only that you promise for them future means
of subsistence. Admitted into these schools—in which
they need not blush for the rags in which they are
I clothed, because they see that all are se alike—admitted
into these schools, taught some industrial calling, and at
the same time imbued with moral and religious teaching,

these unhappy children become fresh beings, with
fresh consciences, with fresh feelings, with a knowledge that
they are far different and destined for far higher ends than
ever entered into their comprehension before, and with an
amount of self-respect and habits of useful and happy in-
dustry which will secure them, by the blessing of God,
against all the temptations of those callings upon which
they must enter when they quit the shelter of these institu-
tions. These, then, are the many objects of ragged—more
properly and appropriately called ragged and industrial—
schools for the youthful population in our great towns. T
need hardly say it is an object that commends itself to the
deepest interest of ministers of religion, and to all those who
have at heart the well-being of their fellow-creatures. But
this institution proposes to go much further. I have stated,
and I am afraid it is a lamentable fact, that of those deeply
involved in crime a small portion only are brought back to
habits of industry and of religion. But God forbid that I
should say that there is not a vast proportion of the lower
classes of the population, who have hitherto been wholly in-
different to or alienated from religious things, upon whom
time, opportunity, and example may not perform wonders in
bringing them up to that flock from which in ignorance they
have been wandering, and causing them to form part of that
one flock, in that one fold, under that one shepherd of
the rich and poor alike." (Applause) After alluding to
the accommodation in the school, his lordship continued:—
"It is intended to combine with the education of the
children the religious and moral training of the parents,
and bring together a large portion of the population into a
church free and open to every one, without money and
without price. (Cheers.) Now; it is a remark which has
often been made, and it is one of painful significance, that
even among the respectable portion of the working classes,
of the mechanics of this great country, there is a very largo
proportion who, from various causes, never enter the house
of God—a very large proportion who never know any-
thing of the truths and of the comforts of religion.
Various causes, no doubt, there are for this, which is a
most lamentable symptom of our condition—this total. ab-
sence of a large portion of the population from the service of
God, either according to the principles of the Established
Church or of any dissenting body; but I believe that, apart
from hostility to religion, apart from what is more common
still, absolute indifference and ignorance, there are two pre.
vailing causes which tend to drive front our churches even
the best disposed and most respectable portion of, I will not
say our pauper, but of the poorest of our population. The
one is in the appropriation of the greater portion of the seats
iu our churches, and elm all the best seats, to the richer