THE PHILANTHROPIC SHOEMAKER.

“A young lady once said to him, ‘O Mr. Pounds, I wish you were rich, you would do so much good!’ The old man paused a few seconds and then replied, ‘Well, I don’t know; if I had been rich I might, perhaps, have been much the same as other rich people. This I know, there is not now a happier man in England than John Pounds; and I think ’tis best as it is.’”—Memoir of John Pounds, p. 12.

“As unknown, and yet well known; ... as poor, yet making many rich.”—The Apostle Paul. 2 Cor. vi. 9, 10.

“Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”—Our Lord Jesus Christ. Matt. xxv. 40.

JOHN POUNDS.

In 1837 there lived at Landport and Portsmouth two notable shoemakers. The Landport man combined with his daily task as a shoemaker the delightful occupation of sketching and painting, and obtained a local fame as an artist. The Portsmouth man found in the work of teaching poor ragged children to read and write and cipher his greatest relaxation from the drudgery of daily toil and his purest enjoyment, and has become known, we may safely affirm, throughout the Christian world, as a philanthropist, and one of the first men in this country who conceived and carried out the idea of Ragged Schools. The shoemaker-artist had a great admiration for the shoemaker-philanthropist and painted a picture representing him in his humble workroom, engaged in his double occupation as shoemaker and schoolmaster, with a last between his knees and a number of children standing before him receiving instruction. The artist’s name was Sheaf, and his interesting picture represented John Pounds occupied in his benevolent work as a gratuitous teacher of the neglected children of his native town. Sheaf sold his picture to Edward Carter, Esq., of Portsmouth, a warm admirer of John Pounds, and one of his best friends and helpers in his work. This picture was afterward engraved by Mr. Charpentier of Portsmouth, and it is to a copy of the engraving the renowned Dr. Guthrie of Edinburgh refers in the following story:

“It is rather curious, at least it is interesting to me, that it was by a picture that I was first led to take an interest in Ragged Schools—a picture in an old, obscure, decayed burgh, that stands on the shore of the Firth of Forth. I had gone thither with a companion on a pilgrimage; not that there was any beauty about the place, for it had no beauty. It has little trade. Its deserted harbor, silent streets, and old houses, some of them nodding to their fall, give indications of decay. But one circumstance has redeemed it from obscurity, and will preserve its name to the latest ages. It was the birthplace of Thomas Chalmers. I went to see this place. It is many years ago, and going into an inn for refreshments, I found the room covered with pictures of shepherdesses with their crooks, and tars in holiday attire, not very interesting. But above the chimney-piece there stood a large print, more respectable than its neighbors, which a skipper, the captain of one of the few ships that trade between that town and England, had probably brought there. It represented a cobbler’s room. The cobbler was there himself, spectacles on nose, an old shoe between his knees, the massive forehead and firm mouth expressing great determination of character, and below his bushy eyebrows benevolence gleamed out on a number of poor ragged boys and girls who stood at their lessons around the busy cobbler. My curiosity was excited, and on the inscription I read how this man, John Pounds, a cobbler in Portsmouth, taking pity on the poor ragged children, left by ministers and magistrates, and ladies and gentlemen, to run in the streets, had, like a good shepherd, gathered in the wretched outcasts; how he had brought them to God and the world; and how, while earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, he had rescued from misery, and saved to society, not less than five hundred of these children.”[51]

The biography of some of the best and most useful men the world has known may be written almost in a sentence. In the Old Testament there is a biography of this kind in the words, “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”[52] In the New Testament there is another of a similar character in the brief sentence, “There was a certain man in CÆsarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway.”[53] The life-story of John Pounds is told in the last sentence of Dr. Guthrie’s narrative; yet a few farther details of the life and work of this noble-hearted man will be read with interest by all who venerate true worth and take pleasure in contemplating acts of Christ-like charity and mercy.

