Letter from Charles Dickens, London, to Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1850 January 28 : autograph manuscript signed.

Enclosing "two letters from the Cape (with which I have been greatly pleased), and also M. Soyer's plan;" also sending an assortment of books and a ledger from Shepherd's Bush; discussing a deduction Mr. King was proposing for Charley's school fees during the cholera epidemic when Dickens kept Charley at the Isle of Wight; discussing, at length, "Soyer's scheme [for a College of Domestic Economy];" saying the scheme "...has a certain amount of good sense and good purpose in it, with a considerable infusion of puffing and quackery. I think the scheme of teaching young ladies domestic economy, admirable, but to exclude the system of daily classes to which they could go, and from which they could come home, seems to me absurd. 'The Mansion', and the musical instruments, and all that, is very well for the dignity and renown of the name of Soyer, but would make the thing ridiculous - and a failure besides. I conceive that the model of the thing should be, Mr. Hullah's classes. Young ladies at such an hour, and on such terms. Working men's wives and daughters at such an hour, on such terms. Servants, or improvers, or whatever he likes to call them, at such another hour on such other terms. For a couple of hours together, or whatever period he might choose to make it, they could be practically shewn, in a sort of hall-kitchen made for the purpose, every useful household duty, in a regular course of exposition. There could be no harm in connecting with this, a residence for those young people who should come from the country, but the two branches (to make the scheme thoroughly useful) should be distinct. This learning could be very easily imparted to numbers at once. And I am sure I should send my own daughters to acquire it, if they were old enough;" adding that all is well at the Home.