A child, whether good or bad, is, above all things, an individual requiring individual treatment and care. Let any of our readers, having a little fellow given to mischief, who had at length broken his neighbor's windows, or with a propensity to stealing, or with a quick temper which continually brings him into unpleasant scrapes, imagine him suddenly put into an "Institution" for reform, henceforth designated as "D" of "Class 43," or as "No. 193," roused up to prayers in the morning with eight hundred others, put to bed at the stroke of the bell, knowing nothing of his teacher or pastor, except as one of a class of a hundred, his own little wants, weaknesses, foibles and temptations utterly unfamiliar to any one, his only friends certain lads who had been in the place longer, and, perhaps, had known much more of criminal life than he himself, treated thus altogether as a little machine, or as one of a regiment.
What could he expect in the way of reform in such a case? He might, indeed, hope that the lad would feel the penalty and disgrace of being thus imprisoned, and that the strict discipline would control careless habits, but he would soon see that the chance of a reform of character was extremely slight.
There was evidently no personal influence on the child. Whatever bad habits or traits he had, were likely to be uneradicated. The strongest agencies upon him were those of his companions; and what boys, even of the moral classes, teach one another when they are together in masses, need not be told. Were he to be there a length of time, the most powerful forces that mould and form boys in the world outside, would be absent.
The affection of family, the confidence of respected friends, the hope of making a name, and the desire of money and position—these impulses must be banished from the Asylum or Reformatory. The lad's only hope is to escape certain penalties, or win certain marks, and get out of the place. Now and then, indeed, a chaplain of rare spiritual gifts may succeed in wielding a personal influence, in such an Institution, over individual children; but this must, of necessity, be unfrequent, on account of the great numbers under his charge.
If the subject of a Reformatory be a poor boy or girl, the kind of work usually chosen is not the one best suited to a child of this class, or which he will be apt to take up afterwards. It is generally some plain and easy trade-work, like shoe-pegging, or chair-bottoming, or pocket-book manufacture. The lad is kept for years at this drudgery, and when he leaves the place, has no capital laid up of a skilled trade. He finds such employments crowded, and he seldom enters them again. Moreover, if he has been a vagrant (as in nine cases out of ten is probable), or a little sharper and thief of the city, or a boy unwilling to labor, and unfitted for steady industry, these years at a table in a factory do not necessarily give him a taste for work; they often only disgust him.
Were such lads, on the other hand, put in gardens, or at farm-work, they would find much more pleasure in it. The watching the growth of plants, the occasional chance for fruit-gathering, the "spurts" of work peculiar to farming, the open air and sunshine, and dealing with flowers and grains, with cattle, horses, and fowls, are all attractive to children, and especially to children of this class. Moreover, when they have learned the business, they are sure in this country, of the best occupation which a laboring man can have; and when they graduate, they can easily find places on farms, where they will get good wages, and be less exposed to temptations than if engaged in city trades. There seems to me something, too, in labor in the soil, which is more medicinal to "minds diseased" than work in shops. The nameless physical and mental maladies which take possession of these children of vice and poverty are more easily cured and driven off in outdoor than indoor labor.
I am disposed to think this is peculiarly true of young girls who have begun criminal courses. They have been accustomed to such excitement and stir, that the steady toil of a kitchen and household seldom reforms them.
The remarkable success of Mr. Pease for a few years in his labors for abandoned women in the Five Points, was due mainly to the incessant stir and activity he infused into his "House of Industry," which called off the minds of these poor creatures from their sins and temptations. But, better than this, would be the idea, so often broached, of a "School in gardening" for young girls, in which they could be taught in the open air, and learn the florist's and gardener's art. This busy and pleasant labor, increasingly profitable every year, would often drive out the evil spirit, and fit the workers, for paying professions after they left the School.
The true plan for a Reformatory School, as has so often been said, is the Family System; that is, breaking the Asylum up into small houses, with little "groups" of children in each, under their own immediate "director" or teacher, who knows every individual, and adapts his government to the wants of each.
The children cook meals, and do house-labor, and eat in these small family groups. Each child, whether boy or girl, learns in this way something of housekeeping, and the mode of caring for the wants of a small family. He has to draw his water, split his wood, kindle his fires, light his lamps, and take care of the Cottage, as he will, by and by, have to do in his own little "shanty" or "cottage." Around the Cottage should be a small garden, which each "family" would take a pride in cultivating; and beyond, the larger farm, which they all might work together.
In a Reformatory, after such a plan as this, the children are as near the natural condition as they ever can be in a public institution. The results, if men of humanity and wisdom be in charge, will justify the increased trouble and labor. The expense can hardly be greater, as buildings and outfit will cost so much less than with the large establishments. The only defect would, perhaps, be that the labor of the inmates would not bring in so much pecuniary return, as in the present Houses of Refuge; but the improved effects on the children would more than counterbalance to the community the smaller income of the Asylum. Nor is it certain that farm and garden labor would be less profitable to the Institution.
If we are correctly informed, the only Alms-house which supports itself in the country is one near New Haven, that relies entirely on the growth and sale of garden products. Under the Farm and Family School for children, legally committed, we should have, undoubtedly, a far larger proportion of thorough reforms and successes, than under the congregated and industrial Asylums.
The most successful Reformatories of Europe are of this kind. The "Rauhe Haus," at Hamburg, and Mr. Sydney Turner's Farm School at Tower Hill, England, show a greater proportion of reformed cases than any congregated Reformatories that we are familiar with. The Mettrai colony records ninety per cent, as reformed, which is an astonishingly large proportion. This success is probably much due to theesprit du corpswhich has become a tradition in the school, and the extent to which the love of distinction and honorable emulation—most powerful motives on the French mind—have been cultivated in the pupils.
We do not deny great services and successes to the existing congregatedReformatories of this country. But their success has been in spite oftheir system. From the new Family Reformatories, opened in differentStates, we hope for even better results.
