“As to commencing schools in new places, the best way of proceeding is for a few persons, who are of one mind on the subject, to unite, advance from their own purses, or raise among their friends, the small sum necessary at the outset, get their teacher, open their school, and collect a few scholars, gradually extend the number, and when they have made some progress, then tell the public what they have been doing; ask them to come and see; and, if they approve, to give their money and support.  Public meetings and eloquent speeches are excellent things for exciting interest and raising funds, but they are of no use in carrying on the every-day work of the school.

“Let not the managers expect impossibilities.  There will be crime and distress in spite of industrial schools; but they may be immensely reduced; and let no one be discouraged by the occasional lapse into a crime of a promising pupil.  Such things must be while sin reigns in the heart of man; let them only be thereby stirred up to greater and more earnest exertion in their work.

“Let them be most careful as to the parties whom they admit to act along with them; for unless all the laborers be of one heart and mind, divisions must ensue, and the whole work be marred.

“It is most desirable that as many persons as possible of wealth and influence should lend their aid in supporting these institutions.  Patrons and subscribers should be of all ranks and denominations; but they must beware of interfering with the actual daily working of the school, which ought to be left to the unfettered energies of those who, by their zeal, their activity, their sterling principle, and their successful administration, have proved themselves every way competent to the task they have undertaken.

“If the managers wish to carry out the good effect of their schools to the utmost, then they will not confine their labor to the scholars; they will, through them, get access to the parents.  The good which the ladies of the Aberdeen Female School have already thus accomplished is not to be told; but let none try this work who do not experimentally know the value of the immortal soul.”

Industrial schools seem to open a bright prospect to the hitherto neglected outcasts of our cities; for them a new era seems to be commencing:  they are no longer to be restrained and kept in order by the iron bars of the prison house, and taught morality by the scourge of the executioner.  They are now to be treated as reasonable and immortal beings; and may He who is the God of the poor as well as the rich give his effectual blessing with them, wherever they may be established, so that they may be a source of joy and rejoicing to all ranks of society.

Such is the result of the “speerings” recommended by my worthy correspondent.  I have given them much at length, because they are useful to us in the much needed reforms commencing in our cities.