neglected: the children are left entirely to themselves when they leave parochial schools. In Sunday schools we often obtain situations for the children, either in our own businesses or among our acquaintance,

Do the teachers generally feel an interest for the welfare of the children under their care? When we see a steady attentive boy, we generally recommend him to some situation where he is likely to be well attended to and prosper. Many of them have succeeded remarkably well, and have become teachers themselves; and many of them, from the lowest state of society, have become respectable characters, and fill useful situations, if not very high ones.

Do you think it of importance to convey moral instruction while communicating knowledge to the children?—Yes, it is of the highest importance; for knowledge, unaccompanied by virtue, very frequently only capacitates for increasing mischief. in society.

Is there much difference between the moral character of the Scotch and Irish? No one, who has been accustomed to visit them at their own habitations, can have failed to observe a marked and decided distinction.

Whence does this distinction arise?-The Scotch are constantly taught, when young, to read their bibles, and accustomed to moral and religious instruction.

From your knowledge of the trading world, and of the children of the poor, do you think a more extensive plan of education would be a public benefit? I think it would be one of the greatest public benefits.

Would it in your opinion, lessen public crimes?—I have no doubt of it; for the most guilty criminal characters are commonly the most ignorant; in fact we cannot get them to stay in our schools; we have sometimes gathered them from the highways, and brought them into our schools, but we could never keep them long together.

From your knowledge of the benefits of education, is it your opinion that a more extended plan would greatly promote the public benefit?-I think it would exceedingly so; in Wales, owing to the general establishment of Sunday schools there, in one or two of the counties the prison-doors have been thrown open, and I attribute it to education, because nearly every individual throughout those counties attended the schools.

Are you acquainted whether maid-servants in London generally come from the country?-I know it is often the case that they are preferred from the country, unless their character can be well ascertained by a respectable and well-known person with whom they have lived before.

Are they not, in a general way, preferred to London ser vants? They are in general very much preferred; they have not such connexions, and are in general more steady.

Are they not in general of a better moral character?Decidedly so.

Does not this partly arise from having a better education? -I think so.

Mr. EDWARD WENTWORTH called in and examined.

ARE you master of a Sunday School?-I superintend one gratuitously, with 60 teachers, who also give their labours gratuitously.

How many children do you educate?-From 850 to 1000. Of all religious persuasions?-Yes.

How long have you been so occupied?-Nearly fourteen

years.

How long does a child of ordinary capacity take to learn to read-About three years.

Do you observe any improvement in the children after they come to the School, in their manners or their morals?-Particularly so; I do not know of any institution better calculated to improve their morals.

Do you adopt the new method of instruction?-It is not adapted for Sunday school instruction.

How so?-As it precludes a number of respectable persons from becoming teachers, which is a great obstruction to the improvement of the children. Sunday school instruction is very much wanted in the parish of Bethnal-green: our school is not sufficient to hold half the number of children that would apply. The Lancasterian institution is not half filled, because the children in that parish are employed at a very carly age in the silk manufacturing business, as early as the age of five or six years, and the funds of that institution are inadequate to its support.

THOMAS BABINGTON, Esq. a Member of the Committee, Examined.

HAVE you been engaged in the superintendence of Sunday schools?-I have attended for more than 30 years at a Sunday school in my own parish in the country, at Rothley in Leicestershire, whenever I have been in that quarter. I have found that to induce the children to come and to continue in the school, and to attend to their business with advantage, it was absolutely necessary to interest their minds, and that this was best done by communicating to them knowledge by

suitable explanations of the Scriptures. Till lately, I never had a master who was qualified for attending to this subject, and in consequence I always found the attendance in the school slack, and a considerable disposition in the boys to leave the school, in my absence during the sitting of Parliament; since I have obtained a better master, I find these evils have much diminished. My experience has shewn me, that an endeavour to open the minds of the children, and to make them enter into what they read, that is, enter both into its sense and its object, secures their attention, and produces a willingness to continue much longer at the school as scholars, than was the case before this was done to the same extent as at present. It is unnecessary to say how much this method of exciting an interest, and so obtaining good attention from the children, coincides with the great and leading object of their education, namely, to inform and regulate the mind and impress the heart. I think I can say from my experience, that where the sort of explanation of which I have been speaking is practised, with due attention to the state of information, intellect, and feeling, in the children, that it will tend to produce a great effect on their manners and habits; they will contract deference and respect for those who instruct them, and a desire of information; and on leaving the school their gratitude will be very apparent, for years, towards those who have taken such pains with them, and their characters will appear to have undergone a very important change. My object has been to lead, and enable the children to read, not mechanically, but with their understanding, and to interest them in the subject-matter of what they were reading, so that after leaving the school they might not only be improved in their general character and in their knowledge, but might be qualified and disposed to take up the Bible in after-life with satisfaction and profit. Those who have not had experience in schools for the poor, would scarcely conceive in how great a degree young children read without understanding, or making any effort to understand, what they read. This habit, very early contracted, is apt to continue with most in a very high degree during the whole of their school education; and they leave the school very able indeed to read, but little disposed to do so, because the reading is not interesting to their minds; and therefore the benefits of education are attained very imperfectly. The explanations have been given to the children in a series of easy and familiar viva voce questions, and with comparatively little in the way of address, which has been chiefly employed when it was desired to impress the importance of truths, and

