essential parts of the school system. Now, it
is known very generally, that the wynds and
closes of such places as the Cowgate and the
Grass Market at Edinburgh, contain throngs
of miserable Irish families; and that of all
the ragged children whom these schools are
meant to bless, no inconsiderable portion is
supplied by Roman Catholics. Many persons
of influence in the town considered it, in the
case of the Original Ragged School, a serious
objection that it was not practically open to
all classes of the poor; and being unable to
change the management, these gentlemen
seceded from it in a body. Headed by Lord
Murray, and afterwards by Lord Dunfermline,
they set on foot another ragged school
in consonance with their own sense of what
is liberal and just: which other school exists
under the name of the United Industrial. In
the United Industrial School, it is made
necessary that religious teaching should be
given, in hours set apart for that purpose; but
it is not furnished by the school itself, which
is content to open its doors to the various
religious instructors chosen for the pupils by
their friends. For the last eight years the
respective merits of these systems have been
eagerly discussed in Edinburgh by those
concerned in questions of the kind. The
discussion represents in little, a much more
extensive controversy. In that sense we think it
worth attention; and so, taking the report
of each school for the present year, and
comparing the results proclaimed by each, we
adopt the question, What have they to show?

In the first place, with regard to the funds
which each has at disposal, it may be said
that the income of the Original Ragged is
about twice that of the United Industrial.
The subscriptions for the last year amounted
in one case to about sixteen hundred and
sixty pounds, and in the other case to about
eight hundred and fifty; while the Original
Ragged has the aid of a reserve fund, rather
more than equivalent to certain special funds
of the United Industrial, which form part of
the voluntary contributions. With double
funds, the Original Ragged School has had
charge of more than twice as many children
as its rival—the numbers for last year being
two hundred and seventy-five in one case,
one hundred and sixteen in the other; one-
third of the larger number, but only one-
sixth of the smaller number, being infants
who were not receiving regular education.
This larger per-centage of infants in the
Original Ragged School, while it may account
for the somewhat greater number that have
been maintained by the same funds, must
also be borne in mind as affecting the
percentage of work done, and giving a show of
weakness to the elder school in some points
of comparison which, to a certain extent,
exceeds what is actually true. Thus, when
it is said that of the Original Ragged scholars
sixty-four in a hundred, and of the United
Industrial scholars eighty-four in a hundred,
are taught trades, there is no real inequality
of operation to be marked; but a very
marked difference appears when we discover
that among the Original Ragged scholars
only eighteen or nineteen in a hundred of
those who leave school get employment,
while employment is obtained at once by
fifty-six in a hundred, of the children trained
up on a less exclusive system.

The managers of the United Industrial
School, keeping in view the children whom
they have taken from the streets and put
into decent ways of life, can account for about
one hundred and forty out of one hundred
and sixty boys who have gone to situations.
Ninety of these are still in their first places.
It can account, also, for ninety-two girls, who,
out of a hundred and six finding employment,
still keep up a friendship with their teachers.
Thirty-four of these are still in their first
places. The parents who send children to
this school, having their religious feelings
openly respected, are content; and from this
school, accordingly, all straying away of
pupils is extremely rare. On the other hand,
the report of the school hampered by a too
zealous orthodoxy, giving an account of its
year's work, has to record that, while out of
two hundred and seventy-five pupils, not
more than forty-nine (or eighteen and a-half
per cent.) went to employments, nearly an
equal number (forty-nine) deserted, or would
not return, or could not be found; that of
the remaining number, twenty-two seceded
to Roman Catholic exclusive schools, twenty-
two went to parishes on which they had a
claim, twenty-nine left Edinburgh without
employment, and ten were taken away by
their parents. Thus, about half the number
entering the more sectarian school was lost
by desertions and removals; and the other
school, with not more than half the resources,
sent out into the world, last year, an
absolutely larger number—a number larger by
one-fourth—of ragged boys and girls
converted into useful and industrious young men
and women. It has also sent them out, not
merely instructed in the religion of their
fathers, but taught by daily habit of the important
lesson, that no difference of creed should
part young playfellows, or divide the interests
of men and women in the common work of
life.

As for the filth and crime among our
wretched classes, who does not know that it
is too often at bottom a question of position?
The other day a thief, apparently in
full sincerity, when sentenced to four years'
imprisonment, begged for fifteen of transportation.
If he were locked up for four years, and
let loose again among his own companions,
he could only thieve, as of old. Punish crime
by all means—punish it severely while you pity
the condition that produced it—but do not
forget that there are thousands of poor devils
plundering and begging, who cry, "Gentlemen,
what else are we to do?" Such schools