and on the accuracy of this estimate being questioned, Captain Dickson read the following extract from a letter which he had received from the Rev. Andrew Reid, the Secretary to the London Orphan Asylum for the Reception of Children whose parents had been in respectable circumstances. The extract was as follows:— The object to which you and your friends are looking is a most excellent one, and only requires ordinary prudence and perseverance to accomplish. All that you propose may be fully realized for 231. per child, and the benefits you will confer will be equal to any education which you can obtain at other schools for from 60l. to 801. per annum. I state this from what has actually been done in the London Orphan Asylum; our school thrives, the children are happy with us, receive an excellent education, and readily find situations through the friends of the institution on leaving, even without portions; and our costs are less than I have named."

After some further discussion as to the best mode of forwarding the objects of the institution, the meeting separated.

STATISTICS OF CAMBERWELL.-The following statistical account of Camberwell has been sent us by Mr. Saunders: we shall be glad to receive similar reports from other quarters, if they be as minute and exact as the present.

Camberwell, so called (not the parish): by the census of 1821, the population of the parish was 3053 families, 17,876 souls; adding supposed increase at 50 per cent. is now 26,806.

The district now referred to contains 1462 houses inhabited by the poor; the whole number of houses inhabited by the same class in the parish is 2419; the poor population in the district is, therefore, about 8500; and the total population, supposing the poor to be equally distributed through the parish, 16,000.

The population in the following years was respectivelyin 1789, 3763; 1801, 7059; 1811, 11,309; 1821, 17,876. Extent three-fourths of a mile square.

a. Nothing.

b. Edward Wilson's Grammar School, founded as per Letters Patent, dated 29th September, 1615.- A School-house and divers other houses, and buildings, and lands, by estimation seven acres.' Children to be able, on their admission, to read English well, and write legibly—to write as specimen, John xvii. 3; to be taught long-bow, chess, leaping, running, wrestling; to have prayers morning and evening; to pay five shillings and threepence per quarter, and receive rewards of twopence, fourpence, sixpence, and one shilling, according to merit.

The pedagogue to be Master in Arts, and able to make Latin and Greek verses, pious, teaching good literature and manners-during founder's life, salary to be ten pounds per year, afterwards to receive rents and endowments, and to be at liberty to take children of subsidy men.' The present master keeps a private school, besides receiving twelve boys on the Foundation, who each pay one guinea per quarter.

Governors-Vicar and Warden of Camberwell, Vicar of Carshalton, Rector of Lambeth, Rector of Newington, Rector of St. Olave's, Camberwell, J. and B. Bowyer, and Scott.

2. COLLEGE OF GOD'S GIFT, Dulwich, founded by Edward Allen, 1619, consists of

Master warden-to be of the name of Alleyn or Allen.

Twelve Scholars, boys, six to eight years old at admission; educated

until eighteen, and then apprenticed or sent to college, where there are always to be

Thirty Out-members.

On death of master, the warden to succeed him.
Warden and fellows to be chosen by lot.

Governors-Churchwardens of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate;

Archbishop of Canterbury, visiter.

In 1808 the rents were 37847. per annum, and 56007. had accumulated as a building fund.

c. None.

A

d. GREEN COAT SCHOOL-founded by P. Cornelison, 1721. National School attached now contains 173 boys, 86 girls, of whom are clothed 30 ""

50

2. Day and Sunday Schools connected with an Episcopal Chapel containing 100 boys and 82 girls, of whom are clothed 35 boys from funds, subscription; 20 girls from the funds, and 6 from a penny a week subscription.

3. National School, St. George's, 1825; 176 boys, 140 girls. None clothed.

4. British and Foreign Schools, 1812, boys only, containing 60. Each boy paying twopence per week.

5. Green's Row, for 20 girls, 1830.

6. South Street, 30 girls.

All the above managed by Committees.

f. GREEN-COAT, NATIONAL, AND EPISCOPAL CHAPEL.

g. INFANT SCHOOL, 1827, Bowyer Lane, 110 pay 1d. per week

h. SURREY LITERARY INSTITUTION, 1826, Reading Room, Library, and Lectures, 150 Members.

Several private reading or book societies.

All the above supported by subscriptions, except otherwise specified.

The letters a, b, c, &c., refer to the heads of inquiry printed in No. I. of the JOURNAL, p. 7.

6

PETERBOROUGH SOCIETY FOR GENERAL IMPROVEMENT.-A society has been established at Peterborough, for The General Improvement of the Intellectual Powers, the Promoting a Love of Literature, and the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,' and embracing in its objects the discussion of historical and literary questions, and the formation of an extensive library. Some of the members, also it is stated, will make occasional contributions of papers, in order to form a collection of manuscripts illustrative of the history and antiquities of Peterborough and its neighbourhood, and other compositions of a miscellaneous nature. The society already includes a numerous list of highly respectable members.

SCOTLAND.

