The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-06-14 00:00:00

AMICUS

TO .THE EDITOR OF THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD
SIR,—In reply to the gross misrepresentation of a circum-
stance which occurred in this school on Tuesday last, I send
you the following statement, premising that I should not
have noticed an anonymous communication had not the cha-
racter of the mistress who has for 17 years conducted the
school, to the satisfaction of all parties, been involved, and
had not Mr. J. Colquhoun, of No. 12, Clarence-street,
Edge-hill, avowed himself the author of the letter ad-
dressed to you. Mr. Colquhoun has made his statement;
I now make mine, which can be proved upon oath.
Mr. J. C. asserts that there is in the Infant School a place
called " the dungeon"—that the child in question had been
put there for punishment—that one or two years ago the
same thing was done, and the child found apparently lifeless
—that another child was also shut up there—and that, in
short, it is a " system" in the school to lock up children in
" the dungeon." In all this there is not a syllable of truth.
There a'e two class-rooms and a cloak-room connected
with the school. The cloak-room is a small triangular
room, on the same floor with the school, well lighted and
ventilated, but with the door opening inwards against an
acute angle of the room, and when open, cutting off the corner
formed by the angle.
Tuesday afternoon was excessively,
,hot ; four children fell
asleep in the gallery, and one child strayed into the cloak-
room, got into the corner, and fell asleep. It is the duty of
the second assistant to fetch the caps and bonnets out of the
cloak-room at the close of school, and carry them to the se-
nior assistant, who distributes them to the children in the
gallery.
On the afternoon in question this was done by a boy of 8
or 9 years old, who, being nearly blind, is allowed to come
to the Infant School to learn what he can from the gallery
lessons, and such other instruction as his condition permits
him to receive.
This boy says that he did not see the child, which is very
easily accounted for, both from the manner in which the
door shuts off part of the room, and from the circumstance
of the boy's partial blindness. The next morning, at six
o'clock, the child was found sitting in the school (not in the
cloak-room) playing with some doll's clothes, and on seeing
its mother said, " Don't cry, mother, I've got my doll
rags, and don't beat me." It was brought to my house at
eight o'clock, and neither the, child nor the mother were
" distracted," or said anything hich showed that they be-
lieved the accidental shutting up was a punishment. The
mother has since expressed the same to Mr. J. C., in. the
presence of a gentleman belonging to the committee. The
statement that a year or two ago a child was shut up in " the
dungeon," and found in a state of insensibility next morn-
ing, is utterly. false, and without any foundation ; as must
also be the story about J. C.'s servant's brother ; the mis-
tress has been there 17 years, and never shut up a child.
The greatest punishment she uses is to put a child by itself
in the middle of the room. No parent ever complained that
a mark was left on her child; and when this attack upon the
mistress's character was known, nearly thirty parents came
to say how unfounded and wicked they believed it to be, and
that they knew her to be incapable of doing anything of the
kind, but supposed that some enemy had put it in the paper.
The school is now and has been for this year so full, that
more cannot be admitted, and without any considerable in-
crease in the population, has steadily increased its numbers
within three years, from 100 to 140. This fact shows what
the parents think of the school; and I must do the mistress
(who is herself the mother of a family) the justice to say.
that a kinder or more affectionate teacher of infants I do not
know.
To all this the only reply that can be made is that there
was neglect on the part of some one ; that a child ought not
to be locked up in the school and left there. The blame, if
any is due, consists in this, that the cloak-room was nettanar-
rowly examined by one of the teachers, but the cireq
wsUsual)
1 have mentioned will surely prove that this (not
might be omitted withoutblame attaching to any
tnuerally have
what had never occurred in 17 years might Pa
og But it hap-
obeinagnd that
been deemed unlikely to occur on this
event has come to my
pens most fortunately that a eireumsttar;cwhich proves that
knowledge since I commenced thislerts.
e At seven o'clock on
there is no want of care in the teach
the
n,
a singing class met
the evening when this child was
and t
the assistant teacher of
in the adjoining boys' school. . to go into the boys' school,
the infants' school, while waiting .
heard a child cry ; she thought it might be in the infant
school, and sent for the keys ; after she bad done this another