visiting Newgate, which must communicate a genial glow of sympathetic pleasure to every heart which is capable of being excited to interest in the true welfare of its species. The following case is singularly touching:

"Mary Connor was the daughter of respectable parents, and received some valuable impressions of a religious nature during her early years. Whilst still very young, she was seduced by a wretch, who soon afterwards abandoned her. Her friends refused to give her any countenance; and being totally destitute and reduced to the greatest misery, she joined those bands of loose and wicked women, by whom the streets of London are nightly infested. Sinking lower and lower in the scale of depravity, she gave herself up to drunkenness and other degrading vices, and was committed to Newgate at the commencement of the year 1817 for stealing a watch. There, she was amongst the foremost in submitting herself to the controul of the committee, and was selected by her companions as the fittest person amongst them to fill the office of schoolmistress. Encouraged and instructed by those who had now the care over her, she abstained in a most remarkable manner from her former evil habits, and for fifteen months, during which time she acted as schoolmistress, she was very assiduous in her duties, and was never known, on any occasion, to infringe any one of the rules established in the prison by the committee. In the spring of 1818 she was attacked by a cough which terminated in a consumption. A free pardon was obtained for her, and she was removed to a situation in the country, under the care of one of the visitors. She was however so deeply sensible of her own unworthiness, and so uneasy at being the means of any expense to the Association, that she insisted on being placed in the workhouse of her own parish. There she evinced much patience, humility and quietness of spirit; and placing her whole reliance on the merits of her Saviour, she soon afterwards died in the hope full of immortality."

Earnestly do we hope, that the exhortations of the author thus enforced will not be in vain. If throughout the country committees to visit and reform the prisoners were to become general, the evils of captivity would be lightened, numbers would be softened into virtue, and kindness would become the means of producing reform, instead of misery operating to deepen crime. While the members of these truly benevolent associations will be performing a great service to humanity in general by extending right views of the design and tendency of prison discipline, they will have the more immediate satisfaction of relieving individual distresses, of consoling the wretch and the forsaken, and of breathing peace and hope amidst the gusts of passion or the agonies of despair. "The blessing of them that are ready to perish, and of HIM that perisheth not, will rest for ever upon them!"

Proceedings of the British and Foreign School Society, extracted from the Reports of 1817, 1818.

IN reviewing the labours of the British and Foreign School

Society for the last two years, it gives us pleasure to record, what time has abundantly proved, that as education is extended, crime. and vice are lessened; and in support of this fact, were it doubted, abundant evidence could be brought forward from the correspondence of this society, to show in what various ways reform has been produced. In many places where schools have been established, the very habits of the district have been changed, cleanliness and order have taken the place of the reverse, and the moral and religious habits formed in early life have tended to supplant those vicious propensities in neglected youth, which too often draw them into hardened crime. Whence then, it may be inquired, proceeds that increase of crime, which our courts of justice report?-Not from education, we may confidently say; not, from an increase of knowledge. No; crime if unrestrained begets crime, and we have shown in former pages of our journal, what fertile nurseries of vice our prisons are, and how little our penal code is calculated to check the increase of crime. These causes, with the influence of bad associations, and the demoralizing effects of cruel war, we venture to conclude, have produced this alarming increase of crime; whilst the extension of education, we are assured from numerous Reports on that subject, has tended to prevent more dreadful consequences.

We have now but rarely to contend with that narrow-minded prejudice, which denied the right of instruction to the lower orders of society; our countrymen seem generally convinced how necessary to the welfare of society it is, that every poor child should be taught to read: It is the means that are now wanted to accomplish the object. Great exertions have been made in various directions to establish schools, and there are few of the principal towns in the nation, which have not the advantage of a school on one system or the other; yet we will venture to assert, that in this enlightened and benevolent country, there are still tens of thousands of the rising generation growing up in total ignorance-many thousands in the metropolis, and in the populous manufacturing districts, as well as in the thinly inhabited agricultural counties, are still unprovided for. We should be glad to see a portion of the public revenue annually set apart for

this purpose, at least for a few years to come; and we doubt not, such a measure would meet the approbation of all parties. Private charity has already been extended in an unprecedented degree, and we see no other means of effecting the general edu cation of the poor, short of government aid.

But we have extended these introductory remarks full far enough. We will now proceed briefly to state what has been done at home and abroad, towards the accomplishment of the grand design of universal education.

Former Reports have alluded to the heavy debts this society laboured under; but we are glad to find, that by the exertions of the friends of the society, the proposed sum of 10,000l. was raised, which has enabled the committee to discharge the old debts, and to build two capital model school-rooms and a house for the training department, by which means the institution has been put upon a firmer basis than at any former period. So much of the success of the Schools on the New System depending upon the qualifications of the superintendants, and many schools having failed from the masters not being thoroughly acquainted with the System, the Committee have extended great care to this department, both in respect to the selection of suitable persons for the employment, and also in training them.

