of the house, the extent of its funds, and above. all, the object of the experiment (which is to produce a practical mode, in which the advantages of education may be universally extended to poor children at a very moderate expense) have made those funds, which in some parts of England, would not have been adequate to the sustaining of a single master, with one insulated pupil, the means of clothing ninety children, and of extending the blessing of education to two hundred and forty, and of supporting a Sunday school for the additional number of one hundred more children.

The visitor should be prepared to enter school rooms, apparently too small for the number of scholars; but yet without any sensible inconvenience attending them, while they are regularly cleaned and ventilated.—He must expect to see a number of children, many (except on Sundays) in mended, and some in torn apparel; but if he will attend the progress of the school, though he will not perceive any forced and immediate change in children who

The Sunday Schools are occasionally diminished in numbers by a circumstance, by which in effect they are promoted and encouraged; the vacancies in the day schools being preferably supplied from the most deserving children of the Sunday schools.

have been so long neglected, yet he will view with pleasure their advancement in cleanliness, decency, and order; and his observation of the progress which he sees making, will probably induce him to give credit for something having been already done.

The effect of the Thursday's examination, which continues from nine to one o'clock, in giving energy and activity to the children's minds, is very striking. In the last instance in which I attended it, there were two hundred and twenty children, ranged in eleven rows in the pews, in front of the clerk's seat, which was occupied by Mr. Neeves, the master; the two mistresses being attending in the side aisles. One row, consisting of rather more than twenty children, stood up at a time: The employ ment of that morning was the church catechism; divided into short queries, and attended with explanatory observations, and questions, on the master's part. When each child had been examined in its turn, another row stood up, the attention of the children having been previously relieved, by their all singing a verse or two of some psalm or hymn.

On another day, they were employed in reading the 6th chapter of St. John's Gospel,

accompanied with similar questions and explanations,* addressed to them in such a manner as to fix their attention, and to improve their understanding. A lady, who has several schools under her protection, was so much struck with the manner and effect of this examination, as to request Mr. Neeves to endeavour to prepare a written specimen of it, in order that the experiment might be tried in her own schools.

It is to the very general establishment of parish schools in Scotland, and to the power thereby given to parents to obtain the essential part of education at a moderate expense, that the Scotch are indebted for a very valuable part of their national character. "North Britain," (says a Scotch writer,) "struggles with many "natural disadvantages;-the climate is cold, "the sky seldom serene, the weather variable, "the mountains bleak, barren, rocky, often "covered with snows, and the general appear"6 ance of the country very forbidding to strangers; yet by an early attention to the education "of youth, to form good men and good citizens, "she has uniformly maintained a high character

This account was written in 1803. The plan and management of the school has been considerably varied since that time.-1st March, 1809.

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among the nations; has been always deemed "an excellent nurse of the human species; "and has furnished not soldiers only, but "divines, generals, statesmen, and philoso"phers, to almost every nation in Europe."

Feb. 4, 1803.

No. VI.

DAY SCHOOLS IN THE BOROUGH.

IN 1798, Mr. Joseph Lancaster opened schools * in the Borough road, Southwark, for the instruction of one hundred children of mechanics, in reading, writing, and arithmetic. They are now attended by five hundred scholars, and preparations are making for two hundred more. Only thirty are children of persons in a more independent situation. The peculiar modes of instructing the children, of exciting emulation by rewards, and of preserving order by division of attention, are such as merit a more detailed account than the plan of our work admits. This detail, however, the reader will find in a publication of Mr. Lancaster's, intitled, "Improvements in Education, as it re66 spects the industrious Classes of the Community."

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In order to produce a stimulus to exertion, the master provided about two hundred leather. tickets, gilt and lettered, according to relative * Reports, No. CXVIII.