days ago.” The pilot immediately said, “Why, where could he have
been brought up?” The boy had never seen the sea or been on a real
ship before’? Or, is there any proof in these boys being in
greater demand for Regimental Bands than the Union can meet? Or,
in ninety-eight of them having gone into Regimental Bands in three
years? Or, in twelve of them being in the band of one regiment?
Or, in the colonel of that regiment writing, ‘We want six more
boys; they are excellent lads’? Or, in one of the boys having
risen to be band-corporal in the same regiment? Or, in employers
of all kinds chorusing, ‘Give us drilled boys, for they are prompt,
obedient, and punctual’? Other proofs I have myself beheld with
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
these Uncommercial eyes, though I do not regard myself as having a
right to relate in what social positions they have seen respected
men and women who were once pauper children of the Stepney Union.
Into what admirable soldiers others of these boys have the
capabilities for being turned, I need not point out. Many of them
are always ambitious of military service; and once upon a time when
an old boy came back to see the old place, a cavalry soldier all
complete, WITH HIS SPURS ON, such a yearning broke out to get into
cavalry regiments and wear those sublime appendages, that it was
one of the greatest excitements ever known in the school. The
girls make excellent domestic servants, and at certain periods come
back, a score or two at a time, to see the old building, and to
take tea with the old teachers, and to hear the old band, and to
see the old ship with her masts towering up above the neighbouring
roofs and chimneys. As to the physical health of these schools, it
is so exceptionally remarkable (simply because the sanitary
regulations are as good as the other educational arrangements),
that when Mr. TUFNELL, the Inspector, first stated it in a report,
he was supposed, in spite of his high character, to have been
betrayed into some extraordinary mistake or exaggeration. In the
moral health of these schools – where corporal punishment is
unknown – Truthfulness stands high. When the ship was first
erected, the boys were forbidden to go aloft, until the nets, which
are now always there, were stretched as a precaution against
accidents. Certain boys, in their eagerness, disobeyed the
injunction, got out of window in the early daylight, and climbed to
the masthead. One boy unfortunately fell, and was killed. There
was no clue to the others; but all the boys were assembled, and the
chairman of the Board addressed them. ‘I promise nothing; you see
what a dreadful thing has happened; you know what a grave offence
it is that has led to such a consequence; I cannot say what will be
done with the offenders; but, boys, you have been trained here,
above all things, to respect the truth. I want the truth. Who are
the delinquents?’ Instantly, the whole number of boys concerned,
separated from the rest, and stood out.
Now, the head and heart of that gentleman (it is needless to say, a
good head and a good heart) have been deeply interested in these
schools for many years, and are so still; and the establishment is
very fortunate in a most admirable master, and moreover the schools
of the Stepney Union cannot have got to be what they are, without
the Stepney Board of Guardians having been earnest and humane men
strongly imbued with a sense of their responsibility. But what one
set of men can do in this wise, another set of men can do; and this
is a noble example to all other Bodies and Unions, and a noble
example to the State. Followed, and enlarged upon by its
enforcement on bad parents, it would clear London streets of the
most terrible objects they smite the sight with – myriads of little
children who awfully reverse Our Saviour’s words, and are not of
the Kingdom of Heaven, but of the Kingdom of Hell.
Clear the public streets of such shame, and the public conscience