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to school for a long term. If these children had been 

 sent to reformatories they would have had to mix 

 with companions more degraded than themselves ; if 

 they had been sent to ordinary national or British 

 schools they would have done harm to the manage- 

 able, respectable children attending there. What was 

 wanted was that they should be sent to industrial 

 schools, where they could be brought into habits of 

 order, and taught a trade, and given a chance to 

 become respectable members of society. 



The Industrial Schools Act was passed in 1857, 

 and immediately Miss Carpenter established a school 

 of the sort required in Bristol. Here boys who would, 

 if left alone, have undoubtedly fallen into trouble and 

 disgrace, were trained and cared for, and as they 

 became old enough to work for their own living were 

 placed in situations and given a fair start in life. 

 Many of these boys were sent abroad and settled in 

 Canada and the United States. There never seemed 

 to be any difficulty in providing for them after they 

 had passed through this school, because gentlemen 

 in business had such confidence in Miss Carpenter's 

 system of education. Numbers of boys were in this 

 way saved from destruction, and turned into respect- 

 able members of society. 



For years Mary Carpenter was exceedingly busy 

 as a writer. She was the author not only of books, 

 but of innumerable pamphlets and treatises on tin- 

 subject which engrossed her life. Her first important 

 H 2 