DR. BELL'S DONATION.-It is stated in the Fife Herald of the 26th of May, that the Rev. Dr. Bell, so well known as the founder of the Madras system of instruction, has just given the sum of 120,000l. three per cent. stock, for the establishment of a seminary of education in his native city of St. Andrew's. The gentlemen entrusted with the management of this magnificent donation are stated to be William Haig, Esq., Provost, the Rev. Drs. Haldane and Baird, the two ministers of the city, and Andrew Alexander, Esq., Professor of Greek in the United College. In addition to the above gift, Dr. Bell has also made over to the above named gentlemen a piece of ground which he had purchased from the town of St. Andrew's for the sum of 11007., intended to form the site of the schools which it is his desire to have erected.

EDUCATION IN THE HIGHLANDS.-According to the last annual Report of the Society for the Education of the Poor in the Highlands, read at the general meeting held at Inverness in October last, and recently published, the schools in their connection are rapidly dispelling the ignorance which has long prevailed in those districts, and are effecting a salutary change in the moral habits of the inhabitants. The number of schools is stated to amount to 511; and they are attended by 37,000 scholars.

FINE ARTS.-A society has recently been established at Paisley, in order to diffuse a taste for, and promote the progress of the Fine Arts. The first object of the society was to procure materials for an exhibition of the works of living artists; and especially to foster native talent. In this they have been successful; and an exhibition of more than two hundred pictures, many of very considerable merit, was opened in May last, and has been very fully attended,

THE

QUARTERLY

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION.

EDUCATION AMONG THE WALDENSES.

THE Waldenses, ancestors of the modern Vaudois, were the first people in Europe who, persuaded by their pastors, made regulations, as a community, for public instruction, and who provided that children of every degree should be taught the elementary branches of education. For many ages before the memorable enactment by the Scotch Parliament in 1494, which ordered that the barons and substantial freeholders should send their sons to school, the Waldenses had taken care that the child of the simplest goatherd or swineherd might have access to some school, free of expense. They took the lead in this grand movement, and recommended it by their example, not as an act of charity to be performed by benevolent individuals, but as a duty imperative upon the body at large to contribute towards public instruction.

And who were these Waldenses, who could see their way clearly through the dark and middle ages, and agree upon the expediency of a measure, the advantages of which are only now beginning to be generally admitted? They were inhabitants of three Alpine valleys, in Piemont, and therefore called Vallesi, or Men of the Valleys,' by corruption, Waldenses; and they first came into notice by refusing to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Bishops of Rome, when all the rest of Christendom was submitting to the Papal yoke. Another thing has given them notoriety; they have continued to assert, from time immemorial (and their adversaries could never show the contrary), that they are a pure branch of the primitive church, and that they have never departed from the essential forms and faith of tolical Christianity. They are the same of whom Sir James Mackintosh makes honourable mention in his History of England. With the dawn of history,' says he, we discover some simple Christians in the valleys of the Alps, where they still exist under the name of the Vaudois, who, by the light of the New Testament, saw the extraordinary JULY-OCT. 1831.

Р

contrast between the purity of primitive times and the vices of the gorgeous and imperial hierarchy by which they were surrounded.'

In singular consistency with their claims to be considered a surviving branch of the primitive church, they alone, of all Christian societies, have honoured in uninterrupted observance the wisdom of the early Christian churches, which proclaimed it to be a bounden duty to provide, by authority, for the elementary instruction of youth of every class. Not only do the rich,' said a Christian writer* of the second century, 'learn philosophy, but our poor also enjoy the advantages of instruction gratis.'

The early history of the Waldenses, after their reception of Christianity, like that of all the Alpine tribes of Italy, is wrapt in too much obscurity to enable us to state what was the exact system of education adopted by them in the dark and middle ages; but we can discover traces of a systematic mode of conveying information to their young people at large for seven or eight centuries back. A curious Waldensian treatise, written in the year 1100, is still extant, which shows the ingenious expedients to which the Vaudois of that day had recourse for the purpose of storing the minds of their youth with useful knowledge. It is composed in a popular style, and arranged in metrical and jingling lines; and it not only contains a brief view of the Old and New Testament history, but also of the grounds upon which the Waldenses declared themselves non-conformists with the Latin Church. 6 This treatise is entitled The Noble Lesson; and a noble lesson it is, for it is interwoven with some admirable exhortations to piety and constancy in the faith of their forefathers, and by its familiar illustrations and poetical character it is easily committed to memory. A bundle of MSS., of the same date as this composition of the year 1100, was entrusted to the custody of the Cambridge University Library, by Sir Samuel Morland, in August 1658, after his return from the Valleys of Piemont, whither he had gone on a mission from Cromwell, under the hope of obtaining favourable conditions for the Waldenses from their sovereign, the Duke of Savoy. In this collection of old MSS. there was a Latin Grammar of the ancient Barbes (the Waldensian clergy were so called), a treatise on Arithmetic, and treatises on the Instruction of Youth,' and on the Ancient Discipline of Youth.' Unfortunately these precious MSS. have been removed from the library where they were deposited, nobody at Cambridge knows how or when; and

* Tatian.