About My Father's Business

BLESSING THE LITTLE CHILDREN

I cannot yet leave that sea-coast where so great a multitude go to find rest and healing. The Divine Narrative may well appeal to us in relation to such a locality, for it was by the sea-shore that the Gospel came to those who went out to seek Jesus of Nazareth; it was there that the poor people heard Him gladly; there that the sick who were brought to Him were made whole: there that He fed the great company who lacked bread.

All the deeds of humanity were recognised by Him who called himself the "Son of Man." The blessing of little children is one of those needs of true human life which the Lord recognised gladly. He recognises it still; and His solemn mingling of warning and of promise with regard to its observance, has an intensity that may well appeal to us all, now that, after eighteen centuries of comparative neglect and indifference, we are discerning that the only hope of social redemption is to be found in that care for children which shall forbid their being left either morally or physically destitute.

There is a house, standing high above the sea, in that great breezy suburb of Margate, known as Cliftonville – to which I want you to pay a visit when the bright, cheerful, airy wards, the light, spacious dining-room, and comfortable, home-like enlivening influences of the place will entitle it to be regarded as the fitting consummation of two other admirable institutions for the nurture and maintenance of orphan and fatherless children.

The modest little building referred to is named "The Convalescent and Sea-side Home for Orphans," Harold Road, Margate. The parent institutions are "The Orphan Working School," at Haverstock Hill, and that most attractive series of pretty cottages on the brow of the hill at Hornsey Rise, which have been more than once spoken of as "Lilliput Village," but the style and title of which is "The Alexandra Orphanage for Infants" – a name, the distinguishing feature of which is that it is immediately associated with its first patroness, the Princess of Wales.

Of the Home at Margate I need not now speak particularly, except to note that it is for the reception of the little convalescents, who – suffering, as many of them do, from constitutional and hereditary weakness, which is yet not actual sickness, and recovering, as many of them are, from the feeble condition which has been to some extent remedied by the careful nurture, good food, and healthy regimen, of the large institutions near London – are not fit patients either for their own or any other infirmary wards, and yet require to be restored to greater strength before they can join the main body of their young companions in the school or the playground.

Enough that it is picturesque and substantially pretty, as becomes a place which is to become the home of thirty children, taken from among nearly six hundred, the parents of nearly half of whom have died of consumption, and so left to their offspring that tendency to a feeble constitution which can be best remedied by the grand medicine of sea-air, wholesome nutritious food, and a judicious alternation of healthful exercise and rest.

It is to Mr. Joseph Soul – the late indefatigable secretary of the Working School, with which he has been connected for nearly forty years, and the honorary secretary of the Alexandra Orphanage, of which he may be regarded as the virtual founder – that the proposal to establish this Convalescent Home was due, and its affairs are administered at the office of the two charities, at 63, Cheapside.

But it is necessary to tell as briefly as possible the story of the oldest of the two institutions of which this building is to be an accessory – not only the oldest of these two, but probably the oldest voluntarily supported orphan asylum in London, since it dates from 116 years ago, when George II. was King, when Louis XV. was scandalising Europe and preparing the Revolution, when Wesleyan Methodism was commencing a vast religious revival, when Doctor Johnson had but just finished writing his dictionary, and when William Hogarth was painting those wonderful pictures which are still the most instructive records of society and fashion as seen in the year 1758.

It was in that year, on the 10th of May, that fourteen periwigged and powdered gentlemen met at the George Inn, in Ironmonger Lane, in order to discuss how they might best found an asylum for forty orphan children – that is to say, for twenty boys and twenty girls.

They soon came to a solemn decision that there was a "sufficient subscription for carrying the scheme into execution," and a record to that effect was soberly entered in the very first clean page of the first minute-book of the Charity, with the additional memoranda that a committee was chosen, and a treasurer appointed to collect and take care of the money necessary to support the undertaking.

