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same manner, as the sons and daughters of gentlemen, or even of the middle order of men, who can bestow upon their children something more considerable towards their support in life, I acknowledge also, that charity-schools will never be set upon the best foot, and managed in the most unexceptionable manner, until some way be found to employ the children both in the city and country, that they may work as well as learn. I have been many years of this mind, and therefore I laid it down among my first propositions.

But let the persons, who would destroy our schools on ac count of this defect, find out some ways and means of employ ing the children of the poor. I am persuaded the supporters of our schools of charity, will chearfully fall in with such proposals, and those who refuse it, should never be vindicated by me.

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I know there are several managers of some of these schools, who have been earnestly desirous of engaging the children in work and labour one half of the day; they have consulted with their friends about various manufactures, or any useful labours of life; they have set their thoughts at work in good earnest, and would have been glad to have been directed to any expedient of this kind, that the children might not have spent their whole days in a school, but might have employed half the day in the labour of their hands: But in some places, both of the country and city, this project could not be brought to bear: What then? Must the poor ignorant wretches be turned out of the school and never learn to read, because their friends could not find work for them? Must they be sent to saunter in the streets and lanes all the day long, and grow wild in idleness, and be exposed to every temptation, without either work or learning? May they not be civilized and taught their letters one part of the day, even though there be no manual labour appointed for them the other?

But here is a great difficulty and hardship of our case: we are reproached for educating the children of poor, without their confinement to labour, and the rich objectors know not how to propose any sufficient methods to effect what they desire: Even the wisdom of the nation in parliament, hath been often and in many sessions engaged in some contrivances for so valuable an end as the employment of the poor, both old and young, and something has been done towards it; but they have not yet been able to determine any thing of universal use in all places, and which is practicable thoughout the nation.

In some of our schools of charity, this has been practised, and that not only in the country, but in the city too. The boys in our dissenting charity-schools, have been sometimes employed in digging, in weeding, in gathering stones out of the ploughed

grounds; and where the weaving manufacture hath been cultivated, all the children have done something towards it, for some hours in the day. As for the girls that are educated in these schools, they are always taught to work with their needles of both kinds, both knitting and sewing; and in some places they are obliged, as I have been told, to make the beds, to use the besom or the mop, and when grown up, to do harder work, perhaps to stand at the wash-bowl, and to perform the servile offices which belong to a family. I wish these things were more uuiversally taught and practised, as far as possible. And wheresoever any methods of employing these children who are bred up by charity in labour, are contrived, proposed, and rendered feasible and practicable in the city or the country, the managers of these schools will never refuse to promote it, nor should the children ever refuse to comply under the penalty of being utterly shut out from the benefit of this liberality.

Objection V. But if we allow them to learn to read, what need is there that they should learn to write also? This puffs them up with a huge conceit of themselves and their learning, this makes them think themselves immediately fit for clerks, or some superior business: And this knowledge surely can never be pretended to be necessary in the lower ranks of life.

Answer. I will by no means contend for writing as a matter of equal necessity or advantage with that of reading. There may be some places where the bounty of the contributors to such a charitable work, may not be able to maintain a writing master, nor to keep children long enough at school: Yet even there they should be taught to read well. And there may also be some of the poor who dwell in very obscure villages, and are confined to rural labours, and others in towns or cities, and especially girls, whose business is most within doors at home, who may have but very little occasion, and as little inclination to use a pen. I would not therefore by any means have it made a necessary part of a charity-school, that the children should be taught to write. Yet I beg leave to give my opinion, that there are several conveniences, that even the poorest of the people, and especially servants, may attain by learning to write, which can be no disadvantage to the public, and some of which may be for the sensible benefit of their masters and mistresses, as well as of servants themselves.

I. For the servants themselves.

1. Why may not a poor servant have the privilege of conveying his thoughts to a dear relation, to a father, a mother, a brother or a sister, and letting them know their welfare or their troubles by writing? Why should all the lower part of mankind be universally, and for ever cut off from all those mutual tendernesses which nature inspires, and which may be communi

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cated by a paper-messenger? Perhaps some of their souls may have as much humanity and softness in them as those of the rich, and they may have as sweet a relish of the endearments of kin dred or friendship: They may long as much to know how it stands with their father's house, from which they are as it were banished by the necessities of life and their servile stations; and it is a hard case if none of these must ever be permitted to partake of this privilege, because they happen to be poor: Hard case indeed, that they must never taste of these refreshments, these sweet solaces of the heart, to relieve the drudgery and fatigues of life.

2. There are many of the poorer parts of mankind, who have not their minds so crouded and encumbered with other things, that fill their letters with serious religion, and communicate to each other the lively sense which they have of divine things on their own hearts, and encourage each other in their progress in virtue and piety. There are several of these pious poor, who have given their friends many a supporting word in their conflict with temptations, and mutually send this sort of assistance to each other, and are encouraged hereby to go through their daily labours with chearfulness. And why should this be utterly forbidden them? I wish all those who enjoy better circumstances improved their pens for so pious a purpose.

