few

be for

1856.

Mettray and Red-Hill.

At first sight they appear to be private in- selves, are content to pay our yearly millions stitutions founded by benevolent men or for the detection, apprehension, and punishsocieties, supported by voluntary contribu- ment of our criminal classes, rather than tions, with some aid lately granted by the lend a hearty aid to a system of prevention, Governments of the countries which they which sooner or later must effect a wonderserve, destined to reform a limited number ful change in the rate of crime. There of juvenile criminals, and already marked by would seem, indeed, to be an earnest desire among a large number of private individuals eminent success as far as they go. of But in reality they are the first-fruits of to rectify this wretched state of things; and an awakening consciousness of our distance the Government, clogged as it is by party from real civilisation. These names, un- spirit, and inebriated by the excitement of a known till within the last few months to the great and doubtful war, have still been so public of either France or England, announce pricked up by the zealous in this cause, as to the discovery of a secret dreamed of by grant a large sum for general education.* Manú in India and Plato in Greece, and But it must be remembered that this grant sought in vain through every age and nation-the only one really destined to further the down to the fanatics of socialism in the last, reformation of the lower classes-is confined and the would-be regenerators, more enthu- to their education; and also that those who siastic than wise, of the present century, have been distinguished as the lowest orders, viz., the true principle of social regeneration are naturally excluded from the advantages compatible with the existing state of social in- offered to the honest and hard-working, The name "juvenile delinquent" is applied stitutions. They have made the discovery whom their contact would tend to pollute. and proved its value-Mettray, in hardworking obscurity, during fifteen, and Red- to boys and girls in the lowest class, below Hill, during five years. They have proved the age of seventeen, whom the law punishes that the day is now come when prevention for divers offences. It has been computed must supersede correction, the training- that there are annually more than 15,000 school replace the prison. While each day adds to the difficulties of punishment, they go on proving the facility of prevention. As in the early ages of our era, some Christian maiden, weak in frame, but strong in faith, may have stood with angel face and outstretched arm, raising the cross before the shamed eyes of some horde of heathens, shrinking in wonder and admiration before her; the spirit of Christian Reform here stands bravely but modestly up in an age of worldliness, bearing the scoffs of materialists, and stemming the opposition of the closehanded sons of trade, to wave the banner of good living through the length and breadth of the land.

Something has, no doubt, been done towards the education of the lower orders; but it has of late come to light, that these measures affect chiefly the lower and not the lowest, i.e., the vicious, and therefore dangerous classes of society.

It is too well known that our armies of preventives and detectives, our daily-extended prisons, our model penitentiaries, our thousands of clergymen, and our noble bands of zealous home missionaries, have not in the course of the last twenty years-since a fresh impulse was given to the war against crime-succeeded in placing any effectual restraint on the growth of these classes. On the contrary, vice and crime seem to be increasing annually in a greater ratio than the population. Yet, as usual, our shortsighted governors, and our over-prudent

As regards delinquents the question presents little difficulty. The magistrate has top

*When we call it large, it is by comparison with the efforts of private individuals; but in proportion to the greatness and necessity of the cause, how lamentable small is the pittance allowed for raising in the moral, intellectual, and religious scale, the whole creased by £35,000, the grant was under £300,000, of the great British nation! Although last year inwhile that for the Land Transport Service alone, a single branch of our war machinery, was considerably over a million.

