Part 29 (2/2)
HOW SHALL CRIMINAL CHILDREN BE TREATED?
REFORMATORIES.
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 sc.r.a.pes, imagine him suddenly put into an ”Inst.i.tution” for reform, henceforth designated as ”D” of ”Cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses, teach one another when they are together in ma.s.ses, 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 Inst.i.tution, 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 cla.s.s, 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 suns.h.i.+ne, and dealing with flowers and grains, with cattle, horses, and fowls, are all attractive to children, and especially to children of this cla.s.s. 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 inst.i.tution. 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 Inst.i.tution.
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 astonis.h.i.+ngly large proportion. This success is probably much due to the _esprit du corps_ which 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 congregated Reformatories of this country. But their success has been in spite of their system. From the new Family Reformatories, opened in different States, we hope for even better results.
CHAPTER x.x.xIV.
WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH FOUNDLINGS?
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 cla.s.ses 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.
THE NUMBERS.
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.
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