stances of their birth commonly deprive them altogether of any parental care, and often throw them on the world to maintain themselves at an age when they must almost necessarily plunge into crime to escape starvation. 3. Where there are no schools in the parish, or the school accommodation is insufficient. In this case I would further propose that upon complaint being made as above, stating that there are children in the parish who, from want of sufficient school accommodation, are precluded from receiving such educational training as is needed to prevent them from becoming criminal, the justices shall inquire into the subject matter of such complaint, and if when such inquiry is made they shall be satisfied that the allegations of such complaint are true, they should be empowered to make an order upon the churchwardens and overseers of the parish, requiring them to provide school accommodation for the number of children mentioned in the order; and it should be lawful to charge the cost of building or enlarging and fitting up the school-rooms on the poor's rate, under the same control and conditions as the cost of building or enlarging workhouses. The churchwardens and overseers should be the trustees of any new school built under such order, and the yearly expense of it should be paid out of the poor's rate: these trustees should be compellable to receive and educate, and (when ordered) feed any child sent them under a school order. My attention was once drawn to an elderly labourer whose language and conduct shocked even his rough neighbours. I endeavoured to draw him into conversation as to his past life and education, and succeeded. He was the illegitimate son of a man of property, and his half-brother, born in wedlock, was living in easy circumstances, and frequently passed the poor aged outcast in his carriage. "I was left at thirteen years old to lodge and maintain myself," said he, "and flour at that time cost 3s. a gallon. I worked hard, and fared hard, and nobody cared for me—I never had any schooling, nobody would pay for me-but luckily, at last, I found a place here, and here I am.” 64. In order to give a fair approximation to the probable working of such a system, let us take the town of Ipswich, of which we possess the statistics. The population of that town is 32,000; the rateable property amounts to 90,0007.; the number of wholly untaught children from the age of five to ten years, is 868.* .... We may state the cost of building three schools at A meal a day to each child £1,200 300 868 £1,168 Now a rate of 4d. in the pound on 90,000l. would produce 1,500l. per annum, so that the cost of the school teaching would leave a surplus from a 4d. rate of upwards of 3007. yearly, which in less than four years would defray the cost of a school-room; and moreover, it is probable that many of these children might not require the proposed meal, so that about 3d. in the pound would maintain such schools as I propose, for all the destitute children of that town. Probably other towns will be found to possess about equal means, and in London, where the need is greatest, the means are also enormous. Mr. Locke, the honorary secretary of the Ragged School Union, has stated, that in his parish of St. George's, Hanover-square, a rate of one penny in the pound would produce 2,000l., far more than sufficient to maintain feeding industrial schools for the * In the year 1847, it was ascertained that in Westminster, out of a population of 16,000 children under twelve years of age, 12,000 did not attend any school. In Spitalfields and Bethnal-green, 16,000 children of an age to go to school, do not attend any, not even a Sunday school. In St. Pancras, in one district containing 25,000 persons, there were children from two to twelve years of age, to the number of 15,000, of whom only 7,000 attend school. destitute children of the parish. The plan might be rendered less expensive, too, by allowing any parents who should find the education there given such as they approved, to send their children thither on making a small weekly payment; and as these schools would be for the carrying out a great national object, it is to be hoped that the parish burden would be further lightened by a share of the general grant for educational purposes at the disposal of the Committee of the Privy Council, under whose inspection they ought in every case to be placed. 65. On the other side of the question we will now place the cost of crime in the same place, and it will then appear that the expense of educating a population as inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, and as good and happy citizens of their earthly country in the mean time, is just about the same as that of punishing these wretched victims of neglect. The average cost of maintaining a criminal in prison, after deducting any earnings from his work, is 201. per annum. In Ipswich, the number of commitments for trial in the year 1849, was 57; of summary convictions in the same year 108. The number of juvenile prisoners in that year was 26, and the time for which each was confined averaged four weeks. The following is the statement of expenses : If such is the cost of these small offences (for such from the short time of imprisonment we may conclude them to have been) we may form some notion of the sum which the other committals and graver offences would consume, which we may probably state at 12,000l.,* of which the larger part might be spared by giving due instruction and assistance to the destitute. Of course it is not to be expected that this change could be wrought immediately, for it is the judgment of heaven on all great derelictions of duty, that the consequences shall be long felt, but we may safely assert, that if the educational training be what it ought to be, we should find an immense change in the state of the people by the time the present generation of young children had grown to manhood, and at the end of twenty or thirty years, probably, crime would have become as rare as it is now unhappily frequent: and when I say if the education be what it ought to be, I am not claiming or expecting any extraordinary qualifications on the part of the master beyond those of sufficient mental culture, and training to his business. All that is required is a determination to do his duty in the station to which it has pleased God to call him. With this feeling the work is easywithout it no man is to be trusted: and from the highest functionary of the State, down to the bailiff on our farm, we look for this as the qualification par excellence which is to make him fit for his situation, and without which his talents in other respects would be unavailing. I do not think so ill of the gentry of England as to suppose that there would be any difficulty were such schools established, in forming a committee of visitors in every district, who would keep the system in activity by monthly examinations, and who, by being authorized to make complaints to the Government Inspector if neglect or misconduct occurred, would operate as a moving spring to prevent indolence on the part of the master, as well as to give encouragement The sum per head which the average number of prisoners in the Westminster House of Correction cost (all expenses included excepting repairs of the prison and prosecutions) was 187. 148. in the year ending Michaelmas 1851. The average for all England is 167. 11s. 4. to the children thus assured of notice from the gentry of the neighbourhood. 66. We must now pass on to a less hopeful part of the subject. The reformation of those who have already entered into the second and third classes. Of these the number in England and Wales, under sixteen years of age, according to the return made to Sir John Pakington's motion this year, amount to 7,070. In whatever plan is proposed, practicability must be a first consideration, and therefore, the first step in dealing with these young criminals ought to be the selection of that portion of them which promises the most fairly. The chances of reformation we have already seen (§ 51) are in the inverse ratio of the age; I would therefore propose that those under thirteen years of age, brought under the grasp of the law for the first time, should be considered as having passed at once from the guardianship of their parents to that of their country, which should therefore stand in loco parentis, and have all the rights over the child which the law gives to the parent, and which he shall be held to have forfeited by his neglect. According to the return mentioned above, there were in the prisons on the first of November 1851, 169 under thirteen years of age, and 568 between thirteen and sixteen. Those under thirteen may therefore be stated at somewhat more than two-sevenths of the number, or about 2,040 in the whole year. Of the whole number committed nearly two-thirds had been in prison before, but we may naturally conclude that a very large proportion of those under thirteen will have been guilty for the first time; and in the absence of more exact returns, we may probably reckon that 1,500 of the 2,040 would be of that description. For these children there is but one course to pursue, whether we look at the matter with the eyes of politicians or of Christians (for indeed, when were good policy and true religion ever separated?)—they must be |