MARY CARPENTER. 91 



classes of poor children, the destitute, the homeless, 

 and the criminal, there ought to be different sorts of 

 schools ; good free day schools and industrial schools 

 for the former, and reformatory schools for the thieves 

 and vagabonds. These ideas she stated clearly in a 

 book which about this time she published, and which 

 was entitled " Reformatory Schools for the Children 

 of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes and for Juve- 

 nile Offenders." 



Mary Carpenter would have been very unlike 

 herself if, seeing that a great evil existed, and feel- 

 ing sure that something could be done to remedy it, 

 she had not at once set to work. True, she was 

 already fully occupied, not only in trying to rouse 

 public attention to the condition of juvenile criminals, 

 but also on her ragged school and night and day 

 school. The ragged school at this time, that is about 

 the year 1850, had just been enlarged. Bath-room 

 and wash-houses had been added to it, and one 

 portion of the squalid court in which it was situated 

 had been turned into a playground, where the boys 

 could play merrily without being exposed to the 

 temptations of the street. It is interesting to be told, 

 because it shows how Miss Carpenter would have 

 sympathised with some of the workers of to-day, that 

 in this playground creepers were trained against the 

 walls, and that the benevolent lady who had arranged 

 everything, used to watch the lads at their play, and 

 was pleased when she saw that they were careful not 



