It was a Christian-like wish expressed by King George III., that every child in his dominions should be able to read the bible; and from the increased facility of doing so from gratuitous education, the number of those who cannot is much less than formerly; but in many cases the necessitous circumstances of the parents prevent them from allowing their children, except during their infant years, the advantage of instruction, even though it cost them nothing.  The time for the children of the poor to receive instruction, is between the ages of two and eight; after that period many are sent out to work, or detained at home, for they then become useful to their parents, and cannot be sent to school.  There are many little girls who, having left the infant school, go out to work for a shilling a week, and the mothers have declared to me, when I have endeavoured to persuade them to send them to the National School, for at least one year, that they could not do it, for they were so poor, that every shilling was a great help; they have, however, promised me that they would send them to the Sunday school.  This may account, in some measure, for there being so many more boys than girls in almost every school in London, and chews that great good has been done, and is doing, by those valuable institutions.[A]

[Footnote A:  It is to be observed here, that the children do not come to or schools on Sundays, but many of them, between five and six years old, who have brothers and sisters in the national school, go with them to church, and others of the same age go to a Sunday school in the neighbourhood.  In short, I may venture to say, that almost all the children that are able, go either to a Sunday school or to church:  but to take them all in a body, at the early age that they are admitted into an infant school, to any place of worship, and to keep them there for two or three hours, with a hope to profit them, and not to disturb the congregation, is, according to my view, injurious if not impracticable.]

Many of my readers, who have been in the habit of noticing and pitying the poor, may think the detail into which I have entered superfluous, but I can assure them the want of information on the subject is but too general, and is sufficient to account for the indifference which has so long been exhibited.

The objection, that education is altogether improper for poor people is not quite obsolete.  There are not wanting persons who still entertain the most dreadful apprehensions of the "march of intellect," as it has been termed; who see no alternative but that it must over-turn every thing that is established, and subvert the whole order of society.  I would willingly impart comfort to the minds of those who are afflicted with such nervous tremours, but I fear, if the demonstration of experience has not quieted them, the voice of reason never will.  It cannot fail to remind us of the apprehensions of the popish clergy in former times, who decried the art of printing,