button to main menu  Gents Mag 1828 part 1 p.601
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Gentleman's Magazine 1828 part 1 p.601
leave to suggest a few hints, which appear to me, and those whom I have consulted, indispensably necessary to effect the desired end.
1. When there are Charity Schools, whether in towns or country villages, they should be modelled after Dr. Bell's plan, and let there be visitors appointed to see that the children attend properly, and be educated in the doctrines and principles of the Church of England (Dissenters' Schools excepted), and to superintend the master, and give an account annually to the Bishop of the diocese, or the Archdeacon, at the yearly visitation, how the schools are conducted, and what improvement the children have made in the course of the year. The Visitor may be the Rectors, Vicars, or officiating Ministers, with the Churchwardens, or whom the Diocesan may think proper.
2. Let no master be appointed to any Charity School without proper examination by the Bishop, or his Official; nor without subscribing to the declaration, taking the oaths, and other qualifications, 13 and 14 Geo. II. c.4; and let every master be under the advice and control of the visitors.
3. Let the writings, whether will or deed, pertaining to the Schools, be lodged and kept in the church coffers, or in the care of the visitors, that they may refer to them on any emergency; and let the visitors annually inform the Bishop, or his Official, at the visitation, on oath, that the said writings (wills or deeds) are safe delivered to any new visitors the Bishop may appoint, or are in the church coffer. The visitors, if not ministers, may be changed at every visitation.
4. The mode of education being according to Dr. Bell's plan, or strictly conformable to the liturgy of the established church, let the children be taught how to find out the psalms and lessons, with the collects for the day; and let them, when able, read in classes, and go through the psalms and lessons for the day, morning and evening, before and after the exercise of the School. If the officiating minister, or one of the visitors, can attend on these occasions, so much the better, but by all means they must know that the children do so.
5. Let the visitors have power to admit to and dismiss from all Charity Schools, the children at proper age, without favour or partiality, and give proper account thereof yearly to the Bishop, or his Official; and to see that the master brings his pupils to church every time divine service is performed, morning and evening; and cause those who are able to read out with the clerk all the responses, &c. without any excuse but real illness. It is to be supposed that those who, through poverty, cannot provide themselves with Prayer-books and Bibles, may obtain them from the National Society at a low rate, or gratis, through some charitable hand.
6. Let the visitors consider it an incumbent duty to advise poor parents never to neglect sending their children to School; telling them, that all care shall be taken to educate them in an effectual, but lenient manner; and that learning is the best fortune they can possess.
7. Where there are no Charity Schools, as many villages, and some towns in the country are without them, if no means can be devised to establish a Day School, a Sunday one alone will prove very beneficial; and if the National Society will give encouragement, I have no doubt the inhabitants of most parishes, if not of all, will readily come forward, and willingly subscribe for the same purpose towards the education of their resepctive poor. I have established Sunday Schools in several parishes, and have met with no one who refused to subscribe more or less toward the institution. Nothing short of spirited activity will ensure success.
If the Bishops would give injunctions to the officiating Clergy of their respective diocese for inquiring into these matters, they would soon learn the casue of the falling away from the doctrine of the church; and I am ready to say that, if the above plan, or something similar to it, do not shortly take place, by the highest authority, through the empire, the time will come (it may not be far off) when the established chuch will be desolate, as "a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city," if not utterly overthrown, and lost in the fanaticism which daily increases. See the meeting-houses which are erected in almost every village, or old houses and barns converted into conventicles.
Yours, &c.
BEHOLDER.
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