rs (7 males, 18
females); one 15 scholars, (3 males, 12 females); one 27 scholars (4
males, 23 females); one 26 (male) scholars; six schools for both sexes,
3 to 8 or 10 years of age.

What number of schools confined nominally or virtually to the
Established Church? Only one Sunday School as above.

What number of schools confined nominally or virtually to any other
Religious Denominations? Four--Infant, Lancastrian and two Sunday
Schools (Independents).

Of the sixteen schools in the town, of which details of fourteen are
given above, none had many pupils; some were virtually dame schools,
where the teaching was not often a very elevating process; and too
often appealed to the motive of fear, either of a black dog in the
cellar or of the assurance that Buonaparte was coming! Education of
the well-to-do was much more local than now, owing to the expense and
inconvenience of travel, hence the large number of private schools.

Of the first Day Schools where any considerable number of children
attended before the present series of public schools was established,
the evidence goes to show that they were of the dame school order,
remembered best in after years, not by the amount of erudition
acquired, but by some of the elder boys who went little errands over
the way to the "Fox and Duck" (now the house occupied by Mr. H. Clark,
Market Hill), and from the facts that the article they returned with
having, by special injunction, to be placed behind the door, that the
worthy dame soon afterwards repaired to that corner of the room, the
more knowing of the scholars were apt to draw certain conclusions as to
the somnulent condition of their instructress and the easy terms upon
which a truant boy could get off by going that little errand! But the
limited means placed at the disposal of those engaged in the education
of children then, compared with our millions of Government grant of
to-day, do not allow us to judge too harshly of results.

{121}

Even where there was some endowment it was generally on too small a
scale to do much for a general system of education. At Melbourn the
first school of this kind assembled in a quaint room at the top of the
Church porch!

At Barkway, where the Duchess of Richmond's endowment led to a free
school, this was of so limited a character that in the Commissioners'
report as late as 1838, the endowment was only L10 0s. 4d., to which
was added L5 from the town lands, L5 from the rent