others out of the city, in which both men and women are instructed, but not mixed with each other.

The number of learners admitted since the commencement of the schools, on the 8th of the Third-month, (March,) 1812, including a period of less than one year and eleven months, also the number now under education, is as follows:

There are also, in this city, four other congregational adult schools, not under the jurisdiction of the Bristol Adult School Society.

From information received, it appears, that Adult Schools are now opened in various parts of the nation; and according to accounts transmitted by persons who have taken an interest therein, they are uniformly attended with the same success as in this city. In most of the places where schools are established, many per

sons of opulence and influence have patronized the undertakings. In the town of Plymouth, in the county of Devon, a public meeting was convened ou the 14th of the Twelfth-month last, (1813,) in the Town-hall, at which the mayor presided: a considerable number of the most respectable inhabitants attended, which resulted in a conclusion to establish "A Society for teaching the adult poor within the borough of Plymouth; and that the institution shall also embrace those of the rising geucration, who may have been apprenticed, or placed out, without being able to read." The requisite steps for that purpose were resolved upon, and a subscription entered into. One school is also opened at Bradnich, in the same county. Schools of this kind are likewise established in London; Uxbridge, in Middlesex; Salisbury; Sheffield, in Yorkshire; Norwich and Yarmouth, in the county of Norfolk; Ipswich, Bury, and Bungay, in Suffolk; in several parts of North Wales; at Swansea, in Glamorganshire, and some other places in South Wales.

We have no one school belonging to the Bristol Society, in which adults are instructed with children; there are several small establishments in this city, wherein they are mixed; but we are decidedly convinced, from observation as well as experience, that this plan has not, neither will it ever prove successful: it is particularly unpleasant to persons of mature age, to expose their ignorance and awkwardness before children, consequently, they do not like to attend under such circumstances; and wherever schools have been established for the instruction of both these descriptions of learners, they have dwindled away, and proved abortive. I do not, however, mean to assert, that no adults have in mixed schools, obtained the objects of their wishes in learning to read; but that they never will be the schools generally resorted to by persons advanced in years; consequently, the bulk of the labouring poor will remain in their present state of ignorance, unhappily debarred

the christian privilege of perusing the sacred scriptures in their own dwellings.

1

In the instruction of adults, it is not only necessary that we should feel a consciousness that christian kindness and benevolence are the spring of our actions, but the whole of our conduct and deportment should be such as will demonstrate to them that we are their sin. cere friends. A softness of manners, a patient forbearance with the weakness of some of their capacities, or the occasional slowness of their comprehension; zealous and persevering endeavours to explain what they cannot at once understand, will gain their regard, and at the same time encourage their best efforts to overcome the difficulties they may meet with; but an austere deportment, the use of authoritative language, or impatient rebuke, will have a discouraging tendency, and frustrate both their,laudable desires, and the object of our own labours.

It was a judicious remark of T. Charles, the founder of the first adult schools in Wales-" The poor people here are very ignorant; but we do not tell them so, yet we endeavour to convince them of it." This principle of action our teachers should endeavour to keep in view: to upbraid them with ignorance, would discourage the diffident, irritate rougher minds, and have a tendency to damp in each their ardent endeavours for improvement. But, if we kindly strive to entice them onward, from step to step, by impressing their minds with an idea that every difficulty they overcome, and every degree of knowledge they acquire, will render their future tasks more easy; suggesting, at the same time, the pleasure they will soon experience, and the great advantage they will derive from being able to read, they will easily discover the ignorant state they are in, as well as the loss they have hitherto sustained for want of the learning they now have an opportunity of acquiring.

"Great examples are in vain,
Where ignorance begets despair."

The seeming want of memory in adult learners, is another circumstance which will claim the attention of teachers; but memory, like the other faculties of the mind, is to be improved by exercise. In some of the schools, those who can read a little are set to learn sentences, short passages of scripture, or hymns; and this may have its important uses, both with respect to improving the powers of recollection, and storing the mind with the leading principles of christianity. We frequently find, that the learners can spell their lessons when they have their eyes upon them, and pronounce the words with correctness; but turn the face of the card from them, and desire them to spell certain words in which they have just before been exercised three times over, and we shall find them extremely deficient: they say, they cannot remember. On observing this circumstance, when occasionally visiting some of the schools, I have endeavoured to convince them this was from a want of exerting their mental powers, (without telling them they did not use their best efforts) by proposing a question similar to the following :-" If I were to desire two or three of you in this class, to call at two o'clock, on such a day of the week, at No. 2, Richmond-Terrace, Clifton, (in the vicinity of Bristol,) where you should receive three shillings; at No. 17, where you should receive one shilling; and at No. 21, where you should receive four shillings, each person; if I should repeat this distinctly three times, would you be likely to forget any part of what I said ?" This proposition has excited a smile, and a look indicating their consciousness of not having sufficiently exerted their memory in acquiring their spelling lesson. Some would reply to the question in the negative; which gave me an oppor tunity of observing-" In that case you would, according to your own confession, bear nine things in remem-> brance the place, the day, the hour, the three numbers of the houses, and three several sums you were to receive; but your learning to spell three or four words out of book, or from recollection, would be to you of far

more lasting benefit than the sum of money I have mentioned."

In the preceding pages, I have endeavoured to lay before the public a correct, impartial, and explicit narrative of the origin of adult schools, as well as of the successful exertions of the Bristol Society for extending the means of education amongst that long neglected class of their fellow creatures, whose ignorance of the holy scriptures loudly and imperiously calls for those christian endeavours, to raise them from their state of moral degradation; that they may in future enjoy, in common with those in the higher walks of life, the inestimable blessings that sacred volume was intended to convey to the bulk of mankind. I shall now endeavour to enter upon other circumstances connected with these schools, and the ultimate object contemplated by their benevolent friends and supporters.

In visiting some of the Adult Schools in this city, in company with William Smith and others, and observing So many of my poor, and almost penny less, fellow-creatures of both sexes, assembled for the purpose of learning to read, and, I hope, learning also to obey the sacred code, and thereby happily experiencing a preparation for another and a better world, I have been fully persuaded this effort of christian love originated in the supreme Dispenser of all our blessings; that he has opened the hearts and inclined the minds of many to offer personal, others, pecuniary assistance, to enlighten and benefit those classes of society, which stood in need of such friendly help. Had it not been for such schools, where would these poor uneducated people have been spending their time? What would have been their employment on the day of the week appointed for especial devotion to the great Creator, and our edification in righteousness? Perhaps in public houses, squandering their little earnings which their families stand in need of, imbibing corruption from bad examples, or disseminating the same by irreligious and profane conversation; probably getting into unhappy broils, cherishing discord