390 EVILS OP FREE-SCHOOL SYSTEM. 



New York, reckoning together about 650 students ; and 

 two theological schools, one of which is Episcopalian, 

 and the other Presbyterian. 



As in other large and wealthy cities, however, all this 

 apparatus does not overtake the ignorance and increas 

 ing destitution, especially of the families of the poorer 

 immigrants. At the period of my visit it had been ascer 

 tained that there were in the city nearly 10,000 destitute 

 children without homes, instruction, or known means of 

 livelihood. Our own large cities can tell similar melan 

 choly tales, and all the efforts, both of public and private 

 benevolence, which abound equally in both countries, can 

 scarcely hope to do more than merely assuage the misery 

 to which the idleness and improvidence which flock into 

 large towns will always give rise.* 



One evil found to attend the free school system in the 

 city of New York, is the frequent change of school and 

 master made by the children. The source of a great deal 

 of this is to be found in the disposition which prompted 

 a girl, who was taken to the school of a sisterhood near 

 Boston, and told she must call one of the ladies u Superior.&quot; 

 &quot; I acknowledge no superior,&quot; was her reply. Change 

 of school is easy where there are no accounts to settle, 

 and where the new master cannot refuse to receive a 

 pupil unless his school is full. The maintenance of dis 

 cipline under such a system must be very difficult, and 

 to make thorough scholars must be infinitely more so. 



The city of New York, I have said, contains two col 

 leges. In the State there are eight colleges in all three 

 Episcopalian, one Baptist, one Roman Catholic, and three 

 Presbyterian. The number of professors and students in 

 those of each denomination are as follows. In the 



* The more recent journals state, that in New York there are &quot; more 

 than 20,000 people of all ages, who eat, drink, and sleep under ground, 

 burrowing in the earth like so many animals.&quot; This is the Liverpool 

 cellars over again. 



