ed in De Fellenburg's method. She took on
lease five acres of land, and spent several hundred pounds in rendering
the buildings upon it fit for the purposes of the school. A liberal
education was afforded to the children of artisans and laborers, during
the half of the day when they were not employed in the field or garden.
The allotments were rented by the boys, who raised and sold produce
which afforded them a considerable yearly profit, if they were good
workmen. Those who worked in the field earned wages,--their labor being
paid by the hour, according to the capability of the young laborer.
They kept their accounts of expenditure and receipts, and acquired good
habits of business, while learning the occupation of their lives. Some
mechanical trades were taught, as well as the arts of agriculture. Part
of the wisdom of the management lay in making the pupils pay. Of one
hundred pupils, half were boarders. They paid little more than half the
expense of their maintenance; and the day-scholars paid three-pence per
week. Of course, a large part of the expense was borne by Lady Byron,
besides the payments she made for children who could not otherwise have
entered the school. The establishment flourished steadily till 1852,
when the owner of the land required it back for building-purposes.
During the eighteen years that the Ealing schools were in action, they
did a world of good in the way of incitement and example. The Poor-Law
Commissioners pointed out their merits. Land-owners and other wealthy
persons visited them, and went home and set up similar establishments.
During those years, too, Lady Byron had herself been at work in various
directions, to the same purpose.

A more extensive industrial scheme was instituted on her Leicestershire
property; and not far off, she opened a girls' school, and an infant
school; and when a season of distress came, as such seasons are apt to
befall the poor Leicestershire stocking-weavers, Lady Byron fed the
children for months together, till they could resume their payments.
These schools were opened in 1840. The next year, she built a
school-house on her Warwickshire property; and five years later, she set
up an iron school-house on another Leicestershire estate. By this time,
her educational efforts were costing her several hundred pounds a year
in the mere maintenance of existing establishments; but this is the
smallest consideration in the case. She has sent out tribes of boys and