The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-04 00:00:00

CITY OF LONDON 3rIDDLE-CLASS SCI-1-00L.

Middle-class schools—proprietary or otherwisee-are now
coming into existence all over the land. Some particulars
of the Middle-Class School founded some time since in
the City of London, may therefore be interesting, as
showing how these matters are dealt with in the metropo-
lis, where the best wits are supposed to live. The Daily
News supplies some facts. If the educated reader, says
our contemporary, subtracts the years ho spent in acquir-
ing Latin and Greek from his course of youthful study,
he will readily understand how much practical instruction
can be imparted in a school in which those two subjects
are tabooed. It is upon this principle that the Middle-
class School contrives to include such a vast
variety of subjects in its course, and to turn
out its pupils so thoroughly prepared for the active busi.
ness of life. None of them remain there after 15 years of
age. There is no rule to this effect, but City clerkships,
with salaries of £3O a year to start with, are easily obtain-
able then, and the money is too valuable to be refused.
Accordingly the lads have to be educated, not merely
up to ' reed-winning point, but thoroughly, in
a far shorter time than has hitherto been deemed
practicable in our English systems of study. The
practical character of the instruction is seen even
during the most cursory inspection of the school,
and it is impossible to visit it without being struck
with the influence it is evidently destined to exercise
upon the scholastic institutions of the country. It is now
three years since a meeting was held at the Mansion House
to discuss and devise a scheme for the establishment of a
system of middle-class education in the metropolis.
Through the energy and liberality of the merchants and
bankers of the City more than £40,000 was subscribed--
chiefly in donations of £l,OOO each. It was then decided
that a school should be opened with as little delnyas possible
in the centre of London; that the education should be such
as should prepare the scholars for the industrial and
commercial work of life, and that the charge for such
education should not exceed 4s. per annum. Tempo-
rary premises in Bath-street, Finsbury, were accordingly
opened at Michaelmas 1866, and the results from that
time till this have been eminently satisfactory. There
are now more than 700 boys at the school, and, were there
necessary accommodation, this number could readily be
Increased to 1,000. This enlargement will not be practi-
cable, however, until the new schools in course of erection
are completed. The boys now receiving education are
drawn from a stratum of society ranging from the lower
section of the middle-class to the upper portion of the
artisan class—in short, from the section of society which
nas furnished pupils to the numerous " private academies
for young gentlemen," down to that which had been
driven to seelc its highest education in the national
schools. In addition to obtaining at an almost nominal
charge an education far more solid and substantial than
can possibly be gained at either of the representative
establishments quoted, the boys at the Middle-class
School enjoy the advantage of being under a
master who is independent of parents' whims,
and whose object is not to make things smooth
and pleasant, and at the end of every half-year
to dismiss each scholar with a prize, but who has
the strongest inducements to render his scholars really
efficient, and thus to win a name for his school. The sub-

jects taught are English, reading, writing, arithmetic,
geometry and perspective, history, geography and elemen-

Ary astronomy, algebra, technical instruction, including

mechanism and practical architecture, drawing, French,

physical science, physiology, botany, and music.

comprehensive Est proves what can be done with boys'
time and founders' money when those expensive luxuries,
the classics, are dispensed with. Nor is this omission
the only innovation sanctioned in the Bath-
greet schools. The time-honoured, but otherwise
unsuitable text-book of geometry, Euclid, has been
publicly discarded, almost for the first time in England,
though for years it has on the Continent taken its place
among the good but obsolete authors of antiquity. On
the other hand, great attention is paid to drawing in all
its branches. As in many art schools, the study of it is
made to go hand in hand with that of writing. Free hand,
object, and geometrical drawing are first taught. To these
arc subsequently added model drawing, shading, drawing
from memory, prospective and architectural drawing ; and
thus the study is at once made a mental exercise and a
manual practice.

INSUFFIENCY OF THE METROPOLITAN
POLICE.

