High and dry upon a pleasant breezy hilltop about seven miles south of
London stands a house worthy of a visit. Far enough away to be quite
free from the cloud of smoke, yet near enough for easy access from
London; it is a large house in the country, in and out of which a large
family of essentially London tenants are perpetually going. Walk round
the hill it stands upon, and a succession of charming views present
themselves for admiration. A far distant horizon bounds a country made
up of purple woods, rich golden brown stripes of corn-fields, and bright
green meadows. Here young plantations; there stately single timber
trees; with villas nestling under fringes of woods on pleasant slopes,
whilst in the valley below runs the Croydon Railway, linking this
charming, quiet country round Norwood, to the smoky, busy, useful
London.
The place we speak of is the Pauper-School at Norwood, which may be
called a factory for making harmless, if not useful subjects, of the
very worst of human material—a place for converting those who would
otherwise certainly be miserable, and most likely vicious, into
rational, reasonable, and often very useful members of society;—in
short, a house for training a large and wretched class in habits of
decency, regularity, and order, and leading a pitiable section of the
great two-million-strong family of London from the road to crime into
that of honest industry and self-respect.
The exterior of the building has no trace of the architectural display
that won for the school near Manchester the title of a Pauper Palace.
The exterior of the Norwood house is as dingy and ugly as a small
brewhouse. In shape it reminds one of the old cities, built upon no
definite plan, but enlarged from time to time as the population found it
most convenient. It is neither square, nor round, nor triangular; but
then, when we go over it, we shall find that the lack of straight lines
and right angles does not prevent the presence of much good, and of a
fair amount of comfort and happiness within its confines.
The irregularity of its construction is explained by the fact that the
place was established twenty-seven years ago, not by a public body, but
by a private individual, Mr. Aubin, the present superintendant. The
commencement of such a place was an epoch in the history of pauperism in
this country. Before the time of the benevolent Jonas Hanway, no regard
was paid to the destitute children of the poor, and those young
children, whose ill-fate it was to be born of pauper parents, in town,
were condemned to a life that began in the gutters of back lanes, and
usually ended in the gaol, by fever, or more suddenly, on the gallows.
Hanway secured the passing of a law empowering the parishes to collect
the juvenile paupers and send them into the country for nurture and
maintenance. It was a step in advance to get the children away from the
dens in which they had previously been confined, but the nurture was of
a very unsatisfactory kind. When an old woman applied for parish relief,
she had two or three children given to her to keep, and out of their
allowance she was to help to keep herself. She usually set them to
collect firewood for her; or to watch sheep, or to scare crows; and, in
their search for fuel, they were often taught to rob hedges, or fences,
or trespass on plantations. At seven years’ old they were sent back to
finish their education in the workhouses, and frequently remained there
for six or seven years without even learning their letters. Indeed, to
teach them at all was regarded as a kind of small treason. “Teach
paupers to read! What next?” was a common exclamation. Reading was, by a
great many people, considered to be a mere premium for laziness—whilst
writing was thought to be a temptation to forgery, and its then certain
result—the gallows. To collect the pauper children, and “farm them out”
to persons who would teach as well as feed them, was the next step in
advance. The fruit of this plan was the growth of various places where
large numbers of the pauper rising generation were gathered together in
houses, the proprietors of which often realised large profits upon the
moneys allowed for maintaining this class of the population.
Taking advantage of the generally and loudly expressed public opinion,
that “something must be done,” the Poor-Law Board succeeded in
establishing some school districts near the metropolis. The first step
taken was to purchase Mr. Aubin’s place at Norwood, and thus take it
into their own hands. This school had long been regarded as the best of
its class, and as one where many steps of great practical value had been
taken for the improved treatment of youthful paupers. The purchase-money
of this school is said to have been about eleven thousand pounds, and
the authorities wisely retained the aid of the man who had originated
it, to carry out still further into effect their improved plans. This
step was soon followed by others. In the publication of the Poor-Law
Board, just issued—the promoters of our present poor-law system long ago
saw the mischiefs of this plan, and after some years’ consideration, and
many difficulties, succeeded in procuring an Act of Parliament for the
establishment of district pauper Industrial Schools. But though the law
was made, it was found impossible to overcome the objections raised by
parish authorities, and it was not carried out to any extent, until the
terrible calamity of Tooting startled all England with the spectacle of
hundreds of deaths by cholera, in an establishment where the little
unfortunates were “farmed out.”
