"... Further, it is on our heart very heavily to stir up our friends to rescue some of the scholastic influence of our adversaries out of their hands. In the common schools of England church influence is out of all proportion with the number of the Episcopal body and the proportion of the Nonconforming churches. We have too much given up our children to the enemy, and if the clergy had possessed the skill to hold them, the mischief might have been terrible; as it is, our Sabbath schools have neutralized the evil to a large extent, but it ought not to be suffered to exist any longer; a great effort should be made to multiply our day schools, and to render them distinctly religious, by teaching the gospel in them, and by labouring to bring the children as children to the Lord Jesus. The silly cry of Nonsectarian is duping many into the establishment of schools in which the most important part of wisdom, namely, the fear of the Lord, is altogether ignored; we trust this folly will soon be given up, and that we shall see schools in which all that we believe and hold dear shall be taught to the children of our poorer adherents.

Middle-class education of a high order is sedulously cared for among the Romanisers. They have numerous self-supporting schools where the payments are low, and the education superior, and they thus obtain a hold upon many families with limited means who are anxious to give their sons a first-class education, and therefore allow them to enter these hotbeds of Popery. Could not we who hold certain views of truth establish at once a grammar school of the highest order, where the payments should be as moderate as possible, and where the truths which we hold should be most distinctly taught? If we should meet with encouragement in the project, although we have already enough labour for twenty men, we would commence such an institution under our own eye within a short distance of the Tabernacle, under the direction of our own church officers, whose assistance would enable us to care for the souls of the boys who might be sent to us. A considerable subscribed capital would be required to commence with, and a good deal of counsel might be necessary before the plan was ready to work, but meanwhile it would materially clear the way if we had communications from friends in answer to the following query: “Supposing that a really first-class school, in a healthy position, could be founded, at which the charge for boarders should be not more than £30 per annum, and in which the principles advocated by Mr. Spurgeon should be a recognised part of the teaching, would you send your sons to it?” There would remain nothing but minor difficulties if there should be a large response to this query. Our great Puritan authors usually came from foundation-schools, and if we would have a race of eminent divines, we shall probably obtain them from men who from their youth up have learned the Scriptures. The importance of such a school as we desire to see, we cannot, we think, over-estimate. We inserted our own name in the query to make the question as definite as possible; not because we think that this one school would be enough, but because if one could be established we hope other ministers would be led to do something of a similar kind. There are already in operation several admirable institutions of the kind suggested…”