Page:A Plea for the Middle Classes.djvu/18

 holy orders, and in the first school, will, several of them, be volunteers, fellows of colleges, &c., willing to labour at a very small rate for the good of the rising generation. In its present infant state such a gentleman has charge of the school—a first class Oxford man. To every twenty-five boys there will be a principal master, and in the whole of the present establishment, which is ultimately designed to contain three hundred boys, twelve masters, in holy orders. The profit from each boy, when the cost of board, servants, &c., &c., is paid, will be £14 per annum. This, in the case of three hundred boys, will give £4200. Salary for twelve masters at an average of £100 per annum each, £1200; boarding, &c., for ditto, £500; total expense of masters, £1700. Further, I purpose to have ten scholars, chosen from those of the elder boys who wish to devote themselves to education: the cost of boarding these at £16 each will be £160 per annum; their stipends, at an average of £20 each, £200. Total expenses of the establishment, £2060; balance, £2140: deduct £140 for rates, taxes, &c., and you have £2000 per annum clear with which to help the less fortunate schools in connection, and to establish exhibitions in the Universities for persons of talent. At the end I will give you vouchers for the statistics.

Now let us turn to the second class schools. The London Orphan Asylum shall be our guide in the financial department: the boys that are there are for the most part the sons of the smaller kind of tradesmen, such as I aim at securing. The average cost of victualling them, &c., taking a period of ten years is, £10 per annum, without holidays. In our case, with two months' holidays, it would not exceed £9; extra expenses, servants, &c., making it up to £10 10s. per annum. These boys I would take at £14 per annum, and in a school of two hundred boys clear £700 for the cost of education. For these two hundred boys I would have four Clergymen, at an average stipend of £100 per annum each, with four lay assistants, sent gratuitously from the school class No. 1, and simply kept out of the funds of class No. 2. Here, again, then, should have sufficient funds to keep my second school going, especially when you take in the sums paid by day scholars in each of the schools. It only requires the absence of selfishness, and an earnest impression of the magnitude and dignity of the work, to make it entirely successful. The whole scheme will in the end, as you see, be self-supporting,