[Footnote A:  In some parts of St. Giles’s, Wapping, &c., &c., many of the parents are not able to pay, and many that are, would sooner let their children run the streets than pay a penny; yet the children of the latter persons are the greater objects of charity; and it is the children of such persons that chiefly fill our prisons.  We want three classes of infant schools:  one for the middle class, who will pay; for skilled mechanics, who will pay 2_d_. or 3_d_. per week; and for the poor and illiterate who will pay nothing.]

Every year increases my conviction of the great importance of the play-ground, and of the folly of some of my early views respecting it.  Finding a great variety of lessons and objects necessary to arrest the attention of children, diversified as they are in disposition and taste, it was supposed that an equal variety of toys was required for the play-ground.  A good supply of balls, battledores, shuttlecocks, tops, whips, skipping-ropes, hoops, sticks, and wheelbarrows, was, therefore, obtained, and we flattered ourselves that this must produce universal happiness.  In thus, however, we were most grievously disappointed; for the balls frequently bounced over the wall,—­the players, not being able to throw them with the precision of Spartan children, sometimes struck their comrades, perhaps, in the eye:  if we could succeed in quieting the sufferer, by a kiss and a sugar-plum, the ear was as immediately afterwards saluted with the cry of, “O, my chin, my chin,” from some hapless wight having been star-gazing, and another, anxious for as many strokes as possible, mistaking that part for the bottom of his shuttlecock; while this would be followed by, “O, my leg,” from the untoward movement of a stick or a barrow.  In short, such scenes were insupportable; and what with the accidents that arose, and the tops without strings, and the strings without tops, the hoops without sticks, and the sticks without hoops, the seizure of the favourite toy by one, and the inability of another to get any thing, it was evident that we were wrong, but not so clear how we could do otherwise.

It then occurred that we might provide some wood-bricks, about four inches long, an inch and a half thick, and two inches and a half wide, and of these a thousand were obtained.  With these children are exceedingly amused from the variety of forms in which they may be placed, and of buildings which may be erected with them.

The play-ground should always be at the rear of the premises, and as private as possible, that both teachers and pupils be secure from annoyance of any kind.  The entrance should be only through the school, and no other way; this secures the flowers, the fruits, and the moral training of the children.

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