Ninth annual report of the St. Mary Abbott's, Kensington, Church of England District Visiting Society / with some account of the different societies subordinate or affiliated to it

by Anonymous

PAROCHIAL NURSERY, IN GREAT GROVE HOUSE.

This establishment consists of two good sized airy rooms, in a quiet part of the town, fitted up with cradles, mattresses, and other articles of infantile furniture, for the reception of babies, whose mothers are engaged in daily employment. A small yard or playground is attached, where the children old enough to run alone may take their exercise without any fear of the dangers incidental to the streets. The charge of this infant family is confided to an experienced matron, who with the assistance of a competent nursery-maid, conducts the affairs of her Lilliputian kingdom to the satisfaction of the many parents interested in its prosperity. During the past year, the attendances of infants have reached the startling number of 2788, being 286 beyond those recorded in the last Report. The payments for their safe keeping have exceeded £20, while the reduction in expence to their mothers is calculated at no less amount than £278 16s.

To all who, in watching over the helplessness and innocence of infancy, have learnt how delicate is the constitution, how difficult is the rearing of a child, the Committee hopefully commend the cause of these babes of toil. To rescue them from the evils of a careless tending; to preserve them from disease engendered by deleterious cordials, administered by ignorant and impatient guardians to hush their cries; to insure them the common blessings of light and air, of cleanliness and warmth, is essentially a mother’s charity. Nor will the lady, surveying with a grateful heart, the commodious arrangement of the apartments of her little ones, have her sense of gratification, in bending over the cradle of her son and heir, diminished by the recollection that she has been instrumental in procuring for the offspring of others, some amongst those comforts so abundantly bestowed upon her own. And if, as is presumed, our boys and girls are taught, in advancing youth, to set apart, on principle, a certain percentage of their allowances for purposes of Christian love, where will they find an object for their sympathies more in unison with their age and feelings than one devoted to the reception of children far younger and more feeble than themselves?

At the age of two years, the infants are transferred to one of the three Schools of the District. Of these, that in Church Court, which, as the feeder of the central National School, has enrolled upon its books about one hundred and fifty scholars between the ages of two and seven years, receives the great proportion. The rest, for the most part, are absorbed by either the Jennings’ Buildings or the Gore Lane School, each of which possess a prescriptive right to mention in these pages, not only from the grants they have severally obtained, but from the position they hold in the Parochial organization.

JENNINGS’ BUILDINGS,

is a purlieu of the town, leading out of the High Street, and is the chosen settlement of the Irish Romanists. It consists of a series of courts and alleys which, for closeness and filth, are probably without a parallel westward of St. Paul’s. Being a cul de sac, unlighted, irregularly paved, and indifferently supplied with water, its best disposed inhabitants find it difficult to cultivate the habits of civilized life. The majority give the matter up, and seek in alcoholic and other stimulants, an antidote against wretchedness, malaria, and disease. Nowhere are the evils of overcrowded chambers more apparent. Single rooms frequently shelter two, and even three families. Its choicest district exhibits a return of forty families to eighteen houses; of one hundred and sixty persons, exclusive of lodgers, sleeping in thirty nine rooms. The entire population, inclusive of Palace Place, must exceed one thousand five hundred souls. Prior to the erection of the present School, it was impossible for ladies to penetrate its recesses. The Police entered its retreats in couples. In 1847 the work of reformation commenced; since then a steady progress has been made. At first, the school was emphatically a ragged school; its scholars were literally running wild and half naked in the streets; they outraged alike propriety and decency. Gradually, a change has been wrought. Cleanliness and obedience are rule, where formerly dirt and turbulence prevailed. Gifts of serviceable clothing to the elder and most regular pupils of both sexes have introduced some appreciation of tidiness and self-respect. Above all, the systematic visitation of its Ladies’ Committee and their friends, has been productive of most humanizing effects. Slight attempts are recognizable, on the part of the residents, to render their locality less decidedly objectionable. They have, at least, before them a higher standard, which a few are endeavouring to reach. The teaching of the children has thus reacted on the mothers; and though from the constant importation of fresh immigrants the battle must be fought uphill, there can be but little doubt on which side the victory will rest at last. But with the Homeric hero it is fair to wish for light. Granted the day and the contest must be successful. It is the ignorance of the Irish, that is the nurse of their misery; lighten this darkness, and as the clouds of superstition and prejudice roll away, whatever germs of good, and they are many, now lie undeveloped in their hearts, will blossom beneath the genial rays of knowledge, and bring forth fruit in season. Already thirty children have gone from this school to earn their own living in the states of life to which it has pleased God to call them; and if in their different situations they are practising, as the reports of their employers testify, the virtues of honesty, sobriety, and industry, of gentleness and modesty, there can be no undue assumption in attributing this happy issue far more to discipline and precept, than to nature or example.

The average of attendances during the past year is about sixty-five, though this number has, at times, been considerably exceeded. The expenditure for rent, books, master, &c., is £114, of which only £61 is obtained by regular subscriptions. But it most assuredly becomes all who have at heart the interests of Scriptural religion, who desiderate the spread of Gospel Light, and love the truth as it is in Jesus, to combine in strengthening by both personal and pecuniary aid, an Educational Institution, abundantly blessed in the rescue of many children from heathenism, vice, and crime. It is planted in a Missionary Field of no ordinary importance; stretched before our very doors, almost as much untilled and unsown as the sterile wastes of Paganism. One isolated spot it has, whence all that is green and refreshing in its barrenness proceeds—its District School. Shall its vegetation wither for lack of Alms and Prayers to water the young and vigorous shoots?

Nor has the attempt to extend the National System of Education to the Eastern portion of the Parish proved less satisfactory.