Of course all London children must go to school or be taught at home, just as all country children are. And there is nothing very interesting in the ordinary schools in London, for they are like those anywhere else. But there are some special schools which belong to London, even if they are not still actually there; one of these is the Duke of York's School for soldier-boys, which used to be at Chelsea, but has been moved into the country near Dover. Five hundred little boys, the sons of soldiers, who are nearly all going to be soldiers themselves, are here trained. They are dressed in a scarlet uniform in summer, just like soldiers, and in winter wear dark-blue uniform, and the school is like a barracks where real soldiers live. The boys come here as young as nine years old, and stay until they are fourteen or fifteen, and then if they like it they go into the real army, and are drummer-boys. To see them on Sunday is a pleasant sight. They have a chapel and a chaplain of their own; on Sunday mornings the boys meet together and march up and down like an army. They march beautifully, keeping step all the time, and wheeling round just as the men do, for they are carefully drilled. Then the band plays, for they have a capital band, and they all go to church. During the service the boys are very good and still as mice, because they are well trained. But it is not long. It is a bright, short service, with a sermon, quite short and simple, so that the boys can understand it. There are many hymns, and when it is over they go back for dinner. Dinner is very important, but before I tell you about that I will tell you what they get to eat for all their meals. They have cocoa in the mornings for breakfast and bread-and-jam or bread-and-butter, and they have the same again at tea-time. On extra days they get cake too. For dinner on Sundays in winter they have pork, with potatoes and apple-sauce. I don't know if you like apple-sauce, but the soldier boys do, and they think it is waste to eat it with pork; so they leave it until they have finished their meat, and then spread it on their bread and eat it separately. Afterwards there are plum-puddings, an ordinary big plum-pudding for every table, and at each table there are eight boys. Each boy who sits at the head of a table marches out and marches in again carrying a plum-pudding, which he sets down on his own table; then he takes a knife and cuts it neatly across and across, making four pieces; then he cuts it across and across again, and makes eight pieces, and he gives each boy a piece, and there is no more plum-pudding. It is a pretty big bit that, an eighth of a plum-pudding, but it all goes somewhere; and the boy who cuts it has to be very careful to see that he does it quite fairly, so that no one gets more than anyone else. I think the plum-pudding and the pork must be a good mixture, for you hardly ever see elsewhere such bright-looking faces as there are here.

There is a big playground, with plenty of room for games and sports, and there are long bedrooms, called dormitories, with rows of neat little beds. It is a good thing to think that these boys are growing up happy and good, and passing on into the army to be among England's brave soldiers. When it was decided to move this school into the country many people were very sorry, but all agreed it was better for the boys.

There is another school very like this one for sailor-boys, only that is not in London either, but a long way down the river, so there is not much use in describing it here. There are homes for soldiers' daughters and for sailors' daughters, too; there is nothing very different about them from an ordinary school.

Another school which belongs to London, though it too has now gone into the country, is the Foundling Hospital. It seems funny to call a school a hospital, but in old times the word 'hospital' did not mean, as it does now, a place for sick people, but any place where people were cared for and made comfortable. This is rather a sad school in some ways, for it is a home for the poor little children whose parents have deserted them or who have no parents; and the faces of the children are quite different from those of the boys in the Duke of York's School. The Foundling Hospital is a very large place indeed, and there are in it both boys and girls, who stay until they are old enough to earn their own living. The Hospital was begun many years ago by a kind captain of a ship, who had seen places like it when he went to foreign countries. He did not quite know how to begin, but he was sure there were many poor little neglected children in London who must need a home, so he gave money to some men and asked them to see about it for him; and these men put a notice in some papers, saying that any baby under two months old that was brought would be taken in and no questions asked. You would be astonished at the number of babies that were brought; it seemed quite impossible that so many mothers could want to give away their little children. And it was really like giving them away, for when the babies were taken into the hospital the mothers never came to see them; and if they did come to the school many years after and saw all the children running about, they could not tell which was their little boy or girl. Sometimes the nurses used to keep a locket or some little thing brought with a child, so that if ever it was wanted they could say which child belonged to which mother, but they never told anyone which was which. And many children had no locket or any other kind of token, and when they grew up they did not know who they were or who their mother and father had been. Many were just left at the door, and others were put into a big basket hung outside the door, and left there until someone inside the hospital heard them crying and came and took them in. And it was no wonder they cried, because sometimes the men or women who brought them stole all the clothes and left the poor little naked baby in the basket. Of course, these babies had no names, not even a surname, and the people at the Hospital used to make up names for them, and very funny some of them were; Richard No-More-Known was one little boy who died at five years old. Dorothy Butteriedore was another, because the little girl had been left beside a small door called a buttery-door, through which people used to pass food from the kitchen. We are told of Jane Friday-Street that she went to service aged six. Poor little Jane Friday-Street! She must have been too much of a baby to do any work; one would have thought she needed a nurse herself. The girl called Grace That-God-Sent-Us ought to have been a very good girl, and there was another Jane That-God-Sent-Us, too; and there was a boy called James Cinerius, because he was found on a cinder-heap.

After a good many years it was found that there were far too many children left at the Hospital, and they could not all be kept; and so the men who looked after the place made a rule that the mother must bring her child and tell all she could about it, and if she was very poor, and the father would not give her money or take care of her and the child, then the child was taken in and kept.

