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for a combined effort to improve this class of children, and they must be left more to the individual influence of benevolent men and women. Each well-to-do and Christian family will naturally know in their town some semi-vagrant and half-criminal family, living on the outskirts of the village. They have been, perhaps, in the habit of giving their charities to such a family, but if they would raise them above the condition of pauperism, they must make every gift dependent on the children doing some little job of work, attending the village school, or receiving some instruction. By a steady practice of this kind, continued through years, they will gradually make the children self-supporting, break up their habits of begging and vagrancy, and create new habits of order, cleanliness, and love of education. It may be that they will, at length, implant in these young minds that germ which is the source of the highest moral life, even the love of Christ and God. All this can only be effected by constant individual effort and personal sympathy. It may be, however, that this family have inherited such strong tendencies to vagrancy and crime, and live in such vile surroundings that no moral influence, which can be applied in the village, can really reach it. In that case, the object of the benevolent helper should be to endeavor to break up the vicious family. The boys, if possible, should be sent off to distant farms or conveyed to places of work far away, where all their associations are changed. If they have begun to be vagrants and petty criminals, they should be placed for a year or two in some "family reformatory" at a distance, in order to break up their habits, and then, after a short residence there, should be transferred to individual homes far away. It will often be found that such lads, when once all their associations and surroundings are changed, are no worse than the ordinary boys of the community; and if their vagrant propensities be gratified naturally in a free life on the borders, they may turn out very good trappers, hunters or pioneers, and never fall again under the penalty of the law.

With the girls, the case is more difficult. But if they be taken young enough, and be transplanted to far-away homes where they are respected and have a great deal of work to do, and where there is much happy social life, they will often turn out very well, marrying decently, and become respected wives and mothers. If, however, they have passed the line of virtue, the only course seems to be to place them in "family reformatory" schools, and

gradually do away with the evil effects of their former vicious lives. The chances, however, for such cases, as our reformatories are usually constituted, are not very favorable. The ordinary crowded "Magdalen Asylum" seems often only to give new suggestions of vice to these unfortunate young girls.

CITY CHARITIES.

II. The founding of a children's charity in a town or city is an easier thing than in a village, on account of the greater combination of workers which can be obtained, and the more abundant means accessible.

(1) The first steps should be to ascertain the quarter of the town in which there is the most childish poverty or vice. Here the best plan seems to be to begin by hiring a plain room which shall be used as a reading-room or night-school. A warm-hearted and judicious person, if possible a woman, should be put in charge. The room should be made warm and light for the winter evenings, and a cool and pleasant place of resort in summer. It should be furnished with picture papers and instructive books and journals. The street-boys and vagrant girls should be made to understand that this is a sort of club-room for their benefit. The matron will soon discover the peculiar wants and troubles of the poor children who drift into the room; some she will find eager to learn in books; others wanting work and situations; others with sick parents or friends needing medicine and advice; others requiring a little loan to start them in ways of self-support; others requiring but slight assistance to enable them to breast the waves of poverty; others falling into difficulties and misfortunes with the officers of the law, where a kind word may save them from prison; others anxious to learn sewing or some trade which shall keep them above pauperism, and still others with souls brutalized and ignorant, but yet sensitive to words of religious truth and to the inspiration of Christian teaching.

HALF-TIME SCHOOLS.

(2) The next step in the work of improvement in these destitute children will naturally be to open a night-school in the room for those who are busy during the day, and therefore cannot attend the ordinary public schools. Such a school should be what is called in England a "half-time" school. It should open at three or four

o'clock in the afternoon, when the most important part of the street-child's work is over; should go on till six, open again at seven, and close at nine. There should be much music in these schools. The exercises should be spirited, and, as far as possible, oral, and a great deal of work must be done on the blackboard, as the children are, of course, tired by the labors of the day. Great tact should be shown by the teacher in not exposing too much the ignorance of the pupils, as many a boy of fifteen or twenty may come in to learn his letters. From the experience in New York, it is found that a woman in a night-school can control the roughest of these lads. She will naturally set a great deal of value on writing and number lessons, as these are very important, practically, to the boys. It will not be necessary to provide food for these night-schools, as the members are generally earning their own bread; but little festivals should be celebrated, and occasional entertainments be given to the children. Much instruction and amusement may be conveyed by means of the magic lantern and solar microscope. Such schools in our cities will probably be open during the six winter and autumn months, as it is difficult, in many cases, to gather street-children into the night-schools during the

summer.