John Pounds was born at Portsmouth on the 17th of June, 1766. He was only twelve years old when his father, a sawyer employed in the government dockyard, had him bound apprentice as a shipwright in the same yard. He was then a strong active boy, and worked with his father in the yard until an accident maimed him for life, and made him incapable of working as a shipwright. He fell into a dry-dock and broke one of his thigh-bones, at the same time dislocating the joint. Whether the fracture was neglected or not we do not know; but, from some cause or other, poor Pounds went lame ever after. From the art of making ships he was now fain to turn to that of making shoes, and finding an old man in High Street, Portsmouth, who was willing to give the needful instruction, John Pounds, at the age of fifteen, became a shoemaker. Indeed, he would scarcely have claimed that title of dignity for himself; for his chief thoughts were given to other affairs, so that he was never an adept at his craft, and would in all probability have preferred to be set down as “only a cobbler.” It was not until 1804, when Pounds was thirty-eight years of age, that “he ventured to become a tenant on his own account of the small, weather-boarded tenement in St. Mary’s Street.” It was in this humble abode that John Pounds lived and worked and carried on his benevolent labors for thirty-five years. The room appears to have been about the size and shape of an open third-class railway carriage, and the entire tenement had more the appearance of a shanty or hut than an ordinary dwelling-house. Yet it was amply sufficient for the poor cobbler’s purposes, and served as the field of operations in all his benevolent enterprises.

Pounds lived alone in his snug little home; and as his earnings, though small, were more than enough to meet the requirements of a bachelor, he felt it right to do something to assist his poor relatives. He had a brother—a seafaring man—whose family was large and stood in need of assistance. John accordingly proposed to take one of his brother’s children and clothe, board, and educate him as if he had been his own. With characteristic generosity of spirit, he selected a poor little fellow who was a cripple. The child’s feet turned inward, and, as he walked, he had to lift them one over another. The tender-hearted cobbler could not endure to see the deformity, and soon devised the means of remedy. A neighbor’s child who suffered in the same way had been provided by a surgeon with a set of irons which straightened his feet and enabled him to walk properly. Unable to purchase irons for his own little charge, Pounds set to work to construct something in lieu of them to answer the same purpose. His apparatus, made out of old shoe soles, answered admirably, and he soon had the gratification of seeing the little fellow entirely cured of his defect. This boy grew up under his uncle’s care, was put apprentice to a fashionable shoemaker, and lived with Pounds till the time of his death.

When his nephew was old enough to begin to learn to read, John Pounds resolved to do the work of a schoolmaster himself; and, thinking that his little pupil would get on better if he had a companion, he began to look round for some one to share the benefit of his instructions. He selected a poor little urchin, “the son of a poor woman who went about selling puddings, her homeless children, unable to accompany her, being left in the open street amid frost and snow, with no other shelter than the overhanging shade of a bay-window.”[54] Other pupils were added in course of time, and the shoemaker soon began to take great delight in the work of teaching. It was not very difficult in Portsmouth to find plenty of children whose education and training were entirely neglected by their parents, and who were suffered to run about the streets in the most ragged and destitute condition. The sight of these children moved him to pity; and, once embarked on the enterprise of reforming and teaching them, Pounds could not rest content with having half a dozen or a dozen of them under his care, but went on gathering them into his room until he had, in the later years of his life, an average of forty poor children under his charge at a time. He loved his work all the more because it was entirely gratuitous, and because he knew that if these poor children were not thus taught they would never be taught at all, but grow up in ignorance, misery, and vice. No amount of pains, self-sacrifice, and anxiety was too much for this true disciple of Christ to pay for the satisfaction of doing such children good, and enriching and ennobling all their future lives.

