ntrary is entirely false.
The daily dinner consisted of meat, vegetables, and pudding, in
abundance; the children were permitted, and expected, to ask for
whatever they desired, and were never limited.

'It has been remarked that the food of the school was such that none
but starving children could eat it; and in support of this statement
reference is made to a certain occasion when the medical attendant
was consulted about it. In reply to this, let me say that during the
spring of 1825 a low fever, although not an alarming one, prevailed
in the school, and the managers, naturally anxious to ascertain
whether any local cause occasioned the epidemic, took an opportunity
to ask the physician's opinion of the food that happened to be then
on the table. I recollect that he spoke rather scornfully of a baked
rice pudding; but as the ingredients of this dish were chiefly, rice,
sugar, and milk, its effects could hardly have been so serious as
have been affirmed. I thus furnish you with the simple fact from
which those statements have been manufactured.

'I have not the least hesitation in saying that, upon the whole, the
comforts were as many and the privations as few at Cowan Bridge as
can well be found in so large an establishment. How far young or
delicate children are able to contend with the necessary evils of a
public school is, in my opinion, a very grave question, and does not
enter into the present discussion.

'The younger children in all larger institutions are liable to be
oppressed; but the exposure to this evil at Cowan Bridge was not more
than in other schools, but, as I believe, far less. Then, again,
thoughtless servants will occasionally spoil food, even in private
families; and in public schools they are likely to be still less
particular, unless they are well looked after.

'But in this respect the institution in question compares very
favourably with other and more expensive schools, as from personal
experience I have reason to know.--A.H., August 1855.'--From _A
Vindication of the Clergy Daughters' School and the Rev. W. Carus
Wilson from the Remarks in_ '_The Life of Charlotte Bronte_,' _by the
Rev. H. Shepheard_, _M.A. London_: _Seeley_, _Jackson_, _and
Halliday_, 1857.

{92} The Rev. William Weightman.

{95} It is interesting to note that Charlotte s