The early minute-books of this charity, by the way, are models of serious penmanship. Grave achievements of caligraphy, with engrossed headings, elaborate flourishes, and stiff formal hedge-rows of legal verbiage, suggestive of the fact that the secretaries were either attorneys or scriveners, and regarded the entries in a minute-book or the opening of a new account as very weighty and important events not to be lightly passed over. In this they were probably right: and, at all events, just so much of the old methodical exactitude has come down to the present day in the history of the institution, that the published accounts of the Orphan Working School have been referred to by the Times as models of condensation with a clearness of detail, which may be regarded as the best indication of a well-ordered and economical administration.

It might not be too much to say that the old principle of carrying a scheme into execution only when there are sufficient subscriptions still characterises the operations of the institution. At all events, Mr. Soul had secured enough money for the completion of the new building at Margate before the actual work commenced, and his experience told him that funds would be forthcoming to maintain it.

The founders of the original Orphan Working School, however, laid their wigs together to obtain a house ready built, and at last found one adapted to the purpose, in what was then the suburban district known as Hogsden – since gentilised into Hoxton. Like all really good work, the enterprise began to grow – there were so many orphans, and this was still the only general asylum maintained by subscriptions – so that, as funds came in, two other adjoining houses were rented, and in seventeen years the number of inmates had increased from forty to 165.

Reading the formal and yet most interesting records of this parent institution for the care of the orphan and the fatherless, I fall into a kind of wonder at the enormous change in the method of "nurture and admonition," of teaching and training, which has taken place in the past eighty years. Even in this house at Hoxton, whereof the founders appear to have been kindly old gentlemen, the discipline was enormously suggestive of that stern restriction and unsympathetic treatment which was thought necessary for the due correction of the "Old Adam" in the young heart. We know how great an outcry has quite lately been made at the discovery of the remains of that mode of chastisement which seems to have been abandoned almost everywhere, except by a special revival in gaols, and at two or three of the public schools to which the sons of gentlemen are consigned for their education.

The discipline at the Orphanage at Hogsden was cold and repellent enough, perhaps – had very little about it to encourage the affections, or to appeal to the loving confidence of a child – but it was less barbarous than the code which at that time found its maxim in the saying, "Spare the rod, spoil the child." Only very flagrant disobedience, persistent lying and swearing, were punished with public whipping. But even in the case of ordinary falsehood, a child was placed with his face to the wall at meal-time, with a paper pinned to his back with the word "Lyar" written on it, till he was sufficiently penitent to say, in the presence of all the rest of the children, "I have sinned in telling a lie. I will take more care. I hope God will forgive me."

The name, "Working School," was then interpreted so strictly, that there was comparatively little margin for education. Arithmetic appears to have been regarded with peculiar jealousy by the founders of this institution, who, being perhaps bankers, accountants, and capitalists, looked upon such instruction as calculated to give the poor little boys and girls notions beyond their station.

For ten years the teaching of figures was altogether ignored; and it was only when some of the children, having heard that there was a science called "summing" known to the outer world, begged to be taught, that a solemn meeting of the Governors was called to consider the question, when it was conceded, after great deliberation, and no little opposition from the anti-educational part of the Committee, that arithmetic should be permitted to be taught, as far as addition.

Thus, to their few and rigidly ordered recreations, their hours of manual labour in making nets, list-carpets, slippers, and other cheap commodities, to their instruction in plain reading, and to their times for partaking of plain and even coarse food, served in not too tempting a way, was added the art of writing, and of the first two rules of arithmetic.

This was the condition of the orphans in 1775; but still the charity grew – grew out of house-room; and as the funds grew also, it was determined that it should have a building of its own, on a plot of ground in the City Road, where, improvements having set in, the grand old charity moved with the march of modern improvement. Life became less hard, and instruction more extended. The influences of modern thought and education had superseded the old severity, and new Governors succeeded the bewigged and powdered founders, who had, after all, so well ordered their work, that it increased with the growth of intelligence.

During the seventy-two years from 1775 to 1847, the institution had received 1,124 orphans; and again the dimensions of the house were unequal to the demands of the inmates; while the house itself, and the ground on which it stood, had become so valuable, that it was determined to buy a plot of land at Haverstock Hill, and there to found a truly representative Home for 240 orphan boys and girls – a number which has now increased (as the building itself has been extended) till 400 orphans are taught, fed, and clothed in one of the most truly representative charities in all great London.