now the power of commuting the punish- well know, that to be deprived of one parent ment of every child, convicted of an offence is worse than to be bereft of both. The reagainst the law, to a term of greater or less maining parent invariably marries again, and duration in one of the reformatory establish- a step-mother or step-father among the lowments of the kingdom. That these institu- est orders is, to use an expression employed tions are the work of private individuals or by one of themselves, "worse than a hussocieties; that they receive scarcely any band." But what ties of family can be supaid from Government but its countenance; posed to exist among the other two-thirds? that they are imperfect and often based on what domestic relations can there be be wrong principles, and at best are incapable tween children either neglected entirely, or of accommodating even a third of the chil- purposely trained to dishonesty, and the dren annually committed, while the Govern- parents who thus treat them? What ties of ment undertakings, as is always the case, family, where the father or mother are in are so absurdly conceived, so wretchedly prison or transported, belonging to a band managed, and so grossly over-crowded, as to of thieves, or at best without a roof to cover do more harm than good, are facts that their heads, sleeping at night in a lodgingwould be a great slur on this nation, if it house, and leaving their children in most were not true that its attention, at all times cases to the mercy of the skies without? difficult to engage, has been only lately call- But since these domestic ties do not exist, ed to this subject, and continually occupied either their place must be supplied, or new with others of great momentary importance. ones produced. For the former alternative But we have a larger subject to interest we propose reformatory establishments; for us. We are not speaking of the reforma- the latter a new plan. It is clear, that as a tion of 15,000 young criminals, but of subject of the State in which a man lives, 100,000 children,-the present offspring and defended by its laws, and amenable to them, future recruits of a vicious and most danger- he produces, in every child that he begets, ous class. Now here a difficulty arises. It new subject, whom he desires to be equally has been stoutly asserted that the State has protected by his country. To secure this no right to exercise power over children who advantage, it is only just that he should fulhave not become amenable to law. It is, fil his share of the tacit agreement he makes firstly, contended that every parent has, by with the State, by teaching and training his the laws of God and man, a certain right offspring to obey the laws which are to seover his own offspring, and a certain re- cure him. If the parent fails to do so, he is sponsibility in their wellbeing; and, second- clearly responsible for the infringement of ly, it has been asserted that it would be the law committed by the child. He would impolitic to remove this responsibility, and have a right to compensation if his boy was to destroy the ties of family among the injured or robbed by another, and he, and he class of which we speak. only, should therefore be punished if the boy transgresses the law.*

As regards the first of these arguments, it is reduced to the question, whether a State is a self-preservative body or not? If it be so, it is clear that it has a right to deal with every person or class who threatens its security. It is not, indeed, lawful for the State to punish where no infringement of the law has taken place, but it is lawful for it to take measures to remove a danger which threatens the nation. It is an undeniable law of good government, that the interests of individuals should be sacrificed to the common weal.

The other objection is simply absurd. From parliamentary returns for 1848 and 1849, we learn that nearly one-third of the whole number of children annually committed, are either deprived of one or both parents, or are of illegitimate birth.* Those who have had to do with the lowest orders

* Of 1553 children received at Mettray, 297 were illegitimate, 705 orphans, 114 foundlings, 302 parents in prison, 2140 parents married again, 99 parents living in concubinage.

It has been replied to this, that we do not punish children because they are responsible. A child must learn obedience, and be taught that to infringe right brings evil on itself. We address ourselves to the brute instinct in the half-rational man, and since we cannot make it love good, for any better reason, we make it fear to do evil from a feeling of self-love. This is, indeed, the proper treatment of a child by its parent; but it cannot be employed by the State. It is ridiculous to punish the young for acts which its own father either inculcates or encourages, and which all around it are constantly committing with impunity. Moreover, the State cannot devise any means of punishing chil

*"I have, indeed, a strong conviction, that if, in justifiable cases, the sins of the ignorant and erring child were visited upon the neglectful or vicious parent, such a proceeding would produce benefit, by reminding or warning fathers and mothers of the necessity of paying more attention to the duties incumbent on them."—Report of Conference, p. 54.

