The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-07 00:00:00

TVAREHUUSEIIf EN A VD CLERKS' ,SCHOOL

in sTtiht eu
tfiooini r twha
sane
enl ievberrastaerdy
odni e nTehru
rosfdat
the London Tavern. The chair was taken by
byise v7ncienlignatt
Charlesaud c Ie
rDk Dickens, k esne sh, c Esq.,spoke who,
as
i n proposingfollo ws : the.....
L toastad i
e s
of the evening, "prosperity to the Warehousemen
fewa and gmeinntue,
l etms
to
o the now
causesolicit
o f y
oyuoru
ar
sl
e attentionm biiri g forp.
toge-
ther—the main ant real object of this evening's
gathering ; for I suppose we are all agreed that the
motto ofthose tables is not "Le us eat and drink,
for to-morrow we die ; ' but " Let us eat and
drink, for to morrow we live." (Cheers.) It is
because a great and good work is to lire to-morrow,
and to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to live a
greater and a better life with every succeeding to-
morrow, that we eat and drink here at all. (Cheers..
Conspicuous on the card of admission to this dinn e)
is the word " Schools." This set me thinking thi, r
morning what are the sorts of schools diet I don'tlike.
I found them, on consideration, to be rather nume-
rous. I don't like—to begin with, and to begin, like
charity, at home—l don't like the sort of school
to which I once went myself—(laughter)—the re-
spected proprietor of which was by far the most
ignorant man I ever had the pleasure to know—
(laughter)—one of the worst-tempered men perhaps
that ever lived, whose business it was to make as
much out of us, and put as little into us, as possible
—(great laughter)—and who sold us at a figure
which I remember we used to delight to estimate as
amounting to exactly 21. 4s. 6d.. per head. (Laugh-
ter.) I don't like that sort of school, because I don't
see what business the master had to be at the top
of it instead of the bettom, and because 1 never
could understand the wholesomeness ofthe moral
preached on the abject appearance and degraded
condition of the teacher?, who plainly said to us
by their looks every day of their lives, "Boys,
never be learned ; whatever you are, above all
things be warned from that in time by our sunken
cheeks, by our poor pimply noses—(laughter)—by
our meagre diet, by our acid beer, and by our extra-
ordinary suits of clothes—(roars of laughter)—of
which no human being can say whether they are
snuff-coloured turned black, or black turned snuff-
colourele-(hlughter)—a point upon which we our-
selves are perfectly unable to offer any ray of en-
lightenment, it is so very long since they were uu-
darned and new." (Continued laughter'.) I do
not like that sort of school, because I have never
yet lost my ancient suspicion touching that curious
coincidence that the boy with four brothers to come
always got the prizos. (Great laughter.) In fact,
and in short, I du not like that sort of school,
which is a pernicious and abominable humbug alto-
gether. (Hear, hear.) Again, ladies and gentle-
men, I don't like that sort of school—a ladies'
school—with which the other school used to dance
on Wednesday, where the young ladies, as I look
back upon them now, seem to me always to have in
new stays and disgrace—the latter concerning a
place of which I know nothing at this day, that
bounds Timbuctoo on the north-east—(laughter)—
and where memory always depicts the youthful en-
thraller of my first aflections as for ever standinc,
against a wall, in a curious machine of wood,
which confined her innocent feet in the first
dancing position, while those arms, which should
have encircled my jacket—(great laughter)—those
precious arms, I say, were pinioned behind her by
1 an instrument of torture called a backboard,
fixed in the nianner of a double direction-post.
(Hear, hear.) Again, I don't like that sort of
school of which we have a notable example in Kent,
which was established age% ago by worthy scholars
and good men long deceased, whose munificent en-
dowments have been monstrously perverted from
their original purpose, and which in their distorted
condition are struggled for and fought over with a
most indecent pertinacity. Again, I don't like that
sort of school—and I have seen a great many such
in these latter times—where the bright childish
imagination is utterly discouraged, and where those
bright childish faces which it is so very good for the
wisest among us to remember in after-life (hear,
hear)—and when the world is too much with us,
early and late—are gloomily and grimly scared out
of countenance ; where I have never seen among
the pupils, whether boys or girls, anything but
little parrots and small calculating machines.
Again, I don't by any means like schools in
leather breeches, and with mortified baskets for
bonnets, which file along the streets in long melan-
choly rows, under the escort of that surprising '
British monster—a beadle—(great laughter), whose
system of instruction, I am afraid, too often pre-
sents
that happy union of sound with sense of which -
a very remarkable instance is given in a grave re-
port
of a trustworthy school inspector, to the effect
that a boy, in great repute at a school for Lis learn-
presented on his slate, as one of the ten com-
mandments, the perplexing prohibition, "'Thou
