Samuel standing beside him, telling "him all that the Lord had said." The whole is surmounted by a scroll, on which is written our Saviour's command, "Feed my Lambs."

We next inspected the empty class-rooms. The walls are decorated with texts and pictures, varying according to the age of the children occupying the rooms; in some we noticed letters, in others animals, and in the senior girls' room the chronological History of England; in the infant boys' is to be seen "The fatal effects of throwing stones," represented by a broken window and a small boy receiving chastisement from the enraged owner. Next this is a picture (which might be removed to more appropriate quarters) of a girl on fire rushing into the air, of the terrible effects of which we have lately had such frequent and melancholy proof. A text in one of the senior schools struck us as peculiarly appropriate and soothing to any who are sensitive or old enough to feel the bitterness of dependence, "He that despiseth the poor, reproacheth his Maker."

The bed-rooms are exceedingly well arranged, the long rows of iron beds looking clean and comfortable, with their warm grey cloth covering. In the middle of the rooms belonging to the younger children stands the large bath, with a basin at each end; the senior schools have bath-rooms opposite their respective bed-rooms, where a certain number bathe every night, and ensure the bathing of each child twice during the week; at the end of each bed-room a corner is curtained or panelled off for a nurse or governess; the same arrangement being made in the boys' rooms for the masters.

The presses are really worthy of notice, not an inch of space is lost, one shelf is devoted to each child, divided into pigeon holes for stockings, bonnets, caps, cloaks, etc. Every child has three suits of clothes provided for it, the nurses are obliged to see that these are kept in good repair, the children being placed under their charge according to age and in different numbers, some having the care of twenty-two, others of sixty. It is also their duty to attend the children during their playhours, (so that the governesses out of school are free from all responsibility,) also to see that the children under their care have clean hands and faces at dinner time, and to preside over their table.

In the middle of the dining-room is a plate heated by steam, which throws a delicious warmth throughout this large room, while it serves to keep the dishes and plates hot. Here at half-past twelve o'clock the boys and girls dine together, they also meet at chapel, but are allowed no other intercourse, which we cannot help regretting, as we feel persuaded much good would accrue to both if properly trained together; at any rate they might with advantage receive mutual instruction, as it has been well said, "the boy being incited by the aptitude of the girl, and the girl taking example by the steady perseverance of the boy;" but the old plan is still pursued, and after the children are four years old they leave the nursery

and are entirely separated, although God made them for mutual dependence.

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As some time yet remained before the afternoon lessons commenced, we looked through the kitchens, laundries, and dryingpresses, and saw the bread machine hard at work. We then went into the grounds, where (in the part devoted to the girls) we found the children bowling their hoops along the gravel paths, swinging on ropes attached to poles, round which the elder girls were swinging smaller ones to the great enjoyment of both; every face looked bright and happy, and few passed us without a smile, in fact they crowded round us and seemed quite disappointed if they did not receive a few words, and many were the droll fearless answers we received. At half-past two o'clock we entered the junior boys' school; there we found the nurse brushing by turn each child's head, while they all sang in chorus. For our especial benefit they were made to perform solos, one little fellow just four years old sang the alphabet to the tune of "God Save the Queen;" even Old Dog Tray" had found his way to Wanstead, and full justice was done to his numerous virtues by a small boy aged five. In the other rooms we heard some scripture lessons being given, and in the senior boys' school a contest for a box of instruments to be gained by the best paper on a given rule in algebra was just commencing. In the senior girls' school the employment was needle-work, while one girl practised on the pianoforte, as all who show any real talent for music are instructed in it. We then proceeded to the second school, and saw the first, second, third, and fourth classes march to their places, and go through a series of exercises which were greatly superior to the singing by which they were accompanied. After this, the third and fourth classes were drafted by their governess into another class-room, and the first and second began a reading lesson, upon which we cannot bestow too much praise. The children read together, and the expression which they threw into it, was something quite new to us, and most surprising: we have never heard it approached, much less equalled, in any school. They read the story of Grace Darling, and never did it seem more touching and impressive. After this three of them read pieces of poetry, with the same attention to stops and expression which delighted us before, also binding the lines together when the sense required it, in a way which pointed alike to the pains of the teacher and the understanding of the children. The lady who has trained them so perfectly deserves the highest commendation,-we find she herself was trained at the Home and Colonial, of which we hope to give an account in some future number.

As everything must come to an end, so did our day at Wanstead, and we had to hurry off for the station at the conclusion of the reading lesson, but before we close this account, perhaps it will be as well to give a slight sketch of the rules of this admirable charity. First we notice that while many other asylums receive orphans at

seven years of age, this opens its protecting door to the youngest infant. Formerly the children left when eight years old, now the boys are retained until they are fourteen, and the girls until they are fifteen many of these children are the orphans of clergymen, solicitors, merchants, and officers, who have been suddenly cut off, leaving their large families destitute. Children are also admitted if the father is paralyzed or a confirmed lunatic, and the mother is by that means unable to support them. They are clothed and well educated in this establishment, and are thoroughly grounded in the principles of the Church of England. The senior children are allowed to visit their friends once a year, but those under seven are only allowed to do so in case of serious illness, and on the production of a medical certificate stating that the disease is not infectious. Each child may be visited by its relations once in two months, on Mondays or Thursdays, but if the mother re-marries, the child must be removed.

