The number of charity schools of the S. P. C. K. grew by leaps and bounds, and by the close of the first decade there were eighty-eight within a radius of ten miles of London. The gifts made had amounted to almost ten thousand pounds, and nearly one thousand boys and over four hundred girls had been sent out as apprentices. And before the middle of the eighteenth century the total number of these charity schools in England and Wales reached nearly two thousand, with about fifty thousand boys and girls in attendance. This increase in facilities for the education of the poor was not kindly received by many in the upper classes, who often felt that “there is no need for any learning at all for the meanest ranks of mankind: their business is to labour, not to think.” But the charity schools had also many warm supporters, and Addison even believed that as a result of them there would be “few in the next generation who will not at least be able to write and read, and have not an early tincture of religion.” The benefactions for these institutions continued to increase for nearly half a century, but by the middle of the eighteenth century popular interest had waned. The subscriptions began to fall off, the system of inspection and the teaching became less effective, and the schools ceased to expand. Nevertheless, the S. P. C. K. had succeeded in impressing the Church of England with a sense of responsibility for the establishment of a national school system upon a religious basis. Its schools were largely continued throughout the eighteenth century, and in most instances after 1811 were absorbed by the new educational organization of the English Church, the so-called ‘National Society’ (see p. 239). [Sidenote: Nonconformist schools.] [Sidenote: ‘Circulating schools.’] [Sidenote: Foundation of the S. P. G.] =Other British Charity Schools.=--These institutions of the Church of England society may be regarded as typical of British charity schools in general. There were, however, also a dozen well-known foundations by nonconformists, including the ‘Gravel Lane School’ of Southwark, London, which was started over a decade before the S. P. C. K. was organized. And an interesting type of philanthropic institution known as ‘circulating schools’ was founded in Wales. These schools simply aimed to teach pupils to read the Bible in Welsh, and when this had been accomplished in one neighborhood, the school was transferred to another. But a much more important organization was the offshoot of the S. P. C. K., that arose chiefly to carry on charity schools in the American colonies. This association, the ‘Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,’ (commonly known as S. P. G.), was founded by Dr. Bray three years after the parent society, but no schools were established for several years. [Sidenote: S. P. G. school in New York City,--] [Sidenote: now ‘Trinity Church School.’]