DR. GUTHRIE ON RAGGED SCHOOLS.

New Zealander, Volume XVII, Issue 1569, 1 May 1861, Page 6

DR. GUTHRIE ON RAGGED SCHOOLS.

At. a meeting of the Birmingham Ragged School Conference, held on the 23rd of last January, Dr. Guthrie, in moving the first resolution, made the following remarks :— He moved the confirmation of the resolutions which had been passed at the Conference in the morning. He read the resolutions seriatim, and dilated upon them at great length. He said they did not propose to educate either the upper or middle classes of society, nor the honest, vigorous, and well-doing among the tradesmen and the workingclasses. He believed that the working men of Birmingham would esteem it a bad compliment to be told that they were not able and willing to educate themselves. On the other hand, there was a class at the bottom of the scale, and tiro question was, what was to be done with that class? There was a numerous class in our large tovvns who spend their money, which should go to educate their children, in intoxicating liquors ; and the grand object which ragged schools had in view was to rescue from vice, misery, and crime in this world, and from ruin in the world to come, those who have such parents, or worse, those who have no parents at all. Society did itself a wrong in allowing uneducated children to grow up in its midst. No man or woman was a fit member of a civilized community if they were bred in all the ignorance of a savage; and the man or woman who brought up a family iu a state of savage ignorance, who trained them to lie, to steal, to beg, sinned against the good of society and the welfare of the country. Nobody in that ball woidd allow a man to bring up savage animals and let them run over Birmingham to do what they liked. But what was the man doing who breeds up a family in ignorance and vice; so that they do not know that there is a God in Heaven, or a moral law or anything that binds him to the path of virtue? Why, he was breeding the most dangerous of all animals iu the country: and he would have an injunction to restrain him. (Laughter.) Therefore, he held that it was the duty of society to see that every child within its bounds was educated. Dr. Guthrie then referred to a case which he had seen reported in The Times of that day. A mother was taken before the Lord Mayor of London ; her children were produced in court, and evidence was given that they were most brutally ill-used by the father and mother; that they were starved, and that the ruffian of a father was in the practice once a-week, or more, ol stripping these children of their very rags, and with a powerful whip lashing them until they were covered with blood. Now were they bound to leave children in the hands of such a father, thus condemning these innocent creatures to a life of injury—training them to a life of crime? What was the starving, ill-treated child to do? He must cither starve, beg, or steal; and by-and-by he was brought to the bar of a police office, and charged with crimes which anybody in his circumstances would have committed; charged with crimes he could not help committing, and punished by the magistrate for sins which he (Dr. Guthrie) sad he never did commit. He knew no law ; and “ where there is no law there is no transgression.” Dr. Guthrie then referred to the good effects produced by ragged schools in the city of Edinburgh, giving an interesting account of their operation, and related some humorous anecdotes illustrating the intelligence of the juvenile beggars who frequented the streets before the establishment of those schools. By setting up those schools in Edinburgh, they reduced the number of juvenile delinquents in the town to one-fifth of their original number, and they went to the Government for some assistance. They said to the Government, “ You try to make people better by hanging them.” “ No, it was for these men’s good that they should be hanged,” was said (cheers and laughter); but they (the Government) made others worse ; they put them into cells to turn cranks and treadmills, they tried to make them good by the police, and they swarmed just as before, thick as bees, in spite of it. The Government had never cleaved the streets nor reduced the number of gaol inmates, but ragged schools had done all this ; done what could never have been done upon the old system. (Cheers.) They could never make men good by punishment; and did they think to make these poor children obedient by punishing them in the face of God’s Gospel? He believed it was a failure. Notv, they did not wish to ask the Government to educate their children. If the Government said, “ We will pay you the £2,200 that you spend on your ragged schools in Edinburgh, on condition that you will hand over the school to us,” he would answer, “ K?ep your money.” (Cheers.) The power lay in the Christian kindness they brought to work on these infants, and what they said to the Government was this: —“ If you don't help to educate these children without the prison you must educate them within the prison.” (Hear, hear.) Was it a better thing to let disease rage and ravage in a community and to cure it afterwards than to prevent it entering into the community? But this was the Government way in these days. It was a grand thing to give a man the fever, and then to cure him ; bid it was better to drain and cleanse the town, and prevent the fever from coming. Think of the Government refusing money to save a man’s leg, but giving him money instead to buy a wooden leg when the limb was cut off. (LaughtcJ.) The Government gave much more to reformatory schools than to ragged schools. They gave much more to those who cried out lor refonnetorics than to those who demanded prevention. That might he very agreeable to their English notions, but in Scotland prevention was thought Letter than cure. And not only this, the Government gave .£1,200,000 a-year for education, and how much ofth.it went to ragged schools? “Ohl” some would say, “ Government is a sensible ho ly, anil your ragged schools, as far as schools go, get an immense proportion.” What was that proportion? Why, they put them off with a miserable pittence of £5,000 out of this £1,200,000 to save these wretched children. They gave to every inmate of the reformatory schools Is. per day, and to every child iu the ragged schools half a farthing. (Laughter.) It was the most extraordinary thing ever done. He would not quarrel with it only that the Government give immense sums to those who were perfectly able to educate their own children. The third resolution passed that morning was:— “That the experience of the last IS years has proved that this portion of the population is reached in many districts to a considerable extent and can be effectually raised by ragged and industrial schools; but that olUoolo of thio olaaa, -rrhicb, to be good, involve Iliucll greater expenditure than ordinary schools, cannot he permanently supported in the required efficiency or extended to all the districts requiring them by voluntary aid alone.” Now, as regarded voluntary aid, they had done much by it; and in Edinburgh they had done a great deal; hut they were left in this position—that large numbers of children arc living there who should he iu ragged schools, who would be there only we haven’t the money to pay for them. Look at the case of a poor wretched woman—she is neither a criminal nor has she been in gaol; she is struggling hard for her daily breatl; and what is she to do to educate her children ? Somepeople talk nonsense, and say if you go on feeding as well as teaching you will soon have all the ragged children in the town in your schools. Well, the mother doesn’t care a straw for education; the father cares for nothing but that cursed bottle; and lie sinks his soul in drink, and sc does the mother. They had had the ease over and over again. There were the vagrant and there were the parents. “ We want you to send the child to school.” “Oh, hut we can’t afford it.” And so the child was kept at home, and was sent out to steal and beg, and the father and mother lived on the proceeds of the beggary and thieving. The consequence was they hud the greatest difficulty iu getting children to come to school, and, unless they bridged over the gulf by bread, nothing could be done. Accordingly, they had set up schools. The children came at 7 in the morning—and came in rags; not in decent clothes, for that wouldn’t do; they would go to the pawnshop too soon. The first thing they did was to strip to get a delightful bath ; and then a grand breakfast of porridge and milk. Then came prayers, and a portion of Scripture was read ; then the work ol the school begins, and occupies four hours ol the (lay ; the children learn to read, and to write, and to cipher, and they learn eaipentenng, and boxmaking, and shoemaking. Why all our girls wash their own clothes and mend them, and clean up the house, and rook their own food. Then many of the boys make the clothes for our school and mend them, and a large number of them employ their time in making various other useful articles. Then we have so many hours for play. in fact the children were the pictures ol misery before they came to the school; now there are no children happier. (Cheers.) They come to us at half-past 7 in tbe molding, and a* half-nast 7 at night wc take oil

