2. To the End the chief design of this School, which is for the Education of Poor Children in the Rules and Principles of the Christian Religion as professed and taught in the Church of England, may be the better promoted; The Master shall make it his chief Business to instruct the Children in the Principles thereof, as they are laid down in the Church Catechism; which he shall first teach them to pronounce distinctly, and plainly; and then, in order to practice, shall explain it to the meanest capacity, by the help of The whole Duty of Man, or some good Exposition approved of by the Minister.

And this shall be done constantly twice a week; that everything in the Catechism may be the more perfectly repeated and understood. And the Master shall take particular care of the Manners and Behaviour of the Poor Children.

And by all proper methods shall discourage and correct the beginnings of Vice, and particularly, Lying, Swearing, Cursing, taking God's name in vain, and the Prophanation of the Lord's Day etc....

3. The Master shall teach them the true spelling of Words, and Distinction of Syllables, with the Points and Stops, which is necessary to true and good Reading, and serves to make the Children more mindful of what they Read.

4. As soon as the Boys can read competently well, the Master shall teach them to write a fair legible Hand, with the Grounds of Arithmetick, to fit them for Services or Apprentices.

[Note.] The Girls learn to read etc. and generally to knit their Stockings and Gloves, to Mark, Sew, make and mend their Cloaths, several learn to write, and some to spin their Cloaths. [5, 6. Provides for Church going on Sundays and Saints' days, and Prayers in School twice daily from the PrayerBook.]

7. [Names-calling at beginning of School] ... Great Faults as Swearing, Stealing etc., shall be noted down in monthly or

FIG. 56

weekly bills to be laid before the Subscribers or Trustees every time they meet, in order to their correction or expulsion. 8. [Holidays.]

9. [Provides that the School is to be free, no charge whatever being made.]

10. [The children are to be sent to school clean.]

II. The Children shall wear their Caps, Bands, Cloaths, and other marks of Distinction every Day, whereby their Trustees and Benefactors may know them, and see what their Behaviour is abroad.

The ordinary charge of a School in London for Fifty Boys Cloath's comes to about £75 per annum, for which a SchoolRoom, Books and Firing is provided, a Master paid, and to each Boy is given yearly Three Bands, one Cap, one Coat, one Pair of Stockings, and one Pair of Shoes.

The cost for a School of 50 Girls is put at £60 a year to include Two Coifs, Two Bands, one Gown and Petticoat, one Pair of knit Gloves, One Pair of Stockings, and Two Pair of Shoes.

239. Textbooks used in an English Charity-School

(Allen, W. O. B., and McClure, E., History of the S. P. C. K., p. 187. London, 1898) The following list of books for the use of the pupils in the charity schools of the Society, published by the printer for the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (S.P.C.K.), and listed in their catalogue of publications for 1719, gives some idea as to the nature of the instruction in the schools of the time. The list is:

(a) BOOKS Proper to be Used in Charity-Schools

A Bible, Testament, and Common-Prayer Book.

The Church-Catechism.

*The Church-Catechism broke into short Questions. Lewis's Exposition of the Church-Catechism.

Worthington's Scripture-Catechism.

The first Principles of practical Christianity.

Dr. Woodward's Short Catechism, with an Explanation of divers

hard Words.

New Method of Catechizing.

Prayers for the Charity-Schools.

The Christian Scholar.

An Exercise for Charity-Schools upon Confirmation.

Pastoral Advice before, and after Confirmation.

The Whole Duty of Man by Way of Question and Answer.

*Abridgment of the History of the Bible, which may be well bound up at the Beginning of the Bible, or at the End.

The Anatomy of Orthography: Or, a practical introduction to the Art of Spelling and Reading English.

The Duty of Public Worship proved, &c.

Lessons for Children, Historical and Practical, &c.

Hymns for the Charity-Schools.

*The title-pages of the two above indicated by asterisks are reproduced here, somewhat reduced in size.

