Schools – Wolverton Past

In an age before children had rights.

This story from almost 100 years ago shows us a very different world and one can’t help thinking that the parent and the child would get a very different hearing today. Of the three schools mentioned here, the Church of England school was at Stony Stratford on the High Street, the Council school was the building on the corner of the Wolverton Road and the Secondary School was the new County School on Moon Street. It is now Bushfield School. It was in those days a fee paying school.

At the Petty Sessions on Friday, December 1^st 1916, with Mr. F.W. Woollard in the chair, Samuel Purser, a labourer of the town, was summoned for not sending his boy to school. Mr. Herbert Bentley, Chief School Attendance Officer, Aylesbury, represented the Bucks Education Authority, and representing the defendant was Mr. Charles Allinson, a solicitor of 89, High Street. Mr. Bentley said there had been no attendance since the summer holiday. The boy had answered a teacher at school which caused some laughter, and the schoolmaster reprimanded him for his conduct.

The boy was said to have committed some breach of discipline and the teacher reported it to the headmaster. The parents had applied for the boy to be transferred from the Church of England School to the Council School, but having twice considered the case the school managers each time concluded that ‘it would be a breach of discipline and have great weight amongst other children.’ However, the parents would not send the child back, and he supposed that they were prepared to send him to the Council School provided the Committee gave him a transfer. Mr. Bentley then read a High Court of Justice decision on the matter, which he contended applied to this case. In cross examination he said the boy had been refused admission to the Council School, whilst as to the fact that the lad had attended for a fortnight, but was then ‘fetched away,’ he said he instructed the teacher that the pupil had been wrongly admitted. He had no authority to exclude a boy from school.

In his questioning Mr. Allinson said that 103 attendances out of a possible 115 had been made up to March, and the boy’s conduct was fair. When asked if he knew that the boy suffered from mental aberration Mr. Bentley denied any knowledge. Then in the continued questioning,

“He has never been punished in any shape or form?”

“I had no knowledge of it.”

“Has he ever had his head banged on the table or been hit on the head?”

“I could not say.”

“Has the lad ever been told by the teacher he was only fit to feed pigs?”

“I am not aware of it.”

“What is your power to refuse a transfer?”

“So far as the legal obligation to a transfer there is such a thing as discipline.”

“Did you lay my letter before the Committee?”

“I did not.”

“Don’t you think it was your duty to have done so?”

“No, sir.”

“You decided it on your own?”

“No, sir.”

“What did you do then?”

“I consulted my chief, Mr. Watkins.”

“Are you willing to give the boy a transfer to a school where he will have a different environment?”

“The case would have to be considered by the Committee.” At this point the Magistrate’s Clerk, Mr. E.T. Worley, pointed out that in the Bye Laws not a single word was said about transfers.

Mr. Bentley then said “For your enlightenment, I might say that the Government regulations were drawn up by the Board of Education. There is one observation which speaks of capricious removals which are not allowed. It is a matter of upholding the discipline of schools.”

Mr. Allinson then said he was justified in the face of the doctor’s certificate in saying there was a reasonable excuse for not attending school as required by the Act. This was a case where the boy was made a butt of because he went to help in a piggery. He was bullied by other boys and the teacher ‘took it.’ Counsel further alleged that when it came to thumping the boy’s head it was time to intervene, and he thought the father was justified in respectfully asking for a transfer for the boy. The lad had put in full attendance at the Council School for a fortnight. There was no doubt he would still have done so, if an officer hadn’t told the teacher not to admit him. In order to get the boy educated, and save him any further misery, his father then went to the Secondary School at Wolverton, being quite prepared to forego luxuries and pay the high school fees there. However, they required ‘a two years character,’ which the headmaster on being applied to refused. Consequently Mr. Allinson’s client was glad to be in court that day to define his position.

Evidently the County Council ‘in their wisdom’ would refuse the boy admission into any of their schools, despite the headmaster of the County Council School being perfectly willing to take him, as he was a quiet pupil. Mrs. Faith Ellen Purser, the wife of the defendant, then made a complaint about the children ‘calling’ him at school. He seemed very unhappy, and in the middle of a meal “he absolutely lost himself and was absent minded.” She said that one day there was a slight bruise on the boy’s head when he came home from school.

When the chairman asked if she thought that the boy’s health and comfort was being interfered with by attending this school, she replied “I do, sir.”