The obvious distress and suffering of those who are destitute, and whose claims are constantly before us, may lead us to forget the frequent needs of a large number of people who represent uncomplaining poverty. There is a tendency to identify general appeals to benevolence with efforts for the relief of that extreme necessity which demands immediate and almost undiscriminating aid, and requires the prompt distribution of alms or the provision of a meal, warmth, and shelter. Doubtless, the actually homeless and destitute claim our first attention – especially in the case of deserted and neglected children – and I have tried to show what is being done for those little ones, whose presence in the streets of this great wilderness of brick and stone should of itself be an appeal strong enough to move the heart of humanity in their behalf.

There is, however, another class of poverty, which makes no sign, and bears distress dumbly. There is a need, which, without being that of actual destitution, requires a constant struggle to prevent its representing the want of nearly all the luxuries, and some of those things which most of us regard as the necessaries of life.

We find this among that large section of the middle class represented by persons holding inferior clerkships, small official appointments, and situations where the salaries are only sufficient to yield a bare subsistence, and there is little or no probability of their improvement, because, among the number of candidates who are eager to fill such positions, there exists a degree of distress not easily estimated, even by the appearance of those who are the sufferers. Of course, relief cannot reach such people through the poor-law, or by any direct legislation. They are far above the reach of almsgiving, or even of societies for distributing bread and coals. They have a just pride in maintaining a position of independence; and though they may sometimes look with a feeling too near to envy at the more prosperous mechanic or the skilled artisan, who can earn "good wages," dress in fustian or corduroy, send his children to the Board School, and regulate working hours and weekly pay by the rules of a Trade Union, they mostly keep bravely on, hoping that as the children grow up, they may get the boys "into something," and find some friend to help them to place the girls in situations where they may partly earn their own living.

With rent and taxes often absorbing a fourth part of his entire income, with market cliques combining against him to keep up the prices of food, with dear bread, dear potatoes, boots and shoes always wearing out, and respectability demanding cloth clothes, even though they be made of "shoddy," how is the clerk, the employé, the small tradesman, the struggling professional man, to follow the prudent counsel which wealthier people are always ready to bestow upon him – and "lay by for a rainy day?" Rainy day! why his social climate may be said to represent a continual downpour, so far as the necessity for pecuniary provision. He lives (so to speak) with an umbrella always up, and it is only a poor shift of a gingham after all. The half-crown which is in his pocket to-night is already bespoken for to-morrow's dinner. As he listens to the account of the week's marketing, and knows that his wife and children have been living for three days out of seven upon little better than bread and dripping, he feels like an ogre as he thinks of the sevenpenny plate of meat that he consumed at one o'clock, because it was only "a makeshift" at home.

How is he to pay even the smallest premium to insure his life, when he is obliged to meet ordinary emergencies by a visit to the pawnbroker after dark?

Insure his life! Ah, the time may come when the hand of the bread-winner is still, when the little money left in the house is scarcely sufficient to pay for the "respectable funeral" which is the last effort of genteel poverty, when the red-eyed widow gathers her fatherless children about her, and wonders amidst her stupor of grief what is to become of the younger ones who yet so need her care that she will not be able to go forth to seek the means of living. To what evil influences may they be exposed while she is absent striving to earn their daily food? – the temptations of the streets for the boys: the certainty that the elder girls must either starve at home to mind the little ones, or must become drudges before they have learnt more than the mere rudiments of what they should be taught. It is then she feels that dread of degradation, which is amongst the sharpest pangs of the poverty which would fain hide itself from the world.

It may be that the children are left a parentless little flock, huddling together in the first dread and sorrow of the presence of death, and the sense of utter bereavement, and awaiting the intervention of those who are sent by the Father of the fatherless. Then, indeed, prompt and certain help is needed – help efficient and permanent – and such aid can seldom be secured except by organised institutions.