In the Second Annual Report of the Poor-Law Board, Mr. Baines, its
President, says, that three very important school districts have, within
the year, been formed in and near the metropolis. These are:—
“1st. The Central London School District, comprising the City of
London Union, the East London Union, and the St. Saviour’s Union. The
Board of Management of this district have completed all their
arrangements and hold their regular meetings. They have purchased of
Mr. Aubin his premises at Norwood for the district school, retaining
him in the capacity of steward or superintendant of the establishment,
and have appointed an efficient staff of teachers in every department.
The school is now in full activity, upon an improved footing, and
nearly eight hundred children (nine hundred) are maintained and
educated in it.
“2nd. The South Metropolitan School District comprised, as originally
formed, the Union of St. Olave’s, and the large parishes, not in
Union, of Bermondsey, Camberwell, and Rotherhithe.
“3rd. The North Surrey School District includes the Unions of
Wandsworth and Clapham, Kingston, Croydon, Richmond, and Lewisham. The
managers have purchased fifty acres of land near Norwood, and have
commenced the erection of a building capable of accommodating six
hundred children.
“It will thus be seen that provision has been made in and around
London for the proper education and training of more than two thousand
poor children. We have, moreover, sanctioned arrangements whereby,
when completed, the state of the children of other metropolitan
parishes will be very materially improved.”
About nine hundred children are congregated at Norwood, and out of the
whole number there is not perhaps a dozen the offspring of decent
parents. Many are foundlings, picked up at the corners of streets, or at
the doors of parish officers. The names of some of them suggest an idea
of how they began life. Thus, one owned the name of Olive Jewry, whilst
another was called Alfred City. Others have lost both parents by death,
and been left puling living legacies to the parish, but the majority are
the children of parents living in workhouses. When able-bodied paupers
claim relief, they are “offered the house.” They are received into the
Union, and their children are sent up to this out-of-town school, that
fresh air, cleanliness, good food and the schoolmaster, may try what can
be done to lift them up from the slough of pauperism. Let us examine the
process through which they go.
The children, on their first appearance at this Norwood School, are
usually in the most lamentable plight. Ignorance and dirt, rags and
vermin, laziness and ill health, diseased scalps, and skins tortured by
itch, are their characteristics. They are the very dregs of the
population of the largest city in the world—the human waifs and strays
of the modern Babylon; the children of poverty, and misery, and crime;
in very many cases labouring under physical defects, such as bad sight
or hearing; almost always stunted in their growth, and bearing the stamp
of ugliness and suffering on their features. Generally born in dark
alleys and back courts, their playground has been the streets, where the
wits of many have been prematurely sharpened at the expense of any
morals they might have. With minds and bodies destitute of proper
nutriment, they are caught, as it were, by the parish officers, like
half-wild creatures, roaming poverty-stricken amidst the wealth of our
greatest city; and half-starved in a land where the law says no one
shall be destitute of food and shelter. When their lucky fate sends them
to Norwood, they are generally little personifications of genuine
poverty—compounds, as somebody says, of ignorance, gin, and sprats.
A number of pauper children having been owned as chargeable upon the
Central London District, to whom the Norwood School now belongs, and the
requisite papers having been filled up, they are sent to Weston Hill.
Arrived there, and their clothes having been steamed, if worth
preservation, or burned if mere rags,—the new comers are well washed,
have their hair cut, and are newly clad in clean and wholesome, but
homely, garments. According to their ages, they are then drafted into a
class; those between two and six years pass to the infant school; those
of greater age are enrolled on the industrial side of the establishment.