Some of our citizens are now seeking to open in New York a Foundling Asylum to be conducted under Protestant influences. A Roman Catholic Hospital for Foundlings was recently established, and is now receiving aid from the city treasury. In view of these humane efforts, attended, as they must be, by vast expense, it becomes necessary to inquire what is the best system of management attained by experience in other countries. Of the need of some peculiar shelter or shelters for illegitimate children in this city there can be no question. Those who have to do with the poorer classes are shocked and pained by the constant instances presented to them, of infants neglected or abandoned by their mothers, or of unmarried mothers with infants in such need and desperation, that infanticide is often the easiest escape. Something evidently should be done for both mothers and children.
Of the numbers of illegitimate children in New York, it is difficult to speak with any precision. In European countries, we know almost exactly the proportion of illegitimate to legitimate births. In Sardinia, it is 2.09 per cent.; in Sweden, 6.56; in England, 6.72; in France, 7.01; in Denmark, 9.35; in Austria, 11.38; in Bavaria, 20.59. Among cities, it is between 3 and 4 per cent, in English cities; in Genoa, 8; in Berlin, 14.9; in St. Petersburg, 18.8; in Vienna, 46. The general average of illegitimate to legitimate children in Europe is 12.8 per cent.
Supposing that the average in New York is the same as in Amsterdam or London, say four per cent, there were in the five years, from 1860 to 1865, out of the 144,724 children born (living or dead) in the city of New York, 5,788 illegitimate, or an average each year of 1,157 children born out of wedlock. More than a thousand illegitimate children are thus, in all probability, thrown upon this community every year.
Though this is a mere estimate, there is a strong presumptive evidence of its not being exaggerated, from the enormous proportion, in New York, of stillbirths, which reached in one year (1868) the sum of 2,195, or more than seven per cent of the whole number of births. Now, it is well-known that the women who are mothers of illegitimate children are much more likely to be badly attended or neglected in their confinement than mothers in wedlock, and thus to suffer under this misfortune.
As to the relation of illegitimacy to crime, there are some striking statistics from France. Out of 5,758 persons confined in the bagnios in France, there were, according to Dr. Parry, in 1853, 391 illegitimate. Of the 18,205 inmates of the State Prisons in France during the same time, 880 were illegitimate, and 361 foundlings. "One out of every 1,300 Frenchmen," says the same authority, "becomes the subject of legal punishment, while one out of 158 foundlings finds his way to the State Prisons." In the celebrated Farm-school of Mettrai, according to recent reports, out of 3,580 young convicts since its foundation, 534 were illegitimate and 221 foundlings, or more than twenty per cent.
There can be no reasonable doubt, then, that a large number of children born out of wedlock, and therefore exposed to great hardship, temptation, and misery, are cast out every year on this community. A very large proportion of these unfortunate little ones die, or, with their mothers, are dragged down to great depths of wretchedness and crime.
What can be done for them? The first impulse is, naturally, to gather them into an Asylum. But what is the experience of Asylums?
The London Foundling Hospital, one of the most famous of these institutions, was founded in 1740. During the first twenty years of its existence, out of the 14,034 children received in it, only 4,400 lived be apprenticed, a mortality of more than seventy per cent The celebrated St. Petersburg Hospital for Foundlings contained, between the years 1772 and 1789, 7,709 children, of whom 6,606 died. Between the years 1783 and 1797, seventy-six per cent died. We have not, unfortunately, its later statistics. The Foundling Hospital of Paris, another well-known institution of this class, was founded by Vincent de Paul in 1638. In the twenty years ending in 1859, out of 48,525 infants admitted, 27,119 died during the first year, or fifty-six per cent. In 1841, a change was made in the administration of this Hospital, of which we shall speak later.
In this city there is, under the enlightened management of the Commissioners' of Charities and Correction, an Infant Hospital on Randall's Island, where large numbers of illegitimate and abandoned children are cared for. In former years, under careless management of this institution, the mortality of these helpless infants has reached ninety to ninety-five per cent.; but in recent years, under the new management, this has been greatly reduced. In 1867, out of the 928 "nurse's children" or children without their mothers, who were received, 642 died, or about seventy per cent In 1868, 76.77 per cent of these unfortunates died, and in 1869, 70.32 per cent; while in the same hospital, of the children admitted with their mothers, only 20.44 per cent died during that year—a death-rate less than that of the city at large, which is about twenty-six per cent; while in Massachusetts, for children under one year, it is about thirteen per cent.
It will be observed that the mortality of foundlings and orphans in this institution was reduced in 1869 from 76.79 per cent. to 70.32. Again, in 1870, a still greater reduction was made to 58.99. This most encouraging result was brought about by the erection of an Infants' Hospital by the Commissioners, the employment of a skillful physician, and, above all, by engaging paid nurses instead of pauper women, to take care of the children. In Massachusetts the experience is equally instructive. "In the State Almshouse," says the able Secretary of the Board of Charities, Mr. F. B. Sanborn, "the mortality of these infants previous to 1857, reached the large proportion of 80 out of every 100."
In the Tewksbury Alms-house the mortality in 1860 among the foundlings was forty-seven out of fifty-four, or eighty-seven per cent.
In 1867, the most enlightened experts in charities in Massachusetts took up the subject of founding an Infant-Asylum, and resolved to institute one which should be free from the abuses of the old system. In this new Asylum only those children should be received whose cases had been carefully investigated, and no more than thirty foundlings were ever to be collected under one roof, so that as much individual care might be exercised as is practicable. Yet even under this wise plan the mortality during the first six months at the Dorchester Asylum reached nearly fifty per cent, out of only thirty-six children; though this mortality was a great gain over that of the State Alms-houses.
The truth seems to be that each infant needs one nurse or care-taker, and that if you place these delicate young creatures in large companies together in any public building, an immense proportion are sure to die. When one remembers the difficulty of carrying any child in this climate through the first and second summers, and how a slight change in the milk, or neglect of covering, will bring on that scourge of our city, cholera infantum, and how incessant the watchfulness of our mothers is to bring up a healthy child, we can understand why from one-half to two-thirds of the foundlings, many of them fatally weakened when brought to the Asylums, die in our public institutions. Where the mothers are allowed to take care of their own children in the Asylums, as many survive as in the outside world. But to support one mother for each infant is an immense expense; so that two children are commonly put under the care of the mother. The neglect, however, of the strange child soon becomes apparent even to the casual visitor; and these poor foundlings are often fairly starved or abused to death by the mother forced to nurse them. The treatment of these poor helpless infants by brutal women in our public institutions is one of the saddest chapters in the history of human wickedness.
