CHAPTER VI. 66 REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS. Many a schoolmaster better answereth the name paidotribes than paidagogos, rather tearing his scholars' flesh with whipping than giving them good education. No wonder, if his scholars hate the muses, being presented unto them in the shape of fiends and furies. Is there no way to bring home a wandering sheep but by worrying him to death?" DR. THOMAS FULLER. observations. § 1. Ir is a maxim in war to act on the offensive whenever Introductory practicable. To carry the war into the enemy's territories has advantages too obvious to need specification. In penand-ink warfare, the principle is as generally known as it is systematically observed. It is thus that while the giant alone constructs the theory, pigmies may attack and even overthrow. To find fault, is easy; to criticize, gratifying to the vanity. Hence, no scheme is without objections; and no system that has its promoters can long exist without having, also, its opponents. While, therefore, to expect no opposition to the principles of an institution, will assuredly result in mortification; the fact that objection exists must not be confounded with the assumption that, therefore, the thing objected to is worthless. It behoves, then, that we not only show that faults, numerous, diversified, and of a very serious nature, exist in connection with juvenile imprisonment, but, moreover, that P A serious question. there are other and better systems of treatment for the delinquent of tender years. Fault with the house of correction has been freely found, but the State is morally justified in persisting in the present injurious course, until it has been satisfactorily shown that better institutions may be easily substituted. By such principles we are willing strictly to abide; and it is with proud satisfaction that we refer to the originators and promoters of ragged schools and reformatory institutions, as men who have adhered to this fair and honourable mode of procedure. Thus spoke the founder of French reformatory schools :-" Government, which ought to lend itself to no hazardous project, nor endanger existing order by Utopian schemes, but whose province it is to aid realized attempts, can no longer withhold from us its co-operation." The time, therefore, has now approached when the reader is justified in inquiring, What, then, would you substitute for our gaols? We are happy in the consciousness that this important question may be regarded as already, in a great measure, answered by individuals whose tender hearts have been accompanied with a clear head, and strong and skilful hands. In laying before the reader the substance of that reply, our only fear is, that the first feelings of one, who has little or no knowledge of what has been of late in operation, will be that of transient disappointment. We have been so long accustomed to associate with our ideas of the repression of crime, those of the state and ceremonies of the court; the solemn dignity of the bench; the costly, massive, and stupendous piles of buildings, filled with officials, and furnished with cells of a peculiar and mysterious construction, under the daily and hourly inspection of a judicial staff, a medical staff, a clerical staff, and meaner officers in countless numbers and of grave appearance; that we almost tremble to think of the reception the stripling is likely to receive, whose youth, inexperience, and simplicity, are in strange contrast with his daring proposal to lay prostrate, with a sling and a stone, the giant who has so long insolently set at nought the armies of the United Kingdom. views. But let us dismiss from our minds the false and the Rational artificial. It will not be the first time that the despised stream of Judea has cleansed the leprosy incurable to all the waters of Abana and Pharpar. And with whom, after all, have we to grapple? A child-poor, little, destitute, untaught, neglected, children! Let us approach with pity, not with the Quixotic spirit and tone of defiance which has long detracted from the magnanimity of the nation. Great events have frequently sprung out of apparently insignificant causes. Great social changes have been planned, if not matured, by obscure individuals. Though, as it has been shown, that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries men of piety and compassion originated something analogous to our ragged schools, yet, after all, this important movement is the child only of a few summers. Robert Raikes began the movement in 1781, but for very obvious causes the class of schools thus originated have long since lost their ragged and reformatory character, and assumed the nature of a preventive system. From his own words, however, it is manifest that the class of children for whom the Sunday school system was gradually developed, was the same as now are taken care of in our ragged and industrial schools. He " was struck with concern at seeing a group of children, wretchedly ragged, at play in the streets-for, on a Sunday, the street is filled with multitudes of these wretches, who, released on that day from employment, spend their time in noise and riot, playing at chuck, and cursing and swearing in a manner so horrid, as to convey to any serious mind an idea of hell, rather than any other place:" whose "parents, totally abandoned themselves, have no idea of instilling into the minds of their Rise of children principles to which they themselves are entire strangers." To enforce order and decorum among such a set of little heathens a clergyman was engaged.* Gradually, however, this class withdrew from the Sunday schools, and now these institutions are as powerless as the pulpits of the land for effecting their good, for the simple reason that they cannot be induced to attend. True, it is not desirable that the filthy vagrant, or the precocious thief, should associate with the children of more respectable and honest connections. But we conceive the chief objection arose, and still arises, not from the upper against the lower (because degraded) class. We do not altogether ignore the fact, that "the poor little thief, who, released from prison, seeks an entrance into one, is looked coldly on by those who, poor as they are, feel themselves still 'respectable.' But, as before observed, "the children of that lower class will not place themselves in a position to be looked down upon as they call it.” While, therefore, the Sabbath school has become an essential part of the organization of every Christian congregation, and a universally recognized preventive measure; the class of perishing children have been growing in numbers, audacity, and depravity. At length, the wants of a cripple nephew suggested to a poor maimed shoemaker of Portsmouth, a simple scheme, which has since found a peer of the realm as one of its warmest admirers. Were it not for this latter fact, many, we fear, would smile at our simplicity in choosing the sling and the stones from the brook, and in casting the royal coat of mail and panoply away as useless.† But, as the venerable Robert Raikes observed to one, whose name will ever be suggested by the Lancastrian system of instruction, great events are of God. "I can never," said he, "pass by the spot where the word 'TRY' "A Sketch of the Life of Raikes." By F. W. Lloyd. + See 1 Sam. xvii. 38. came so powerfully into my mind, without lifting up my hands and heart to heaven, in gratitude to God, for having put such a thought into my head." "The teachers of the ragged schools," says an anonymous writer, "have found true philosophy without looking for it; let us not despise it now that it is found; but having learned the secret of their success, use it for the glory of God and the improvement of man's estate'-and make England an example as to how the dangerous classes' may be dealt with, so as to make them the strength, not the weakness of the country." * fact. It is a striking fact, that great thoughts have been A remarkable simultaneously communicated to two or more individuals. There is a moral lesson in this of transcendent importance. "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name, give glory." It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that Scotland should dispute with England the priority in adopting, not only the Sunday but also the ragged school scheme. It was not, however, till some years after the death of John Pounds that a ragged school was projected by Sheriff Watson at Aberdeen. The superior circumstances of the sheriff, and a natural boldness of conception, introduced into Scotland a scheme of greater magnitude and efficiency than could be expected of the crippled shoemaker of Portsmouth. And accordingly the results of the movement in the north were not only more decided, but also more extensive in their operation. The dangerous classes were thus being assailed in the Vice assailed. north and south of England; and there remained but one *Philosophy of Ragged Schools. + As to ragged schools, see the Introductory Remarks by the Lord Provost of Glasgow, at the public meeting, p. 12 of Third Annual Report of Glasgow Industrial Schools. In London, ragged schools were originated by the City missionaries. The City Mission itself, and indeed all the great societies of the day, may be traced to something like a ragged school movement as early as 1750. |