AN advertisement has appeared in the Norwich papers of the 26th instant, announcing that “a public meeting of members of the Established Church will be held in the Hall in the Market, Norwich, on Thursday, 7th of April, for the purpose of forming a Society to promote the extension of the Infant School system in the County and City.” It is somewhat remarkable that a notice of such importance, and addressed to a large and respectable body of Christians, should have been inserted in the public papers _anonymously_, and that you should be called upon to assemble in the Hall, without knowing by whose authority such an assembly is convened, and without even knowing who is to preside on the occasion. Believing, however, that the advertisement does proceed from some competent authority, and perceiving, from the terms in which it is expressed, that all the inhabitants of this City, except “the members of the Established Church,” are prohibited from attending the meeting, I take the liberty, as one of the excluded party, of addressing you from the press—and my object in so doing, is to explain to you the principles on which the Infant schools in Norwich have hitherto been conducted, and to recommend those principles to your adoption at the approaching meeting.
You are probably aware that several friends to the education of children, and especially to their moral and religious education, have originated, and, for some years, supported Infant schools in this neighbourhood, the principal of which are to be found in Lakenham, in Crook’s Place, and in the parish of St. Miles. These schools have hitherto been conducted not on sectarian, but on catholic and Christian principles. Children of all classes have been admitted as scholars, and, besides imparting to them the elements of general knowledge, they have been taught, according to their capacities, the facts and histories recorded in the Holy Scriptures, and the great doctrines relative to the sinfulness of man, and to the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, on which the majority of Christians are agreed. The committees of these schools are composed of members of the Establishment and of other Christian churches, all of whom, without the slightest degree of jealousy, or of difficulty, have cordially united in carrying into effect both the intellectual and the religious parts of the system. The committee of the Lakenham school, though it, as well as the other schools, is, I believe, chiefly supported by Dissenters, has, I am informed, regularly invited the respected clergyman of the parish to attend its meetings; and my connexion with the school in St. Miles’, enables me to declare, most confidently, that repeated efforts have been made to induce members of the Established church to afford greater help in directing its concerns, as well as in defraying its expenses. I have no doubt that in the other schools, equally liberal measures have been adopted.