Queen Victoria

; but prostrate, too, in their humility. . . . 'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance

rles Dickens, A

changes in the nation's ideas of their upbringing and education. At the beginning of her reign the little children of the poor were f

rew, in that book, a terrible picture of the life of children in the manufacturi

young person who knows his own age; rarer to find the boy who has seen a book, or the girl who has seen a flower. Ask them the n

ns." The author declares that "there is more serfdom now in England than at any time since the Conquest. . . . The people were better clothed, better f

needed. Especially in the spinning mills thousands of men were thrown out of work, and lower wages were paid to those who took their place. This led directly to the breaking up of the home and home-life. The wive

sleep there, and could only be driven out of the factory with straps; how many hundreds came home so tired every night that they could eat no sup

t poets of Victoria's reign, pleads for mercy

children weepin

rrow comes

eir young heads aga

nnot stop t

s are bleating

ds are chirpi

are playing wi

rs are blowing

young children,

weeping

g in the playti

untry of

the children,

annot ru

r any meadows,

wn in them

mble sorely i

our faces,

h our heavy ey

wer would look

we drag our

coal-dark

we drive the

ories, roun

ction threw large numbers of farm hands out of work, the rate of wages fell, and m

ury, who succeeded in the face of much opposition in his efforts to p

or more workers, and it was owing to this that the proposals of Lord Shaftesbury met with such opposition from the mine-owners, who feared t

f ten or more to do such work. The Poor Law Guardians of the time used to send children into the mines at the age of

a good education, although considerably more than half the children in the count

daily. The employer was allowed to deduct one penny a week from the child's wages to pay the teacher. This proved absolut

mber of public elementary schools for every district in the kingdom. To show the increase in

was almost the first, and certainly the greatest, writer who, with a heart overflowing with sympath

sed through a time of bitter poverty, and his stay at school, short as it w

s of those around him-and for this reason all that he wrote will always be of

ave one's hand upon the time, lastingly upon the time,

ng by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the chur

rchioness' in The Old Curiosity Shop, 'Jo' and 'Charley' in Bleak H

ng shirts for three-halfpence each. Once, when she had been robbed of her earnings, she tried to drown hersel

arles Dickens that Thomas Hood wrote

work-

ry chime

-wor

ers work

gusset,

gusset,

is sick, and th

as the w

ght by the great-souled writer-that the two chi

nimals, with no sympathy or kindness, owing to the ignorance of those who were set in authority over them. Any o

all the year round; a brick and mortar elysium, where it was all play and no work. 'Oho!' said the board, looking very knowing, 'we are the fellows to set this to rights; we'll stop it all, in no time.' So, they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they) of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by

r the lot of the children of the Poor commenced with the foundation

lasses for exercise and industrial training: children were sent to our colonies where they would have a better chance of making a fair start in life; training ships, cripples

hools. A letter from Lord Shaftesbury quoted in his Life gives a clear

ude have passed through these schools since their commencement, I venture to affirm that more than 100,000 of both sexes have been placed out in various ways-in emigration, in the marine, in trades and in domestic service. For many consecutive years I have contributed prizes to thousands of the scholars; and let no one omit to call to mind what these c

en through a little of its light and air; give them water; help them to be clean; lighten the heavy atmosphere in which their spirits flag and which makes them the callous things