3. When the poorer part of the world who are truly serious attend upon the ministry of the gospel, they labour as well as the rich to treasure up in their minds as much of it as they are able, and take as much pains to retain it: But alas! Their memories are as feeble and treacherous; may they not be permitted then to take the first moments of leisure, and commit to writing those things which have affected their own hearts? May they not, in this manner, by a frequent review of what they have heard and written, maintain upon their souls a long and lively relish of divine truths, and preserve the sermon from being utterly lost? I know this is the practice of several who can use a pen, and I wish it were more universally practised. Perhaps we should not preach so many sermons, with so little profit to our hearers in this manner; and why should the poor in an auditory be for ever cut off from this religious advantage, and forbid to use a pen for so sacred a service?

4. May not the poor have some little concerns of their own that relate to their souls, or their bodies, or their friends, or their engagements, and their circumstances in life? And must we suppose all their memories to be so extensive and capacious, so happy and faithful as to preserve all these concerns, and recollect them whensoever they have occasion? Are not the memories of the rich perpetually unburdened, relieved and assisted by the pen? Why may not the poor in their little affairs, be indulged

something of this benefit? Useful sentences, counsels, advices, moral and divine must be forgotten, if they cannot write. Their little agreements, promises, duties, debts, transactions of life, and memorable providences, afflictions, blessings, all that belongs to their sphere of action for time and eternity, must be in danger of being lost out of their thoughts, if they cannot use a pen. Writing, what a blessed and divine invention! And must all the poor be for ever secluded from all the privileges of it, where they may be obtained with so much ease?

Here I might make a pathetic address to all those who by mutual intercourse of letters, have maintained their love to their dear relations at a distance, and have felt the inward pleasure of receiving tidings of their welfare; I might address myself to those who have written or have received letters of piety to or from their friends; to those who have found the sweetness of recollecting past providences, by the help of their paper-memoirs, and of preserving some useful sermon long on their memories by the aids of writing; have not these things been a matter of special refreshment and delight to you? Have you not counted it a very valuable advantage to yourselves? And why should you for ever deny your fellow-creatures, that are made of the same clay, and cast in the same mould as yourselves, why should you for ever deny all of them such benefits as these, when they may be attained at so easy a rate? And if you do not think proper by your own liberality to bestow this benefit on the poor, yet by all the sacred pleasure and profit you have derived from the use of the pen, I entreat you not to discourage and forbid the liberality of others who would confer this privilege on them.

II. But in the second place, Consider whether a servant incapable of writing, can be so useful to his master? Or whether it will not be some considerable advantage to superiors, to have their servants, and their poor labourers able to make use of a pen.

1. May I have leave to ask whether it be not far better they should be able to write their own names, when you employ them, if it were but to give a receipt for their weekly, or their monthly, or their yearly wages? Is not their name better than merely their scrawling marks, which are such poor doubtful and uncertain tokens of their own giving a receipt?

2. It is a frequent case that occurs in common life, that servants are sent out perhaps to a considerable distance, with messages to several persons at once, and at the same time are ordered to buy several little necessaries for different persons in the family: Their zeal and diligence, it may be, is great and unexceptionable, but their memory fails them, and they drop two or three of their orders by the way: They are chid at home, it' the master be choleric, perhaps with some severity, the family is in great and present want of the necessaries they should have

brought with them, and sensible inconveniences are hereby sustained: But all these inconveniences find an easy remedy, if the servant can use a pen: He puts down on a scrap of paper, some memoirs of his several orders, and he punctually fulfils them all. This is a known and common case, and among other things may plead for servants learning to write.

3. When masters are at a distance from their households and leave their servants in trust with their affairs, is it not a most unhappy thing if a household servant cannot communicate to his master by writing any sudden accident that may attend his concerns, his goods or his dwelling? If he cannot give notice of any new occurrence that relates to his master's interest? Is it not a most lamentable circumstance if a servant be left in the city or in a country-house for a few days together, and any terrible sudden calamity should attend his habitation or the family, and no servant could give notice of it to his distant master? Are not masters willing to know what messages have been left for them during their absence? And must every such be trusted merely to the untaught and unfaithful memory of a servant, for many days together till they shall see their master?

I know there are such cases wherein persons of good figure, in the world, who keep two dwellings at some distance from each other, are unwilling to hire those servants, whom they must leave behind them at one of their habitations, if they are not able to write; because they expect frequent notice from their servants by letter, whereby they may be informed of the affairs of one part of their family or another; and this makes their minds easy wheresoever they are, by the pleasurable tidings of the welfare of their absent children, and the regular conduct and peace of the distant part of their household.

4. I might add in the last place, if servants have never learned to write themselves, it is very seldom they are capable of reading what is written: And would it not be a great and frequent inconvenience to a master, when he is absent from his home, if he could not send a command to a servant in writing, about some necessary affair of his household, but this servant must go to some learned neighbour to read it for him, and thus communicate the concerns of his master to any one who could assist him to read his master's letter? Let things of this kind, which are transacted between master and servant, be never so important and momentous, let it be never so much for the welfare of the family, the young children, the goods, or the estate, it is all one in this case where the servant cannot write: The Joss must be sustained, the damage must be incurred, all inconveniences must be borne; and these masters at least, may thank themselves for it, who discourage the support of these schools of

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