THE MONTHLY PACKET OF EVENING READINGS FOR Members of the English Church. EDITED BY CHARLOTTE M. YONGE, AUTHOR OF THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE.' NEW SERIES. VOLUME XXVII. PARTS CLVII. TO CLXII. JANUARY-JUNE, 1879. LONDON: MOZLEY AND SMITH, 6, PATERNOSTER ROW. OUR Christmas Tree of 1877-78, now the twelfth in succession, was held in S. Luke's Schools, Canal Road, Stepney, on Thursday and Friday, January 31st and February 1st. The children had been looking forward with glad anxiety for this event, which was this year deferred somewhat later than usual. The history of the Tree is this. At first, now long ago, a few children of the neighbourhood met in S. Paul's Schools, without any tie or connection, merely for a Christmas tree. Then a small Mission School was opened in S. Dunstan's Road, and in July, 1872, one hundred and twenty children migrated from this to the large and excellent buildings erected in Canal Road. The opinion of the managers was that the district, though closely populated, above seven thousand being within twenty-five minutes' circular walk, was not poor. Every one knows where to look for his living for the next day with confidence, and perhaps this is a fair test of a man's being poor or not. Few need to apply to the Workhouse, and few to make their wants known to the Charity Organization Society. With all this, however, it was perhaps no great marvel that, when schools were built around, altogether changing the old prices of threepence, fourpence, sixpence ; and one penny and twopence were put before parents as the standard payment for the child's schooling, it was a difficulty to maintain the fourpence, threepence, and the twopence, which the managers fixed for S. Luke's Schools. The end seems to have justified the determination. The schools have gradually but steadily increased in numbers. The economy of their working, 17. 11s. 4d. for each child, as against 21. 12s. 6d. for each child in the Board Schools, for the year ending May 31st, 1877, for the same subjects and for the same results exactly in either case, was teaching as good a lesson as could be shown in such VOL. 27. 1 PART 157. |