THE EDUCATION QUESTION.
LTO THE FaMTOR OF THE " EIrscrETOR:1
Snz,-7-Mr. J. A. Craig in your last issue takes you to task for saying that the Church was the first to care for the education of the poor, and repeats the well-worn fallacy that the Church's efforts for education began in 1811 with the founda- tion-of the National Society, while the Lancasterian schools were started some three years earlier. He is evidently not aware that the National Society was founded by this Society, which since 1698 had been starting and supporting schools for the poor in all parts of the country. The object of these schools was to teach poor children "to read and write, and to repeat and understand the Church Catechism." The masters were instructed to "take particular care of their manners and behaviour, to teach them to write a fair legible hand, with the grounds of arithmetick. The girls were to learn to read, &a., and generally to knit their stockings and gloves, and to mark, sew, make, and mend their °loathes." By 1741 nearly two thousand such schools had been established in Great Britain and Ireland by the means of this Society. The foundation of the National Society in 1811 was caused by the pressure of work undertaken in many directions by the Society for Pro- moting Christian Knowledge, and it was then felt wise to found the new Society, which should devote itself solely to national education. But for more than a hundred years previously the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge bad cared for the children of the poor, and any one who glances over the early Minutes of this Society will realise the zeal of its members for religious education.—I am, Sir, &c., W. OSBORN B. A T.T.EN, Secretary. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, Northumberland Avenue, W.O.
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