Now the training begins. They are all sent before the doctor, who
usually finds them sallow and sickly; but by aid of Nature’s
physic,—fresh air,—and Nature’s rule of exercise and regularity,
assisted by extra diet, and with the occasional aid of some good London
beef and porter, very few drugs are wanted, and their looks change for
the better. Early in August, this year,—the period of our visit,—there
were but two children confined to bed out of more than nine hundred; and
those two were poor little scrofulous shadows of humanity, such as may
be found in the top wards of hospitals, labouring under disease of the
hip and spine,—paying the penalty of sins committed by their parents
before them. There had recently been an epidemic of measles in the
place, when that disease destroyed eight of the sickliest out of ninety
cases. But for this, the mortality would not have gone beyond one in a
hundred through the year. The summer is their healthiest season; for
winter brings chilblains, a disease of poor blood, and ophthalmia, to
which pauper children seem to be especially liable.
After their introduction to the doctor, the bath, the wardrobe, and the
pantry, they are handed over to the schoolmaster or mistress, as the
case may be. On the day of our visit, two hundred and forty boys were
receiving instruction in one large new school-room; two hundred (infants
between two and six years old) were being taught in another room; two
hundred girls were reading, writing, and sewing in a third apartment;
the rest of the occupants being at work, or at drill, or at play, in
other parts of the establishment. The boys are kept four days a week at
school, and two days at work in shops which we shall presently see and
describe: the girls have three days’ schooling and three days’ training
in household occupations,—such as cleaning the house, washing, ironing,
mangling, and needlework. The way these portions of the establishment
are arranged may possibly furnish materials for a future paper.
The school for the eldest boys is a long room newly built, with an
enormous dormitory above it. The ventilation has been provided for in a
way that seems very satisfactory. By day the boys are divided into six
classes, ranged on forms with desks before them, each class being
separated from the others by a curtain which hangs from the ceiling, and
is sufficiently wide to separate the sections of scholars from each
other, and to deaden the sounds of so large a seminary, but yet not wide
enough to prevent the master as he stands on the side opposite his
pupils, from getting a view of the entire school. Black boards and large
slates are amongst the tools employed for conveying instruction, but the
more advanced pupils are supplied with paper copy-books for writing
lessons. The school is under the charge of a chief-master, far more
competent than those usually found in schools beyond the pale of
Government inspection. He is a B.A. of the University of London, is
author of a small English grammar; and enjoys, as he deserves, a liberal
salary. Under his hands the pupils appear to make excellent progress.
The upper classes write well to dictation, are ready at figures, and are
practised in the grammatical construction of English words and
sentences. Twelve of the boys are in training as teachers, and six of
these are now what is called “pupil-teachers,” and are entitled to an
allowance of money by way of reward from the Privy Council. This
allowance is set aside for them till they display, on examination, a
sufficient proficiency to entitle them to admission to the
training-school at Knellar Hall or Battersea. Whilst in these higher
schools they receive the money set aside for them in the earlier stages
of their school progress, and when, by successive examinations, their
efficiency is sufficiently tested, they pass from the grade of pupil to
that of master: the boys from Knellar Hall being appointed schoolmasters
to Workhouses; the boys from Battersea to be masters of National Schools
in various parts of the country. A boy gets this promotion in life by
his own merits. For instance, at the Norwood Pauper-School, the most apt
pupil becomes, as elsewhere, the monitor of his form or class. When the
day of examination arrives, he distinguishes himself before the
Government Inspector of Schools. This official is empowered thereupon to
select him as a “pupil-teacher,” &c.; he becomes an apprentice to the
art of instruction. To encourage the chief-master of the school to help
on his boys to this reward, an allowance of three pounds a year is made
to the master for each boy who thus distinguishes himself, and thus
gains promotion. Thus, there being twelve boys at Norwood so in
training, Mr. Imeson, their instructor, gains thirty-six pounds a year
for his success in bringing forward that number of his scholars.