dren of this class. They are unable to between 1839 and 1852. At Red-Hill, the appreciate the degradation of a prison, which desertions, or attempted desertions, are at is to them but a change of scene. They present somewhat numerous, but this must cannot feel the rod of the jailor on backs be ascribed partly to inexperience; but at which have been hardened by drunken blows Mettray we could only learn that one boy at home. But the parent is responsible. out of this number had succeeded in escapThe parent is punishable, and in no way ing during the fifteen years of its existence. more effectually than by the loss of his pro- Yet these estates are just like any others, perty. Make the father, or mother, pay or unwalled and unguarded; the facilities for suffer for the fault of the child, and you will absconding from them are almost as great soon teach him to keep his family out of as those possessed by any common farmharm's way. servant; the means of evading the police of the neighbourhood are not wanting; and the boys who have thus remained upon them have been vagabonds from the streets, who would not scruple to appropriate any stray cash they might come across, whose young lives have been passed in private villanies, and in the excitement of eluding justice, and who would, of course, be far more free roaming through the Strand or Holborn, or their native haunts round the Seven Dials, than under strict task-masters, who keep them punctually to their prescribed work and hours.

The general principle of the system is, then, as follows:-Every child accused of a breach of the law, or found to be neglected by its parents, or to have no parents at all, or living in a state of destitution and streetwandering, is to be adopted by the State. The parents are to be relieved of it entirely; but they are to be punished either for the of fence of their offspring, if it has committed any, or for its neglect, which ought to be made a breach of the law.* The country is thus supposed to have adopted the neglected child. How shall it dispose of it? We reply, by pointing to Red-Hill and Mettray.

The fact is, that there is honour in, as well as among thieves, if it be properly demanded. On his arrival at the Reformatory These two great Institutions are based on two principles, which distinguish them from School, the boy is made to feel that he is all the older establishments of a similar still a free being. There is no prison recharacter. They are these: they assume straint, no privation of the liberty of the firstly, that there exists a sense of honour subject, to gall his young wild spirit. He among even the most abandoned; secondly, may go and come in freedom about the that labour is the devil's greatest enemy. farm, but it is put to his honour as a man The first principle removes from the Re- not to go beyond its limits. These are formatory Establishment any possible re- pointed out to him, and a hedge or a brook semblance that it might have had to the becomes a sacred boundary far more diffiPrison. A plot of 133 acres was purchased cult to traverse than the prison wall, whatThere was a striking by the Philanthropic Society in 1849, at ever its height. Red-Hill, near Reigate, in Surrey; and instance of this feeling of honour in one more than 260 hectares (about 520 acres) boy. He was sent constantly on errands, was presented by M. de Courteilles, at Met- at a distance from the farm-school, and it tray, near Tours, in France, in the year was impressed upon him that he was on a He had, it appears, been 1839. On the former estate, 736 lads had mission of trust. been received, and 538 discharged at differ- determined to desert, yet he never availed ent times up to January 1, 1855; on the himself of the opportunities thus afforded latter, 1553 received, and 836 discharged him, but regularly returned, and at last ran away when his honour was no longer impli cated. When Mettray was founded in 1839, the laugh was raised against its supporters, for imagining that the urchins collected there from the prisons and the streets, would remain a single day on the estate. What a triumph for the believers in human nature has the result proved !*

a

*This preliminary arrangement might be effected by organizing a portion of the police of all the larger towns, for the express purpose of looking after children of the "lowest" class. This was suggested by the Honourable Secretary of the Liverpool Ragged Schools. He proposes that each town should be divided into educational districts, to each of which sort of inspector should be attached. "His office," ho says, "should be twofold, containing, to a certain extent, that of the missionary and the police-inspecAs a missionary, he should endeavour to work upon the minds of the parents by kindness and expostulation, and thus induce them to do their duty to their children. As a police-inspector, he would be required to keep a watch upon the thoughtless and abandoned."-(See Report of Birmingham Conference, p. 26.)

tor.