The editor of the “Memoir of John Pounds” thus describes the cobbler in the midst of his scholars: “His humble workshop was about six feet wide and about eighteen feet in depth, in the midst of which he would sit on his stool, with his last or lapstone on his knee, and other implements by his side, going on with his work and attending at the same time to the pursuits of the whole assemblage—some of whom were reading by his side, writing from his dictation, of showing up their sums; others seated around on forms or boxes on the floor, or on the steps of a small staircase in the rear. Although the master seemed to know where to look for each and to maintain a due command over all, yet so small was the room, and so deficient in the usual accommodation of a school, that the scene appeared to the observer from without to be a mere crowd of children’s heads and faces.”[55]

The smallness of his room made selection necessary when the number of candidates for instruction became unusually large. In this case he always chose the worst and most desperate cases, preferring to take in hand “the little blackguards,” as he termed them, and turn them into decent members of society. At other times, “he has been seen to follow such to the town-quay, and hold out in his hand to them the bribe of a roasted potato to induce them to come to school.”[56] On fine warm days the school “ran over” into the street, the children who behaved best being allowed to sit near the door, or on a bench outside.

His method of teaching was of the simplest and most graphic character, and seemed, although John Pounds, of course, knew nothing of such things, to combine the features of the Pestalozzian and Kindergarten systems. He would point to the different parts of the body, get the pupil to tell their names, and then to spell them. Taking a child’s hand, he would say, “What is this? Spell it.” Then slapping it he would say, “What did I do? Spell that.”

With the older pupils he went as far as his knowledge would allow of, teaching them to read by means of handbills, or making use of such old school-books as he had been able to beg, or buy cheap. Slate and pencils only were used for teaching writing, “yet a creditable degree of skill was acquired, and in ciphering, the Rule of Three and Practice were performed with accuracy.”

Pounds made efforts to clothe and feed as well as educate his destitute pupils, many of whom were in a deplorable condition of rags and dirt. He was anxious to take them with him on Sundays to the meeting-house which he attended, and would have them decently clad and properly washed. “In one corner of his room was a bag full of all sorts of garments for girls and boys, which he had begged and mended, to be worn by his scholars on Sundays, and when they went with him to the house of God. The garments took the place of worse ones; for John took pride in the decent, clean appearance of his pupils. Imagine him on a Sunday morning, with his children round him, and his big bag open, and his handing the garments round, with the soul of kindness in his eyes and the joy of God in his heart!”[57] He might often have been seen on Saturday nights going round to the bakehouses to buy bread for his poor children to eat on Sundays, gathering it into his huge leathern apron, and, when his money was all spent, standing still with a troubled look, searching in all his pockets for a few more coppers in order to secure yet one more loaf to add to his store.

When he was in need of books for his pupils, he did not hesitate to go to the houses of well-to-do citizens and explain his case, and ask them for aid. For the most part, he met with much kindness and sympathy, for many of the inhabitants of Portsmouth and the neighboring towns knew the benevolent cobbler of St. Mary’s Street. But now and then he met with rebuffs from those who did not know him, or from churlish souls who could not feel for the sufferings of the poor. If he alone had suffered from these rebuffs, the brave and sensible old man would have borne them calmly enough; but a word spoken against his helpless little scholars was enough at any time to rouse his warmest feelings. Once he called on a gentleman of considerable means to ask the favor of a few old disused books for the use of the pupils in reading. “Let them buy books!” was the only response he got to his generous appeal. “Poor little beggars!” he exclaimed; “they can scarcely get bread, let alone books,” and turned away with ill-concealed disgust from the gentleman’s presence.

Pounds taught his pupils many other things besides “the three R’s.” Many of the boys received instruction in the useful arts of shoe-mending and tailoring, so that when they grew up they found their little knowledge of great practical utility. He even went so far as to teach the lads and lasses how to cook their plain food, and make the best of everything. In fact, nothing that children required to make them happy and comfortable, and to fit them for the duties of after-years, did the good cobbler overlook or neglect. He made their playthings—bats, balls, crossbows, shuttlecocks, kites, what-not; went out with them on holiday and festive gatherings; got them gifts of tea and cake, and had them assembled in a neighboring schoolroom for public examination; saw that they were included at the public dinners, such as the celebration of Her Majesty’s coronation in 1837; and from year to year had the satisfaction of seeing them grow up and take honorable and useful positions in society. This, in fact, was his reward—all he looked for, all he ever had, except the approval of Him who said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