(b) Digest of Lewis' "Exposition of the Church Catechism" W. W. Kemp, in his Support of Schools in Colonial New York by the Society for the Promotion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (New York, 1913, pp. 273-74), gives the contents of the fourth book in the above list, the full title of which was: "The Church Catechism Explained by Way of Question and Answer and confirmed by Scripture Proofs: divided into Five Parts and Twelve Sections; wherein is given a brief and plain Account of: - I. The Christian Covenant. II. The Christian Faith. III. The Christian Obedience. IV. The Christian Prayer. V. The Christian Sacra

ments." The contents of its ninety-eight pages are as follows, all of the sections given being arranged in the form of question

and answer:

Dedicatory Epistle to members of the S.P.C.K.

Preface....

Introduction by Dr. Comber..

Part I. The Christian Covenant..

Of the Benefits of Baptism; or the Mercies
afforded on God's Part.

Of the Vow of Baptism; or the conditions re-
quired on our Part.

The Christian Faith...

Of the Creed; particularly what we are to
believe concerning God the Father.

Of God the Son; particularly his Names,
Offices and Relations.

Of Christ's Humiliation.

Of Christ's Exaltation.

Sec. 5.

Sec. 6.
Sec. 7.

Part III.

The Christian Obedience.

22

Part V.

The Christian Sacraments . . .

Sec. 11. Of the two Sacraments; and first of Baptism.

Sec. 12.
Sec. the last. Of Confirmation.
Morning and Evening Prayer...
Prayers for the use of schools.

Of the Lord's Supper.

240. A Charity-School Subscription Form

9

(An English form, of the period 1699-1718. After Leach) The following represents a common English subscription form of the early charity-school period:

Whereas Prophaness and Debauchery are greatly owing to a gross Ignorance of the Christian Religion, especially among the poorer sort; And whereas nothing is more likely to promote the practice of Christianity and Virtue, than an early and pious Education of Youth; And

whereas many poor People are desirous of having their Children Taught, but are not able to afford them a Christian and Useful Education; We, whose Names are underwritten, do agree to pay Yearly, at Four equal Payments, (during Pleasure) the several and respective Sums of Money over against our Names respectively subscribed, for the setting up of a Charity-School in the Parish of in the

City of.. or in the County of..........for Teaching (Poor Boys, or Poor Girls, or) Poor Children to Read and Instructing them in the Knowledge and Practice of the Christian Religion, as profess'd and taught in the Church of England; and for Learning them such other Things as are suitable to their Condition and Capacity. That is to say

I A. B. do subscribe

£ s. d.

241. The Charity-School of Saint John's Parish, Southwark (From an account of the school printed by the Parish, and reproduced in the American Journal of Education, vol. 1, pp. 314-15. Boston, 1826)

The following account of a parish-supported charity-school for training girls for domestic service is an interesting and typical example of many English eighteenth-century charitable schools, organized for the education of a limited number of "children of the industrious poor of the parish."

This school was established for the purpose of maintaining, instructing, clothing, qualifying for useful servants, and putting out to service, the female children of the industrious poor of the parish.

The school dates its existence from the year 1735, when, in consequence of the increasing population, this parish was taken out of the adjoining one of Saint Olave: among the first acts of the inhabitants of the newly-established Parish was the formation of a school similar in many respects to that which had, already, for many ages, existed in the mother parish; it provided for the instruction and clothing of a certain number of the female children of the parish, with a view to fit them for service when they arrived at the age for leaving the school; but there was one alteration made in the system of the then infant school, which the experience of now nearly one hundred years proves to the committee to have been most wise and beneficial, viz. the reception of a certain portion of the children so educated into the house, wholly to be maintained, constantly to be under the eye of a vigilant mistress, and the regulations of a domestic family. The obvious tendency of this arrangement is, besides the benefit afforded to the parents, by taking their child entirely off their hands, to secure to the child the full advantage of the instruction, to rescue her from an exposure to vice and temptation, (by which exposure at home, too frequently, all the good derived at school is lost,) and by the blessing of Providence to