To this the chairman said “That’s the point. To my mind it is the greatest tyranny on the part of the school or the teacher to interfere in such circumstance.”

For the defendant Mr. Allinson said that if the facts had come to their knowledge they would have granted a transfer, for which they had pressed. Lamenting that no master was present, the chairman said that in some 50 cases of this kind from these schools only once had a master taken any interest. Mrs. Purser stated that she had applied numerous times for a transfer on the grounds that the child suffered certain mental aberrations. She wrote some of the letters to the Committee and her husband had written some. She told the headmaster as soon as began to notice it, but when asked if she had made such a statement in any of the letters she said she hadn’t put it like that. “I told them he suffered from his head a lot.” Asked if she had any medical evidence previous to the certificate, which bore the current day’s date, she replied “No, because I took care of the child.” After a brief retirement the chairman announced that having considered all the evidence the Bench were unanimous in dismissing the case.

Archibald Laing – The First Schoolmaster

One institution that was quickly established after the public house was the school, or more accurately schools, as there was provision for a Boys School, a Girls School and an Infant School. They were all house i the new building on Creed Street which also provided accommodation for the school master.

The first man they hired was a Scot called Archibald Laing. He was a teacher at Clewer in Berkshire and was brought to Wolverton for n annual salary of £100, accommodation and a supply of coal. On the strength of this he married an he and his wife produced four daughters. £100 Should add was a respectable income. The average worker in the works took home £50 a year and Laing’s colleagues, the Girl’s teacher was paid £40 a year and theInfants’ teacher only £30.

Laing ran the school with Victorian discipline for 13 years and then in 1853, after only 42 years of life he unexpectedly died. I don’t have details of the cause of death. But he had an afterlife of sorts because tales grew up about his haunting the old school house at night. Boys, with little else to do, would gather outside the school of a winter evening hoping to catch a fearful glimpse of this apparition.

One night, around 1860, a group of boys were hanging around outside the school speculating on the possible appearance of the ghost when one boy asserted that there were no such things a ghosts. Naturally this claim was met with derision and he was challenged to the point where he said he would go into the school if necessary and prove them wrong.

This seemed to be the only way to resolve the argument and he broke a window and squeezed himself through the iron bars to get into the building. As he landed on the floor he gave out a cry of pin and the boys outside were all convinced that he had seen the ghost, but he assured them that it was alright. he had just cut his hand on a piece of broken lass. He then worked his way through the building but because it was dark he kept bumping into desks. The terrified boys outside were sure that he was wrestling with the ghost. However, this young lad kept his nerve and worked his way through the building, opening cupboards and doors and finally returned to his mates to tell them he had found nothing, not even a wisp of a ghost.

After this the ghost story never came up again, it having been, so to speak, laid to rest.

A view of the schools c 1840

The evolution of Wolverton’s First School

In the first two years of “railway” Wolverton the new town grew rapidly. By 1840 the northern streets (Bury, Gas, Walker, Cooke and Garnett Streets) are fully inhabited and work had started on Creed Street, Ledsam Street and Glyn Square. A school was now a necessity so in 1840 the London and Birmingham Railway Company put up the money for construction and the school was built in 1840 on Radcliffe Trust land on the west side of the new Creed Street.

The school as it may have appeared in 1840

There were essentially three wings to the building illustrated here. As far as I can gather from contemporary reports the northern section housed the girls and infants schools, the central section accommodated the boys and the southern part was housing for the schoolmaster and his family. The first schoolmaster, Archibald Laing, was paid £100 a year. This was not a bad salary for the times. The average worker in the works earned half that, although some clerks on the railway could earn as much or more. The girls teacher was paid £40 a year and the Infants teacher paid a measly £30 a year. Women still had a long way to go to achieve pay equality.

The school went through some expansion over the century as the town population grew. You can see from this mid-20th century photograph, that the school had sprouted a number of additions.

This photo shows the buildings when they were used as a Market Hall

In the early 1890s the “Tank House” at the end of Ledsam Street was converted from public baths and a water pump house into a residence for the schoolmaster. The former schoolhouse was reclaimed for classroom space.

But before long even that was inadequate. Wolverton was undergoing a rapid expansion in the 1890s. Cambridge Street, Windsor Street, Green Lane, Victoria Street and Osborne Street all date from this period. So it was resolved to build a new school. Accordingly, again on the western edge of town, a new Boys School was opened in 1896 beside Church Street. The Girls and Infants continued to use the old school on Church Street.