DAY INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS.

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(3) The next important measure is the foundation of a 'day industrial school." This school is designed to reach such children as are necessarily irregular in their attendance at the public schools, owing to their being employed a part of the day on the streets or at home. It includes, also, all such as are too filthy, ragged, verminous or vagrant to attend school with the children of the decent laboring class. Many of them will only be induced to enter a school by the personal efforts of a visitor, or by the hope of securing food and clothing. Some will, perhaps, be driven in by the operation of the "compulsory law," and all will belong to an irregular, destitute, and semi-vagrant class. They will be required to be managed with great tact and discretion by a skilful teacher; they will need various conveniences for bathing, cleaning, and the getting rid of vermin; they must be supplied with a simple meal at noon, and shoes and clothing will be given as a reward for industry and good conduct. The children are to be taught, first of all, hand-sewing, to make and mend their own clothes, to darn stock

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ings, to work on the sewing machine, and to carry on various simple trades. Part of the day must be given to common-school branches, and a part to industrial work. Much use should be made of music and singing as a means of education. A little "savings bank" should be attached to every school, paying a high rate of interest in order to lead the children into habits of saving. A "kindergarten" in the primary department is extremely useful for awakening the faculties of the youngest children, and remarkable progress may be made with these little ones in the science of numbers, both in addition, multiplication, and fractions as applied to concrete objects, such as cubical blocks and their divisions. A "kitchen garden" will often train the older children in household branches, which will be very useful afterwards to them as domestics. A "crêche" or "nursery" is an admirable adjunct, as enabling the older children to be schooled while the babies are cared for in a common room.

It is indispensable for the success of the industrial school that volunteers should do a considerable portion of the work. They bring to the enterprise a freshness and enthusiasm which nothing else can give. The brunt and burden of the labor, however, will always fall upon the salaried teachers. The expense of such schools, for salaries, rents, fuel, clothing and food, will average from $15 to $20 per head annually for each scholar of the average number attending daily. These schools may contain both sexes, but they should not seek to retain the pupils after the ages of 13 or 14, but rather push them forth into places where they. can support themselves.

LODGING HOUSES.

(4) The next great step in improving this class of children, should be to make provision for the homeless. Nothing is better in this respect than the boys' and girls' "lodging houses." plain room or loft is to be hired, furnished with iron bunks, or double bedsteads, and plain, comfortable bedding, with little lockers for the children's clothes, and plenty of bathing room, foot-baths and water appliances. Great care should be taken as to ventilation and cleanliness; and, in the boys' lodging house, no boys, except very young lads, should be allowed to stay about the building during the day. Each one will pay a small sum for his lodgings and meals, and will go forth in the morning to earn his

own living. Every effort characteristic of the class, absolutely destitute, money should be loaned them to start in street trades. A "savings bank" must be attached to the house, to cultivate habits of economy. A "gymnasium" is useful as a competitor for places of low amusement; and a drying-room, to dry the wet clothes of the lads after a stormy day, should, if possible, be added. In the girls' lodging house, the inmates will naturally be more in the house, and the labor in the building will be largely carried on by them. With dress-making and laundry departments, a girls' lodging house can mainly pay its own way. The average net annual expense per head in these lodging houses will be only from $40 to $50, including rent, salaries, food, clothing, and all items.

must be made to preserve the best their power of self-help. If they are

"PLACING OUT."

(5) All the various branches should be made the feeders for the highest work of a children's charity, which is the transference of homeless and abandoned children, who are exposed to every temptation, to good homes in families and on farms in the country. By care and judgment, with a thorough organization, great numbers of the unfortunate children in our towns and cities, who have not yet begun criminal courses, can be placed at small expense where they will soon earn their own living, become industrious producers, and honest, perhaps Christian, men and women. There is an almost endless demand in the country for children's labor in families and on farms, and experience shows that a young child transplanted from the city, to such homes as abound in our rural districts, will often drop his evil habits and do better than the average children of our communities. This "placing-out" movement must, however, be conducted with great caution. The poor are naturally very suspicious and sensitive in regard to such a disposal of their children, and reasons of bigotry or superstition often come in to obstruct the benevolent effort. On the other hand, the rural districts are naturally fearful lest the juvenile poverty and crime of the cities should be drained into their localities. One or two cases which may have turned out failures, will often cause hundreds of successes to be forgotten, and thus make the whole movement unpopular. Still, care and wisdom on one side, and patience and fair-mindedness on the other, will justify the "placing-out" system

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