But let us see to what that Orphan Working School, established in 1758, has developed in 1874. We have but to take a short journey to the foot of Haverstock Hill, and there, in that pleasant locality named Maitland Park, part of which is the property of the Institution, we shall see the successor of the old house in Hogsden Fields, while its plain but large and lofty committee room is the modern representative of the parlour of the George Inn, Ironmonger Lane, where plans were first laid for the maintenance of forty orphan children.

This wide and lofty building, with its handsome front entrance and its less imposing side gate in the wing, is the home for nearly three hundred boys, and nearly two hundred girls, when its funds are sufficient to keep each of the long rows of neat beds in the great airy wards appropriated to a little sleeper.

I mention the dormitories first, because both on the girls' and on the boys' side of the building these are illustrative of the complete orderliness and excellent management of the Institution – illustrative of what should always be the first consideration, namely, to bring comfort to the child's nature, to join to necessary discipline a sense of real freedom and happy youthful confidence without dread of repression and the constant looking for of punishment.

As to the appliances that belong to the building, they are such as might almost raise a doubt in some prejudiced minds whether we are not doing too much for children in the present day, and thinking too constantly of their comfort. But, alas! it needs many compensations to make up for the loss of parents; and in any such an Institution where, 400 children form the great family, the arrangements must be on a large scale, so that it is only a matter of experienced forethought to combine a generous liberality with the truest economy. Thus, there are baths, and long well-ordered lavatories, to each wing, even to a large plunge bath for each side; and there is a great laundry, where the girls are taught to wash, clear-starch, and iron, not in the regular patent steam-heated troughs only, but in genuine homely tubs. There is a great handsome dining-hall, with a painted ceiling, wherein the vast troop of quiet, orderly, and happy-faced children sit down to well-cooked wholesome meals of meat and pudding. There are two great school-rooms, one divided into class-rooms for the girls, and another wherein the boys assemble to be taught, not in the narrow spirit of the first directors of the old building in the City Road, but with a full appreciation of the duty of giving these young minds and hearts full opportunity to expand. Next to the admirable evidences of family comfort, and bright domestic influences, which pervade this place, we may regard the efficient education of the children as the truest sign of its liberal and enlightened management. Not only the three R's to the extent of practised elocution, caligraphy worthy of the old minute books of the first scrivening secretaries, and the lower mathematics, – but history, geography, the elements of physical science, French, drawing, and vocal music, are among the subjects thoroughly studied. It only needs a perusal of the reports of the educational inspectors and examiners to see that the work of this great hive goes on healthily. The boys have already achieved a great position in taking Government prizes for drawing at South Kensington; and the girls are celebrated for their beautiful needlework. There is but little time to walk through all the departments of this great home – the kitchens with their spacious larders, and store-rooms, and mighty cooking apparatus; the great airy playgrounds; the large and handsome room used as a chapel (for those who do not go out to evening service), and containing its convenient reading desk, and sweet-toned organ. Let us not forget, however, that many of the things which add so vastly to the beauty and completeness of the building and its various departments are themselves gifts from loving and appreciative supporters of the Institution.

But we are due at that Lilliput village on the brow of Hornsey Rise – that series of cottage homes, where, on each lower and upper storey, with their exquisitely clean nursery cots and cradles, and their tiny furniture, a neat nurse is to be seen like a fairy godmother, with a family of chubby babies, or a more advanced charge of infants able to run like squirrels round the covered playground or to spend the regulation hours in that great glorious school-room, where learning is turned into recreation, and lessons are made vocal, gymnastic, zoological, picturesque, or even fictional, as the times and circumstances may dictate. "The Alexandra Orphanage for Infants" has become so well-known amidst the numerous institutions which have been established for the care of the orphans and the fatherless, that one might think it would be full of eager admirers who on visiting days go to see the two or three hundred. Why are not all the cottages full, and each little toy bedstead complete with its rosy, tiny sleeper, who, from earliest infancy to the maturer age of eight years form the assembly for which Mr. Soul set himself to provide by public appeal?