his word the first time and every time in which lies a reasonable hope that he will perform his promises.

In the administration of a reform school, next to its foundation upon humane and Christian principles, the great aim should be simplicity in government. The fewest possible of simple rules. The simple, but all-inclusive standard of "do right" should be little seen, but should be felt to pervade the institution like an atmosphere.

In the Ohio reformatory, for some twelve years, and up to the time of our departure, blanks were furnished the heads of families to be filled with the weekly records of discipline in each family, detailing punishments of whatever kind inflicted during the week. These reports were read every Sabbath morning before the whole school, and any boy was allowed to make his personal statement as to the correctness of these reports, and with an average of about five hundred boys in the institution, the aggregate of punishment for one week would not ordinarily exceed twelve, and would sometimes be less than half that number, and frequently several weeks would pass without a single punishment in some of the families.

In the first years of the history of the Ohio institution a stone lock-up, with cells, was built for the confinement, at times, of the worst cases; but we soon saw its damaging influence, and it was abandoned, being converted into a meat house.

Corporal punishments were resorted to only as a last resort, and the rule was that no blow should ever be inflicted above the hips. At one time the loss of a meal or more was resorted to, or the feeding upon crust and water, but was soon abandoned as unwise and detrimental. And there is, too, a wise philosophy, we think, in discarding such punishment. The appetite of the growing boy is a passion, and to starve it is to goad it into fury and bring the mind into the worst condition possible for reformatory purposes. All ludicrous and highly artificial punishments are to be avoided. All punishments that bring raillery and ridicule upon the object of it, are not to be tolerated.

No reform institution, of course, can be a success without some corporal penalties, for even these are inflicted in nearly every, perhaps every, natural home. But these are to be inflicted only under a system which shall be administered upon humane and Christian principles, and only by the hands of persons of the highest character.

And now, in remainder, we purpose to still further meet objections and seeming difficulties by a few observations upon the question:

"Why even more is not accomplished under the family system;" and will conclude a paper, whose expanded proportions we trust will be excused in the importance of the subject, by some fragments of thought that have incidentally arisen during the progress of the paper.

In the medical, and other important professions, the student is expected to spend years in diligent study and toil before he is fit for his diploma, and even then he is employed hesitatingly and cautiously; and especially in the case of the physician, the one eagerly sought for and most trusted is the one of skilled reputation, for "everything that a man hath will he give for his life." But if so anxious to give the dangers and crises of our bodies and perishable lives into the hands of the highest skill and ability, what shall be asked for in the requirements of character, of those who are to have the training and care not only of the bodily and mental powers of neglected and depraved youth for this life, but for their moral welfare for this life and the next?

We demand that the teachers of our children shall be persons in whom we have the highest confidence. Shall we demand less for the children of our neighbors whom we are to "love as ourselves?"

The reform school officers and teachers are to be persons of not only efficient professional ability, but persons ranking in integrity, honor, and purity of character, with any other calling that can be named.

And yet mark what is still so prevalently the popular opinion? It is not an uncommon thing in many of the reformatories of the land for the boards of trustees and managers to hold their offices solely on account of political services to the party in power! So often totally unfit to be permitted to hold these solemn trusts, and then in ignorance and favoritism, farming out the subordinate places to time-servers and sycophants! The popular opinion is still most lamentably prevalent, that any passable novice is fit for superintendent of a reform school, and most any one that can "read, write and cipher," fit for teachers.

Now, because a man has been moderately successful as a lawyer, farmer, grocer, constable, or even sheriff, is it an argument that

he is fit for these positions? Is it an argument that any reputable nobody is fit for these posts, because he happens to be in want of a job of some kind, and is servant to some small politician?

It is injury enough to our prison schools to be filled and officered by political time-servers, but for all expectancy of anything like the measure of good which is possible to the family system, it is hopelessness and death.

Partisan politics, in its ignorance and greed, lays a destructive hand upon a great deal in this country; but it does no such ghastly work as when it intermeddles with the high necessities of our reformatory institutions, making them the playthings of its greedy caprices.

Not until the people shall with solemn resolution say, that whatever else the ignorance and arbitrariness of partisan politics may effect, they shall never lay a disturbing hand upon the best interests of our reformatory and philanthropic institutions,-not till then will the prison systems of reform be better than they are; and not till then will be realized the broad and magnificent promise that lies in the genius and methods of our family system.