For a long time past babies who came to the hospital have been sent to the country, and now the older ones live in the country too. Then, when they are fourteen, the boys have to learn some trade to earn their living, or become soldiers, and the girls begin to work as little servants. The boys wear coats and trousers of a kind of chocolate colour with brass buttons and red waistcoats, and the girls' dresses are the same colour, and have trimmings of red. On Sundays the girls wear a high snowy-white cap and a large white collar, and they used to sit in the gallery of the chapel, the girls on one side of the organ and the boys on the other. It was one of the sights of London; many people used to go to the chapel on Sundays to see it.

After chapel the children march to their dining-rooms and walk in, and stand round the table and sing their grace before dinner. On Sundays they get mutton and potatoes and bread, and on some other days meat and potatoes, and on some days fish and pudding. For breakfast they have bread, with butter or dripping, and boiled milk, or cocoa, or porridge; for tea they get bread-and-butter and milk, and for supper bread, with cheese, butter, or jam.

It is a very good thing to think they are all being well taught and looked after and helped to turn into honest men and women, but it is very sad to think there are so many boys and girls whose parents don't want them, and will willingly give them away; and we can't help feeling that it can never be quite a happy place, for every child must feel that it is only one in a crowd of others, and that no one loves it especially.

In old times it was the fashion for good men and women to found schools for children where all the children had to wear a particular sort of dress, and some of these were called Blue-coat Schools, and some Green-coat, and some Gray-coat; but they are very different now, and the children don't wear the dress they used to. There is one very big school, which went from London into the country, called the Blue-coat School; this is just like any other school where big boys go, except that the boys never wear hats, and have bright yellow stockings and a long sort of skirt on to their coats, which must be very awkward for them when they want to play cricket or football. What do you think they do with it then? They just tuck the long skirt into their belts, and run about like that, and very funny it looks. They will find this dress even more awkward in the country than it was in London. The beautiful school buildings that were begun by King Edward VI., who was a clever and learned boy himself, and always tried to help other boys to learn, are now pulled down. This is a great pity, and it will be a greater pity still if the curious old dress is done away with and the boys dress just like all other boys. It must be very odd never to wear a hat, whether it rains or whether the sun shines; but I suppose the boys get used to that, and would feel uncomfortable in a hat. This school is called Christ's Hospital as well as the Blue-coat School, so, you see, here is another instance of the word 'hospital' being used to mean a school or home.

In old days the Blue-coat boys used to have a very hard time; their food was bad, and they did not get enough of it, and they ate it off wooden platters. There is a story told that the boys had a custom of never eating the fat of a particular sort of meat; they called it 'gags,' and though they might be very hungry they would never touch this fat. But one day they saw a boy go and gather up all the 'gags' that his companions had left, and take them away in his handkerchief. Very disgusting, wasn't it? The other boys thought so too, and they watched him to see if he went and ate them himself. But he did not; he slipped away when the others were not looking and went out into the town. So then they thought he went to sell them, and they were very angry, and would not speak to that boy or play with him, and left him alone; but still he used to get the 'gags' and carry them away. One day some other boys followed him, and what do you think they found? That he used to take the 'gags' to his own father and mother, who were very poor and almost beggars, and had nothing to eat. So the master praised him for being a good son, and not minding what the others said when he knew he could do something to help his poor parents.

In those days when a Blue-coat boy tried to run away he was shut up in a little dark cell like a prison cell, and had only bread and water given to him, and saw no one and spoke to no one, and twice a week he was taken out and flogged. It was no wonder the boys wanted to run away, for the place was very wretched, and in the great dining-hall there were swarms of rats that came out at night to pick up the crumbs, and the boys used to go and catch them for fun, not in traps, but in their hands. I don't think girls would ever have liked that game, and there must have been some nasty bites and scratches sometimes.

A very small boy was crying one day when he came back to the school after the holidays, and a master said to him: 'Boy, the school is your father; boy, the school is your mother; boy, the school is your brother, the school is your sister, your first cousin, your second cousin, and all the rest of your relations.' I don't suppose it made that boy feel any better. It is very different now, and the boys are very happy, and a great many clever men have been taught at that school, but in those early days it cannot have been very comfortable. But this is enough about the Blue-coat School.

In one school the boys play on the roof, because they have no playground. This is in the City, near the great big cathedral of St. Paul's, and there is no room for playgrounds there; the land is too valuable, and is wanted for houses and streets. The school is for the choir-boys of the cathedral, who sing more beautifully than any other boys in the world. And if you were walking past the school you might suddenly hear a lovely voice rising higher and higher and higher, like a skylark or a nightingale, and this would be one of the boys practising his notes. The school is large and the roof is flat, and all over the top and at the sides are high railings filled in with wire, so that the balls at cricket or football can't jump over the edge and come down on the heads of the people walking in the street below. That would be a surprise, wouldn't it? to have a great football drop out of the sky on to your head. It is a funny idea, playing up there among the chimneys and the roofs, and I don't think it can be very clean; I expect the boys have always to wash their hands before they put on their pure white surplices and go into the great solemn cathedral to sing. There is going to be a chapter in this book telling something about the cathedral of St. Paul's, so you will remember this about the choir-boys when you come to it.