The Reports record the establishment of Boys' or Girls' Schools in almost every part of the nation. In London and the neighbourhood arrangements are in progress for the general education of the great mass of the poorer population. The City and suburbs have been divided into seven districts, and in four of these Auxiliary School Societies have been established; viz. Southwark, the City of London, North-London and Islington, and North-east London and Hackney; these districts have again been subdivided, and local committees appointed. New schools have been or are about to be opened in Newington, Lambeth, Christ Church, St. Saviour's, Rotherhithe, Fleet-Market, Islington, Hackney, Hoxson, Globe Fields, &c. Those who know the great labour and expense that are needful in the outfit and support of a school for 500 children, can best appreciate the laudable exertions of these local committees. There is one plan that has been suceessfully adopted in some of these districts, and tended greatly to facilitate the business. That is, where suitable buildings could not be procured for school-rooms, raising the money by loan, in shares, agreeing to pay a certain portion of the principal with the interest towards liquidating the debt in a given time; the subscribers holding the building as a security for the money advanced : by this means, the difficulty of raising a capital is easily removed.

The establishment of a school for between 2 and 300 boys of the Jewish persuasion, must afford high gratification to those who have witnessed the great disadvantages under which many Jewislı families among the poor have long laboured. The children are taught the Hebrew language as well as the English, and their moral improvement will no doubt prove the advantage of such an institution. We trust this establishment will soon be followed by a similar one for girls.

The rapid progress of the Jewish children in the Hebrew language proves how admirably the British System is adapted for the instruction of youth in foreign languages.

In connexion with the Schools in London, we cannot forbear alluding to the gratifying exhibition which took place on the 4th of last June, when above 4000 children from the different schools on the British System in the Metropolis, were collected at Highbury, on which occasion His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, with other distinguished characters, and many thousand ladies and gentlemen attended the meeting. The appearance of such a number of all denominations to commemorate the birthday of our highly revered Sovereign was truly pleasing. The Jewish children repeated the commandments in Hebrew and English, and the Catholic children, with others, went through various exercises, explanatory of the education they had received.

Ireland.-Great and increasing exertions appear to be making for the education of the poor in Ireland, where the British System is alone admissible. Many instances have occurred, where the Catholic clergy have publicly supported schools upon the plan. The Society at Dublin having received a considerable parliamentary grant of money, are now enabled to prosecute the system with vigour. From the register it appears they have already trained and sent out 107 masters, of whom 62 are Protestants and 45 Catholics; and are likely soon to exhibit the plan with every advantage in a model-school under the direction of Mr. Vevers, who was originally trained at the Borough road. The Hibernian School Society adopts the British System in its larger schools, and proceeds entirely upon the same liberal principle; but the sphere of its operations is pretty much confined to scattered villages, where only twenty or thirty children can be collected in many of these places they give a small gratuity to the Catholic priest for every child which he can prove to have educated within the year. They have now upwards of 30,000 children in a course of instruction. The Dublin Committee has likewise printed large editions of instructive and entertaining books, at a very

cheap rate, in which every thing calculated to excite religious jealousies is carefully avoided. Thus wholesome aliment is furnished to the infant mind, and the second great step has been taken towards the amelioration of the poor.

France. Among the nations of the continent of Europe that have been zealous in the introduction of the System, France occupies the first and most considerable station. Little did the Committee think when they sent the excellent and modest Mr. Martin, of Bourdeaux, to Paris in 1815, to establish the first elementary School upon the British System, that they would so soon have to report the gratifying particulars* which it is boththeir duty and their pleasure to state.

The French government, acting in this respect upon a system of enlightened policy, is holding out a highly important example to the rulers of other countries. It not only protects, but supports and encourages the School Society: nor is its countenance solely given to schools upon the principles of the Catholic religion, but the schools of the Protestants are, equally with those of the Catholics, patronized and supported by authority. The government seems wisely to consider, that notwithstanding the difference of religious creeds, every Frenchman should be treated as a child of the state; and that the country is deeply interested in its being trained up an useful member of the community. It was by the royal ordonnance of the King, dated 25th of February, 1816, that Schools on the Improved System, both for Catholics and Protestants, were directed to be established in every canton throughout the kingdom. His Majesty also ordered an annual grant of 50,000 francs from the royal treasury, for the general promotion of the cause. Since which period, the operations of the Committee at Paris have been conducted with so much energy and zeal, that the most striking success has attended their labours. As the work before them is truly national, viz. the general education of the whole poor population of France, so it is carried forward on a scale commensurate with its great importance; the prefects of the departments, the sub-prefects, the mayors of cities, and other characters of eminence and distinction, direct their influence and assistance towards the great object. The number of schools increase with such rapidity, as to render it very difficult

* For more minute details of the proceedings in France, we must refer our readers to the Appendix of the Society's Reports, where they will find information of a highly interesting nature. In the Journal d'Education, a periodical work published at Paris, and wholly devoted to the cause of schools, a variety of interesting communications are also recorded,