shalt not commit doldrum." (Laughter.) Ladies
and gentlemen, I confess also that I don't like those
schools, even though the instruction given in them
be gratuitous, where those sweet little voices, which
ought to be heard speaking in very different accents,
anathematise by rote any human being who does
not hold what is taught there. Lastly, Ido not
like, and I did not like some years ago, cheap dis-
, taut schools, where neglected children pine from
year to year under au amount of neglect, want, and
youthful misery far too sad even to be glanced
at in this cheerful assembly. (Hear, hear.) And
now, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you will
permit me to sketch in a few words the sort of
school that I do like. (Hear, hear.) It is a
school established by the members of an industri-
ous and useful order, which supplies the comforts
and graces of life at every familiar turning in the
road of our existence ; it is a school established by
them for the orphan and necessitous children of
their own brethren and sisterhood ; it is a place
giving an education worthy of them—an education
by them invented, conducted, watched over ; it is a
place of education where, while the beautiful his-
' tory ef the Christian religion is daily taught, and
while the life of that Divine Teacher who himself
took little children on his knees is daily studied,
no sectarian ill-will nor narrow human dogma is per-
mitted to darken the face of the clear heaven which
they disclose. It is a children's school, which is,
at the same time, no less a children's home—a
home not to be confided to the care of cold or igno-
rant strangers, nor by the nature of its foundation;
in the course of ages to pass into hands that have
as much natural right to deal with it as the peaks
tf the highest mountains or with the depths of the
sea, but to be from generation to generation ad-
ministered by men living in precisely such homes
as those poor children have lost—(cheers)—by
men always bent upon making that replace-
ment such a home as their own dear children
might find a happy refuge in if they themselves
were taken early away. And I fearlessly ask you,
is this a design which has any claim to your sym-
pathy 7 Is this a sort of school which is deserving
of your suppart ? This is the design, this the school
whose strong and simple claim I have to lay before
you to night. I must particularly entreat you not
to suppose that my fancy and unfortunate habit of
fiction has anything to do with the picture I have
just presented to you. (Hear, hear.) It is sober
matter of fact. The Warehousemen and Clerks'
Schools, established for the maintaining, clothing,
and educating of the orphan and necessitous chil-
dren of those employed in the wholesale trades and
manufactures of the United Kingdom are, in fact,
what I have just described. These schools for both
sexes were originated only four years ago. In
the first six weeks of the undertaking the young
men, of themselves, and quite unaided, subscribed
the large 'sum of 3,0001. The schools have been
opened only three years ; they have now on their
foundation thirty-nine children, and in a few days
they will have six more, making a total of forty-
five. (Cheers.) They have been most munificently
assisted by the heads of great mercantile houses,
numerously represented, 1 am happy to say, around
me, and they have a funded capital of almost
14,0001. This is wonderful progress, but the aim
must be still upwards, the motto always "Excelsior."
(Cheers.) You do not need to be told that five-
and-forty children can form bat a very small pro-
portion of the orphan and necessitous; children of
those who have been entrusted with the wholesale
trades and manufactures of the United King-
dom ; you do not require to be informed
that the house at New-cross, rented for a small
term of years, in which the schools are at present
established, can afford but most imperfect accom-
modation for such a breadth of design. To carry
this great work through the two remaining degrees
of better and best, there must be more work, morel
e co-operation—more friends, more money.
ors stud
be the friends, and give the money. (Gle
laughter.)
The subscriptions amounted to upwards of 2,4001.

AT PARIS.—IiEETING
"the 16th November, will
—the Scientific Club—of
nl
id down at the monthly dinner
jcoluubrn;altso.
which the basis was a.
Ob Pe TofpNgevn Ee‘Nd‘ Tei onri tl jii:Si
sOc 1: NTejwi Monday,gclllußb
cnftraelloftlitheePnaerwi,
ThhLshe, editors
however,
held by
will be soon added the most distin-
guished fo
roma itthoersce
w savants of Paris. By a novel arrangement,
which may be considered as the most fortuitous part of
the
scientific
w
the scheme, there will be held a meeting every Monday
evening, where inventors will be at liberty to develope
their ideas. Then,by the initiative aid of the press, and in
opposition to those prejudices and that red-tapism which
still rule our academies and learned societies, there will
be less apprehension for useful and important inventions
being neglected and despised. If these weekly meetings
bad been held before, surely Fulton would not have
carried his invention to the United States, neither would
a Frederic Sauvage and Cort have died insane or heart-
broken,—Communicated by Dr. Lotsky.