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 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 XXXIV.
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 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.
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.
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?
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
"PLACING-OUT SYSTEM."
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 9,000
_eleves_ from 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 FAMILY PLAN.
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.
CHAPTER XXXV.
RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION FOR STREET-CHILDREN.
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.
BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.
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 a
_tabula rasa_ here, 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!
CHAPTER XXXVI.
DECREASE OF JUVENILE CRIME IN NEW YORK.
THE COST OF PUNISHMENT AND PREVENTION.
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
THE BROTHERS.
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.
PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT COMPARED.
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 the _enfants perdus_ of
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.
CRIME CHECKED.
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, and _vice 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
CRIMES CHECKED AMONG THE BOYS
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.
ARRESTS.
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.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE CAUSES OF THE SUCCESS OF THE WORK.
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.
The _employes_ have 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 single _employe_, 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.
THE SECTARIAN DANGER.
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.
END.