A decade later, a new two storey school opened on Aylesbury Street for the Girls and Infants and the original school was abandoned. It is not known if there was any intended use for it, but in that same year there was a fire at the old Market House beside Glyn Square and it was decided that the Friday Market should occupy the original school.

And so it came about that the building that many of us remember as the Market Hall came into being and every Friday for almost three quarters of a century these buildings bustled with activity until 1980 when the new Agora opened and all such activity was transferred there.

The market now abandoned,

The building remained empty for a while and became vulnerable to damage and fire but a decision was then taken, probably by the council, to renovate and adapt the building. The northern wing and the walls were pulled down. The rest of the buildings were modernised and converted to offices. A travel agent occupied the central wing (the old Boys School) and another company occupied the rest of the building. In the first decade of this century the council reclaimed the building for its own purpose. The Library was moved from Church Street and the remaining buildings were converted to meeting rooms.

The present day appearance. The white painted section is the original Boys School

This is now the oldest surviving building in Wolverton. Somebody should put a plaque on the wall.

From School to Pub: A tale of two buildings in Stony Stratford

I don’t think it ever occured to me as I was sitting at my school desk trying to take care that my dip pen didn’t leave a blot in my exercise book that I would ever live to enjoy a pint in later life in my old classroom. In Stony Stratford this could have happened and in a curious way the history of pubs and schools is intertwined.

As I have described in another post the old Rose and Crown on the High Street was bequeathed by its owner Michael Hipwell in 1610 to found a school. The inn continued to operate to raise sufficient money for the next 99 years and then was converted into a school. In the 19th century this was taken over by the National School movement and a school operated on this site and adjacent to it until the 20th century.

In the meantime the expansion of Wolverton works led to new building in Stony Stratford and the so-called Wolverton End developed. This enlargement of the Holy Trinity parish necessitated the building of a new church (St Mary’s) and in due course another school. This was opened in 1873 on the corner of the Wolverton and London Road and was designed by the distinguished architect, Edward Swinfen Harris.
For part of the 20th century these two schools operated in tandem, with the boys in the High Street and the Girls and Infants at the London Road School. Then in 1936 a new co-educational school was built on King George Crescent and the old schools were redundant.

Fortunately there was a ready tenant for the Swinfen Harris school. The old Plough Inn had been in business next door for many years and the new premises were attractive to them. I imagine the conversion was not too costly and there was probably already a cellar in the school building.

Thus it came to pass that that the building designed by Swinfen Harris was a school for about 60 years and has been a pub for the last 80 – and possibly will continue in that line of business. The bell tower betrays its former use as a school but nowadays I suspect very few people have any inkling of its original purpose.

Stony Stratford Schools

The history of schools in Stony Stratford is much longer and more complicated than that of Wolverton, although it is interesting to note that they were all built on the Wolverton Manor, that is on the east side of the Watling Street.

Schools only emerged where there was a population centre, so there was no demand in the scattered village of Wolverton, which had in any case become depopulated by the land enclosures of the 16th century. In addition, there was no real recognition of the importance of schooling until the intellectual Humanist movement reached the shore of England in the early 16th century.

Stony Stratford’s first school (as far as we know) was founded by Michael Hipwell who set aside some of his land and property to found a Grammar School in his will of 1610. The Rose and Crown was to be let for a period of 99 years and at the end of this time the property was bequeathed to Trustees who were directed to use the capital and income to found a school:

“that the rents and profits may be applied to the maintenance of a schoolmaster from time to time for ever, to keep a Free Grammar School in the barn behind the said inn, which barn he appointed should be applied as the school house, and was then lately built by him, and a chimney, a loft, and a parlour on the one end thereof for the schoolmaster from time to time to dwell in, and the yard adjoining to the bam for the use of the schoolmaster for the time being : and he appointed that the said trustees should nominate the schoolmaster to hold the said free school from time to time as they should think good; and it is provided, that such scholars of the town, or any of the next town adjoining, as should be minded to learn either grammar, or to write, or to cypher, should be taught in the school, and be taught their principles in religion, or else the said gift to be void ; and that the trustees should remove the said schoolmaster, and put in another, if they should think good cause, or that the school master for the time being should not duly and orderly behave himself, and teach the scholars in the said school, as should be thought meet by the said trustees.”

One must assume that this school began to function as such after 1710.

