struction, that J. C. hearing there was a design of enlarging the class, went to the Teacher and said that he was anxious that two of his old associates should be admitted, that they might be saved from ruin. He, and the other two, offered to divide their three rations into five, and thus share their food with those for whom they were anxious to obtain the same advantages. They were reminded by the teacher that in this case they would go hungry themselves. "We do not mind that, sir," was the answer, we are used to it;" and the arrangement was made as they desired, nor ever after repined at. Since that time the industrial class has been enlarged to fourteen; no instance of dishonesty in regard to the goods necessarily placed in their hands has occurred, and C―, now respectably married, was for some time one of the superintendents of a portion of the boys. His strict honesty was

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fail, or whether they shall be multiplied. I cannot express too much affection for those excellent persons with whom I am here associated. Their zeal, their perseverance, and that, mark you, carried on in obscurity, where their efforts are only known to God and their own hearts, -these seek from you a hearty co-operation."

Speech of Lord Ashley, delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Ragged School Union Society, June,

tested very sufficiently by an accident; for on carrying home some of the work the boys had done, he was paid by mistake a sovereign instead of a shilling ;-before he got home he discovered it, and, returning immediately to the house he had just left, gave back the money. The same sort of results may be seen in the reports of the different ragged schools in London and elsewhere; affording on the whole a strong presumption that juvenile profligacy is generally consequent upon the misconduct of the parents; and that few, if the advantages of a regular industrious life were offered them, would be slow to embrace them.* "Five years' experience in Ragged and Industrial Schools," says the teacher already so often mentioned, "has most fully convinced me that the human family is one, and that the difference of character which exists, is the effect of circumstances. At least two thousand children have passed through our Ragged

* I may perhaps here be allowed to repeat a singular anecdote, although it has already been published. A notorious thief asked to be allowed to go over one of the Ragged Schools in London, and then said, "I shall subscribe a sovereign annually, for if these schools had been in existence some years ago, I should not have been what I now am."

School since its commencement: I have watched and questioned many of them, and have invariably found that the cause of their distress and misery may be traced to the parents, more especially the mothers. We have taken some of the most destitute out of this Ragged School, and have had as great a diversity of character, temper, and organization, as it is possible to conceive. We have had those lawless creatures who have been chained, whipped, confined in the black hole, and subjected to every species of punishment without effect. Some of them have told me that they never intended to stop when they came to the school. . . . . . I have made myself thoroughly acquainted with all their secrets, and there is, I believe, the greatest confidence between us they are all convinced that I would make any sacrifice to make them happy, and all they study is to know my will, and that is their law. There are only one or two gentlemen who can stoop low enough to reach these poor ignorant wretches. I am a great advocate for the cultivation of the intellect, but let our English legislators, school-masters, and Christian ministers, combine with their laws and theories, the exhibition of a Christian character, and live and act as the author of Christianity did."

.....

"One great difficulty is to get agents to carry out the work we cannot hire, nor buy faith

... If you get the affections, the work is nearly done, and you may mould them as you please. Supply them with the necessaries of life, a bed to lie on, water to cleanse themselves, a fire, and a clean place to sit down in, good conversation, and interesting books; and then, as surely as spring succeeds winter, and harvest follows seed time, so surely will you see the moral wilderness become a fruitful garden. We have seen it, and we do see it."

Of the few gentlemen who "can stoop low enough," for these wretched creatures, one is known to the writer, and to his kindness, seconding with a longer purse and a higher kind of education, the benevolent efforts of the first teachers, much of the success of the school is owing. He has on various occasions taken a class of the ragged children to his house,* has got his friends to give them experimental lectures on such points of physical science as were within their comprehension, and has awakened in them thus a love of intellectual amusements which will not easily sleep again. After an evening of

There were about twenty-five of them.

this kind, concluded with a song or two, and some conjuring tricks, one of which produced slices of gingerbread for the happy party, one of the boys was heard to exclaim, "This beats all the gaffs !"

Reader, have you ever entered a Ragged School? If you have not, suppose yourself at my elbow, and make a visit to B— Street. You pass through rather a dirty street, and enter then a very dirty alley, near the lower end of which you see a door, and, on entering, find yourself in a clean and comfortable apartment, where from sixty to seventy boys and girls of the most squalid appearance, are assembled in small groups, round several well dressed persons. They are reading or spelling, or perhaps tracing letters or words on their slates. You see among them a sharp eager look, which tells of wits sharpened by necessity: you speak to one; you receive none of the usual homage paid by poverty to riches, but you receive the appellation of "teacher," which is in their mind the noblest they can give; and in a moment, without the least disguise or mauvaise honte, the child will tell you his history, and talk as freely as to an old friend. The gentleman above mentioned, enters; the children are immediately anxious to