The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-26 00:00:00

empire than we have hitherto possessed. Gentle-
men, I beg to wish you and the town you repre-
sent a continuance of your present prosperity.
His lordship and Lady Russell then left to st-
and the annual meeting of the ragged schools.
MEETING OF THE RAGGED SCHOOLS.
The meeting was held in the Music hall. Lord
J. Russell presided, supported by Lord Wham-
e'tffe the Hon. F. S. Wortley, the Mayor of Shef-
fi Pye Smith), Aldermen Dunn, Hoole
Vickers, and Rll3 ou ; Revs. T. Sale, D.D. (vicar),
J. Manners, W. Mercar, J. F. Whitty, C. Collier,
C. Larom, and J. P. Paton ; Messrs T. B. Holy,
W. P. Milner, C.Cammell, F. Newton, and others.
The proceedings having opened with prayer,
Mr. ELLIS, the secretary, read a report, from
which it appeared that since the establishment of
this institution about 1,69 i destitute children had
instructed in it ; that the managers possessed
evidence that the schools had been a great blessing
to many of those children; that some had bean res-
cued from prison, from beggary, and from wicked
cocepanions, and are now growing up as useful
nie.nbors of society—earning a honest livelihood.
Lord WHARNCLIFFE moved the adoption of the
)(Tort, and expressed the pleasure it afforded him
to see gentlemen of not only his own but all
other religious bodies in the t Avn, except the
the Roman Catholics, assembled to join in promo-
ting e lucat;on among the poorer classes of the corn-
muni,y, and rescuing the young of this town from
lives of infamy. (Cheers.)
The Rev. T. SALE, D.D., seconded the resolution,
and urged the necessity of caution in confining the
charity to the really destitute, otherwise it might
become a serious injury rather than benefit, by
undermining the independence of those who were
able to pay for the education of their children.
L :rd J. RUSSELL, was received with loud cheers.

He a %id,—Before I put this resolution to the meet-
ing, and the collection takes place which is to follow
thereupon, I beg leave to address a few observa-
tions to you upon this and other institutions of a
similar kind. I have had great pleasure in accept-
ing the invitation which was given to me by Alder-
man Hoole to come here to preside at this meeting.
I accepted the invitation because I think it is of
very great importance that in our large towns
means such as and similar to these should be
adopted for the purpose of promoting our progress
in social and religious knowledge. It may be said
with regard to a country parish that there are per-
sons who are by their fortune and property bound,
while others are by law bound and entitled, to con-
sider all the concerns of that parish ; to take into
their view those who are desitute, as well as those
competent to maintain themselves, and thus to see
that education is given to all, as well as the means
of sustaining life. But when we come to the large
towns—and I would now more especially revert to
the great metropolis of this country—we find that
the employments are so diversified, and the em-
pleyers frequently in such a position of isolation
from the poorer classes, that there comes to be
almost a community, I would call it, of young and
poor persons, who run the utmost danger of becom-
ingcriminals, and thus of losing all their hopes of well
doing in this world and of salvation in the next. It is
too apparent that many of those classes alluded to in
the report—persons who have lost both their parents,
and whose other relatio: s are, perhaps, living at a
great distance ; those whose parents have been sent
to prison for criminal offences ; and many of those
one of whose parents has deserted them, and the
other is unable to support tl a n—there are among
classes of this kind many young persons who wan-
der about the streets exposed to every temptation,
and who are thus liable to fall into ViC3, and be the
petits of the country in which they reside. T re-
member seeing in the gaol, at Newgate, two young
boys who had been committed for some small offence
of larceny. One of them, when questioned as to
bow he maintained himself in food and lodging, said
be went into the streets and held gentlemen's horses,
or did any odd job which any one would give bim,
and thus procured twopence for his bed and the
money requisite to buy food. But upon being
stake I how he did in the chines of not obtaining
sufficient in. that way, be replied, " I get it as I
can." We naturally conclude that this " getting
it as I can " was none other than pilfering the pro-
perty of others, which he found in the streets
where his wanderings took him. It is very easy to
lament this state of things—it is still more easy to
blame the persons who commit these offences. But
I really do think it is the duty of society not only
to lament and blame, but also to endeavour to
remedy the evil. It is a reproach to a Christian
nation that there should be boys and girls running
about who have no means of sustenarace, no one to
teach them theirduty to God and their neighbours,
and without the means of any honest employment
by which to earn their bread. Then there comes
tae question—a vast and mighty question, upon
which men of the greatest intellect in former times
and in the present times have employed their un-
derstandings, endeavouring to promote measures
which they thought conducive to the good end—
!tamely, the question whether by any system of poor
t7these cases. Hit:ierto there have been fourel
lunumerable practical objections to any sufficient or
satisfactory course. Of. course Ido not advert to a • y
particular rade; but all men agree that there
must be a limit to the '
assistance given b the State in
that respect. If, again, we look
at the question of a
fi itional system of
education, we find the utmost
d ilbreuees prevail, and,
"lona' other cliffere.ll.ces,
that which is perhaps the foremosti,
the religious
4 fliculty of iuduc ng persons of various denone,ina-
tions of Christians to agree, in the first place whe
thnr religious instruction should be given
at all, and
in the next, to what extent that in-truction should
b.) given. For my part, I cannot say that I feel the
douLta which many have felt upon this subject. In
my own mind I c( rtainly have come to the conclu-
ai in that the relig:ous part of man, as I may say
thar, that faculty which induces us to seek religious
censJlatiou, and which I believe is part of our na-
ture, perhaps the bestpartofit, cannot be neglected
in any system of education And likewise, although
we have not tiitherto come to any agreement upon
the subject—although our differences aro still so
w de that there are no means of adopt:ng a DJ. )asure
which will be generally satisfactory, nay belief is
that if such rev. gentlemen as the one who has just
Spoken, and those who have charge of the e lucation
of young children, would attend more to religion
and less totheelogy—if they would teach that which
is really the religious sentiment, and leave the chi.-
, ferences of creed to be afterwards explained by the
ministers of the different denominations when the
children are of riper age to understand those differ-
: ences—l believe if the attempt was made really to
found education upon the cultivation of the religi-
ous sentiment, upon a belief in the Being who is