It was no uncommon thing during the last years of John Pounds’ life for some fine, manly fellow, soldier or sailor on furlough, or workman passing through the town, to turn in at the old room, where the good cobbler was still going on with his good work, in order to shake hands with him, and thank him, while the big tears stood in the eyes of both master and pupil, as the latter spoke of his rescue from starvation, poverty, or crime, and of the fair start in life which he had received at the hands of the worthy cobbler. And to this day there are men and women by the score, in respectable and comfortable positions, who can tell the same tale. “During the seven years I have been minister here,” writes the pastor of the chapel in the graveyard of which John Pounds was buried, “I have seen paying a pilgrimage to his tomb a number of those who were taught by him, and who, passing through the town, or coming for a short time to Portsmouth (as they belonged to the army or navy), thus showed their grateful feeling toward their venerated teacher and friend. They have told me in touching language, and almost sobbing the while, of the debt of gratitude they owed him.”

The useful life of this philanthropist came to an end on New Year’s Day, 1839. A few days previously he went to the house of his friend Edward Carter, Esq., who then lived in High Street, Portsmouth, to acknowledge certain acts of kindness done in behalf of his little scholars. While there, he saw the painting referred to at the beginning of this sketch, which that gentleman had purchased of Mr. Sheaf, the shoemaker-artist. The simple-minded man, whose love for dumb animals and domestic pets was one of the most amiable features in his character, seemed to be more pleased by finding his favorite cat included in the picture than by any other part of the painting. He then showed Mr. Carter the writing and ciphering lessons of one of the pupils, and asked for aid in procuring copy-books. A day or two after this John Pounds again called on his friend, and while conversing with him on matters connected with the school, fell down as if fainting. Medical aid was called in, but John Pounds was dead before the doctor arrived. The body was conveyed to the little room in St. Mary’s Street, where about thirty children were waiting for their teacher to come and commence the day’s work, and “wondering what had become of him.” Terror and grief seized upon the minds of the children when they saw the lifeless body of their kind teacher borne into the room and laid upon the bed. On the following day a group of children might have been seen standing at the door weeping because they could not be admitted. Day after day “the younger ones came, looked about the room, and not finding their friend, went away disconsolate.”

Mr. Martell, the physician who had been called in when Pounds was dying, asked the favor of being allowed to pay the expenses of the funeral. John Pounds was buried in the graveyard of the chapel in High Street where he had been a constant worshipper. A large number of people gathered round the grave, among whom the most conspicuous and sincere mourners were the children now bereaved of their teacher and best earthly friend.

A tablet was placed on the wall of the High Street Chapel bearing the following inscription:

Erected by Friends
As A Memorial of their Esteem and Respect
FOR
JOHN POUNDS;
Who, while Earning his Livelihood
By Mending Shoes, Gratuitously Educated
and, in part, Clothed and Fed,
Some Hundreds of Poor Children.
He Died Suddenly
On the First of January 1839,
Aged 72 Years.
“Thou Shalt be Blessed:—For they cannot
Recompense Thee.”

Over the grave a monument was erected, the cost of which was defrayed, as the inscription states, “By means of penny subscriptions, not only from the Christian Brotherhood with whom John Pounds habitually worshipped in the adjoining chapel, but from persons of widely differing religious opinions throughout Great Britain, and from the most distant parts of the world.” Another memento took the form of a library for the use of the poor people of the neighborhood in which the philanthropic shoemaker lived and labored. A Ragged School has also been built which bears his name, and in which the good work he inaugurated in Plymouth is now carried on. In 1879 the “John Pounds Coffee Tavern” was opened. Happy are they who can say with Lord Shaftesbury, in the closing words of his speech at the opening of this institution—

“I am a Disciple of John Pounds.”