The Palace is going to take that boy out of the streets: it is going
to remove both from boy and girl the temptation--that of the idle
hand--to go away and get married. It will fill that lad's mind with
thoughts and make those hands deft and crafty.
In other words, the Palace will open a great technical school for all
the trades as well as for all the Arts. It is reckoned that three
years' training in the evenings will give a boy a trade. Once master
of a trade his future is assured, because somewhere in the world there
is always a want of tradesmen of every kind. There may be too many
shoemakers in London while they are wanted in Queensland;
cabinet-makers and carpenters may be overcrowded here, but there are
all the English-speaking countries in the world to choose from.
There can be no doubt that the schools will be crowded. The success of
the schools at the old Polytechnic (where there are 8,000 boys), of
the Whittington Club, of the Finsbury Technical Schools, leave no
doubt possible that the East-End Palace Schools will be crammed with
eager learners. The Palace is in the very heart and centre of East
London, with its two millions, mostly working men; trams, trains, and
omnibuses make it accessible from every part of this vast city--from
Bromley, Bow and Stratford, from Poplar, Stepney and Ratcliff, from
Bethnal Green and Spitalfields.
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