To meet this necessity, he “enlarged” the existing school at Kingswood, an unknown lady giving him £800 towards defraying the expenses.[12] The school for the children of the colliers was not closed. It continued to exist for more than sixty years subsequent to the period of which we are writing, and was supported by the subscriptions of the Kingswood society.[13] But now, in 1748, another school, for another class of children, was attached to this, and really became _the Kingswood school_, so famed in Methodistic annals, and whose memory will last as long as Methodism lasts. Wesley selected Kingswood for his school because “it was private, remote from all high roads, on a small hill sloping to the west, sheltered from the east and north, and affording room for large gardens.” He made it capable of accommodating fifty children, besides masters and servants; reserving one room and a small study for himself.[14] On the front of the building was placed a tablet, with the inscription, “In Gloriam Dei Optimi Maximi, in Usum Ecclesiæ et Reipublicæ”; and under this, “Jehovah Jireh,” in Hebrew characters.[15] The great defect of the situation was the want of water. Vincent Perronet, in a letter to Walter Sellon, in 1752, writes: “My dear brother John Wesley wonders at the bad taste of those, who seem not to be in raptures with Kingswood school. If there was no other objection, but the want of good water upon the spot, this would be insuperable to all wise men, except himself and his brother Charles.”[16] For more than a hundred years, this was a radical defect, and was one of the chief reasons which induced the Conference to remove the school to another place in 1852. It has been already stated, that the school was designed not only for the sons of preachers, but for the children of those Methodists who were able and wishful to give their offspring an education, superior to that imparted in the villages or towns in which they respectively resided. If it be asked, why Wesley did not advise such Methodists to send their children to the boarding schools then existing? the answer is—1. Because most of these schools were in large towns, to which he greatly objected. 2. Because all sorts of children, religious and irreligious, were admitted. 3. Because, in many instances, the masters were regardless of the principles and practice of Christianity, and were utterly indifferent whether their scholars were papists or protestants, Turks or Christians. 4. Because, in most of the great schools, the education given was exceedingly defective, and the class books were imperfect in style and sense, and, in some cases, absolutely profane and polluting.[17]