58 report — 1859. 



mission to do what they pleased, and when they became troublesome to 

 others, the prison, and perhaps the lash, were the only remedies applied. 



In 1841 the first Aberdeen School of Industry was opened; the experiment 

 went on and prospered ; the example was followed ; other towns opened simi- 

 lar schools ; the system was found to do much good wherever it was tried. 

 The public became more and more interested, for the good done was very 

 perceptible, and the money-cost was very small ; and as each town easily 

 furnished a few zealous ladies and gentlemen to superintend the work, they 

 were thankfully permitted to do so. 



Then it became very evident that to punish criminals as of old was very 

 costly, and rarely led to their reformation ; but that to prevent crime was 

 comparatively easy, and also far less costly. 



These opinions gradually established themselves in the public mind, and 

 from it of course took possession of the Legislature; and in about fourteen 

 years from the opening of the first Industrial School, the Imperial Legislature 

 passed the two leading statutes which firmly established them as fixed por- 

 tions of our social system, and finally adopted the principle of endeavouring 

 to prevent rather than to punish and reform. 



Hitherto, of course, only partial and local results are seen ; soon, greater 

 and more extensive are to be expected. 



What, then, are the principles on which these schools depend for success? 

 They are so very simple that there is no small risk of their being overlooked 

 in carrying out the actual working. 



The schools supply what the children need, and what they cannot get for 

 themselves — food, teaching, training ; but they leave their energies free, they 

 only seek to turn them from evil to good. Energy, activity, diligence need 

 to be fostered in the young quite as much as their mental faculties, and any 

 system of dealing with them which deadens these is fatal to future success. 

 The want of men of eminence from among the tens of thousands who have 

 been educated in poor-houses and hospitals, combined with the pre-eminence 

 of men who have struggled in early life against every difficulty, prove the 

 truth of this. It is no kindness to any one to deprive him of self-reliance, 

 though it is often less troublesome than to enable him to depend on himself. 



The Legislature has done well in the encouragement it has given to these 

 schools, but it will be a fatal step if they try to do too much, and place them 

 entirely on public support. It is absolutely necessary that a large amount 

 of voluntary unpaid energy enter into the working out of the system. 



There seems to be a social principle, not yet very much appreciated or 

 understood, which makes it necessary that the best laws shall always be 

 supplemented by private voluntary enterprise. 



Let the law provide as it may for the poor, for the sick, for the criminal, 

 there will always be found work just at the boundaries reached by the law 

 which must be undertaken by the free-will enterprise of individual activity ; 

 otherwise there will be great blots and scars on the face of our social system, 

 great evils without remedies ; and this is in truth a vast blessing conferred 

 by God on man, for it provides work equally advantageous to the rich and 

 to the poor. 



The principle which ought to govern all connected with the work of Indus- 

 trial Schools is very extensive, but it is very simple, — earnest, hearty love of 

 the outcast members of the human family viewed as immortal beings. 



As the love of God to man is the source of all human happiness, so the 

 love of men to one another is the great remedy for the social evils which 

 afflict this earth. 



The highest display of God's love to man is manifested in the great scheme 



