“The general proportion of instruction in the several classes is somewhat advanced since last year. In the first class of fifty boys, averaging eleven years old, and three years in school, twenty-five work a sum in practice, 9860874, at £35 10s. 6½d., with ease; the others compound rules and proportion. Write exceedingly well from dictation, and some good abstracts. Geography, grammar, and etymology well taught. Read History of England fluently, and are acquainted with the facts. Learn linear drawing, and music on Hullah’s method. The lower classes are advancing in due proportion to age and time in school. The religious instruction throughout is good.
“Generally speaking, methods of teaching are those of the National Society.”
“Girls: instructed in two rooms, and four classes, by mistress, assistant and monitors. From seven to thirteen years old; fifteen, between twelve and thirteen.
“The manners of the girls are very pleasing, and the school is in good order.
“All can read from easy narrative, to the third book and History of England. Eighty read with ease in the third book. Good secular reading books in all classes. Writing on paper, ninety in books, and from memory, neat and accurate. Ciphering to compound rules, with practical questioning. The first class learn geography and grammar very well; the religious instruction in all classes is remarkably good. Needlework is very well taught; thirty can fix a shirt.”
“Infants, one hundred and eighty. Conducted by a mistress; assistant employed in managing, not in instructing the children. A handsome, well-arranged school, with abundant apparatus. All infants between two and six years. The infants are cheerful, orderly, clean, and fond of their mistress. It is peculiar to the school that the mistress teaches all the children to read, &c., without monitors. The result is that they are more advanced than in good infant schools conducted on the usual system; seventy read in books; twenty very well; and twenty write sentences on slates, twenty, words; and thirty, letters; all elementary subjects are well-taught. Children are well acquainted with scriptural history, and give more intelligent answers on meaning of words and sentences than is usual in good schools. The mistress is an able teacher, and devoted to her duties.”
Mr. Cook adds, “I have recommended many clergymen to visit these schools, as among the best and most complete in London.”
And he concludes this part of his report by saying, that “in addition to these nine schools, it is intended to erect others in the neighbourhood of the new church, which will make altogether provision for the instruction of 2000 children, in a population of 25,000. The present schools cost nearly £1,300 per annum.” The expenditure of these schools varies, as a matter of course; and this sum must not be taken as the present expenditure. The new schools will cost £400 per annum, in addition to this sum; and I find that in 1847–48, the total expenditure of St. John’s schools for the year, amounted to £591; the income being made up of £336, subscriptions, donations, and collections; £140 paid by scholars in the form of “school pence;” and £115 from other sources. By another report I find that the sum paid by the children at Paddington Green, amounted in the year to £130.
All these schools have received, and continue to receive, grants from the Parliamentary Fund. For the year ending thirty-first of October, 1850, I find the schools on Paddington Green, had an award of £135 10s.; Bayswater, of £67 10s.; and St. John’s, of £65 10s., “to apprentices and teachers, for their instruction;” with an additional grant of £9 7s. 2¾d., to St. John’s for “books and maps.” The Government grant for the All Saints schools was £180; the cost of the site, £640, and the building of these schools amounted, altogether, to £2,173 7s. 0d.; which sum was raised by donations and subscription from the inhabitants of the parish, with the exception of the grant just mentioned, and one hundred pounds given by the Bishop of London. But before these new schools were erected, the population of Paddington numbered upwards of 46,000; and 1816, is the actual number of scholars on the books of the twelve schools at the present time, (January, 1853).
From the “Blue Book,” which contains the answers to Questions on education, printed by order of the House of Commons, twentieth March, 1835, we learn, that the first infant school in this parish was commenced in 1833; that it then contained fifty children of both sexes, and was supported principally at the cost of the individual who established it, but partly by the payment of two-pence per week from the parent with each child. We are also informed by this inquiry, that a school for fifty females was established at Bayswater, and supported by Mrs. Sutcliffe, of Orme-square. From this “Blue Book” we also learn, that to each of the four “day and Sunday National Schools,” and to two of the Dissenters’ Sunday schools a lending library is attached, a most excellent provision which has been extended since that period to the other schools; but the books are obtainable only upon the scholars conforming to certain regulations.