By the 19th century the income from Michael Hipwell’s charity was insufficient for the operating costs of the school and the trustees decided to merge their interests with the new National School Society, which was a Church of England movement with access to state funds. This led to the foundation of St Giles School at Number 30 High Street, next door to the old Rose and Crown in the first decade of the 19th century. The school reigned supreme in Stony Stratford (apart from private schools which I will discuss in another post) for about 30 years to the increasing discontent of non-conformists.

The non-conformists were not entirely without support. There was a counter movement in the 19th Century to provide a school curriculum for Non-conformists and almost parallel with the National Schools another sort of school, with more-or-less the same funding arrangements, came into being as British Schools, sometimes known as “Lancastrian Schools” after their founder Joseph Lancaster. While these schools began to make their appearance in England after 1819, the first British School to come to Stony Stratford was built in 1844 at the very south end of the High Street at a cost of £750. You can still get a good view of it at the Corner of the High Street and the Wolverton Road. The curved corner is a nice thought and in more recent times this has been mirrored in a newer building on the opposite side of the street.

This school lasted for about 70 years and then was moved to a new building built by the Council on Russell Street in 1907. This building is still used as an Infants school. The old British School continued in use as a public hall.

In 1858 St Giles school was partly rebuilt and enlarged in the grounds at the back of the Rose and Crown properties at the instigation of the Reverend W T Sankey who spent his private income very liberally in Stony Stratford. And again in 1867, the generosity of another vicar, this time the Rev. William Pitt Trevelyan, at that time Vicar of Holy Trinity, built another school on the corner of the London Road. This one, designed by the architect Edwin Swinfen Harris, is now the Plough Inn, which you can see in the above photograph.

This school was another church school, designed for the expanding population at the “Wolverton End” which in time formed a new parish, known as Wolverton St Mary’s. At first it served Boys Girls and Infants, but in the 20th century there was some rationalisation with St Giles on the High Street – St Giles took the boys and the newer school was used for Girls and Infants only.

In 1936 a new school opened on King George’s Crescent, and the old schools closed and were converted to private use. The school designed by Swinfen Harris was occupied by The Plough Inn, which for many years had conducted its trade in a building next door. There is a certain symmetry in this. The Rose and Crown became a school and the school on the corner of the London Road became a pub!

Listed Buildings – Wolverton

Thanks to Andrew Lambert for this idea. I am going to go on a tour of the listed buildings in the area. I’ll start with Wolverton, then do Old Wolverton, Stony Stratford and New Bradwell.

I can’t help but comment on the arbitrary nature of the listing process. The original Engine Shed did not get listed and was consequently flattened to make a Tesco car park, but the Triangle Building, started in 1845 and much enlarged and adapted over the years, makes the list. The school of 1840 is not listed, nor is the Royal Engineer of 1841. Why is the Aylesbury Street School of 1906 listed and not the Moon Street School of 1908?

The information below is presented as links to the British Heritage site. The information is under crown copyright and cannot be reproduced here. Just as well perhaps, since there are a number of instances where the descriptions are factually wrong.

Area map of listed buildings

Blue Bridge

The Blue Bridge was a farm track from Stacey Hill Farm to the fields sloping down to Bradwell Brook.

Church of St George the Martyr

The building and history of the church has been covered in various posts.

Classroom at Wyvern First School

Former Railway Works Building

In 1845 the LBR used the land on the east side of the line to build a new shed. In time this expanded to fill the whole triangle area between the canal, the Stratford Road and the old railway line. It was henceforward known as the Triangle Building.

Reading Room

I rather think that it would take some serious archaeological work to identify which part of this building was the original Reading Room of 1840. Back then it was certainly a single storey structure and the road and canal bridge were lower. The openings for doors and windows do not resemble anything visible on the surviving planss from the 840s.

Former Royal Train Shed

Funny what the word “Royal” can do. This long shed and workshop was built in the 1880s when the main line was diverted and sat on the embankment above the Park. It was used in the 20th century to store the Royal Train when it was not in use, thus giving the building a significance which it might not otherwise have had.

Church Institute

Park Keeper’s lodge

This is the best photo I have at the moment, surrounded by boards, empty and awaiting some fate.

Methodist Church

Railway Bridge over Canal

Stacey Hill Farm Barn

The barn was built in the 1840s when the new farm house was built on top of the hill. (Formerly Stacey Farm had been closer to Bradwell Brook.) It was a large timbered structure and was given a Grade II listing. Unfortunately it burned down in a fire in 1996 so the preservation order didn’t help very much!