What, then, is to be done for these unfortunate foundlings? No Asylum can afford to board and employ one wet-nurse for each infant. How can the children be saved at a moderate expense? The feasible and practicable course for this object is the
This plan has been in operation in France for centuries, and is now carried out under a public department called"Les services des Enfants Assistes"recently under the direction of M. Husson, and known generally as the Bureau Ste. Apolline. This bureau deals with the whole class of abandoned and outcast and destitute infants. Instead of keeping these children in an Asylum, this office at once dispatches them to nurses already selected in the country.
The whole matter is thoroughly organized; there are agents to forward the nurses and children, inspectors to select nurses and look after the infants and take charge of the disbursements, and medical officers to investigate the condition of both children and nurses, and to visit them monthly, and give medical attendance. The nurse is obliged to bring a certificate of good character from the Commune, and of her being in proper condition to take care of a foster-child. She is not permitted to take charge of an infant unless her own is nine months old, and has been weaned. The nurse is bound to send her foster-child, as she grows up, to school, and to some place of religious instruction. The bureau has thus relieved a great number of children during ten years, from 1855 to 1864, the total number amounting to 21,944.
That it has been wonderfully successful is shown by the mortality, which is now only about thirty per cent., or nearly the same with the general death-rate among young children in New York. Under this new poor-law administration for destitute and abandoned children, the famous Hospital for Foundlings has been changed into a mere depot for children sent to places and nurses in the country, with the most happy results in point of mortality. Thus, in 1838, the hospital admitted 5,322 children, and lost 1,211; in 1868, of 5,603 admitted, only 442 died, or about eight per cent. Of 21,147 sent to the country, the deaths were only 1,783, or less than ten per cent Of 6,009 admitted in 1869, 4,260 were abandoned children, and the deaths from the above number were 495.
The French administration does not cease with paying the board of these foundlings in their country homes; it looks carefully after their clothing, their education, their religious instruction, and even their habits of economy. The outlay by the Government for these various objects is considerable. In 1869, the traveling expenses of these little waifs reached the sum of 170,107 francs. The payments to the peasants to induce them to educate the foundlings amounted to 85,458 francs for the same year; the savings of the children, put in official savings-boxes, amounted to 394,076 francs, while 15,936 francs were given out as prizes.
The moral effects have been encouraging. In 1869, out of the 9,000elevesfrom thirteen to twenty-eight years, only thirty-two had appeared before Courts of Justice for trifling offenses; thirty-two had shown symptoms of insubordination, and nearly the same number had been imprisoned.
It should be remembered that this bureau has charge of the whole class of juvenile paupers, or Almshouse children, in Paris, as well as foundlings, whom it treats by placing out in country homes. In 1869, it thus provided for and protected 25,486 children, of whom 16,845 were from one day to twelve years, and 9,001 from twelve to twenty-one years. For this purpose, it employed two principal inspectors, twenty-five sub-inspectors, and two hundred and seventy-eight physicians.
The expense of this bureau has been wonderfully slight, only averaging two dollars and sixty cents per annum for each child. In an Asylum the average annual expenditure for each child could not have been less than one hundred and fifty dollars. This Bureau Ste. Apolline must be carefully distinguished from the private bureaus in Paris for assisting foundlings, under which the most shocking abuses have occurred, the death-rate reaching among their subjects 70.87, and even ninety per cent.
The "boarding-out" system has been a part of the Alms-house system of Hamburg for years, and has proved eminently successful and economical. In Berlin, more than half the pauper children, and all the foundlings, are thus dealt with. In Dublin, both Protestant and Catholic associations have pursued this plan with destitute orphans and foundlings, with marked success. The Protestant Society had, in 1866, 453 orphans under its charge, and had placed out, or returned to friends, 1,256; its provincial branches had 2,208 under their care, and had placed out 5,374. All the orphans placed out by the Society are apprenticed. Great care is used in inspecting the homes in which children are put, and in selecting employers. The whole Association is well organized. The annual cost of the children, dividing the whole expense by the number of children placed and cared for, is only from fifty dollars to fifty-five dollars per head. The Roman Catholic Association, St. Brigid's, is even more economical in its work, as the labor is mainly performed by the members of the sisterhoods. Within seven years five hundred children were taken in charge, of whom two hundred had been adopted or placed out. The children thus provided for in country families are constantly visited by the conductors of the orphanage and by the parish priest. The expense of the whole enterprise is very slight.
Similar experiments are being made in England with pauper children, and, despite Prof. Fawcett's somewhat impractical objections, they have been found to be successful and far more economical than the old system.
The Massachusetts Board of State Charities, one of the ablest Boards that have ever treated these questions, well observes in its report for 1868: "The tendency in all civilized countries is toward the family system, through (1st) the Foundling Hospital and (2d) the Asylum or Home System; and the mortality among infants of this class is reduced from ninety or ninety-five per cent, under the old no-system, from forty to sixty per cent. in well-managed Foundling Hospitals, from thirty to fifty per cent. in good Asylums, and from twenty to thirty-five per cent. in good single families, the last being scarcely above the normal death-rate of all infants."
The "placing-out" system, is of coarse, liable to shocking abuse, as the experience of private offices for the care of foundlings in Paris, and recently in London, painfully shows. It mast be carried on with the utmost publicity, and under careful responsibility. But under a respectable and faithful board of trustees, with careful organization and inspection, there is no reason why the one thousand illegitimate children born every year in New York city should not be placed in good country families, under the best of care and with the prospect of saving, at least, seven hundred out of the thousand, instead of losing that proportion; and all this under an expense of about one-tenth that of an Asylum. Why will our benevolent ladies and gentlemen keep up the old monastic ideas of the necessity of herding these unfortunate children in one building? Here there are thousands of homes awaiting the foundlings, without money and without price, where the child would have the best advantages the country could afford; or if it be too weak or sick to be moved, or the managers fear the experiment of placing-out, let some responsible nurse be selected in the country near by, and the foundling boarded at their expense. The experience of the Children's Aid Society is, that no children are so eagerly and kindly received in country families as infants who are orphans. Let us not found in New York that most doubtful institution—a Foundling Asylum—but use the advantages we have in the ten thousand natural asylums of the country.
