1^0 REPORT — 1856. 



ture, combined with the excellent sanitary regulations of the place. The discovery 

 and application of the mineral waters are stated ; their popularity as curative agents, 

 and their subsequent decline. A considerable portion of the paper is allocated to the 

 statistics of secular and religious education, from whence it would appear that Chel- 

 tenham has attained a pre-eminence above all the towns in the kingdom, and that while 

 secular education has been extended from 1 in 17i of the population in 1818, to 1 in 

 Si in 1851 throughout the kingdom, Cheltenham reckons 1 in 6, whilst the accommo- 

 dation afforded for religious worship in its churches and chapels amounts to no less 

 than 60 per cent. 



Interesting details are given of the rise and progress of the various schools and pro- 

 prietary colleges, and more particularly of the resuscitation of the Cheltenham Gram- 

 mar School, the amount of money expended by these establishments in the town, that 

 of the Cheltenham Proprietary College being upwards of £16,000 per annum; the 

 Grammar School and Training College upwards of £5000 each. The author dwells 

 strongly upon the importance of schools for the adult poor. " Father and son," he ob- 

 serves, " are thus found learning the same lesson ; both drinking at the same purifying 

 fountain ; both being made to feel that there are higher pleasures than those of the 

 senses, and that being without well-being may be a curse rather than a blessing." 

 He considers that it is beginning at the right end, and " that however children may 

 be instructed in their schools, their moral development must still depend upon their 

 homes." He adds, " that it is scarcely possible to conceive any antagonism greater 

 than the influence sought to be exercised upon the minds of children in a well-organ- 

 ized school, and those to which they are subjected in a rude semi-barbarous home ; 

 but bring the parent into sympathy with the intellectual and moral progress of the 

 child, and the whole atmosphere is changed. Education then really commences, and 

 every subsequent step in the path of knowledge adds another element to the lofty re- 

 ciprocities of domestic and social life, and affords another defence against immorality 

 and crime." 



Pauperism and crime is brought into juxtaposition, and some illustrative evidence 

 given of the evils resulting from eleemosynary institutions, in which Cheltenham, like 

 Salisbury and Newbury,abounds, and which are found to exercise a baneful influence 

 upon the moral condition of the people, and to weaken the efforts of the local autho- 

 rities. In Cheltenham, the result seems to have been to increase largely the amount 

 of larceny and of pauperism, although vagrancy has been repressed to the extent of 

 70^ per cent, since 1849. 



The paper closes with an account of the Reformatory at Hardwicke Court, and the 

 benefit which it has conferred on the county generally, and on Cheltenham in parti- 

 cular; and the author infers that one-half at least of those whom a prison would have 

 consigned to a life of infamy, may be rendered valuable, if not worthy members of the 

 community. 



His conclusions are, — 1st, that opportunity is afforded him whose moral tendencies 

 are favourable, to break his connexion with the really vicious. 



2ndly. That the instructed thief is deprived of his opportunity of daily exercise in 

 his art, whereby his chance of future success is reduced to a minimum, and he is made 

 to feel that life has charms, and labour has sweets which no amount of dishonest skill 

 can obtain. 



3rdly. That the heavy reproach against society is (so far as boys ai'e concerned, and 

 why not girls?) thus removed ; that it punishes crime without providing any means 

 by which to change the character of the criminal. 



Suggestions on the People's Education. By the Rev. C. H. Bromby, M.A. 



The principles laid down in this paper were as follow : — 



1. That a rate shall not take the place but come in aid of voluntary benevolence. 



2. That existing schools as well as future schools, originating in denominational 

 zeal, and claiming the rate in aid, shall contribute threepence from subscriptions, 

 collections, endowment, and children's payments, in order to secure for themselves 

 denominational management. 



3. That a local School Committee shall be empowered to establish new schools, which 

 children in the receipt of outdoor parochial relief shall be compelled to attend, and 