The next great principle is that of labour; and here we must be understood to speak

*At Red-Hill more than one instance was related to us, of lads having been sent home on a probationary leave, and being on parole, having strictly returned, to desert a day or two afterwards, when their honour was LESS concerned.

of rural labour. All work is indeed opposed Reformatory School must be also a Farmto vice in its principle. Bodily exercise is School,* and the surplus population of our the antagonist of carnal indulgence, but great towns be converted into honest counthere are trades which, from the manner in trymen. The child must be at once rewhich they affect the mind and the body, are moved from the exciting and unnatural city the very encouragers of vicious propensities. | life and the neighbourhood of dangerous assoSuch particularly are sedentary employ-ciates, to the calm and invigorating scenes of ments, and those which are pursued in close the country. Change of air and scene must hot workshops, in the midst of ill-kept necessarily precede a change of life, and towns. It has indeed been contended by this may eventually be followed by a change statisticians, that the criminal reports show of heart. as large an amount of crime in the purely On the other hand, it has been suggested rural districts as in the large manufacturing that the Farm-school system partakes too towns. This is only another proof of the much of the character of the monastery. fallacy of trusting entirely to figures. It Since the boys are, it is said, separated from is not actual crime that is to be feared. the world, and have no temptations to try The passions we admit are as strong, or even them, there can be no means of teaching stronger, in healthy fields and dales as in them to resist temptation, and when they close and crowded streets. But the indul- are again turned out upon the world, they gence of passions does not endanger either are more than ever liable to be drawn away the soul or the community half as immi- by its allurements. The apparent validity nently as a vicious state of living. If the of this argument is, in the first place, opposed inquiry be pursued, it will be found that by results. The number of those who have the crimes of the country districts are relapsed into their old habits on leaving the chiefly those of murder, assault, and such as farm-school, has been reduced by the system result from strong feeling, worked up by of Mettray to about 10 per cent.; and this circumstances from time to time. But these number might be still lessened, if a longer temporary outbreaks are not half so dread- time were allowed for reformation. It is, ful as the habitual abandonment, drunken- of course, a mere waste of money to send a ness, and professional dishonesty pervading boy to the Farm-school, as is too often done, great cities. Again, it must be remem- merely for a few months, or at best a year. bered, that there is less room, and con- Three or four years are not too long for a sequently less temptation, for the pas- boy over twelve to eradicate all the evil he sions in crowded communities; assault has learnt, and to instil good principles and and violence are checked by the danger of confirm good habits, while for one below immediate detection, while the constant that age six to eight years are absolutely presence of the police imposes an effective necessary. It is a sheer injustice to receive restraint. But, on the other hand, the con- a boy of eight or nine years of age, and to stant view of God's noble works, the fresh- turn him loose on the world again before he ness of the air and the health of the body, has acquired the means of working for his undeniably purify and ennoble. We have bread, and while he is yet unfitted to face known populations of peasantry in country the temptations which will crowd round him districts, where the scenery has been grand on his dismissal with double force. This and beautiful, and the congregations of man is but a false economy, and we shall soon less crowded, which resembled rather a find his little face again in the cell of some noble gentry than an unrefined populace. disgusting prison. In the Tyrol, in Brittany, in the Highlands, It may, or it may not be true, that to rewe find elevated sentiments of honour, sist temptation successfully we must be moral integrity, and generous bearing. Can taught to face it, but it is indisputably cerwe attest such principles as these in Man-tain that a sufficient training in good useful chester and Leeds?

Again, it is certain that reformation must be physical as well as moral. Nothing is so opposed to proper feeling as squalor and sickliness. It is in vain to build and institute Reformatory Establishments in the heart of great cities. You will not do more than our Ragged Schools and Houses of Refuge, and how little do these do in comparison with Red-Hill and Mettray !* No. The

* No greater proof of this can be gathered than that afforded by a visit to Red-Hill, and a compari

habits, and a constant impression of good principles during a sufficiently long period, fortifies better than aught else against temptation of all kinds. Why do not I and you,

son between the physical condition of a new comer The solitary probation at Parkhurst may compel a and a boy who has been there some three months. mental reform in some cases, but in all it must more or less injure the physique of the lad.

