92 THE WORLD'S WORKERS. 



to injure the plants. In the buildings adjoining the 

 school, too, she had some rooms fitted up in which 

 poor homeless boys could have a night's lodging on 

 occasion. 



The ragged schools, however, benefited only the 

 poor and destitute ; and tuned as her ear was to the 

 cry of the miserable, the air for her was vocal on all 

 sides with the groan of the criminals. 



At length, to her great joy, she saw the way open 

 before her, and she resolved to act. The task which 

 she now set herself was neither more nor less than the 

 establishment in Bristol of a reformatory school where 

 young thieves and law-breakers could be trained and 

 disciplined into ways of righteousness. For a long 

 time she had believed the change could be effected ; 

 now she would actually try the experiment. If she 

 could prove that to reform young offenders was 

 possible, others might be willing to make a like trial. 



The first thing was to find suitable premises for the 

 new school. Mary Carpenter and the friends who 

 worked with her were thoroughly convinced of the im- 

 portance of their school being situated in the country. 

 They believed that country occupations, such as 

 working on a farm, attending to a garden, and looking 

 after live stock, were specially likely to interest and 

 benefit boys who had been brought up in the misery 

 of a town life, and they were anxious too that these 

 poor children should have an opportunity of under- 

 standing the wonders of Nature. 



