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21
Wandsworth Common. I find that the average
number of children in this school, since its opening
in 1852, has been 150, and yet, marvellous to say,
there has been but two deaths. The ages of these
children is between 3 years and 15 years old, and
if the mortality of the school had been equal to the
mortality in the parish, instead of the deaths being
2, they would have been 14. If the deaths of
the children between 3 and 15 in the parish
had been no greater than the deaths in the
Wandsworth school, instead of 900 deaths, there
would have been but 130. I would call the
attention of all those interested in the education of
the young to these figures. There can be no
doubt that the rearing of children in London is
attended with an enormous loss of life, and not only
a great loss of life, but a loss of health and strength
which must always tell upon the population.
Wherever schools can be removed into the country
they ought, or those who maintain them in London
should be prepared to shew what are the advantages
which counterbalance this enormous loss of life.
This question has been agitated with regard to the
public schools of London, and I have the conviction
that a fearful responsibility rests on those who, in
spite of the evidence of the loss of health in
children who live in London, oppose all plans
for the removal of these schools to localities
beyond the influence of those causes of death
which are so numerous in the crowded parts of the
metropolis.