ON THE ABERDEEN INDUSTRIAL FEEDING SCHOOLS. 49 



There is so much apparent force in these considerations, that it is only 

 when the subject is viewed in all its relations, and especially when the light 

 of God's word is brought to bear upon it, that a rightful decision of the 

 question can be attained. 



The family is the place ordained and prepared by God for the training 

 and up-bringing of children, and this is an ordinance which man can never 

 infringe with impunity. 



To collect numbers of children and manage them in masses is sure to de- 

 stroy individuality of character, while providing everything for them effectu- 

 ally destroys energy of character, and prevents the acquirement of habits of 

 industry. Under such treatment abundance of knowledge may be commu- 

 nicated, but no training for the active struggle of life can be given. The 

 whole system is artificial and foreign to the state of that society in which the 

 children are soon to take their places. 



The experiment has been fully tried in Scotland by the hospitals so pro- 

 fusely endowed, and long erroneously considered as objects of self-gratula- 

 tion by every Scotchman, and in England by the poorhouse schools ; and in 

 both cases has signally failed. The inmates take their places in the world 

 with their heads stored, it may be, with valuable knowledge, and even quite 

 capable of passing a strict examination in many branches, but with all their 

 energies deadened through want of use, and wholly incapable of applying 

 their knowledge to any useful purpose, unable to rely upon their own exer- 

 tions because they have been trained up in dependence upon others for all 

 they need. 



The first practical lesson to be impressed on the mind of every child, and 

 especially on those who have to support themselves in life by their labour, is 

 that they must, under God, depend on their own exertions for success. In 

 an hospital, or a poorhouse, no such lesson is or can be taught ; on the con- 

 trary, they are taught practically that they may safely depend for everything 

 on others. This is not the wish nor the intention of the hospital or poor- 

 house managers, but the necessary result of their systems. 



The other aspect of the question, arising from the contamination to be 

 dreaded from a wicked parent's home, is still more serious. 



At first sight it looks absurd to train a child carefully for the greater part 

 of the day, and then deliberately, knowingly, to expose him during the re- 

 maining hours to see and hear all that is offensive and abominable in the con- 

 duct and language of a drunken mother or an abandoned father, or vicious, 

 dissolute neighbours. 



If the object to be attained were to train up a child in absolute ignorance 

 of moral evil, then a well-regulated hospital would be exactly what is re- 

 quired ; but no man will venture to maintain that this is the sort of training 

 required to adapt a child for a useful life. 



Our business is not to train up in ignorance of the existence of evil, but 

 to teach children what sin really is in itself, and in its consequences ; how 

 hateful it is to God, how ruinous to man. This is the Bible mode of teach- 

 ing children as well as men and women, arid from that certain rule we never 

 can depart with impunity. 



It is most painful to think of the moral evils to be witnessed in many of 

 the dwellings of our crowded cities, and every exertion should be made to 

 cause them to cease ; for while they exist they go far to neutralize every effort 

 for the good of the poorest classes, and go on producing a steady supply of 

 neglected juveniles; but that is not the present question ; it is, What is the 

 best way of bringing up the children belonging to that class of society and 



1859. e 