In appearance, the boys have little to recommend them, and it is
tolerably evident, that if not raised a little in the social scale—if
not taught to do something and know something—they would inevitably
belong to the class of incurable paupers, who burden poor’s-rates and
hang about workhouses all their lives. Society must educate such boys,
if only in self-defence. Some of them are at first most turbulent, but
by patient management they gradually subside into the orderly
arrangements of the place, and often those at first most unruly become
the quickest boys in the school. The energy that would make them
nuisances, when rightly directed makes them most useful.
When the hours of teaching are over, the boys are assembled in one of
the large open yards belonging to the establishment, and are there
exercised by the drill-master. This official is an ex-non-commissioned
officer of Guards, who in a short time makes the metamorphosis seen on
parade. The ungainly, slouching, slow lout, is taught to march, wheel
right or left, in concert with others, punctually and accurately. They
answer the command, “left wheel,” “right form, four deep,” and so on,
like little soldiers, and seem to like the fun. This gives them at once
exercise in the fresh air, notions of regularity and prompt attention,
and a habit of obedience to discipline.
There is also a naval class. Behind the school is a playground, two
acres in extent, and in the centre of this stands a ship. True, its deck
is of earth, but there are bulwarks, real bulwarks all round, and rising
up above are genuine lofty masts, with rigging complete. Up these ropes
the boys swarm with great delight. At a given signal they “man the
yards,” give three miniature cheers, and then, all in chorus, sing God
save the Queen. They evidently like the fun, pride themselves, boy-like,
upon their feline power of climbing, and one or two of them show their
expertness and bravery by disdaining the rope-ladder—pardon us, the
shrouds—and slide down the main-stay from the top of the foremast to the
bowsprit. All these things are evident sources of enjoyment; for
running, and climbing, and shouting in the open air, are natural to the
human animal in a normal state of existence. Of the climbing, there is a
story told which illustrates the character of a very worthy man now
passed away. Dr. Stanley, the late Bishop of Norwich, paid many visits
to this school, and always looked on with evident pleasure whilst the
lads were enjoying themselves with their ship. One day the good-natured
dignitary was looking on, when he began to rub his hands together, and
presently turning to an officer of the place who stood by, said in a
genial, half confidential tone, “If I were not a bishop I’d join in and
climb that pole myself!”
Besides this drill, or parade, and this exercise aloft, the boys, on two
days of the week, are employed in the Industrial training of the place.
The smaller boys, in classes of about thirty-five, are ranged on benches
round a large tailor’s shop. Patterns decorate the walls, and
“corduroys” in all stages, from the huge bale to the perfect breeches,
are seen all round the room. The boys stitch and sew, and make and mend,
under the instruction of a master tailor, a large part of the clothes
worn in the place. When each boy grows bigger he is drafted into a
neighbouring shop, where, also, under a competent master, he learns the
craft of St. Crispin. It is curious to see thirty or forty little
cobblers, all in rows, waxing and stitching, and hammering on
lap-stones, and entering _con amore_ into the mysteries of sole and
upper leathers, brads, pegs, and sparrowbills. When they have learned
all these things, some of the lads pass into a third shop, where they
are made acquainted with the forge, and anvil, and sledge hammer, and
where they help to shoe horses, construct iron bedsteads, and make and
mend all the iron-work (and there is a great deal of it) required by
this family party of nearly a thousand souls—pauper children, masters,
and servants, together. After going through all these stages of
training, with the incidental knowledge picked up in the stables with
the horses, in the playground with the dogs, when helping to feed the
pigs, and whilst aiding the operation of milking the twenty-five cows
which supply milk for the house, the boys have acquired a great amount
of useful knowledge. The place is indeed a little colony in itself, and
if its inmates had not often to pass from it back to the sinkholes of
London, they might leave Norwood almost with the certainty of becoming
good and prosperous citizens.
* * * * *
Monthly Supplement of “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,”
Conducted by CHARLES DICKENS.
_Price 2d., Stamped, 3d._,
THE HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE
OF
CURRENT EVENTS.
_The Number, containing a history of the past month, was issued with
the Magazines._
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