In regard to the question, how far the affording facilities for the care of illegitimate children increases the temptation to vicious indulgence, we believe, as in most similar matters, the true course for the legislator lies between extremes. His first duty is, of course, one of humanity, to preserve life. Whenever helpless or abandoned children are found, the duty of the State is to take care of them, though this care may, in certain cases, offer an inducement to crime. The danger to the child, if neglected, is certain; that to the community, of inducing other mothers to abandon their offering, is remote and uncertain. On the other hand, the State is under no obligation to offer inducements to parents to neglect their illegitimate children; it is rather bound to throw all possible responsibility on those who have brought them into the world.
The extreme French plan of presenting "turning-tables" to those who wished to abandon their children, was found to increase the crime, and the number of such unfortunates. It has been given up even in Paris itself. The Russian Foundling Asylum in St. Petersburg found it necessary to make its conditions more strict than they were in the beginning as laxness tended to encourage sexual vice. The universal experience is, that if a mother can be compelled to care for her infant, during a month or two, she will then never murder or abandon it. But, if she is relieved of the charge very early, she feels little affection or remorse, and often plunges into indulgence again without restraint. By requiring conditions and letting some little time pass before the mother gives the child up, she is kept in a better moral condition, and made to feel more the responsibility of her position, and is thus withheld from future vice.
On the other hand, the extreme position taken substantially by the New York legislators, whereby no mother could get rid of an illegitimate child, except by publicly entering the Alms-house, or by infanticide, undoubtedly stimulated the crimes of foeticide and child-murder. No doubt the new Catholic and Protestant Foundling Asylums contemplated in New York will steer between these two extremes, will connect the mother with the child as long as possible, and require all reasonable conditions before admitting the infant, and, at the same time, not drive a seduced or unfortunate woman with her babe out to take her chances in the streets.
The subject of applying Religion as a lever to raise up the class of neglected children whom we have been describing, is a difficult one, but vital to the Science of Reform. The objects of those engaged in laboring for this class are to raise them above temptation, to make them of more value to themselves, and to Society, and, if possible, to elevate them to the highest range of life, where the whole character is governed by Religion.
The children themselves are in a peculiar position. They have many of the traits of children, and yet are struggling in an independent and hard life, like men. They are not to be influenced as a Sunday-school audience would be, nor as an audience of adults. Their minds are acute, sharp, and practical; mere sentiment and the amiable platitudes of Sunday-school oratory are not for them. Rhetoric sets them asleep. Bombast goes by the name of "gas" among them. Sentimental and affectionate appeals only excite their contempt. The "hard fact" pleases them. They know when the speaker stands on good bottom. If he has reached "hard pan," his audience is always with him.
No audience is so quick to respond to a sudden turn or a joke. Their faculties are far more awake than those of a company of children of the fortunate classes. And yet they are like children in many respects. Nothing interests them so much as the dramatic: the truth given by parable and illustration. Their education in the low theatres has probably cultivated this taste. The genuine and strong feeling of the heart always touches them. I have seen the quick tears drop over the dirty cheeks at the simple tone only of some warm-hearted man who had addressed them with a deep feeling of their loneliness and desolation. And yet they would have "chaffed" him in five minutes after, if they had had the opportunity. They seem to have children's receptivity; they are not by nature skeptical. They unconsciously believe in supernatural powers, or in one eternal Power. Their conscience can be reached; the imagination is, to a certain degree, lively; they are peculiarly open to Religion. And yet their "moral" position is a most perplexing one. The speaker in one of our Boys' Lodging-houses, who addresses them, knows that this may be the last and only time, for years, that many of the wild audience will listen to religious truth. To-morrow a considerable portion will be scattered, no one knows where. To-morrow, perhaps to-night, temptation will come in like a flood. In a few hours, it may be, the street-boy will stand where he must decide whether he will be a thief or an honest lad; a rogue or an industrious worker; the companion of burglars and murderers, or the friend of the virtuous. Temptations to lying, to deceit, to theft, robbery, lust, and murder will soon hunt him like a pack of wolves. His child's nature is each day under the strain of a man's temptations. Poverty, hunger, and friendlessness add to his exposed condition, while, in all probability, he inherits a tendency to indulgence or crime.
The problem is to guard such a human being, so exposed, against powerful temptations; to raise him above them; to melt his bad habits and inherited faults in some new and grand emotion; to create within him a force which is stronger than, and utterly opposed to, the selfish greed for money, or the attractions of criminal indulgence, or the rush of passion, or the fire of anger. The object is to implant in his breast such a power as Plato dreamed of—the Love of some perfect Friend, whose character by sympathy shall purify his, whose feeling is believed to go with the fortunes of the one forgotten by all others, and who has the power of cleansing from wrong and saving from sin.
The experience of twenty years' labor shows us that what are called "moral influences" are not sufficient to solve this problem, or meet this want among the children of the street. It is, of course, well at times to present the beauty of virtue and the ugliness of vice; to show that honesty brings rewards, and falsehood pains, and to sketch the course of the moral poor whom fortune has rewarded. But these considerations are not sufficiently strong to hold back the most pressing temptations. Moreover, we have often had grave doubts whether "the bread-and-butter piety" was not too much recommended in all religious meetings to children. The child is too continually reminded that righteousness brings reward in this world, though the Master calls us to "take a yoke," and "bear a cross." The essence of the religious impulse is that it is unselfish, an inspiration from above, not below, a quickening of the nobler emotions and higher aspirations. Wherever gain or worldly motive comes in, there spirituality flees away. We have, accordingly, always opposed, in our religious meetings, the employment of prizes or rewards, as is so common in Sunday Schools, to strengthen the religious influence. Experience, as well as reason, has shown us that all such motives mingled with religion simply weaken its power.
Considering the peculiar position of these children, we have never set the value on what is usually described as "Religious Instruction" which many do. Of course, there are certain foundation truths which should be taught to these audiences. But such subjects as the Jewish History and God's Providence therein, and many matters contained in the Old Testament, are not so immediately important for them as the facts and principles of Christianity. And yet there are passages in the Old Testament which seem peculiarly designed for the young. There are stories—such as those of Joseph and Moses and Samuel—which, if all others should forget, children alone would not let die. It does not seem instruction that these children need, so much as inspiration. A street-boy might be perfectly familiar with the history of the Fall of Man and the flood; he might repeat the Commandments, and know by heart the Apostles' Creed, and yet not have one spark in his breast of the divine fire which is to save him from vice and ruin.