A deputation, consisting of about one hundred gentle.
men connected with the local government of the metro-
polis, waited upon the Right lion. H. A. Bruce, the Home
Secretary, to present a memorial, respecting the inefficiency
of the metropolitan police, adopted at a recent meeting
Mr. Harvey Lewis, M.P., Mr. John Locke, M.P., and
Mr. liolms, M.P., introduced the dt putation.
Professor MARKs having addressed the Home Secretary
at some length in support of the memorial,
The Homh SECRETARY said that in receiving the depu-
tation he was rrepared to hear a discussion and to profit
by it. He had heard statements and considerations well
under the immeamae ..
It was not expected, lie supposed, that he sliould eldsi:6lY
an opinion then upon each of the points raised. The
memorial had stated many defects in the metropolitan
police which really existed. There was a great deal of
exaggeration in them owing to misconception. -One of
the charges was that the force had assumed too
much of a military character. That was quite
possible. No one would deny the necessity of a
certain amount of drill, in order to enable men who
were called on to act in great numbers, to act with
that cohesion which was so valuable in dealing with
a mob. But there was a great misconception as
to the amount of time devoted to this matter. He had
made inquiries, and found it did not amount to more than
one hour a week, at certain seasons only. Last year, for
19 weeks there was no drill at all, whilst the remainder
of the year the maximum was one hour per week. With
respect to one suggestion made as to the gentleman to suc-
ceed Sir Richard Mayne, all he would say was, that the
choice would be directed by the conviction that the gentle.
man who was best acquainted with the habits of criminals
' was best able to guide the detection and suppression of
crime, and best able to preserve the public peace. Sug.
gestions had been made as to the mode of dealing with
crime. One of them was that a piece of land should be
purchased to be used solely as a depot for criminals. He
doubted very much whether the 'gentleman who made
the suggestion was at all acquainted with the horrors
of a penal settlement. It would be an improvement
to have a system by which the convicts would be trained
to join the ranks of honest labour at the end of their term.
Transportation, under these circumstances, had been not
only an advantage to the country, but to the man him-
self ; but transportation without any hope of joining the
ranks of honest men at the end of the period of confine-
ment would be a very different thing. He thought, there-
fore, they would perceive the inexpediency of renewing
transportation, except to colonies where the majority
were persons of good character. They had to see what was
the best discipline to expose criminals to, in order that they
might prove the least possible injury to society. He believed
that during the last few years the ticket-of-leave system
had been conducted with great wisdom and with a regard
to its real object. He considered the system itself a good
one. It inspired a hope in the convict that by good beha-
viour he might shorten his period of confinement. Their
speaker had adverted to the measures taken, and about to
be taken, for the prevention of juvenile crime, and he
quite agreed with him that it was a very important ques-
tion. It was not, however, merely an affair of police, it
arose mainly from the defective state of national educa-
tion. It was alleged that there was a great in-
crease of crime. If, however, they looked back
thirty or forty years, they would find that, when the
population was one-third less than at the present time, the
amount of crime was as great as at the present day. There
had been no real increase of crime. Crime was on the
the decrease. For instance, he found that with respect
to vagrants, thieves, and receivers, whilst in 1867 there
was an increase of 141 as compared with 1866, if they
compared 1867 with 1865 they would find a decrease in
favour of 1867 of 2,473. Since 1865 the number of known
thieves and receivers had decreased by 369. At the same
time no one could deny that there was an enormous amount
of crime in the country, and the attention of the Govern-
ment was directed to it. They had already under their con-
sideration the best means to make the police force more
efficient and of making the laws more stringent and more
effective. They were not inclined to shew false humanity
to the criminal classes, as theyknew that it would be false
not only to society but to the criminals themselves.
He
trusted, therefore, that the deputation would suspend
their
judgment for a few mouths, until the. Government had
arrived at some conclusion on the stn,ject.

Another fatal explosion near Newcastle is re-
ported. A boiler explcded yesterday at Usworth Colliery,
the property of Mr. George Elliot, 31. P. A man named
William Benjamin waslltd, and four others seriously in-
jured. Benjamin was Mown over a joiner's shop, a distance
of sixty yards.

PAUPERISM AND CRIME IN THE METROPOLIS.—
An important conference will be held ou Thursday next,
under the auspices of the Association for the Prevention
of Pauperism and Crime in the Metropolis. Persons
interested in the administration of London charities,
official and private, are invited ; and the conference will
take place in the rooms of the Society of Arts. The
Archbishop of Canterbury has consented to preside. The
object of the conference Is not to find fault with what Inv
have been clone or not done In the puts but to take
frlvnillY °mod Pig to futuro immoytuitut.