176 
Farming and Agricultural Training in 
conditionally under the provisions of the Parkhurst Act (1 & 2 
Vict. cap. 82). * 
In 1848 Mr. Turner induced the Committee of the Philan- 
thropic Society, using his own words, 
" to take the step which was the commencement of the Keformatory move- 
ment on its present basis by removing their school from London and esta- 
blishing their now well-known Farm School at Redhill, in Surrey, adopting 
and following out the ideas and plans on which the celebrated M. de 
Metz had founded so successfully the agricultural colony of Mettray, in 
France.f For carrying out this enterprise the first step was to visit and 
thoroughly examine the Mettray School, which I did in conjunction with the 
late Mr. Paynter, one of the Metrojjolitan Police Magistrates; the second 
was to interest the English public in the jirovisions of the French Penal Code, 
by which ofienders imder sixteen years of age are held to have acted ' sans 
discernement^ i.e. without sufficient knowledge of right and wrong, and to 
require correctional training rather than penal treatment ; the third was to 
work out the Mettray plans and priuciples upon an English footing." 
Mr. Turner thus records the commencement of the establish- 
* " Tiie third distinguishing feature of the English system, which I regard as 
one of the keystones of its success, has been that, while assisted and sui^eriu- 
tended by the State, the schools are essentially conducted and controlled by 
voluntary management, and have throughout retained an independent and par- 
tially charitable character. 
" This has secured two essential advantages ; on the one liand, it has opened 
to the inmates of the schools means and opportunities of employment and 
openings for gaining an independent hvelihood on their discharge from detention, 
which no juvenile house of correction under purely ofiBeial management, whether 
Government or magisterial, could have given them, enlisting and interesting in 
■iheir disposal private individuals of all classes, and allowing them to enter life 
without any brand or drawback from the character of the place they came from, 
[substituting the school and benevolent asylum for what must always have had 
more or less of the character of a prison." — Rev. Sydney Tcrnee. 
t The agricultural colony of Mettray was founded in 1839 by M. de Metz, an 
eminent Judge of the French Royal Court of Justice, who resigned his high 
position for the purpose of devoting his life to the reformation and education of 
young criminals. After having visited the principal eslabbshments which in those 
days existed for the treatment of young criminals, in England, Belgium,*Hollaud, 
Gennany, and the United States, he determined to take as his model the Rauheu 
Haus Reformatory School at Horn, near Homburg, which had been founded by 
M. Wichcrn in 1833. At this establishment the inmates were divided into groups 
or " families'' of a dozen children, each family having its own paternal head and 
its separate habitation. To enable M. de INIetz to carry out this idea successfully, 
one of his first efforts was to enable a sufficient number of men to be properly 
trained as superintendents of houses ; therefore, soon after the young criminals 
began to arrive at Mettray, he established a special school for the training of 
superintendents, or " chefs de famille," as they were called. This training-school 
is still an integral part of the Mettray Reformatory. It is only necessary to add 
that, in the course of 1839, four " chalets " for the reception of the " colons " were 
erected, and th:ttby June 7tli, 1840, as many as 82 children had been received. Now 
the establishment consists of ten chalets, the training school, director's residence, 
church, &c., and several farms and farm-houses in the neighbourhood, — the total 
number of inmates being about 800, of whom live-sixths are employed in 
agriculture. I visited this Reformatory a few years ago, and was much struck 
with the excellence of all the arrangements. A very notewortliy point is the 
system of traiuing the persona who arc to be placed in authority over the imnales. 
—II. M. J. 
