AN ESSAY ON cuenta'-SCHOOL$, same manner, as the sons and daughters of gentlemen, or even of tice,middle order of men, who can bestow upon their chil- dren something more considerable towards their support in life. I acknowledge also, that charity - schools will never be set upon the best foot, and managed in the most unexceptionable manner, until seine way be found to employ the children both in the city and country, that they may work as well as learn, I have been manyyearspf this mind, and therefore I laid it down amongmy first propositions. But let the persons, who would destroy our schools on ac- count of this defect, find out some ways and means of employ- ing the children of the poor. I am persuaded the supporters pf our schools,of charity, will cheerfully fall in with such pro- posals, and those who refuse it, should never be vindicated by me. Iknow there are several managers of some of these schools, who have been earnestly desirous of engaging the children in work and labour one half of theday ; they have consulted with their friends about various manufactures, or any useful labours pf life ; they have set their thoughts at work in good earnest, and would have been glad to have been directed to any expe- dient of this kind, that the children might not have spent their whole days in a school, but might have employed half the clay in the labour of their hands ; But in some places, both of the country and city, this project Could not be brought to bear What then ? Must the poor ignorant wretches be turned out of the school and never learn to read, because their friends could not find work for them? Must they be sent to saunter in the streets and lanes all the day long, and' grow wild in idleness, and he exposed to every temptation, 'without either work or learning ? May they not be 'civilized and taught their letters one part of the day, even though there be no manual labour appointed for them the other ? But here is a great difficulty and hardship of our case : we are reproached for educating the children of poor, without their confinement to labour, and the rich objectors know not how to propose any sufficient methods to effect what they desire: Even the wisdom of the nation in parliament, bath been often and in many sessions engaged in some contrivances for so 1[8.14-- Able an end as the employment of the poor,both old and young, and something has been done towards it; but they have not yet been ableto determine any thing of universal use to all places, and which is practicable tli.oughout the nation. Ín some of our schools of charity, this has beenpractised, and that notonly in the country, but in the city too. the boys inour dissenting charity-schools, have been sometimes employed in digging, in weeding, in gathering stones out of the ploughed
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