TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. ISS 



Yet, although in the United States for thirty years, and in France and Germany for 

 a long period, the school had been considered a fitter place than the gaol for juvenile 

 delinquents, our own country had forgotten that a child was a child, and till August 

 1854 had compelled magistrates and judges to punish them as adults. The act 17 

 and 18 Vict., chap. 86, allows magistrates to sentence young persons under sixteen 

 to a reformatory school under legal detention ; the schools being private, but under 

 government certificate and inspection, and the superintendents receiving from Govern- 

 ment five shillings per week for each child so sent. Further aid, in the establishment 

 and working of schools, is provided by recent minutes of the Committee of Council on 

 Fiducation ; and acts have been passed during the present and the last sessions, to 

 facilitate the practical workings of the original measure. This indeed must simply be 

 regarded as tentative, the establishment of Reformatory Institutions being left to the 

 accidents of private benevolence, and the old laws still remaining in force. Hence it 

 \i.a.Y^ensi\iaXin somelarge citiesandtownsnot a child has been sent to any such institution, 

 though schools exist in the immediate neighbourhood, and young delinquents swarm 

 in their streets who are receiving a gaol education in short and repeated imprison- 

 ments. This painful fact shows the necessity of a law making it compulsory on 

 magistrates to send to a Reformatory all children on a second conviction ; and on a 

 first, all children whose circumstances prove that they cannot escape from crime if 

 left to themselves. 



It is also found that great differences exist in the length of impriaonment to which 

 a child is subjected before transmission to a Reformatory School, — the time being often 

 proportioned to the magnitude of the same crime in the adult, and not to the circum- 

 stances of the child, who often, if of tender years, suffers not a little from the rigours 

 of the system. The experience of four years in the management of Reformatory 

 Schools, and a close observation of the effects of diflferent modes of treatment on both 

 boys and girls, leads the writer to the conviction, that while a lengthened imprison- 

 ment is most injurious to the physical and mental health of the child, and while his 

 conduct in prison is in no way a criterion of his penitence or future course, yet the 

 influence of a short seclusion in a separate cell, under the good influence now happily 

 administered to such prisoners, prepares the child to receive in a grateful and sub- 

 missive spirit the advantages held out in the school, and makes him understand the 

 consequences which his past conduct would entail on him in future life. 



Government has power to compel parents to pay a larger or smaller proportion of 

 the weekly cost of the child's maintenance ; a power already enforced in Bristol and 

 other towns. Thus all cause of fear lest the advantages of the school should be a 

 premium on vice or a relief to the natural guardians, is removed. 



Reasons were given for the well-ascertained fact that girls of the criminal class are 

 far worse than boys, and more difficult to manage. The object is to restore the young 

 girl to the natural condition of childhood, and fit her for the social duties of life. The 

 writer's experience as manager of the Red Lodge Girls' Reformatory School, Bristol, 

 leads her to give the following recommendations. 



1 . A healthy physical state to be attained, with a view to moral reformation. Venti- 

 lation, cleanliness, temperature. Out-door play and walks in the country, to supply 

 the want of boys' agricultural labour. Food sufficient, and of a more nourishing de- 

 scription than is allowed in most pauper schools, the girls having been previously 

 accustomed to a stimulating diet. 



2. The child must be brought under steady regular restraint, administered with a 

 firm, equal, but loving hand. 



3. They must be trained to feel themselves apart of society ; not to have the dress 

 of a caste; and to have intercourse, as far as possible, with persons of virtuous cha- 

 racter and loving spirit. 



4. The healthy affections must be cultivated ; the natural ties cherished ; and the 

 school made a home, and a happy one. 



5. The activity and love of amusement natural to childhood should be cultivated in 

 a healthy and innocent manner. Many useful lessons respecting social rights may 

 be built upon it. 



6. Rewards and punishments should be made the natural consequences of actions. 

 Bribery to do right as well as angry infliction of pain should be avoided. The child 

 should be taught to surpass not others, but herself. 



7. Children should be gradually brought into situations of trust. It is only in pro- 



