Commencing only with evening schools, which soon proved insufficient,
the founders established day schools, with classes for exercise and
industrial training: children were sent to our colonies where they
would have a better chance of making a fair start in life; training
ships, cripples' homes, penny banks, holiday homes followed, and
from these again the numerous Homes and Orphanages which entitle us
to call the Victorian Age the Age of Kindness to Children.
Charles Dickens took the keenest interest in the work of the Ragged
Schools. A letter from Lord Shaftesbury quoted in his Life gives a
clear idea of the marvellous work they had accomplished up to the
year 1871:
"After a period of 27 years, from a single school of five small
infants, the work has grown into a cluster of some 300 schools, an
aggregate of nearly 30,000 children, and a body of 3000 voluntary
teachers, most of them the sons and daughters of toil. . . . Of more
than 300,000 children, which, on the most moderate calculation, we
have a right to conclude have passed through these schools since
their commencement, I venture to affirm that more than 100,000 of
both sexes have been placed out in various ways--in emigration, in
the marine, in trades and in domestic service. For many consecutive
years I have contributed prizes to thousands of the scholars; and
let no one omit to call to mind what these children were, whence they
came, and whither they were going without this merciful intervention.
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