There is, indeed, another body to which we might turn for providing this boon. We think that our Legislature might place us now where Massachusetts was placed 35 years ago, and enact that "any township may establish and maintain" evening schools as well as day schools. But if this be the mind of our Education Department, it has yet to be manifested. At present the case is otherwise: those articles in the new code of 1871 which were presumably framed for the improvement of our night schools have resulted mainly in wide-spread havoc. In schools examined, the average attendance in 1870-71 was 86,206 on 40 nights; this fell in 1871-72 to 69,794, on 60 nights, and in 1872-73 to 45,973 on 60 nights; the numbers of schools in the same three winters being respectively 2,709, 2,122, and 1,395. It cannot be thought that the improvement of these 1,395 schools is an adequate compensation for the destruction of 1,314 others, with its concomitant turning loose of 40,000 backward youths; and we trust that the code of next February, when unhappily two more winters of havoc will have had their run, may see a return to more wise and merciful regulations, and a serious attention to the "important part" which these schools "are capable of being made to perform in national education" (Commissioners' Report, 1861, vol. i., p. 44). We commend attention on this matter to the valuable remarks of Mr. H. Sandford in pp. 165 and 166 of the "Education Report" of the present year. In the hope just expressed we venture two suggestions: The one on a matter of principle; that it is a gain for older lads to pass year after year in the same standardis, even without advancing to higher ones; as they will otherwise be in danger of losing all that they have learnt in the day school;-the other a point of detail; that it should be enough, as a condition of examination for a grant in a given standard or subject, to require the attendance of the scholar at a given number of lessons in that subject only, instead of requiring him, as at present, to make forty attendances of 11⁄2 hours each. 3. The remark just made will show that we do not rely on the night school, any more than on the Sunday school, as a cure for the wasted opportunities of our youth, or an antidote to their temptations. We turn in the third place to the Institute, under which head we include also guilds, clubs, reading-rooms, classes, and all such institutions as provide a place for our working lads to meet in on their week-day evenings, together with some harmless employment or amusement in such places. The same inducements which we have specified as drawing them to the night school, draw them still more readily to an institution of a milder character. In the night school the discipline is to many irksome and fatiguing, and the long and constant attendance well-nigh impossible. But the Institute, providing permission to attend also one or more classes in the night school, supplies the needful mixture of instruction and amusement. These amusements should include indoor games and entertainments, and if possible outdoor games or athletics; while savings banks, benefit clubs, registers of situations—some or all of these or other means for material help should exist also. Such institutes may be made largely self-supporting; and we firmly believe that their general establishment offers at the present moment the best hope for the rescue of these "ungathered harvests," over which we have now been lamenting. We stay for a moment here to appeal to those multitudes of educated young Churchmen and Churchwomen whose evenings are now commonly spent upon themselves, and to say, would not some of your spare evenings be happily employed in united efforts to help these poor lads to raise their minds and souls to a higher level, whether by the simple expedient of cricket club, athletics, chess, or amusing entertainment, or by the more elaborate work of a singing class, a lecture, or a lesson in the night school? Let it be clearly understood, however, what youths we seek to have in these institutions; it is not only, nor at present chiefly, those from sixteen to twenty years, who have left the day school for years, and are to some extent able to understand their own interests, and to take care of themselves: far more than these it is now the frail-minded lad of twelve or fourteen years, who has just left the day school; he has just emerged into incipient manhood; he possesses a little money of his own, and has now many temptations to spend it on the first steps to ruin; he is just become the constant companion of men whose minds are stronger than his own, and whose dispositions, instead of being, like those of the teachers and others to whom he has hitherto looked up, a protection to him against temptation, are too commonly a direct aggravation of it. The plan of the Church has hitherto been in too many cases to do much for this lad in his early childhood, but little or more. UNGATHERED HARVESTS. 137 nothing at this critical period, when he requires her help still take the lead in this work: she it is that must account most We say then once more that it is to the Church we look to deeply for these scattered sheep; it is she that is most highly gifted for their benefit. If we have pointed out a blot in her organization, we venture to think that our bishops would be doing good service in looking to it; and that their lordships might profitably urge-first upon the Education Department the necessity of recasting the regulations of our night schools, and upon their clergy an attention to the whole question with which we have here dealt. Our We think that it might worthily form a subject of consideration both in ruridecanal meetings and in diocesan synods. diocesan boards of education, with their revived activity, are a source from whenee we may fairly look for the development of such a scheme, dealing as it does with the important practical question, "To what end is your religious education?" We believe further that the associations of Church school managers and teachers, which have recently received such a valuable impulse, are to be looked to for help and counsel; while we are certain that very many of the masters, feeling a real interest in the souls of the boys who have passed through their hands, will gladly do their best to help. We have thus rapidly touched the outlines of what we believe to be a most urgent requirement of the day; we have passed Over many branches of a difficulty which has already been variously met: we think that the reports of guilds, institutes, classes, and cognate works might profitably be gathered up for the use of such of our clergy as are anxious to do more in this matter. Several of such reports are in our hands and are deeply interesting, showing as they do how this point has been in part successfully dealt with; but time and space forbid us to enlarge further. We conclude with one word which we respectfully offer to the parish priest, upon whom, after all, the burden of this work must mainly rest; and upon whom, as we believe and know, the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the same end rest also. It is this. It is his duty to bring these boys to confirmation. Let him make, if he does not already do so, a yearly list of all the boys who leave his day school, and a second list of all other boys of the same age in his parish. The two together should amount to about one in a hundred of his whole population. Let him anxiously con these lists, following each boy to his home, and learning what has become of him. Let him make it a main business to get hold of each boy and to bring him in some way in the course of the year following under Christian influence, and if possible Christian instruction. Three of such years' lists will provide him in time with a complete list of his boy candidates for confirmation. Varied only by such as have gone out to or come in from other parishes, upon whom also he should have an eye, and correspond with the clergy to or from whom they have gone or come. We think that it may be hoped that such lists will not be long before his eye, and especially in his hours of intercession for his flock, before some means will be raised up to him for gaining unlooked-for influences, and so saving to the Church. and to her Master some portion of those ripe but hitherto ungathered harvests. It may be useful to mention some publications which contain valuable suggestions on the foregoing subject. 1. The Manchester Diocesan Board of Education published, in 1873, a report on the Sunday schools of the diocese, full of practical hints and details of successful methods, and reaching far beyond mere Sunday school work. (Secretary, 42, John Dalton Street, Manchester; price 6d.) 2. Mr. Henry Solly's book on Social Clubs and Educational Institutes. (Club and Institute Union, 150, Strand; price 3s. 6d.) 3. The reports of Mr. Tabrum's Islington Youth's Institute give an excellent specimen of a successful Institute. THANKSGIVING HYMN. BY SARAH DOUDNEY. "While the earth :e naineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."-GEN. viii. 22. PRAISED be the Lord most holy, He hath blest us on the mountains, Farther still His love extendeth, Draw from Him their rich supplies. Watch us! O almighty Maker! Watch the seed that Thou hast sown; Grant that many a fruitful acre Thine abundant care may own: Hasten, Lord, that day of reaping, When Thine increase shall be shown. 1 |