Page:Hints for the improvement of village schools and the introduction of industrial work.djvu/24

16 the Industrial kitchen with an abundance of vegetables, which it is excellent practice for the girls to learn how to cook, and partly because it is a source of constant pleasure and recreation to the children during their playtime. Moreover, among other minor advantages, a garden serves to keep boys out of mischief. It is an old saying, but a very true one, that "Satan always finds some work for idle hands to do," and in a moral point of view it is really of no small importance to keep children employed both in school and out of school. But perhaps the chief benefit of a garden arises from the hard work required in cultivating it.

It is certainly desirable with all children, but more especially with labourers' children, to strengthen the body as well as the mind, and to discipline them to habits of steady persevering labour.

Our aim must be to rear up a community of modest, laborious, trustworthy citizens, serviceable to each other, and creditable to their country; to send children forth from our schools deeply impressed with the idea, that the active and intelligent discharge of their duty, in obedience to the will of, is the great business and purport of their lives. Nothing is too great, nothing too small, to engage the attention of managers and teachers, if it can be made to minister with advantage either to the bodily or spiritual training of the children. A garden attached to a school may be considered an uncovered schoolroom, where many things are taught which are really far more important than any book-learning. An intelligent master will see more of a boy's disposition in one day by watching him at work among his companions than he could ascertain in a month in the schoolroom. A boy feels naturally more unrestrained when at work, and little faults of temper or selfishness are discovered, which otherwise might have escaped the master's notice, and would never have been cured. Such opportunities for ascertaining the different dispositions of the children should be counted among the advantages to be derived from a school garden, and from industrial work generally.

Let us now proceed to examine the expense under ordinary circumstances of building and fitting up an industrial school in a country parish, and what grants in aid can be obtained from the Committee of Council, or public societies. Having so recently built and fitted up the industrial school at Shipbourne, I am able to speak on these points with considerable accuracy, though the price of building will, of course, vary somewhat in different localities. And first let us endeavour to agree what buildings are necessary: I should certainly recommend that there should be two rooms, one about 25 ft. by 14 ft. in the clear, which we will call "the industrial class room," a well-