What the child of the streets, above all, needs to uphold him in his sea of troubles and temptations, is the knowledge and faith in Christ as his Friend and Saviour.
CHRIST can be presented and made real to these children as a perfect Being, the Son of God, who feels with all their misfortunes, who has known their temptations, who is their Friend, and only demands noble hearts and love from them, who lived and died for them when on earth, that they might love God and be saved from sin.
It is the old Faith, which has thrown the glory of Heaven over millions of death-beds, and sustained uncounted numbers of weak and hard-pressed men, true to honor, virtue, and goodness, amid all temptations and misfortunes. It has comforted and ennobled the slave under his master's tyranny. If simply presented, and with faith in God, it can redeem the outcast youth of the streets from all his vices and evil habits, keep him pure amid filth, honest among thieves, generous among those greedy for money, kind among the hard and selfish, and enable him to overcome anger, lust, the habit of lying or profanity, and to live a simple, humble, God-fearing, and loving life, merely because he believes that this Unseen Friend demands all this in his children and followers. When this Faith and this Love are implanted in the child's mind, and he is inspired by them, then his course is clear, and sure to be happy and good.
One mistake of Sunday-school oratory is frequently made in addressing these lads, and that is, a too great use of sensational illustrations, which do not aid to impress the truth desired. Attention will be secured, but no good end is gained. Where the wants of the audience are so real and terrible as they are here, and so little time is given for influencing them, it is of the utmost importance that every word should tell. There should be no rhetorical pyrotechnics at these meetings. Above all modes, however, the dramatic is the best means of conveying truth to their minds. The parable, the illustration, the allegory or story, real or fictitious, most quickly strike their mind, and leave the most permanent impression.
One of the best religious speakers that ever address our boys is a lawyer, who has been a famous sportsman, and has in his constitution a fellow-feeling for their vagrant tastes. I often fancy, when he is speaking to them, that he would not object at all to being a boy again himself, roving the streets, "turning in" on a hay-barge, and drifting over the country at "his own sweet will." But this very sympathy gives him a peculiar power over them; he understands their habits and temptations, and, while other gentlemen often shoot over their heads, his words always take a powerful hold of them. Then, though a man particularly averse to sentiment in ordinary life, his speeches to the boys seem to reveal a deep and poetic feelings for nature, and a solemn consciousness of God, which impresses children deeply. His sportsmanly habits have led him to closely observe the habits of birds and animals, and the appearances of the sky and sea, and these come in as natural illustrations, possessing a remarkable interest for these wild little vagrants, who by nature belong to the "sporting" class.
A man must have a boy's tastes to reach boys.
In treating of this subject of religious education for the youth of the dangerous classes, the question naturally arises, how far there should be religious expression or education in our Public Schools. If it were atabula rasahere, and we were opening a system of National Schools, and all were of one general faith, there could be no question that every one interested in the general welfare, would desire religious instruction in our Public Schools, as a means of strengthening morality, if for no other purpose. As it is, however, we have at the basis of society an immense mass of very ignorant, and, therefore, bigoted people, who suspect and hate every expression even of our form of Christianity, and regard it as a teaching of heresy and a shibboleth of oppression. Their shrewd and cunning leaders, knowing the danger to priestcraft from Free Schools, use this hostility and the pretense of our religious services to separate these classes from the Public Schools. The priests and demagogues do not, of course, care anything about the simple prayer and the reading of a few verses of Scripture, which are now our sole religious school exercises. But these furnish them with a good pretext for acting on the masses, and give them ground, among certain liberal or indifferent Protestants, for seeking a separate State support for the Catholic Schools.
Were Bible-reading and the Lord's Prayer discontinued in the Schools, we do not doubt that the priests and the popular leaders would still oppose the Free Schools just as bitterly; but they would not have as good an apparent ground, and any pretext of opposition would be taken away. The system of Free Schools is the life-blood of the nation. If it be corrupted with priestcraft, or destroyed by our dissensions, our vitality as a republican people is gone. The whole country would realize then the worst fruits of a popular government without intelligence. Demagogism and corruption, founded on ignorance, would wield an absolute tyranny, with none of the graces of monarchy, and none of the advantages of democracy. Jarring sects would each have their own schools, and the priests would enjoy an unlimited control over all the ignorant Catholics of the country.
Under no circumstance should the Protestants of the nation allow the Free Schools to be broken up. They are the foundation of the Republic, and the bulwark of Protestantism and civilization. They undermine the power of the priests, which rests on ignorance, while they leave untouched whatever spiritual force the Roman Catholic Church may truly have and deserve to have. The Protestants should sacrifice everything reasonable and not vital, to retain these blessed agencies of enlightenment.
We respect the sort of pluck of the Protestants, which looks upon the giving-up of Bible-reading in the Schools as being "false to the flag." But, in looking at the matter soberly, and without pugnacity, does spiritual religion lose anything by giving up these exercises? We think not. They are now of the coldest and most formal kind, and but little listened to. We doubt if they ever affect strongly a single mind. The religious education of each child is imparted in Sabbath Schools, in Churches, or Mission Schools, and its own home.
The Free School under our system does not need any influence from the Church. The American trusts to the separate sects to take care of the religious interests of the children. We separate utterly Church and State. There may be evils from this; but they are less than the danger of destroying our system of popular education by the contests of rival sects. We know how long every effort to secure popular education for England has been wrecked on this rock of Sectarianism.
We behold the fearful harvest of evils which she is reaping from the ignorance of the masses, especially induced by the oppositions of sects, who preferred no education for the people to education without their own dogmas.
We desire to avoid these calamities, and we can best do this by making every reasonable concession to ignorance and prejudice.
Give us the Free Schools without Religion, rather than no Free Schools at all!