Stacey Hill Farm House

The farm house, built I understand, by the very young Charles Aveline is now occupied by the Milton Keynes Museum and can be visited during opening hours.

Skew Bridge

Garden Pavilion

I haven’t got much idea of what this is. I assume from the description that it was a garden structure in the grounds of the Vicarage.

Viaduct

Wyvern First School

The girls and infants continued to use the 1840 school on Creed Street until 1906 when this was built. At the time it was Wolverton’s grandest school until the Secondary School opened at the end of Moon street in 1908. The Creed Street School did service as a Market Hall until the Agora was opened.

Wyvern Nursery

This was in 1896 the new Boys School and remained so until about 1946 when the Secondary Modern came into being. From that time on all the Wolverton schools were co-ed.

Junior School 1952

First Form Wolverton Junior School 1952

Another photo from Ian Turner. Here are some names supplied from Alan Cosford’s memory:

Front Row: Christopher Bear, 1?, 2?, 3?, Richard Mynard
Second Row Seated: 4?, Christine Goodridge, 6?, 7?, 8?, Miss Faux, 9?, 10?, 11? 12?, Peggy Marshall
Third Row: 13?, 14?, 15?, 16?, 17? 18? Rita Walker, 19?, 20?, 21?, 22?, Glenda Frisby
Back Row: Alan Cosford, 23?, David Snowden, 24?, Ian Turner, John Bennett, 25?, 26?, Malcolm Goodridge, 27?, Christopher Bull

Names-to-faces are welcome.

The teacher is Miss Faux, who used to travel from Potterspury every day by bus. I did hear a few years back that she was still alive, well into her 90s.

The view looks north. The wall which used to separate the Aylesbury Street and Church Street schools has now gone, as too has the pre-fab behind it which used to be the school canteen.

The Girls and Infants School

Ten years after the new Boys’ School the Board of Governors opened a new school on Aylesbury Street. The whole block between Church Street and Aylesbury Street and Windsor Street and Jersey Road was now occupied by the two schools. The Radcliffe Trust also decided at this time to develop new streets for Wolverton. Within a few years the schools were now surrounded by houses.

The new school was a two storey building with two entrances, one marked Girls and the other marked Infants. In 1949 this designation puzzled me, but I’ll come back to that later.

The school appears to have been built with expansion in mind. The rooms were large enough for 40 pupils, (although judging from the 1908 photo I referenced two days ago, they may have held more. There are 51 girls in that picture.).

When I went to the school in 1949, it had been adapted to two schools. The Junior School was upstairs and the Secondary Modern (colloquially known as the Senior School downstairs. The upper floor had four years with A and B streams, and could therefore accommodate 8 classes. The same was true downstairs. The Secondary School also had 8 classes in 4 years. By this time an outbuilding had been constructed as a Cookery classroom. This building is still there adjoining a toilet block, which back then was used by girls only. There was also a wall dividing the Aylesbury Street School from the Church Street School. That has since been demolished.

As I recall, school times were arranged to minimize contact between senior and junior pupils and break times were staggered. The lower playground was shared between the Infants and the Boys. The Senior girls used the upper playground on the east side and the Junior School used the playground on the west side, and their entrance was through the Jersey Road back alley.

As you can see from the photographs, wrought iron railings surrounded the schools.

When I attended these school in the late forties and early fifties all Wolverton schools had just become co-educational – that is boys and girls were taught together in the same classroom. I had no appreciation of this revolution at the time because as a child I just accepted everything as if it had always been this way.

I should also mention that after the war two pre-fab buildings were erected on the site. They were both single storey concrete slab buildings with metal window frames and a zinc corrugated roof. they were, I think, just bolted together. It was a fast post-war solution to building and there were even houses (such as on the Bradville estate) that were built in this way. One of these buildings was placed in the eastern upper playground and became a Nursery School. It had two rooms with a central staff room. I suppose this must have been a new educational experiment at the time and my cohort may have been one of the first years to use it and were thus exposed to school at the tender age of four. I don’t remember much. We did things with wooden building blocks in the morning, had lunch and then slept on folding canvas “camp beds” in the afternoon. I imagine our school day was over by 3 o’clock.

The second pre-fab was erected on the Jersey Road side at the top of the lower playground and this became the school canteen where school dinners were administered.

