Crime and Education - Page 2

extent and scope of their depravity; and
that there is no escape or chance for them in any ordinary
revolution of human affairs. Happily, there are schools in these
prisons now. If any readers doubt how ignorant the children are,
let them visit those schools and see them at their tasks, and hear
how much they knew when they were sent there. If they would know
the produce of this seed, let them see a class of men and boys
together, at their books (as I have seen them in the House of
Correction for this county of Middlesex), and mark how painfully the
full grown felons toil at the very shape and form of letters; their
ignorance being so confirmed and solid. The contrast of this labour
in the men, with the less blunted quickness of the boys; the latent
shame and sense of degradation struggling through their dull
attempts at infant lessons; and the universal eagerness to learn,
impress me, in this passing retrospect, more painfully than I can
tell.

For the instruction, and as a first step in the reformation, of such
unhappy beings, the Ragged Schools were founded. I was first
attracted to the subject, and indeed was first made conscious of
their existence, about two years ago, or more, by seeing an
advertisement in the papers dated from West Street, Saffron Hill,
stating "That a room had been opened and supported in that wretched
neighbourhood for upwards of twelve months, where religious
instruction had been imparted to the poor", and explaining in a few
words what was meant by Ragged Schools as a generic term, including,
then, four or five similar places of instruction. I wrote to the
masters of this particular school to make some further inquiries,
and went myself soon afterwards.

It was a hot summer night; and the air of Field Lane and Saffron
Hill was not improved by such weather, nor were the people in those
streets very sober or honest company. Being unacquainted with the
exact locality of the school, I was fain to make some inquiries
about it. These were very jocosely received in general; but
everybody knew where it was, and gave the right direction to it.
The prevailing idea among the loungers (the greater part of them the
very sweepings of the streets and station houses) seemed to be, that
the teachers were quixotic, and the school upon the whole "a lark".
But there was certainly a kind of rough respect for the intention,
and (as I have said) nobody denied the school or its whereabouts, or
refused assistance in directing to it.

It consisted at that time of either two or three--I forget which--
miserable rooms, upstairs in a miserable house. In the best of
these, the pupils in the female school were being taught to read and
write; and though there were