Very few people have any just appreciation of the comparative cost of punishment and prevention in the treatment of crime. The writer recalls one out of many thousand instances in his experience, which strikingly illustrates the contrast
A number of years ago, three boys (brothers), the oldest perhaps seventeen, applied at the Newsboys' Lodging-house of this city for shelter. It was soon suspected that the eldest was a thief, employing the younger as assistants in his nefarious business. The younger lads finally confessed the fact, and the older brother left them to be taken care of in the Lodging-house. After a sufficient period of training, the two brothers were sent to a farmer in Illinois. They were faithful and hard-working, and soon began to earn money. When the war broke out they enlisted, and served with credit. At the close they passed through New York, and visited the superintendent while returning to their village, having already purchased a farm with their wages and bounty-money. They are now well-to-do, respectable farmers.
This "prevention" for the two lads cost just thirty dollars, for their expenses in the Lodging-house were mainly paid by themselves.
The older brother went through a career of thieving and burglary. We have not an accurate catalogue of his various offenses, but he undoubtedly made away with property—wasted or destroyed it—to the amount of two thousand dollars. [We recall three lads who, in one night, broke into a house in Bond Street, and destroyed or made away with property to the value of one thousand three hundred dollars.] He was finally arrested and tried for burglary. It would be safe to estimate the expenses of the trial and arrest at one hundred dollars. He was sentenced to five years in Sing Sing. Allowing the expenses of maintenance there to be what they are on Blackwell's Island, that is, about twelve dollars and fifty cents per month, he cost the State while there some seven hundred and fifty dollars, not reckoning the interest on capital and buildings; so that we have here, in one instance, the very low estimate of two thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars as the expense to the community of one street-boy unreclaimed. Had the Lodging-house taken hold of him five years earlier, he could have been saved at a cost of fifteen dollars.
His brothers have added to the wealth of the community and defended the life of the nation, and are still honest producers. He has already cost the State at least two thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars, besides much immorality and bad example, and he has only begun a career of damage and loss to the city.
Our criminals last year cost this city, in the City Prisons and Penitentiaries, about one hundred and one thousand dollars for maintenance alone. Our police cost apparently over six hundred thousand dollars.
The amount of property lost or taken by thieves, burglars, and others last year, in New York city, and which came under the knowledge of the police, was one million five hundred and twenty-one thousand nine hundred and forty dollars; but how many sums are never brought to their notice!
The expenses of the arrest and trial of two criminals, Real and Van Echten, are stated, on good authority, to have been sixteen thousand dollars for the first, and twenty thousand dollars for the second.
If the expenses of a great "preventive" institution—such as the Children's Aid Society—be examined, it will be found that the two thousand and odd homeless children, boys and girls, placed in country homes, cost the public only some fifteen dollars a head; the three thousand and odd destitute little girls educated and partly fed and clothed in the "Industrial Schools," only cost some fifteen dollars for each child each year; and the street lads and girls sheltered and instructed in the "Lodging-houses," to the number of some twelve thousand different subjects, or an average of, say, four hundred each night, have been an expense of only some fifty dollars per head through the year to the public. It may, perhaps, be urged in reply to this by the doubting, that all this may be true. "We admit the cheapness of prevention, but we do not see the diminution of crime. If you can show us that fewer young thieves, or vagabonds, or prostitutes, are breeding, we shall admit that your children's charities are doing something, and that the cost of prevention is the most paying outlay in the administration of New York city."
To this we might answer that New York is an exceptional city—a sink into which pour the crime and poverty of all countries, and that all we could expect to accomplish would be what is attempted in European cities—to keep the increase of juvenile crime down equal with the increase of population; that the laws of crime are shown in European cities to be constant, and that we must expect just about so many petty thieves each year, so many pickpockets, so many burglars, so many female vagrants or prostitutes, to so many thousand inhabitants.
We might urge that it is the duty of every friend of humanity to do his little part to alleviate the evils of the world, whether he sees a general diminution of human ills or not.
But, fortunately, we are not obliged to render these excuses.
New York is the only large city in the world where there has been a comprehensive organization to deal with the sources of crime among children; an organization which, though not reaching the whole of the destitute and homeless youth, and those most exposed to temptation, still includes a vast multitude every year of theenfants perdusof this metropolis.
This Association, during nearly twenty years, has removed to country homes and employment about twenty-five thousand persons, the greater part of whom have been poor and homeless children; it has founded, and still supports, five Lodging-houses for homeless and street-wandering boys and girls, five free Reading-rooms for boys and young men, and twenty Industrial Schools for children too poor, ragged, and undisciplined for the Public Schools. We have always been confident that time would show, even in the statistics of crime in our 19 prisons and police courts, the fruits of these very extended and earnest labors. It required several years to properly found and organize the Children's Aid Society, and then it must be some ten years-when the children acted upon in all its various branches have come to young manhood and womanhood—before the true effects are to be seen. We would not, however, exclude, as causes of whatever results may be traced, all similar movements in behalf of the youthful criminal classes. We may then fairly look, in the present and the past few years, for the effects on crime and pauperism of these widely-extended charities in behalf of children.
The most important field of the Children's Aid Society has been among the destitute and street-wandering and tempted little girls, its labors embracing many thousands annually of this unfortunate class. Has crime increased with them? The great offense of this class, either as children or as young women, comes under the heading of "Vagrancy"-this including their arrest and punishment, either as street-walkers, or prostitutes, or homeless persons. In this there is, during the past thirteen years, a most remarkable decrease—a diminution of crime probably unexampled in any criminal records through the world. The rate in the commitments to the city prisons, as appears in the reports of the Board of Charities and Correction, runs thus:—
Of female vagrants, there were in
1857……….3,449 1859……….5,778 1860……….5,880 1861……….3,172 1862……….2,243 1863……….1,756 1864……….1,342 1869…………785 1870…………671 1871…………548.
We have omitted some of the years on account of want of space; they do not, however, change the steady rate of decrease in this offense.
Thus, in eleven years, the imprisonments of female vagrants have fallen off from 5,880 to 548. This, surely, is a good show; and yet in that period our population increased about thirteen and a half per cent, so that, according to the usual law, the commitments should have been this year over 4,700. [The population of New York increased from 814,224, in 1860, to 915,520, in 1870, or only about twelve and a half per cent. The increase in the previous decade was about fifty per cent. There can be no doubt that the falling-off is entirely in the middle classes, who have removed to the neighboring rural districts. The classes from which most of the criminals come have undoubtedly increased, as before, at least fifty per cent.
