Page:Hints for the improvement of village schools and the introduction of industrial work.djvu/16

12 complain) provide for the children of their servants a better education than they have the means of obtaining for their own children.

We have endeavoured at Shipbourne, though under great disadvantages arising from the small size of the parish, to make the National School suitable for farmers' and tradesmen's children—labourers' children being allowed to attend it and sharing in many advantages, but attaining to a lower standard of intellectual knowledge, partly from their leaving school at an earlier age, and partly from a larger portion of their time being devoted to industrial work, which is of far more consequence to them, than to excel in history or geography, since it is by manual labour that their living will have to be earned, and only by domestic economy that their homes can be made comfortable.

In the school classes it would not, I think, be practicable or desirable to make any distinction between the children of farmers and labourers, but there is no difficulty in arranging that the farmers' and tradesmen's children should be kept almost entirely to their books, while the labourers&apos; children, when they come to be of a suitable age, are engaged for a portion of the day in a separate room under a separate teacher, in learning those various branches of industry, which will be of such use to them in after life.

Wherever this plan is adopted, the farmers and tradesmen will have a direct interest in supporting the parochial school, and would seldom, I believe, object to paying for their children at a higher rate, and such payments would go a long way towards supporting the school, and would enable it to be kept up in the highest state of efficiency. With the parents of the labouring classes, an industrial school, when the first prejudice against it wears off, will be sure to be popular. 1st. Because the parents are fully able to enter into and appreciate the kind of knowledge which is taught at an industrial school. When their girls come home more handy and useful,—when Sally can make good soup out of a few vegetables with an infinitesimal small fraction of meat—when Betsy can convince the most sceptical, that rice and oatmeal are not to be despised if properly dressed—when the potatoe pie is voted at the family board to be uncommonly good—when Polly, with a little composition yeast, costing a mere nothing, can bake better bread than her mother—in short, when the mothers find that their girls can save many a sixpence by their knowledge of domestic economy, no wonder if the industrial school becomes popular and the children are allowed to remain a year or two longer to reap the advantages afforded by such instruction. 2dly. The industrial school will be popular with the parents because the girls employed in it either receive some