Reformatory Schools (1851)

For the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes and for Juvenile Of

Mary Carpenter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136222436
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This is Volume II of series of eight on the Social History of Education. Originally published in 1851, this study looks into 'juvenile depravity' and the need for education offering early sound, moral, religious and industrial training of a child and the use of reformatory schools as solution.

CHAPTER I.

CONDITION OF THE CHILDREN OF THE"PERISHING AND DANGEROUS"CLASSES-FUNDAMENTAL PRIN­ CIPLES TO BE ADOPTED IN SCHOOLS FOR THEM.

HAVING now, it is hoped, shown the necessity of ap­ plying a system of sound moral and religious training to the children of the dangerous classes, we proceed to consider the principles on which Schools adapted to such a purpose should be established.

Let us, however, first endeavour to gain some in-­sight into the real position and character of the children whom we desire to rescue from their moral degradation.

The external aspect of these poor children is cal­ culated to excite compassion in any heart not ren­ dered callous by absorption in the world's selfish interests;-their tattered garments, their bare feet, their starved look, their mean and degraded aspect, on which the parent's vice has imprinted legible cha­ racters even in infancy,-must touch even those who regard them only as young beings, susceptible as our own children of privation and suffering. But let us look at them as the future actors in the world's theatre, destined to increase the vast amount of.evil now existing if theil:- course is not arrested,-and still more as the heirs of an immortality the condition of which is dependent on their life on earth,-and the painful external aspect loses its horrors in comparison with the infinitely greater dangers which attack the immortal spirits of these young creatures. Truly says Dickens,-

"There is not one of these-not one-but sows a harvest that mankind must reap. From every seed of evil in this bog a field of ruin is grown, that shall be gathered in, and garnered up, and sown again in many places in the world, until regions are overspread with wickedness enough to raise the waters of another deluge. Open and unpunished murder in a city's streets would be less guilty in its daily toleration, than one such spectacle as this. There is not a father, by whose side in his daily or his nightly walk these creatures pass; there is not a mother among all the ranks of loving mothers in this land; there is no one risen from the state of childhood, but shall be responsible in his or her degree for this enormity. '!'here is not a country throughout the earth on which it would not bring a curse. The1-e is no religion on earth that it would not deny. There is no people upon earth it would not put to shame."

Let us select a few out of the many pictures drawn by eye-witnesses, of the scenes that present them­ selves to those who attempt the work of juvenile reformation.

The following is from the diary of the master of a London Ragged School, and is extracted from the Sunday School Teacher's Magazine, April 1850.

"October 29,-0n the way to the school this morning in company with ___,, who has been appointed to act as my assistant, we were salllted by women and boys as we went along, in a most singular manner. I cannot say that the excla­ mations and gestures of these people were significant of dis­ pleasure, but rather the reverse; however, their coarse and brutal manners had a most disheartening influence on me. I looked in vain for some manifestation of feeling that would enable me to 'thank God and take courage.' It was a dismal scene-no appearance of thrift or industry, nothing but squalid wretchedness and dirt and idleness;-the lanes leading to the school were full of men, women, and children, shouting, gossiping, swearing and laughing in a most discordant and un­ natmal manner. The whole population SE'Pmed to be on the eve of a great outbreak of one kind or another; ready for any­ thing but work. These lanes are a moral hell. The place and the pt·ople beggars description. * * * No school can possi­ bly be worse than this. It were an easy task to get attention f1·om savages; a white man's appearance would ensure him some sort of regard; but here the very appearance of one's coat is to them the badge of class and respectability;—for although they may not know the meaning of the word, they know very well, or nt least feel, that we are the representatit,es of beings with whom they hnve ever considered themselves at wa1·. This is not theory, but fact."Fearful scenes soon oc­ curred. After separating two girls who had been fighting and yelling most furiously, anrl sending one home who was severl'ly hurt, he continues,"I had not been quiet for ten minutes when a fearful outbreak took place. Seven women 1·ushed into the school; the stairs were full besides; and out side at least fifty women had collected. These were the mothers and friends of the girls who had fought. Having abused me in no measured terms-and, if I mistake not, they col­ lared me-they proceeded to fight. —— remonstrated with one woman, and I with the others; so we stopped their battle. Our boys cheered most tremendously. The women swore and shtieked. Those outside (several men among them) responded. Never surely was such a noise heard before. I did not believe that human beings resident in this most Christian metropolis could so behave."

Can we wonder if juvenile crime increases when the young are growing up under such influences ? Truly has it been said,"Train up a child in the way he should not go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."

But these had homes which they could claim;__ many, perhaps the greater number, are early thrown on the world to fight the"battle of life"single­ handed. Here is a graphic description of such, who assembled at the opening of a Ragged School situated in Old Pye-street, Westminster; it is extracted from the Ragged School Union Magazine, January, 1849.

