Besides all this, children who were too young to be apprenticed were in many places taught to spin and sometimes to read and write. We have seen that in Norwich in every parish "a select woman" was appointed for this purpose in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and in 1630 a similar order was made to the effect "that a knittinge schooledame shalbe provided in every parishe where there is not one already, to sett children and other poore on worke[521]." Even in the hamlets like those of Whitwell and Sellside, in the county of Westmoreland, three poor boys were maintained at the school by the parish who were to be taught trades as soon as they were old enough[522]. In Hertfordshire we are told that many had been placed as apprentices "and such as are not of fitt yeares to bee put forth wee haue caused to bee sett to spinning and such smale worke as is most meete for them according to the tendernesse of their age that idlenesse may not fasten in them[523]." [521] _Norwich Court Books._ 18th October, 1630. [522] _D. S. P._, Chas. I., Vol. 388, No. 7, XXXVIII. 2. [523] _Ib._ Vol. 189. 79. These schools were not improbably very numerous. In documents containing the instructions of justices to overseers knitting schools were advocated. Thus in directions issued in 1622 by some of the justices of Norfolk for the hundreds of Eynesford and South Erpingham, the justices resolve "that poore children be put to schoole to knittinge and spinninge dames and the churchwardens and ouerseers for the poore to paie the schoole dames their wages where the parents are not able[524]." [524] British Museum Add. MSS. No. 12496, f. 222. In another document containing instructions by justices to overseers the establishment of knitting schools is advocated. See above, p. 181. All this points to a system of popular education of the kind then approved.