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.
THE GORE LANE SCHOOL
has gone on improving in numbers and efficiency since its foundation. For some months, these essentials to prosperity proceeded at an equal march. But, afterwards, the attendance of younger children became numerous enough to interfere with the tuition of the elder. This serious inconvenience was beginning to be felt at the publication of the last Report. However, at the very crisis, the Trustees of the little British and Foreign School at the bottom of the Lane, ingenuously acknowledging the decided preference manifested by the parents of the children for the teaching of the Church, and finding the impossibility of maintaining, with any adequate return, their own establishment, with praiseworthy liberality offered it to the Vicar, under an impression that he might still render it useful, by converting it into an Infant School. Although an assent to this proposal involved an immediate acceptance of liabilities to the amount of £100, the necessary funds were advanced through the Treasurer of the Trust, in the conviction that, when the circumstances of the transfer became known, so great an obligation would not be suffered to rest on the generosity of a single individual. Thus, an Infant School, and playground as well as a Master’s House, are secured to the present Trustees, at a small annual rent of £5. The result has, in a great measure, justified the anticipations of the Promoters of the transaction. The Christ Church Congregation, to which these Schools are peculiarly attached, have partially accepted the responsibility. The whole juvenile population of the Lane avails itself of the opportunities afforded to it. Fifty Infants attend the Lower, one hundred boys and girls the Upper School. Their pence have increased
| from | £1 | 14 | 6 | in 1851, |
| to | £10 | 16 | 4 | in 1852. |
| The Subscriptions from | £18 | 11 | 0 | in 1851, |
| to | £42 | 12 | 6 | in 1852. |
£92 have been contributed in donations, and a new item in the income, arising out of the sale of the girls’ work, [19] returns as the profits for the last six months £2 3s. These are encouraging features of the prospect, but when it is considered on the other hand, that the very large and special expenditure involved in the purchase of the New School, and the reduction of its share in the Collection at St. Mary’s, from £30 to £14 should have fallen in the same year, it cannot be a matter of surprise that the adverse balance of the last account is more than doubled in the present. Whilst, therefore, the Managers would return to those many friends who have assisted them with gifts of clothing, and other prizes, for the pupils, they would earnestly press upon the congregation of Christ Church, and the residents in the Gore, the duty of yielding to the Schools of their Church and neighbourhood, a regular, a liberal, and a conscientious support. It is a pleasure to add that this call has been responded to by several; were all to act in a like spirit, as God has prospered them, there would no longer be an occasion for these appeals.
In passing from the juvenile to the adult members of the labouring classes, the Visitors are bound to keep the same principle in view of helping them to help themselves. Whilst either are capable of so doing, it is the truest charity to withhold all other aid. In children, this is effected by insisting on their receiving an Education adapted to their future prospects: in adults, by fostering providence and forethought. “Frugality,” said Goldsmith, writing to his brother, “in the lower orders of mankind, is true ambition; it affords the only ladder for the poor to rise to preferment. Teach then, my dear sir, to your son, thrift and economy. I had learnt from books to be disinterested and generous, before I was taught from experience the necessity of being prudent.” This homely but difficult truth is becoming year by year more generally acted upon. It influences the whole social body. Insurances on life and against accidents are its forms amongst people enjoying wealth and competence. With others, possessed of smaller, but permanent incomes, the savings’ banks develope its latent energies. Provident funds remain for those who live from hand to mouth. Of these last, there are four in St. Mary Abbott’s, having for their objects the safe keeping of weekly deposits, to be appropriated respectively to Coal, Clothing, Rent, and other minor expenses, at the end of each year.