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

WAREHOUSEMEN A ND CLERKS' SCHOOL

The fourth anniversary dinner of this excellent
institution was celebrated on Thursday evening at
the Loudon Tavern. The chair was taken by
Charles Dickene, Esq., who, in proposing the toast
of the evening, "Prosperity to the Warehousemen
and Clerks' School," spoke as follows :—Ladies
and gentlemen—l now solicit your attention for a
few minutes to the cause of your assembling toge-
ther—the main and real object of this evening's
gathering ; for I suppose we are all agreed that the
motto of these tables is not "Let us oat 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 live 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 dinne)
is the word "Schools." This set me thinking thier
morning what are thesortsofschools that I don't like.
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 2/. 4s. 6d. per head. (Laugh-
ter.) I don't like that sort of school, because I don't
see what business the master bad to be at the top
-of it instead of the bottom, and because I 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-
coloured—(laughter)—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 un-
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 prizes. (Great laughter.) In fact,
and in short, I do not like that sort of school,
which is a pernicious and abomin Able humbug alto-
gether. (Hear, hear.) Again, ladies and gentle-
men, I don't like that sort of school—a tidies'
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 affections as for ever standing
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 behiud her by
an instrument of torture c tiled a b tckboard,
fixed in the manner of a &Allele direction-post.
(Hear, hear.) Again, I don't like that sort of
school of which we have a notable example is Kent,
which was established ages 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 chil 'ish
imazinatiou 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 (hew,
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 girl., anything but
little parrots and smlll 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 otten pre-
sents that happy union of sound with sense of which
a very remarkable instance is given in a ;rave re-
port of a tru-tworthy school inspector, to the effec
that a boy, in great repute at a school for his barn

ing, presented on his slate, as one of the ten cem-
manditientq, the perplexing prohibition, " Thou
shalt not commit doldrum." (Laughter.) Ladies
and gentlemen, I confess also that I don't like those
school, even ugh the instruc'ion given in them
be gratuitous, where those sweet little voices, which
outset 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-
tant school', where neglected children pine from
year to year cinder an amount of neglect, want, and
youthful mi,ery far too sad even to be glanced
at iu this cheerful ess.,mbly. (Hear, hear.) And
now, ladies and gantleinee, 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 el', ry familiar turning in the
road of our existence ; it is a school established by
them for the orphan and nece sltous children of
their own brethren and sisterhood ; it is a place
giving an education worthy of them—an education
by them invented, conducted, w itched over ; it is a
place of education where, while the beautiful his-
tory of the Christian religion is daily taught, and
while the life of that Divine Teacher who himself
took little children ou his knees is daily studied,
no sectarian nor narrow human dogma is lyr-
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 foundaition,
in the course of ages to pass into hands that have
as much natural right to deal with it as the peaks
of the highest I-maintains or with the depths of the
sea, but to ba from generation to generation ad-
eyed 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 ? 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 Clerk,'
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 tho 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, arid 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, I 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 but 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-cror,s, 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
of better and best, there must be
rmeionraeinwinaekd,emgroerees
bcoe-oupleerfartiieonnd—s
(Cheers and
,manodregfiriveentdhse,
mmoorneeym. y. Then
laughter.)
The subscriptions amounted to upwards of 2,4001.

TILE " CLUB SCIENTIFIQUE " AT PARTS.—MEETING
OF INVENTORS.—On Monday, the 16th November, will
be opened in Paris a new club—the Scientific Club—of
which the basis was laid down at the monthly dinner
held by the scientific editors cf all the Pari journals.
These editors will form the centre of the new club ; to
which, however, will be soon added the most distin-
guished savants of Paris. By a novel arrangement,
which may be considered as the most fortuitous part of
the scheme, there will be held a meeting every Monday
evenin!, where inven',ors will be at liberty to develope
their ideas. Then ,by tie initiativ3 aid of the press, and in
opposition to those prejudices and that red-tapism which
still rule our academics and learned societies, there will
be less apprehension for useful and important inventions
being neglected and despised., If these weekly meetings
had 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-
brk-Jken,— Communicatcd by Dr, Lotsky,