to make some, though always a moderate impression on their feelings. Great care has been taken to accommodate such questions and little addresses as much as possible to their state of intellect, and knowledge, and feeling, and to give them that complexion which might be agreeable and interesting to their minds, When once, by the pursuit of this system, the child is brought to understand in a small-degree what he reads, and to take some interest in it, the progress is astonishingly great. A course of this kind, pursued for only three quarters of an hour each Sunday, brought the children forward in their understandings, at a period when no assistance whatever was derived at any time from the regular master of the school, to such a degree as to enable the children who had been a year under it, to answer questions in general with ease and pleasure. Care is taken never to make ignorance any fault, except when accompanied with inattention or perverseness, but to proceed with kindness and good humour, and to support the child with encouragements, until the matter is understood. When this mode was first adopted, the common habit of taking places for good answers was practised; but it was soon found that this led to self-conceit and pride in some of the ablest of the boys, and to depression of spirits and a consequent listlesness in a greater number of those whose faculties were inferior; this practice was in consequence discontinued.

Two striking instances of the ill effects produced in two of the most able boys, contributed, probably, to draw my attention more immediately to this point. Since the change, I have found the progress in learning greater than before in the school at large, though less, probably, in a few of the more able boys; and I find no difficulty in keeping the attention alive, and in exciting sufficient interest in the bosoms of the scholars. We have proceeded without any of those bad effects which before we experienced, and we have now had the new plan, of not taking places, ten or twelve years in operation. With respect to rewards and punishments, we are not profuse in the former, and very sparing of the latter; our punishments, if I may be allowed the expression, consist chiefly in the withholding rewards; corporal punishment is almost altogether avoided, and in strong cases resort is had to expulsion from the school. I have always found that the best mode of noticing faults is to talk in a friendly and rational way to the culprit, in the presence of his school-fellows, and that there are few minds on which a due impression may not be made in this manner; and a far better and more durable impression is produced upon the

school at large, than by any of the common modes of punish ment which were in use when I first knew the school. I have not been desirous to carry on the children fast in mere reading and writing, wishing always to have them for several years in the school, and finding that the parents, estimating their progress by their advancement in those mechanical parts of instruction, (the parts on which their own attention is generally most fixed,) were not desirous of continuing them in it after their children had, to their apprehension, acquired sufficient attainments of that kind. I have wished to keep the children as long as I could in the school for the sake of communicating to them a tolerably competent knowledge of religion, and of impressing on them a regard for the Scriptures, and a respect, to say the least, for their doctrines; advantages which were scarcely to be attained, except they continued there for a considerable time. I have also thought it of high importance that the habits acquired in the school should be well confirmed, esteeming them a very valuable part of school education, namely, regularity of attendance on divine worship, cleanliness, deference to authority, civility, punctuality, method, and abstinence from disturbing others, and from talking when they ought to be silent. These, with other good habits, in my opinion, can scarcely become established parts of the character, except the continuance at school be considerably prolonged. The affection also of the children for those who teach them, if they are well taught, is a very important instrument to secure their good behaviour in future life; it greatly softens their minds, and is a strong barrier against conduct which they know will be highly displeasing to their former teachers; this affection will seldom become a settled habit of mind, except their schooling be continued during several years. I have also been averse to a very swift progress in those mechanical branches of learning, which the poor can best understand and therefore will most highly esteem, having found in some instances that it tended to intoxicate the minds both of the parent and the scholar and conceiving the most important fruits of edu cation to be those which regard the principles, the disposi tions, and the habits, I have been very careful to avoid any system, for accelerating the learning of the scholars, which might be adverse to such fruits. I have thought it desirable to make the attendance at school on Sunday as little burthensome as might be, and therefore the children have been kept to their business only about one hour before church in the morning, one hour before church in the afternoon, and an hour or an hour and a half later in the evening. I have

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