“_The Charity School for Girls_ was founded by voluntary subscription, at a meeting of ladies held at the Town-hall, April 13. 1792, and opened May 28 following. It provided instruction, in reading, sewing, and spinning, with some portion of clothing, for 30 children. A room in Purfleet street was for some years hired for the purpose; but in 1805 a much more suitable apartment, adjoining to the north tower of St. Margaret’s Church, was fitted up by the subscribers: and the school has been since extended to 50 girls, under the direction of _Miss Harriet Howell_, who has successfully adapted the new or Lancasterian method of education to the instruction of girls—This school is now supported in a great measure by taking in plain work; as the whole amount of the subscription, for the current year is only 49_l._ 7_s._” The other charitable seminary, that for _boys_, and which in fact is our proper Lancasterian school, is of much later origin than the preceding. Of its rise and progress the following brief account, we doubt not, will be found pretty accurate— “It is remarkable that in so large a town as this, there was no public charity school for boys prior to the year 1808. Complaints were loud and universal of the number of idle and disorderly boys, who were rioting in our streets, and sometimes committing great depredations upon the property of individuals. But the very magnitude of the evil seemed to discourage all endeavours to remove it. The expense of educating so large a number upon the old plan of instruction, which required one master to every 30 or 40 boys, precluded all hope of raising an adequate contribution from the public; and no effect could not be expected from a private person commensurate to the existing evil, of so large a portion of the population being destitute of all moral or religious instruction. But the rise of the new system of education, by which one master can teach almost any number of boys that one room can hold, soon attracted the attention of those who felt for the rising generation: and as this improved system was then practised only by Mr. Joseph Lancaster, in London, an application was made to him for a master. Upon which he kindly offered to come down, and gave a public lecture at the assembly room upon the subject, February 8. 1808. Several resolutions for the establishment of a school in this place, by his assistance, were immediately agreed upon; a committee of 15 subscribers for the management of the institution, were afterwards nominated; the Corporation granted the use of a building well adapted for the purpose, and on Wednesday, May 11. in the same year, the school was opened for 230 boys. {1146a}—The success and the utility of this institution have fully answered every reasonable expectation