* Lord Leigh in his letter on Mettray, says:-" It must be excellent, I think, for children to have the care and tending of dumb animals- Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.'"

when perchance we are left destitute orphans, in the house are undoubtedly great, more to fill our stomachs as best we can, take to particularly with English boys. stealing, forging, or dishonest practices?- Fault, however, must be found with the why, though we cannot marry, do we abhor practice of this system at the establishments a state of vicious concubinage?-why, when in question. Undoubtedly the families are blackguarded and injured, do we refrain from far too large. Forty and fifty boys, of dif violence? These temptations had never ferent ages, and at different stages of reformattacked us when we were being brought ation, are too great charge for one "faup; few, indeed, of any kind annoyed us, ther," and the domestic character of the if it were not the little irritations of con- household is lost by the number of its memflicting tempers. The fact is, that we have bers. If four times the number of houses had good principles instilled and good habits were built of half the size, to contain ten confirmed, and we have been enabled, even boys each, the institution would assume the without experience, to resist the world, the character of a village community,* and no flesh, and the devil. What has been done longer incur the imputation of "playing at" for us can be done with equal success for the families. Economy, and as we shall afterpoor and neglected. It is only requisite to wards shew, a false economy, has been the allow sufficient time. The law should au- motive for making the households thus nuthorize magistrates, on the report of the In-merous; but the expense of increasing the spectors whose appointment we have pro- number of "fathers" would be the only exposed, to hand over the children brought pense of the alteration; for four cottages to before them to the farm-school, for various hold ten boys each, might be built for the periods, not proportioned, as is now the case, to the extent of their criminality, but to their age, the child of seven for a period of eight years, the lad of sixteen for one of three, and so on in proportion.

same sum, and almost on the same extent of ground, as one large house destined to contain forty or fifty. This brings us to the subject of internal arrangement, and the best method of explaining it will be to describe that of Mettray.

The next serious objection raised has been the destruction of family influence. It has been said, with truth, that domestic educa- Mettray is situated a few miles from the tion is the best adapted to the formation of old city of Tours, in the very heart of the character. The founders of Mettray France. It was planned and founded in and Red-Hill were fully aware of this fact, 1839, by Mons. de Metz, a former conseiller and have based their system, as far as pos- at the Cour Impériale of Paris, who prosible, on the law of domesticity. At both ceeded, in 1837, to study the penitentiaries places the boys have been divided into fam- of the United States, and afterwards drew ilies, living in separate houses, over each of up a voluminous report on the subject. He which a trained guardian presides, assuming, was, therefore, well fitted to the task to in every particular, the character of father which he has nobly devoted his time, his in relation to his young charges. At Met- energies, and his fortune. He was assisted tray two of the elder boys in each house are in his benevolent undertaking by the Vielected by the members of the family as comte de Courteilles, who generously de"elder brothers." They have the office of voted the estate of Mettray to this object.t monitors, and are responsible for the conduct Imbued with the importance of the domesof the younger brethren whenever the tic system, these gentlemen were not satis"father" is absent. At Red-Hill the system fied with the farm-buildings already in exist has been completed, by inducing the "fa-ence on the land, and proceeded to build and thers" of the house to marry; and their organize the farm-school as it now stands. wives then stand in relation of "mothers" It consists, then, of a large square, two sides to all the boys; they wash their clothes, of which are formed by ten houses, five on look after their comforts, and keep the house in order. In this there are, of course, some difficulties to encounter. The "mothers" become mothers indeed, and their attention is called off, and their regularity endangered by their own maternal duties, besides the expenses of feeding their children. It were well if married men and their wives, whose children were already settled in the world, could be found for these situations, for the advantages of a kind, active, married woman

*At Red-Hill the arrangement is, to our mind, not half so satisfactory as at Mettray. There is an absence of real domestic character, and the houses are either not detached or too far apart to form a village community. There is, too, a want of regularity and uniformity in their internal arrangement.

With true systematic foresight, these gentlemen began by forming a training-school for officials. They selected twenty-three young men of respectability, and trained them for six months before they received a single boy.