their school dress and give them back their rags, and they go home—and the rags are not worth the pawning. (Loud applause.) They never kept a child from home unless the house was an infamous den of iniquity, or the parents cruel; for they know that in the bosom of the child God has planted a link of affection, and what they wanted to do was to improve and strengthen that tie ; and they had known instances where these poor children had even carried salvation to their homes But all tliis required money ; it entailed the expense of teaching and of housing not a few of them, and he said they deserved the most fostering protection and help of the Government, And now ho came to the last of these resolutions, but they would very naturally say, “ Von have told us what these ragged boys do in school; now tell us what they do out of school.” Well, they just get on as well out of school as in—they get on in a way wc never expected. AVo fancied that wc might get some fifty out of every hundred that would do well—indeed, we should have been very thankful to have saved fifteen uni of every hundred ivlio might ofiierivise have boon criminals; but, in place of that, wc got —why, I will just take you down to Edinburgh with me to-morrow by train, and you’ll pay your own expenses, mind. (Laughter.) Now ifyou choose to do that, 1 will show you as respectable bootmakers, and shopmen, and clerks —I will show you as respectable men and women, who have come out of our ragged schools, as you will find in any class of the community. (Cheers.) I’ll tell you, now:—AVhcn they were getting up banquets to the soldiers of the Crimea, and to all the grand members of Parliament, we thought we’d give a banquet to our ragged bairns, who had fought as great a battle as any Crimean soldier; and fur harder too. (Applause.) All of a sudden the thing was resolved on ; all of a sudden the thing was done. AVe have them, you know—these ragged school scholars that were - cutting down the forests in America; we have them herding sheep in Australia; we have them in the navy; and —what d’ye think? there was an odd thing in this way; we had a competition among boys in the navy, and tbe ragged school boys carried oil' the highest prizes. (Cheers.) AVe have them in the army, too. Just the other day 1 had in my drawing-room one of my ragged school scholars. “What was he doing there?” you ask. Well, he was just standing beside a very pretty girl (laughter) dressed like a duchess, with an enormous crinoline, and all that. (Loud laughter.) There he was; and on bis breast he carried three medals. (Applause.) He had fought the battles of bis country in tbe Crimea, he had gone up the deadly march to Lucknow, and rescued the women and the children and our soldiers there (cheers), and I was proud of my ragged school boy when I saw him with his honours. (Renewed cheering.) Well, as 1 said, we resolved to give a banquet; we furnished one of our best rooms, and had it brilliant with gas, and laurel, and ivy, and the coral-beaded holly—and the quantity of tea and toast! It isn’t to be told. (Laughter and applause.) AVe just sent away through Edinburgh, and in a day wc got 150, all doing lor themselves. I was master of the ceremonies. Bo J heard a great rush of feet—l was standing at the door, you know, to receive my company—and I could not believe my eyes when I saw the succession of goodlooking respectable young men, and the succession of comely, virtuous-looking, happy young women. (Cheers.) A girl came up smiling, and she said, “You will remember me, Dr. Guthrie. This is my man” (laughter), and then a great, hig, honest-looking, burly fellow came up, and be said “ You will remember me. Doctor. This is my wife.” (Renewed laughter.) And they filled that room. I never saw a more respectable company; and.how they laughed and sang! And we prayed too; we prayed and wc gave them good advice. (Cheers.) I never spent a happier night—no, not in the greatest, noblest house I was ever iu—than 1 spent when I entertained my ragged school children. (Applause.) Well, that is what we have done; and what we have done in Edinburgh has been done in every town in Scotland. We hear of reformatories. I was at Paisley, speaking of ragged schools, a fortnight ago, and the Sheriff’was there, and he spoke too. He said that ragged schools had been the blessing of the tow nof Paisley. They had, he said, built a reformatory to reform young criminals and they could not get a tenant for it—the ragged school at Paisley had caught every child before he went over the precipice, and there was a reformatory “to be let.” (Cheers.) And if the work goes on there will be prisons to he let—the prisons will he in the happy condition that the prison of a town in Fife that I passed through was in. i was passing by the prison, when I heard a fiddle playing, and I asked a man what was the meaning of <i fiddle in a prison. (Laughter.) “Oh,” he sait), “ there’s nobody to put into tire prison, so they have made it a dancing school.” (Cheers and laughter.)