St. Petersburg State University

Experiments in Education: The Possibility of the 19th Century Auditor Today

As a series of independent experiments on how educational activities and trajectories can be formulated ‘in the wild’ – that is outside of enrollment in a formal institution of education – I became interested in examining what coalescent interactions can be tuned into to serve these purposes.  The guiding compass for the focus is to exclude finance as a fundamentally problematic thing for the greatest number of people; at the same time, points on this compass are to explore symbiotic relationships with those who manifest education within formal institutions. Read more…

1849 February: Ragged School Union Magazine; The Power of Pence

In the December number of the “Children’s Missionary Record of the Free Church of Scotland,” it was suggested that, during the holidays, a special collection might be made by the children in behalf of the Mission Schemes of the Church. Beyond this simple proposal, no other influence was used. Every Christian heart will rejoice to hear that the zeal and willinghood manifested by these children has been almost beyond a parallel. Read more…

Dr Thomas Barnardo

Doctor Thomas Barnardo and the Ragged Schools

This is a conversation with Erica Davies, Director of the Ragged School Museum in Mile End, London. Erica shares deep insights into the Ragged School free education movement and the efforts of Doctor Thomas Barnardo. The Ragged School Museum is a unique place of learning about the Ragged School movement and is the last existing intact school of Dr Barnardo’s, famous champion of free education and welfare. It continues to offer an important cultural space for learning and communities in the locale. Read more…

1849 February: Ragged School Union Magazine; Ragged School Memorials: The Old Stable. No. II

In our last communication, we gave some accounts of the rise, progress, and results of the Ragged School in the Old Stable. These would show the necessity for such institutions, and their adaptation to the wants of these long neglected children of the streets. The reader would at once see, that, in cases not a few, ignorance is the parent of crime, and that the best and most simple means for the moral and physical elevation of such a class is to give them a useful and religious education. Read more…

1849 February: Ragged School Union Magazine; The Ragged School Union: Its Principles And Mode Of Operation

The principles of this Society are benevolent, philanthropic, scriptural; they are, moreover, missionary and aggressive. They are the same as those which glowed in the bosom of Wilberforce, animated the affections of Raikes, and fired the energy of Chalmers; the same as those which roused the philanthropy of Howard, kindled the zeal of St. Paul, and filled the soul of the Divine Saviour himself. Read more…

1849 February: Ragged School Union Magazine; Industrial Schools For The Destitute, Aberdeen By Mr. Sheriff Watson

(Continued from page 24.) The success of the Boys’ School of Industry in Aberdeen led to the establishment of a Girls’. A few ladies, who had long devoted much of their time to the prison and penitentiary, disheartened with the promising blossom and stinted fruit of these secluded gardens of reformation, resolved to anticipate the approach of crime, and undertake the training of the young before the prison or the police-cell had stamped the indelible seal of infamy on their name and character. Read more…