ented, at the annual gross cost of L.80, the middle of
which is kept for the cricket-ground, while the edges are laid down in
gardens, allotted out.

During all the bright summer weather the boys worked eagerly at their
gardens, and played perseveringly at cricket--making a happy and
healthy use of time that otherwise must, if used well, have been spent
in a dull school-room (not the most inviting of recreations, after a
hard day's work at the candle-making), or idled away in the streets,
amongst the unprofitable and unhealthy amusements provided for the
people. Amongst other good results, Mr Wilson notices that of
'softening to the boys one of the greatest evils now existing in the
factory--the night-work, for which the men and boys come in at six in
the evening, to leave at six in the morning.' These workers do not go
to bed, it seems, so soon as they leave work: in former days, they
generally dawdled about, took a walk, or strolled into a gin-palace,
as it might happen, or did anything else to kill the time until their
sleeping-hour arrived. Since the cricket-ground has been established,
however, they rush off to the field on leaving work at six in the
morning, thoroughly enjoy themselves at gardening and cricket until
about a quarter past eight; and then, after collecting in a little
shed, where a verse or two of the New Testament and the Lord's Prayer
are read to them, they go home to sleep, refreshed by the exercise
after their unnatural hours, happy, peaceful, and healthy. These are
the birches and canes of the Messrs Wilson's moral and scholastic
training!

Then came the summer-excursion. The first experiment was in June 1850,
when 100 of them went down to Guildford early in the morning, and
returned late in the evening. It was a beautiful day, bright and
cloudless; and as those London boys wandered about the country lanes
and meadows of Guildford, and heard the ceaseless hum of insect life,
and the uncaged birds singing high in the blue sky, and saw the
wild-flowers in the hedgerows, and the glancing waters in their way,
we may be sure that more than mere enjoyment was stored up in their
minds, and that thoughts which might not be brought out into set
phrases, but which would be undying in their influence through life,
were raised in each heart that drank in the glories and the holy
teaching of nature, perhaps on that day for the first time. It was
something for them to think of in the toil and heat of the fa