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13
THE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS.
As a contrast to the large mortality in the
thickly populated portions of the parish, I would
again point to the small mortality at your
Industrial Schools on Wandsworth Common. The
eye of the public cannot be too forcibly directed to
that Institution. Whilst every year I have to
record that nearly 100 children have been carried
off in the parish, here is an institution in which
upwards of 150 children have been reared and
educated for ten years without a single death from
zymotic disease at all. During the ten years of its
existence, only seven children have died in these
schools, and these seven were more or less sickly at
the time of their admission. It should be also
recollected that the children admitted into these
schools have been already exposed to influences of
the worst possible kind. Many of them are orphans,
whilst others are the offspring of the diseased, the
destitute, and the depraved. Yet we find that such
children are no sooner exposed to the beneficial
influence of nutritious diet, pure air, and regular
exercise, than they acquire a state of health that is
not equalled by the children of the most opulent in
the healthiest district of the parish. I think this is
a lesson that should be well pondered by the
proprietors and directors of our public schools
which are confined to the densely populated districts
of the Metropolis. Whatever may be the advantages
of their present position it should be well considered