I have retained for ten years, however, the ratio of the census, twelve and a half per cent.]
If we turn now to the reports of the Commissioners of Police, the returns are almost equally encouraging, though the classification of arrests does not exactly correspond with that of imprisonments; that is, a person may be arrested for vagrancy, and sentenced for some other offense, andvice versa.
The reports of arrests of female vagrants ran thus:—
1861………………..2,161 1862………………..2,008 1863………………..1,728 1867………………..1,591 1869………………..1,078 1870………………….701 1871………………….914
We have not, unfortunately, statistics of arrests farther back than 1861.
Another crime of young girls is thieving or petty larceny. The rate of commitments runs thus for females:—
1859………………….944 1860………………….890 1861………………….880 1863………………..1,133 1864………………..1,131 1865………………….877 1869………………….989 1870………………….746 1871………………….572
The increase of this crime daring the war, in the years 1863 and 1864, is very marked; but in twelve years it has fallen from 944 to 572, though, according to the increase of the population, it would have been naturally 1,076.
Another heading on the prison records is "Juvenile delinquency," which may include any form of youthful offense not embraced in the other terms. Under this, in 1860, were two hundred and forty (240) females; in 1870, fifty-nine (59).
The classification of commitments of those under fifteen years only runs back a few years. The number of little girls imprisoned the past few years is as follows:—
1863………………….408 1864………………….295 1865………………….275 1868………………….239 1870………………….218 1871………………….212
The imprisonment, of males, for offenses which boys are likely to commit, though not so encouraging as with the girls, shows that juvenile crime is fairly under control in this city. Thus, "Vagrancy" must include many of the crimes of boys; under this head we find the following commitments of males:—
1859……….2,829 1860……….2,708 1862……….1,203 1864……….1,147 1865……….1,350 1870……….1,140 1871…………984
In twelve years a reduction from 2,829 to 994, when the natural increase should have been up to 3,225.
Petty larceny is a boy's crime; the record stands thus for males:—
1857……….2,450 1859……….2,626 1860……….2,575 1865……….2,347 1869……….2,338 1870……….2,168 1871……….1,978
A decrease in fourteen years of 502, when the natural increase should have brought the number to 2,861.
Of boys under fifteen imprisoned, the record stands thus since the new classification:—
1864……….1,965 1865……….1,934 1869……….1,873 1870……….1,625 1871……….1,017
Of males between fifteen and twenty, in our city prisons, the following is the record:—
1857……….2,592 1859……….2,636 1860……….2,207 1861……….2,408 1868……….2,927 1870……….2,876 1871……….2,936
It often happens that youthful criminals are arrested who are not imprisoned. The reports of the Board of Police will give us other indications that, even here, juvenile crime has at length been diminished in its sources.
The arrests of pickpockets run thus since 1861, the limit of returns accessible:—
1861…………466 1862…………300 1865…………275 1867…………345 1868…………348 1869…………303 1870…………274 1871…………313
In ten years a reduction of 153 in the arrests of pickpockets.
In petty larceny the returns stand thus in brief:—
1862……….4,107 1865……….5,240 1867……….5,269 1870……….4,909 1871……….3,912
A decrease in nine years of 195.
Arrests of girls alone, under twenty:—
1863……….3,132 1867……….2,588 1870……….1,993 1871……….1,820
It must be plain from this, that crime among young girls is decidedly checked, and among boys is prevented from increasing with population.
If our readers will refer back to these dry but cheering tables of statistics, they will see what a vast sum of human misery saved is a reduction, in the imprisonment of female vagrants, of more than five thousand in 1871, as compared with 1869. How much homelessness and desperation spared! how much crime and wretchedness diminished are expressed in those simple figures! And, if we may reckon an average of punishment of two months' detention to each of those girls and women, we have one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars saved in one year to the public by preventive agencies in this class of offenders alone.
The same considerations, both of economy and humanity, apply to each of the results that appear in these tables of crime and punishment.
No outlay of money for public purposes which any city or its inhabitants can make, repays itself half so well as its expenses for charities which prevent crime among children.
In reviewing these long-continued efforts for the prevention of crime and the elevation of the neglected youth of this metropolis, it may aid others engaged in similar enterprises to note in summary the principles on which they have been carried out, and which account for their marked success.
In the first place, as has been so often said, though pre-eminently a Charity, this Association has always sought to encourage the principle of Self-help in its beneficiaries, and has aimed much more at promoting this than merely relieving suffering. All its branches, its Industrial Schools, Lodging-houses, and Emigration, aim to make the children of the poor better able to take care of themselves; to give them such a training that they shall be ashamed of begging, and of idle, dependent habits, and to place them where their associates are self-respecting and industrious. No institution of this Society can be considered as a shelter for the dependent and idle. All its objects of charity work, or are trained to work. The consequence is that this effort brings after it none of the bad fruits of mere alms-giving. The poor do not become poorer or less self-reliant under it; on the contrary, they are continually rising out of their condition and making their own way in the world. The laborer in this field does not feel, as in so many other philanthropic causes, doubtful, after many years of labor, whether he has not done as much injury as good. He sees constantly the wonderful effect of these efforts, and he knows that, at the worst, they can only fail of the best fruit, but certainly cannot have a bad result.
From the commencement our aim has been to put these charitable enterprises in harmony with natural and economic laws, assured that any other plan of philanthropy must eventually fail. In this view we have taken advantage of the immense demand for labor through our rural districts, which alone gives a new aspect to all economical problems in this country. Through this demand we have been enabled to accomplish our best results, with remarkable economy. We have been saved the vast expense of Asylums, and have put our destitute children in the child's natural place—with a family. Our Lodging-houses also have avoided the danger attending such places of shelter, of becoming homes for vagrant boys and girls. They have continually passed their little subjects along to the country, or to places of work, often forcing them to leave the house. In requiring the small payments for lodging and meals, they put the beneficiaries in an independent position, and check the habits and spirit of pauperism. The Evening School, the Savings-bank, and the Religious Meeting are continually acting on these children to raise them from the vagrant class. The Industrial Schools, in like manner, are seminaries of industry and teachers of order and self-help.
