CHAP. XL] VISIT TO A FREE SCHOOL. 147 



indulged in wild projects for redressing the wrongs of the Hiber 

 nian race, ought not to create wonder, when I state that before 

 the end of the year 1845, a resolution was moved in Congress, 

 by Mr. M Connell, one of the members for Alabama, after he 

 had been talking much about the spirit of Christian love and 

 peaceful brotherhood which distinguished the American republic, 

 to the following effect : &quot; That the Irish, ground down by 

 British misrule, have for centuries groaned under a foreign 

 monarchical yoke, and are now entitled to share the blessings of 

 our free institutions.&quot; I am happy to say, however, that this 

 absurd motion was not even seconded. 



The population of Boston, exclusive of Charlestown, Roxbury, 

 and Cambridge (which may be regarded as suburbs), is at present 

 about 115,000, of which 8000 are Roman Catholics, chiefly of 

 Irish extraction ; but there are besides many Scotch and English 

 emigrants in the city. In order to prove to me how much may 

 be done to advance them in civilization in a single generation, I 

 was taken to a school where nine-tenths of all the children were 

 of parents who had come out from England or Ireland. It was 

 not an examination day, and our visit was wholly unexpected. 

 We entered a suite of three well-aired rooms, containing 550 

 girls. There were nine teachers in the room. The pupils were 

 all between the ages of nine and thirteen, the greater portion of 

 them the daughters of poor laborers, but some of them of parents 

 in good circumstances. Each scholar was seated on a separate 

 chair with a back to it, the chair being immovably fixed to the 

 ground to prevent noise. There was no uniformity of costume, 

 but evidently much attention to personal neatness, nearly all of 

 them more dressed than would be thought in good taste in chil 

 dren of a corresponding class in England. They had begun their 

 studies at nine o clock in the morning, and are to be six hours at 

 school, studying fifty minutes at a time, and then being allowed 

 ten minutes for play in a yard adjoining. I observed some of the 

 girls very intent on their task, leaning on their elbows and in 

 other careless attitudes, and we were told by the masters that 

 they avoid as much as possible finding fault with them on minor 

 points when they are studying. The only punishments are a 



