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Concluding Observations, explaining the utility of

interesting the Parents, and of attempting to

reform their manners through the medium of

institutions for educating their children.—

These details given to induce Philanthrophic

Individuals in Great Britain and Ireland to

adopt a similar cheap mode of Education.

-1000 children may be educated at the ex-

pense of 40 fed and clothed on foundations.

-Much money wasted in benevolent de-

signs from incorrect views of the object to be

attained. According to the new system,

120,000 children may be educated at no

greater expense than the 6000 annually as-

sembled at St. Paul's.-50,000 children com-

puted to be reared to an adult state in the

Metropolis, without any education at all 64 to 67

The morals of the inferior classes rapidly de-
clining. The deplorable situation of the ris-
ing generation, if measures are not generally
adopted to instruct them in religious and
moral duties-Its high importance in a poli-
tical point of view-enforced by the present
alarming state of the Continent of Europe-
further enforced as it relates to the national
interest. The vices of the vulgar occasioned
by their deficient education in early life. The
peace of society only secured by the observ-
ance of religious and moral principles.-The
subject pursued.-The incalculable import-
ance of a general System of Instruction for
the Poor-too gigantic for the efforts of
private benevolence-exemplified by an esti-
mate of the probable number of children in
Great Britain and Ireland, who otherwise

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must have no education at all, amounting every year to 1,750,000.-Further enforced by a general view of the criminality of England and Wales, in the year 1805, supposed principally to arise from the want of religious and moral instruction in early life 68 to 78 Observations respecting Pauper Children

1,040,716 individuals relieved in 1803, at the expense of £. 4,267,965.-further reasons deduced from this fact for giving a right bias to the children of the Poor

76 to 78

APPENDIX.

No. 1. Regulations for the general Government of the Free School, in Orchard Street,

Westminster

No. 2. List of President, Vice-Presidents, and

79 to 85

Managers, with Explanatory Remarks 85 to 87

No. 3. Religious Exercises, or Forms of Prayer, making a part of the System of the Education of the Children of the Poor, in the Free School, in Orchard Street, Westminster

88 to 93

INTRODUCTION,

Containing Details respecting the Free School in Westminster, and the Advantages which would result from a General Adoption of the System throughout the Kingdom.

THE promoters of this institution have seen, with the deepest regret, that in what is called the City of Westminster, comprising only two parishes, there are not less at any time than two thousand children, in the course of advancing to an adult state, who are rearing up in the grossest ignorance*-who have no means of

* It appears by the Parliamentary returns of the population obtained in 1803, that in the City of Westminster, so called, comprizing the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John the Evangelist, there are 7502 families, composed of 10,744 males, and 15,139 females, total 25,883. There appears to be nearly three females to two males, but this arises in part from the soldiers being enumerated separately. It has been calculated, that this population includes about 6000 children, at an age to receive education; of these 4000 are supposed to be sent to different schools, and that the remaining 2000 without assistance must be reared up in the grossest ignorance either of religious or moral instruction. This observation applies to every poor neighbourhood in the metropolis-and the number of children so circumstanced may be about 50,000.

receiving religious or moral instruction in their early years-who have in general the worst possible examples daily before them, and who, as they advance to maturity, become victims to those vices, which not only entail misery and ruin upon themselves, but render them bad and noxious members of society, instead of becoming good servants, and labourers, or useful handicrafts; and there is no doubt of the youth of both sexes, in every district of the metropolis where the inferior orders of society are congregated, being nearly in the same deplorable situation.

The City of Westminster, however, in some respects, differs from the other districts, inasmuch as the children of soldiers are very numerous, and the Asylum at Chelsea, notwithstanding its extended scale, has been found insufficient to compass more than a part of the whole; and but for this institution a considerable number must be reared to maturity in vice and ignorance*.

* It appears from a calculation made early in 1802, that in the three Regiments of Guards, there were 2250 wives, and about 3300 children, one third of which, or about 1100 are supposed at all times fit for school. In the whole army it is calculated, that there are about 54,000 children

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