Quite a hopeless case. Two old women. They've
been here fifty years. They're English. Another gentleman from
England, Mr. Trollope. A very interesting case! Confirmed
inebriety."
And as to the schools, it is almost impossible to mention them with
too high a praise. I am speaking here specially of New York,
though I might say the same of Boston, or of all New England. I do
not know any contrast that would be more surprising to an
Englishman, up to that moment ignorant of the matter, than that
which he would find by visiting first of all a free school in
London, and then a free school in New York. If he would also learn
the number of children that are educated gratuitously in each of
the two cities, and also the number in each which altogether lack
education, he would, if susceptible of statistics, be surprised
also at that. But seeing and hearing are always more effective
than mere figures. The female pupil at a free school in London is,
as a rule, either a ragged pauper or a charity girl, if not
degraded, at least stigmatized by the badges and dress of the
charity. We Englishmen know well the type of each, and have a
fairly correct idea of the amount of education which is imparted to
them. We see the result afterward when the same girls become our
servants, and the wives of our grooms and porters. The female
pupil at a free school in New York is neither a pauper nor a
charity girl.
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