Entitling to one child always on the foundation 250 00

Clergymen presenting congregational collections are constituted governors, and have a life vote for every five guineas thus contributed. Ladies collecting the sum of five guineas or upwards will be entitled to a life vote for every five guineas so contributed. In the election of the children, those have an especial claim to admission whose parents have been in the most respectable circumstances. Upwards of five hundred children are now in this Asylum; the educational department consists of four schools, under the superintendence of the chaplain, and every effort is made to qualify them for any position in life they may hereafter hold, and to give them the love of "that which, if they are poor, will render their poverty respectable, comfort, adorn, and never quit them; which will open to them a kingdom of thought; which will prove an asylum against the cruelty, the injustice, and the pain which may be their lot in the outer world-that which will make their motives great and honorable, and light up in an instant a thousand noble disdains at the very thought of meanness or fraud."

XXX.-SOME OF THE WORK IN WHICH WOMEN ARE DEFICIENT.

In this age of women workers, and minds full of earnest ambitions and generous and noble aims, it is sad and strange to mark how many of our sex still pass through life laboring under the demon ennui and the curse of an aimless and purposeless existence. Nor does this assertion apply only to the higher classes-there are many amongst the daughters and sisters of farmers and tradespeople whose minds never seem to expand beyond the narrow female routine of dress, gossip, fancy needlework, novel reading, and a smattering, it may be, of bad French and atrocious music. We are almost inclined to believe, that to be usefully employed is in their minds synonymous with being vulgar. So regularly is the dirty strip of useless embroidery brought out before company; so carefully huddled away on the appearance of "gentry" is the heap of undarned household stockings or family "white work." Nor does the mischief stop here. Not content with following the aristocracy in what they consider a genteel and refined mode of life, they imbibe with the very uselessness of their employments a distaste for the more homely work in which their woman's mission most assuredly lies, and an ill concealed contempt and down-looking upon their honest, homely, hard working parents. Yet these are the women to whom our tradespeople and farmers look for wives— the young and rising generation! They will learn, perhaps, in future years the full value of baking, brewing, cheese-making, and house-keeping. They will be obliged to learn it, and practise it, for their living will depend upon it; but there will be first of all a weary un-learning of all their silly heads have been filled with-a lowering of their pride—a degradation of their fancied gentility -unhappiness and misery that their honest hard working parents never dreamt of when they thought to give them an edication," by placing them at some frivolous boarding-school far removed from wholesome home influences, and having them taught French in quite another language to what is spoken across the channel! Nor are the higher ranks much excluded from the same folly. Taught first by ignorant and prejudiced servants in the nursery, placed afterwards under the training of well-taught and fashionable governesses, wanting in nothing but the home affections, is it wonderful that our daughters and sisters should grow up accomplished, fashionable, refined, and (low be it spoken) useless and emptyheaded members of society?

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We challenge many a young wife and youthful matron to say if it be not the simple truth that when she entered the married state she hardly knew the difference between beef and mutton, and assuredly was far inferior in household knowledge to the lowest

menial in her establishment. We ask many a young mother if she had the smallest idea when " baby" first came into the world how to wash, dress, or manage him herself? If she, on the contrary, from her utter ignorance on this subject, and the dread of injuring her offspring from really not knowing how to manage him, has not over and over again deputed the reins of nursery government into the hands of some practised head nurse or experienced woman, who, it may be, has only allowed her to see her baby at stated intervals, and has made a very slave of the poor loving, doting, ignorant, and misjudging mother. Ah! if only she had taken a few lessons in her mother's nursery when she was a girl; if she had been taught the few simple medicines, and still more simple food required by infants; if she had learnt something of their little ailments, something of their constitutions; if she had known only how to feed, dress, and handle a baby, all this trouble and anxiety about her own young ones had surely never fallen upon her! And you, oh! young wives, whose husbands look black upon you over illcooked dinners, comfortless rooms, and want of general household arrangement, do you not sometimes wish that you had devoted a few hours less to practising music every day, and instead, had followed your mother into the kitchen when she went to give her orders, learning thereby the relative qualities of beef and mutton, and how to make the best and greatest variety of food out of the cooked joints or small ends of meat? Do you not think you might have taken with advantage a lesson out of the housemaid's book; or do you fancy that knowing how to make a bed, or seeing that the household linen is kept well repaired, would infallibly have destroyed your "prestige" in the eyes of the worldly and the fashionable? But we hear our young married friends exclaiming, "What is the use of our keeping servants if they cannot do these things for us?" And as an echo to this sentiment comes in the voice of the vexed husband, "What is the use of keeping a wife as head of my establishment if she does not even know how to direct her own servants?" Then steal in arguments, upbraidings, retaliations, and the matter perchance is settled, either by the married couple continuing to live on in ignorance and discomfort, or else by the husband's taking the reins of government into his own hands, or intrusting them to some housekeeper in whose judgment he places greater confidence than he does in his own wife's.

There is we believe an old saying, "If you want to see a thing done well, you must thoroughly understand it yourself;" and another that says, "Trust no one, but if you desire a thing do it for yourself." At any rate, it is very certain that many highly elegant and accomplished young ladies have to learn these hard truths through bitter experiences after marriage, which might all have been spared them by a little knowledge before; and yet we train our daughters to fit them as we conceive for the married state, and to be polished ornaments of society. Poor girls! how little they dream that the lover