We passed delightful days in visiting some of the oldest as well as some of the newest of the institutions of learning or charity. Among the former the famous old St. Peter’s College, founded as “a publique schoole for grammar, rethoricke and poetrie,” and the Charter House School, of which Wesley says, “I owed my health and long life to the faithfulness with which I obeyed my father’s injunction to run around the Charter House playing-green three times every morning,” and the blue-coat school, where the boys dressed in blue coat, yellow petticoat and stockings, and red leather girdle around the waist, seemed to have stepped down from the sixteenth century. Blue was originally a color only worn by dependents, and never by gentlemen, until after its use in the uniform of the British navy. In striking contrast to these we found Girton and the Wesleyan Normal College, for the training of teachers and the teaching of children. In another line of instruction the Government School of Design, at South Kensington, is doing a most interesting work. One feature of its service to the people is well worthy of imitation. Its library is rich in illustrated works, and these are open for the use, not only of artists, but of every poor working man or woman, at the price of one penny a volume. From this school large additions have been made to house decorators, designers and draughtsmen for the various manufactures and trades. All the collections of the wonderful museums of Kensington are intended to subserve the purpose of the school, of which branches have been formed in various manufacturing districts throughout England.
No philanthropic work in London will be more likely to attract the attention of Americans, than that done by the Peabody fund in the construction of the model lodging houses, where three rooms, comfortable and clean, can be hired for five shillings a week. The buildings in the various districts where they have already been erected are five stories in height, well lighted, well ventilated, and calculated in every way to make desirable homes for the very poor. Since the gift of Mr. Peabody, the corporation of London has given land and six hundred thousand dollars for the erection of model dwellings for the working people. Before them in this benevolent work has been the Baroness Burdett-Couts, whose heart has seemed to be as large as her purse. A morning spent in exploring the vicinity of Columbia Square Market showed us her four large blocks of neat houses surrounding a court all occupied now by a clean, orderly class of people. The adjoining market, built to accommodate the neighborhood on the site of the old “dust heap” was also her work. The place was one of the most filthy and pestilential haunts of vice and degradation in the city of London. Its refuse heaps were almost as high as its hovels, and foulness, moral and physical, made the spot a breeding place of disease to body and soul. These are only instances of what may be done, of what must be done, indeed, if cities like those of England and America are ever to be lifted from the pauperism that destroys soul and body alike. And the traveler, who makes his journey without securing a knowledge of what is stirring in other countries to solve the problem of helping people to help themselves, misses both the truth as to the realities of human conditions and the inspiration that comes from seeing what has been already done. The great consideration is time, which is always and everywhere too short. Our quartette labored faithfully and well, but, like other travelers, saw once what they wanted to see a dozen times, heard their favorite music in snatches and their favorite preachers sometimes once and sometimes not at all. They crowded ten objects of interest into the time fairly due to one, and left London with the feeling of a hungry man at a railway station whose bell rings just as he has taken the first bite of his dinner.