Second annual report of the Williams Secular School.

  • Williams Secular School
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second annual report of the Williams Secular School. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/48 page 20
    on different individuals; some are naturally dull in intellectual capacity, and others deficient in the moral emotions, and no system of training that can be pursued in a common school, and no efforts of teachers during the short period of the day and of the lifetime of the children spent in the school, will suffice to realize in all instances the expectations of parental affection. While, therefore, the teachers are deeply conscious of their own imperfections and shortcomings, they claim that indulgent consideration. of the difficulties of the task allotted to them, which justice demands, and that where disappoint- ment has been felt by the parents, the whole blame should not be ascribed to them. This explanation is the more necessary, because the system of discipline and teaching followed at this school being so different from those of ordinary seminaries for the children of the working-classes in Scotland, several months are frequently necessary, after a child enters the school, before the mental action and habits can be brought into harmony with its rules, and spontaneous effort be evoked in place of forced exertion. During this period of transition, the scholar may appear not only to be making no progress, but even to be retrograding ; but a few months will shew an improvement which will more than compensate for the time apparently lost. W. M. WILLIAMS, LOUISA WATKINS, Teachers. The Promoters beg leave to recommend the foregoing lucid Pteport of the Teachers of the Williams Secular School, to the consideration of the subscribers and of the friends of unsectarian secular education in general. They are happy to bear a fresh testimony to the merits of Mr Williams. He brings a large stock of scientific knowledge combined with high moral qualities, to bear on the instruction and im- provement of the children attending his school, and he has triumphed over the difficulties which at first opposed its success. To Miss Watkins also they tender their thanks, as a zealous and improving instructress. It is gratifying to observe that the school is gradually attracting more attention from individuals belonging to the upper classes of society. One proof of this is supplied by the facts, that during the last year Mr Williams’ services have been frequently in request to give private instruction to children of a superior station, and that Mr Combe has received applications from a number of heads of families in England asking whether he could recommend tutors for their children capable of teaching in the method pursued in this school, and offering handsome remuneration. Unfortunately he has hitherto been unable to name qualified persons ; but in a few years,
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image