FR became interested in Infant Schools early in the movement. Her publisher, Caroline Dent, credited her with establishing the third Infant School in England. The greater London area, Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire were the main areas of the country she worked in. Among other places, she started schools at Filey, Beeford, Watnall, Greasley, Matlock, Maltby, Kirk Ella, and Scarborough.
To establish a school meant finding a location, supporters, teachers, and, in FR's case, writing curricula and preparing materials. Sometimes finding a location meant putting up a building. The schools were established among people without any other access to education, and the children were rough.
Written from Filey in 1843:
". . . In consequence of our system there is no fighting and quarrelling in or out of school; I make them all sing, and I hear them singing long after dark all over the place; it is only one long street, where they are always playing, and I am constantly going up and down among them, and see what they are when at play as well as hear it. High and low, all remark the great civilization since I came here. . . . How I regret that I cannot do for the children of my friends what I do here for these fisher-folk!"*
Written from Matlock in 1846:
"I am very happy with my infant-school here, where when they first come they rage, and fight, and cheat, and, if they can speak, swear; after a time this first growth of weeds is plucked up, and there is a sweet outside, but weeds will show themselves again sooner or later, and at home our little lambs are not always so lamb-like.
"At Filey I hear there are a hundred infants going on capitally, as to order and singing and saying, in my absence. I hope were long, having wound up the work here, to be with them again."*
*Letters of Miss Frances Rolleston, Ed. Caroline Dent, London 1867, pp. 211, 218, 219
To establish a school meant finding a location, supporters, teachers, and, in FR's case, writing curricula and preparing materials. Sometimes finding a location meant putting up a building. The schools were established among people without any other access to education, and the children were rough.
Written from Filey in 1843:
". . . In consequence of our system there is no fighting and quarrelling in or out of school; I make them all sing, and I hear them singing long after dark all over the place; it is only one long street, where they are always playing, and I am constantly going up and down among them, and see what they are when at play as well as hear it. High and low, all remark the great civilization since I came here. . . . How I regret that I cannot do for the children of my friends what I do here for these fisher-folk!"*
Written from Matlock in 1846:
"I am very happy with my infant-school here, where when they first come they rage, and fight, and cheat, and, if they can speak, swear; after a time this first growth of weeds is plucked up, and there is a sweet outside, but weeds will show themselves again sooner or later, and at home our little lambs are not always so lamb-like.
"At Filey I hear there are a hundred infants going on capitally, as to order and singing and saying, in my absence. I hope were long, having wound up the work here, to be with them again."*
*Letters of Miss Frances Rolleston, Ed. Caroline Dent, London 1867, pp. 211, 218, 219