The Second Boys’ School

The school on Creed Street was gradually outgrown by the population and in 1896 a new school, also built by the L&NWR, was erected on Church Street, the on the western edge of the town. Once again, there was a complex relationship with the Radcliffe Trust – the Radcliffe Trust leasing the land and the L&NWR taking responsibility for the building.

Wolverton had been very fortunate in its educational provision. The railway company had built the first school and paid the salary for the teachers. After the 1870 Act when the Government made school attendance compulsory the cost of operation was born by ratepayers. However, the capital funding by the L&NWR must have taken a great load off the community. After 1880 attendance was compulsory up to the age of 12. This was later increased step by step to 13, 14 and 15 after the 1944 Education Act. The school-leaving age was last increased to 16 in 1973.

Once the new school was opened the girls and infants continued to use the old Creed Street School.

The Church Street School is a single storey building and as far as I know has not been enlarged in its history. Later, a woodwork classroom was built in the grounds beside the Windsor Street back alley. The boy’s toilets were also built alongside the back alley.

The building was used as a boys school until after the 1944 Education Act which created the Secondary Modern School. Thereafter the schools became co-educational and the Secondary Modern was opened at Aylesbury Street (which I will discuss tomorrow). The Boys School then became an Infants School, and was such when I started in 1947. I haven’t been inside the building since 1949 so all my memories are from the perspective of a small child. Everything seemed very large and it was impossible to see out of the windows, since they were so high. One larger room could be divided by folding doors and the resulting double room be used as an assembly hall. I also recall that one room on the south side had a stepped floor.

The First School on Creed Street

I have written about the Creed Street school before, but I want to put up this post as a prelude to writing about the later schools on Church Street and Aylesbury Street.

For some reason the first school, built here in 1841, has been barely photographed. The building at present functions as a library and town meeting room. The 1841 building has been enlarged and reduced in its lifetime and ceased to operate as as school in 1906, when a new school building was opened on Aylesbury Street.

In this view here the white northern section was at one time the central hall of the school buildings which were built on a U-shaped plan. This plan drawing from 1860 will show the extent of the original.

As far as I can gather, the east facing part of the building was used as a Boys’ School while the north wing was used for a girls’ classroom and an infants’ classroom. The southern wing was a house for the schoolmaster. The buildings on the left were later 19th century enlargements.

A new Boys’ School was built on Church Street in 1896, then on the outskirts of the town, and the Creed Street School was used only by Girls and Infants. This state of affairs continued until 1906 when a new Girls and Infants School opened on Aylesbury Street.

I don’t think there were any immediate plans for the Creed Street building, but that year there was a fire in the old Market House on Glyn Square which left it gutted, so the Friday Market activities moved into the empty building. It was used for this purpose until the Agora was opened in 1980.

Here is a contemporary description of this first school written by Sir Francis Bond Head in his book Stokers and Pokers.

For the education of the children of the Company’s servants, a school-house, which we had much pleasure in visiting, has been constructed on an healthy eminence, surrounded by a small court and garden. In the centre there is a room for girls, who, from nine till five, are instructed by a governess in reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, grammar, history, and needlework. Engaged at these occupations we counted fifty-five clean, healthy faces. In the east wing we found about ninety fine, stout, athletic boys, of various ages, employed in the studies above mentioned (excepting the last), and learning, moreover, mathematics and drawing. One boy we saw solving a quadratic equation—another was engaged with Euclid—others with studying land-surveying, levelling, trigonometry, and one had reached conic sections.

At the western extremity of the building, on entering the infant-school, which is under the superintendence of an intelligent looking young person of about nineteen years of age, we were struck by the regular segments in which the little creatures were standing in groups around a tiny monitor occupying the centre of each chord. We soon, however, detected that this regularity of their attitudes was caused by the insertion in the floor of various chords of hoop iron, the outer rims of which they all touched with their toes. A finer set of little children we have seldom beheld ; but what particularly attracted our attention was three rows of beautiful babies sitting as solemn as judges on three steps one above another, the lowest being a step higher than the floor of the room. They were learning the first hard lesson of this world—namely, to sit still; and certainly the occupation seemed to be particularly well adapted to their outlines ; indeed their pinafores were so round, and their cheeks so red, that altogether they resembled three rows of white dumplings, with a rosy-faced apple on each. The picture was most interesting; and we studied their cheerful features until we almost fancied that we could analyze and distinguish which were little fire-flies—which small stokers—tiny pokers—infant artificers, &c.

The earlier post on this school can be found here.