The clergyman's manual

THE PLAN, therefore is, in the first place, to provide an airy and spacious apartment, with a dry, and if possible, a large play ground, attached to it, where, under the eye of a properly selected master and mistress, these infants may pass the hours during which their parents are at work; and in the second place, to render this receptacle, not a place of tiresome restraint and confinement, but a school for the acquisition of habits of cleanliness and decorum, of cheerful and ready subordination, of courtesy, kindness and forbearance, and of abstinence from every thing impure or profane; a scene, in short, at once of activity and amusement, of intellectual improvement and moral discipline.

The Qualifications of Masters and Mistresses.

It becomes obviously a matter of the very highest importance to select superintendents for these schools who have learnt to govern their own tempers; who unite firmness and decision of character with mildness, patience, forbearance, and kindness of disposition; who are not likely to be moved, either to vehemence, or to peevishness, sharpness, or ill-humour by the waywardness of the children, or by the various difficulties of their task;-whose tone and manner, as well as feelings, shall be uniformly those of parental affection; and who shall be disposed, from a sense of duty, to exercise a constant vigilance in marking and gently counteracting every instance the children may exhibit of insubordination or disobedience towards the teachers, or of fretfulness, selfishness, unkindness, or violence in their intercourse with each other, and especially in their hours of play, which, at that age, must naturally occupy the largest portion of their time.

The qualities here stated to be requisite in the masters and mistresses may deter many benevolent persons from attempting to institute infant schools, under an apprehension that it may prove extremely difficult, if not impossible, to procure suitable instruments. The past experience of the committee tends to obviate this ground of hesitation and discouragement. Hitherto individuals have easily been engaged to fill these important offices, whose conduct has been perfectly satisfactory; and the committee see no reason to despair of finding an increasing supply of such superintendents proportioned to the demand for them, which may be created by the wider diffusion of similar institutions.

Address or NOTICE, to be circulated in the neighbourhood in which an Infants' School is about to be opened.

This school is intended as an assylum for the children of the poor before the age at which they are capable of engaging in any profitable employment, or at which they may be received into the other schools.

It is well known that children of this age generally prove, during the working hours of the day, a heavy incumbrance on parents, who are obliged to toil hard for subsistence. One object of this shool is to lighten the pressure of this inconvenience, and to leave the parents, particularly the mother, more fully at liberty to pursue some gainful occupation for the common benefit of the family. With respect to the children, the objects proposed in the establishment of this school are,

the cultivation of their morals,-the preservation of their health,-the promotion of mutual affection, social harmony, personal cleanliness, becoming manners, due subordination, and the giving to them that instruction of which their years are capable.

The advantage of stimulating the labouring classes to exertion, and of directing and assisting their efforts, instead of making those efforts for them, is now beginning to be understood, and it is not therefore intended that the school should be entirely gratuitous. A small weekly payment must be made by each child every monday morning, and for that it will be taken care of from nine in the morning, till four in the evening; the parents sending its dinner with it, or taking it home for that purpose in the middle of the day. It is proposed to admit children from two to six years of age, on their parents paying 2d. for each child.

Application, for the admission of children, must be made at the school room, on Monday mornings only, between the hours of ten and eleven. RULES to be observed by the Parents of the Children admitted into the Infants' School.

1. Parents are to send their children clean washed, with their hair cut short and combed, and their clothes well mended, by nine o'clock in the morning, to remain till twelve; and by one o'clock in the afternoon, to remain till four.

2. No child will be admitted into the school after half-past nine in the morning, or half-past one in the afternoon.

3. Parents may send their children's dinner with them in the morning so that the children may be taken care of the whole of the day to enable the mother to go out to work.

4. If any child be absent from school for two days, and no satisfactory reason be assigned to the master or mistress for such absence, that child shall not be permitted to return to the school again.

5. No child will be permitted to attend the school who has the ringworm, measles, small-pox, or any other infectious disorder.

6. No child will be admitted into the school under two years of age, nor above six.

7. The parents are to pay two-pence for each child, every Monday morning the two-pence to be paid in advance.

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*** It is hoped that parents will see their own interest as well as that of their children in strictly observing these rules. No child will be admitted with necklaces, ear-rings, or other ornaments.

Card of admission. Infants' School.

Names of Parents.

Place of Abode

Number of Family

Occupation.
Name of Child

Age of the Child

Recommended by me, this—day of—, 18—. Signed– -Sub

scriber.

Register of Admission.

No.

Name of Child. Residence.

Child's
Age.

Class. Parents' Name.

Alphabetical Weekly Register, and Cash Book, for a Quarter.

SEATS all round the school-room nine inches from the ground, and nine inches wide-sixteen inches of deal board, nailed on the walls, for backs, PEGS for caps and bonnets.

GALLERY for children, nine inches from floor for the first seat, (the others rising seven inches), and fourteen inches wide-as many rows of seats as will accommodate all the children in the school-the gallery to be divided down the middle by a hand-rail, the boys sitting on one side, the girls on the other,-a foot should be allowed for each child. TEACHER'S DESK, such as is used in national schools.

STOOLS for teachers and monitors. A CLOCK-WHISTLE-HAND-BELL -NUMERAL frame-ROSTRUM-SLATES and PENCIL-POINTERS, about eighteen inches long, for monitors when teaching lessons-FRAME and BALLS-READING and PICTURE lessons, on wood or mill-board-SCRIPTURE TEXTS-LESSONS, may be obtained from the various infants' school depôts, national, infants', and Lancasterian schools. Toys, wheelbarrows, cubes of wood, 4 inches by 2, and so thick that four will make a

square.

the cultivation of their morals,-the preservation of their health,—the promotion of mutual affection, social harmony, personal cleanliness, becoming manners, due subordination, and the giving to them that instruction of which their years are capable.