HENRY MAYHEW (1812-1887) AND

schools reduced juvenile deiinquency by teaching them to read and write. Mayhew
argued otkrwise, refenkg ammg other thh&s, to a co~lversation he had with a boy at
the Ragged School, High Street. Wapping:
"They was saying what they used to learn We, . . . They asked me to
come along with tkm for it was great ha . . . When I got there the
master was vay kind to me. ... I soon got to like going there, and went
every night fm six months. Tke was about 40 cr 50 boys in the school.
'b most of them was thieves, a d thq, used to go thieving the cuais out
of barges along We. and cutting the ropes off ships, and going and
selling it at the rag-shops. . . . About half of the boys at schod w e
thieves. . . . C - used to go a t of schod befixe any of US, and wait
outside the door as the boys came out. Then he would call the boys he
wanted fa his gangs on one side, and tell them to wfiere to go and steal.
He used to look out in the daytime fa shops where things could be
'prigged,' and at night he would tell the boys to go to then He was
called the captain of tk gangs."
Mayhew was deeply ambivalent about the Ragged Schools. On the one hand,
Mayhew admitted that "in all probability" it was the Ragged Schools that created "this
extension of the ability to read" from "twenty who d d read" about "a dozen years ago"
to "upwards of thirty'* now. On the aher hand, Mayhew also felt that the Ragged