All the agencies of the Society act in harmony with natural laws, and touch the deepest springs of life and character. The forces underlying them are the strongest forces of society—Religion, Education, Self-respect, and love of Industry; these are constantly working upon the thousands of poor children under our charge. Thus founded on simple and natural principles, the Society has succeeded, because very earnest men and women have labored in it, and because its organization has been remarkably complete.
Theemployeshave entered into its labors principally from love of its objects, and then have been retained by a just and liberal treatment on the part of the Trustees, and by each being made responsible for his department, and gaining in the community something of the honor which attends successful work.
A strict system of accountability has been maintained, step by step, from the lowest to the highest executive officer. Of many engaged in the labors of this Association, it can be truly said, that no business or commercial house was ever more faithfully and earnestly served, than this charity has been by them. Indeed, some of them have poured forth for it more vitality and energy than they would ever have done for their personal interests. They have toiled day and night, week-days and Sundays, and have been best rewarded by the fruit they have beheld. The aim of the writer, as executive officer, has been to select just the right man for his place, and to make him feel that that is his profession and life-calling. Amid many hundreds thus selected, during twenty years, he can recall but two or three mistaken choices, while many have become almost identified with their labors and position, and have accomplished good not to be measured. His principle has been to show the utmost respect and confidence, but to hold to the strictest accountability. Not a singleemploye, so far as he is aware, in all this time, during his service, has ever wronged the Society or betrayed his trust. One million of dollars has passed through the hands of the officers of this Association during this period, and it has been publicly testified [See testimony before the Committee on Charities of the Senate of New York, 1871.] by the Treasurer, Mr. J. E. Williams, President of the Metropolitan Bank, that not a dollar, to his knowledge, has ever been misappropriated or squandered.
A most important element of the success of this Charity have been, of course, the character and influence of its Board of Trustees.
It is difficult to speak of these gentlemen without seeming to use the language of compliment; but, in making known to other cities the peculiar organization which has been so successful in this, it must always be remembered what the character of trustees should be, who bear upon their shoulders so important a trust. These men are known through the city and indeed in distant parts of the country, as showing in their lives a profound and conscientious conviction of the responsibility which wealth and ability are under to the community. They are the best representatives of a class who are destined to give a new character to our city—men of broad and liberal views on matters of practical religion, full of humanity, sensible and judicious, educated to appreciate culture and art, as well as business, with the true gentleman's sense of self-respect and respect for others, a profound and earnest spirit of piety, and that old Puritan perseverance which causes them not "to turn their hand from the plow," however disagreeable the task before them may be. Such men, when once morally imbued with the needs of a cause, could make it succeed against any odds.
Two or three men of their position, wealth, and ability, who should take the moral interests of any class of our population on their hands, and be in earnest in the thing, could not fail to accomplish great results. When they began to appear in our Board, I felt that, under any sort of judicious management, it was morally certain we should perfect a wide and permanent organization, and secure most encouraging results.
A great service, which has been accomplished by these gentlemen, has been in tabulating our accounts, and putting them under a most thorough system of examination and checking, and in allotting our various branches to each trustee for inspection. Many of the trustees, also, have their religious meetings at the Lodging-houses, which they individually lead and take charge of during the winter. They are thus brought in direct contact with the necessities of the poor children.
To no one, however, is the public so much indebted as to our treasurer,Mr. J. E. Williams.
For nearly twenty years this charity has been the dearest object of his public efforts, the field of his humanity and religion. During all this time he has managed gratuitously the financial affairs of the Society; begged money when we were straitened, and borrowed it when temporarily embarrassed; never for a moment doubting that, if the work were faithfully done, the public would support it. At the end of this period (1872), having spent over a million of dollars, and requiring now some one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars per annum for our various branches, we find ourselves without a dollar of debt.
One rock, which the manager of such a movement must always steer clear of, is the sectarian difficulty. He must ignore sects, and rest his enterprise on the broadest and simplest principles of morality and religion. The animating force must be the religious, especially the "enthusiasm of humanity" shown in the love for Christ, and for all who bear His image. But dogmatic teachings, and disputations, and sectarian ambitions, are to be carefully eschewed and avoided in such efforts of humanity. The public must learn gradually to associate the movement, not with any particular sect or church, but with the feeling of humanity and religion—the very spirit of Christ Himself.
An essential thing, and often very disagreeable, to the earnest worker in it, is to give the utmost publicity to all its operations. The reason of this is, that such a charity depends for support and friends, not on an organized private association, but on the whole public. They need to know all its doings; this is often the only way of reminding them of their duty in this field. Moreover, the moneys spent are public trusts, and all that relates to their uses should be publicly known.
Gradually, by publicity, the general community come to have something of the same moral interest in the enterprise, that the special attendants of a church have in its welfare; and it becomes a truly public interest. To attain this, the press should be the great agency, as well as the pulpit, wherever practicable. Annual reports, designed for all classes, wherein there are figures for the statistical, facts for the doubting, incidents for the young, and principles stated for the thoughtful, should be scattered far and wide.
As the organization grows, State-aid should be secured for a portion of its expenses, that a more permanent character may be given it, and it may not be suddenly too much crippled by a business depression or disaster.
Of the modes in which money should be raised, I have already spoken. In all these matters, the general rule of wisdom is to avoid "sensation," and to trust to the settled and reasonable conviction of the public, rather than to temporary feeling or excitement.
Founded on such principles, and guided by men of this character and ability, and by those of similar purposes who shall come after them, there seems no good reason why this extended Charity should not scatter its blessings for generations to come throughout this ever-increasing metropolis.
To those now serving in it, no thought can be sweeter, when their "change of guard" comes, than that the humble organization of humanity and Christian kindness, which, amid many labors and sacrifices, they aided to found, will spread good-will and intelligence and relief and religious light to the children of the unfortunate and the needy, long years after even their names are forgotten; and for monument or record of their work, they cannot ask for more enduring than young lives redeemed from crime and misery, and young hearts purified and ennobled by CHRIST, and many orphans' tears wiped away, and wounds of the lonely and despairing "little ones" of the world healed through instrumentalities which they assisted to plant, and which shall continue when they are long gone.