Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 391, May, 1848
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
pupils in the parochial schools look. For them it is a step
towards the office of preacher and minister. The
universality of these schools, and the large proportion of
the persons attending them who take part in their
government, have very generally familiarised the people with
some of the more ordinary terms and methods of organisation,
such as _committee_, _secretary_, and so forth.
"Thus, there is every thing about such institutions which
can recommend them to the popular taste. They gratify that
gregarious sociability which animates the Welsh towards each
other. They present the charms of office to those who, on
all other occasions, are subject; and of distinction to
those who have no other chance of distinguishing themselves.
The topics current in them are those of the most general
interest; and are treated in a mode partly didactic, partly
polemical, partly rhetorical, the most universally
appreciated. Finally, every man, woman, and child feels
comfortably at home in them. It is all among neighbours and
equals. Whatever ignorance is shown there, whatever mistakes
are made, whatever strange speculations are started, there
are no superiors to smile and open their eyes. Common habits
of thought pervade all. They are intelligible or excusable
to one another. Hence, every one that has got any thing to
say is under no restraint from saying it. Whatever such
Sunday-schools may be as places of instruction, they are
real fields of mental activity. The Welsh working man rouses
himself for them. Sunday is to him more than a day of bodily
rest and devotion. It is his best chance, all the week
through, of showing himself in his own character. He marks
his sense of it by a suit of clothes regarded with a feeling
hardly less Sabbatical than the day itself. I do not
remember to have seen an adult in rags in a single Sunday
school throughout the poorest districts. They always seemed
to me better dressed on Sundays than the same classes in
England."
As a specimen of the relative number of Sunday schools belonging to
the different religious persuasions in North Wales, we will take Mr
Johnson's summary, which gives the following tabular result; and which
is nearly in the same proportion in the rest of the principality:--
SUNDAY SCHOOLS.
Church of England, 124
Baptists, 73
Calvinistic Methodists, 545
Independents, 232
Wesleyan Methodists, 183
Other Denominations, 4
----
Total, 1161
But if we take the returns of the daily schools for the same six
counties, the proportions will be found to, be greatly changed:--
DAY SCHOOLS FOR THE POOR.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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