from £1 14 6 in 1851, to £10 16 4 in 1852. The Subscriptions from £18 11 0 in 1851, to £42 12 6 in 1852.
£92 have been contributed in donations, and a new item in the income, arising out of the sale of the girls’ work, { 19} returns as the profits for the last six months £2 3_s._ These are encouraging features of the prospect, but when it is considered on the other hand, that the very large and special expenditure involved in the purchase of the New School, and the reduction of its share in the Collection at St. Mary’s, from £30 to £14 should have fallen in the same year, it cannot be a matter of surprise that the adverse balance of the last account is more than doubled in the present. Whilst, therefore, the Managers would return to those many friends who have assisted them with gifts of clothing, and other prizes, for the pupils, they would earnestly press upon the congregation of Christ Church, and the residents in the Gore, the duty of yielding to the Schools of their Church and neighbourhood, a regular, a liberal, and a conscientious support. It is a pleasure to add that this call has been responded to by several; were all to act in a like spirit, as God has prospered them, there would no longer be an occasion for these appeals.
In passing from the juvenile to the adult members of the labouring classes, the Visitors are bound to keep the same principle in view of helping them to help themselves. Whilst either are capable of so doing, it is the truest charity to withhold all other aid. In children, this is effected by insisting on their receiving an Education adapted to their future prospects: in adults, by fostering providence and forethought. “Frugality,” said Goldsmith, writing to his brother, “in the lower orders of mankind, is true ambition; it affords the only ladder for the poor to rise to preferment. Teach then, my dear sir, to your son, thrift and economy. I had learnt from books to be disinterested and generous, before I was taught from experience the necessity of being prudent.” This homely but difficult truth is becoming year by year more generally acted upon. It influences the whole social body. Insurances on life and against accidents are its forms amongst people enjoying wealth and competence. With others, possessed of smaller, but permanent incomes, the savings’ banks develope its latent energies. Provident funds remain for those who live from hand to mouth. Of these last, there are four in St. Mary Abbott’s, having for their objects the safe keeping of weekly deposits, to be appropriated respectively to Coal, Clothing, Rent, and other minor expenses, at the end of each year.