In conclusion, and by way of recapitulation, we would say, while the spirit and practice under the open, or family system, tend so naturally to lessen the stigma of a boy's being "sent to the reform school," and which would grow still less as the system became still firmer established and improved, yet the form of commitment to the reformatory has much to do in the opprobrium attaching to the history of "reform school boys." Surely it is enough to have in the judge, in the unostentatious constabulary, and necessary legal formalities, features dignified and august, without the brutal terrorism to a child of handcuffs and shackles ! Is this remark thought an exaggerated one? We have seen, many times, small boys accompanied to the reformatory by two ablebodied policemen, and manacled at that!

Time sentences should never be authorized, and a system of merits should be used until the boy has reached a sufficient degree of honor to permit him to be released on probation, to be returned to the school if need be.

In government and instruction the officers and teachers should have the incentive of diplomas held out to them, that professional pride may be exalted and aroused. And a very prominent aim should be to bring into service as officers and teachers, the boys

themselves. This incentive will work wonders in efforts to virtuous aspiration. In the Ohio school this policy was so happily pursued that many of the inmates were employed as elder brothers, and several have held and are now holding important positions as officers in other reformatories.

The voice of criticism will continue to be heard here and there against the family system. Some of it will be honest and sincere misgiving; other will be, as it often has been, the voice of prejudice, or the results of partial and inadequate investigation. But here again let us remind the objector of some very reasonable considerations. A theory and principle may be perfectly sound and practicable, and yet be singularly abortive by maladministration. No philanthropic institution can stand the freaks of partisan politics. It cannot stand to have its places of trust filled by inadequacy and mediocrity.

And when the heads of the old prison plans of reform, under the pressure of a better humanity in public opinion, make their flying visits to the family reformatories of the land, let them see and report what is so glaringly apparent to all eyes, except those blinded by greed of place and power, if the canker of party politics is not destroying the vitality of the institution in the inefficiency or positive badness of those who control and administer them.

And now, fellow-citizen, legislator and philanthropist! we appeal to you by the promise of these fundamental principles so reasonably natural and philosophic, and by the testimony of these actual facts, to give your renewed interest, your sympathy and active efforts toward a system of juvenile reform, that holds in store such shining promise of welfare to the State, such hope to the destinies of our neglected and wayward youth, and such manifest fulfilment to the will of God.

And the confidence of our statements is made if possible more assured, and the urgency of our appeal more intense, now that we have had a practical experience under both systems: the open or family, the congregate or prison.

1

V. THE BEST METHOD OF FOUNDING CHILDREN'S CHARITIES

IN TOWNS AND VILLAGES.

BY CHARLES L. BRACE.

Read June 30, 1880, by Mr. Moore Dupoy.

13.

It is to be assumed that almost every town and village has its groups or families of poor, vicious and neglected children. They become the terror and danger of their communities, and grow up gradually to endanger prosperity, threaten life, and disturb the whole order and morality of the localities where they live. If entirely neglected, they become the petty thieves, robbers, burglars, vagrants and tramps of their counties, and they help to swell that great tide of pauperism and crime which fill our almshouses and jails. What a single neglected pauper child can return in evils and curses to the community for its neglect is wonderfully shown in the statistics collected a few years since, by the New York Prison Association, in regard to the child in Ulster county, called "Margaret, Mother of Criminals." From those statistics it appears that this child and her vagrant sisters left 709 descendants, of whom 128 were known to be prostitutes, 18 kept houses of bad repute, 67 were diseased and cared for by the public, 142 received out-door relief during an aggregate number of 734 years, 64 were in the almshouse, and 76 were publicly recorded as criminals, having committed 115 offences and been 116 years in jails and prisons. The whole cost of this vagrant child and her sisters to Ulster county and the State of New York, in the property stolen and destroyed, and the public expense of maintenance and trial, is carefully estimated by Mr. Dugdale at $1,023,600.

Each village and town contains, no doubt, little children who are laying up a like harvest of evils and curses to their own communities during future years. The practical question then arises: What is the best method of reaching these children with moral influences, and of making them industrious producers, good citizens, and, if possible, Christian men and women?

VILLAGE CHARITIES.

I. In a village the methods of influence are somewhat different from those in a town or city. There is not so much opportunity