"One fine Sabbath afternoon, in the month of April, when the streets were unusually crowded, after having provided a large room, we went forth in the company of a poor tinker (the only person in the neighbourhood who would render us any assistance), to gather together these poor and outcast children of the streets. After no small t>ffort, forty were taken to the room, all of whom looked as wild as deer taken from the mountains, and penned up within the hurdles, when approached by man; the matted hair, the mud-covered face, hands, and feet, the ragged and tattered clothes, that served as an apology to cover their nakedness, gave the group a very grotesque appearance, and would have been a fine subject for the painter's pencil. Little was done that afternoon besides taking their names, and even in this we had to encounter difficulties. Beginning with the first bench, a boy was asked, 'What is yom: name!' He answered, ' They calls me Billy.' ' Where do you live !' 'I lives in that yrr street down the way, at mother M———'srag shop; I have a tother brother, but I am older than he.' The next boy was ten years of age; he said his name was Dick. ' Any other name besides Dick !' ' No, they calls me Dick; I sells matches in the streets, and live in that tother room next to Jimmy that sells oranges.' Such is a specimen of the answers given to questions respecting names, age, and residence !"

No way strange is it that scenes like these should occur at the openings of Ragged Schools, when their life is such, as is derived from personal narra­ tives, and facts elicited by careful examination, registered in the pages of the Ragged School Maga- zine. The history of the"Arab of the City'' contains passages descriptive of a state of moral degradation incredible to those who have moved only in the more favoured classes of society; the reader who can realize them as he peruses them, must shndder. Here are a few specimens of the frequent position of children of the class we are considering, and probably not the most degraded, for they are from a number selected for emigration:————

"W. L.-Slept at night under stairs, or behind doors on a little straw with a sack to cover him. Only took off his clothes to mend, or to go in the water to get clean. Father dead eight years; mother left him in a workhouse when two yeaTS old, and does not know her; saw her on Sunday morning going to church, did not know her then; was told it was his mother. Runs messages for the stall-women in Westminster; been in this condition for at least three years.

"J. W.—No home; sleeps at Mrs. B.'s lodging-house when he has money; pays threepence a night for his bed; when no money, sleeps in carts or on landings about four nights a week. Father deserted mother fifteen years; mother dead two years. Occasionally employed as errand boy,or doing jobs.

"C. S.—Father deal! four years ago; was a drunkard; mother works at slop-work; never went to any but the Ragged School; has two sisters and four brothers."

Where indeed could these seven poor children gain any knowledge to help them through this world to the next, but at such a school?

"D. F., aged about 14.—Mother dead several years; father a drunkard and deserted him about three years ago. Has since lived as he best could; sometimes going errands, sometimes begging and thieving. Slept in lodging-houses when he had money, but very often walked the streets at night, or lay under arches m· door-steps. Has only one brother, be lives by thieving. Does not know where he is; has no other friend that he knows; never learnt to read; was badly off; picked a hand­ kerchief out of a gentleman's pocket, and was caught by a policeman. (What follows is the remedy applied by society to cure this deserted boy of a sinful course to which circumstances seemed to impel him, with its results to the individual and to society.) Sent to Giltspur-street prison; was fed on bread and water. Instructed every day by the chaplain and school­ master; much impressed with whP.t the chaplain said; felt anxious to do better; behaved well in prison. Was ' well flogged' the morning he left; back bruised, but not quite bleed­ ing. Was then turned into the streets ragged, barefooted, friendless, homeless, penniless. Walked about the streets till afternoon, when he received a penny from a gentleman to buy a loaf. Met next day with some expert thieves in the Minories;went along with them, and continues in a course of vagrancy and crime."—[ Ragged School Magazine, vol. ii, p. 61.]

The following is a specimen of the ordinary Police Reports of a weekly paper in a large town.— [Bristol Mercury, Feb. 15, 1851.]

"J. S, a boy about thirteen years of age, was committed for a month, for stealing a piece of bacon from a shop. The prisoner said that his father had been killed by a railway accident, and his mother had deserted him. It being his first offence, the Magis­ trates remitted the whipping, which generally forms a portion of the punishment of juvenile offenders."

What can this poor child do when dismissed from the only home he now possesses—the prison, if no guiding hand is extended to him. Can it be matter of wonder if he avenges himself on that society which has thus cast him in tender years upon the world, homeless, friendless, and with a prison brand upon him ? But retribution will assuredly come, sooner or later; for He, whose"words can never pass away,"has said" Inasmuch as he did it not unto one of the least of these my hreth1·en, ye did it not to me." But again, and on the very same day,

'' J. M., an intelligent little urchin, eight years of age, whose head barely reached above the table, was charged with sleeping, not on a 'bed of roses,' but on a bed of thorns which he had selected for his couch, in a garden near. A policeman in pass­ ing by, ht'aring some one cough in the enclosure, at four o'clock this morning, had dt'tectt'd the youthful oulprit. In reply to queries which were put to him, the prisoner said that his father bt'longed to Sheffield, and had come down to this neigh­ bolll·hood in the hope of finding work, but having had the mis­ fortune to beg of a police-inspt'ctor in plain clotht's, he was taken up and lodged in Hanley gaol. Prisont'r and his mother went about selling nt'edles; she lodged in a comt in Temple­ street, and was now suffering from a cold, and he not having taken enough to pay for his lodging last night, was, it would seem, afraid to go homt', and preferrt'd passing the night upon the cold, cold ground. The magistrates determined on send­ ing for his mother, and cautioning her as to how her son spent his evenings out in future."

Without commenting on the unfeeling levity of style of this paragraph, which is a painful indication of the common mode of viewing such cases, we would ask whether any thoughtful and Christian man can be­ hold a young child, who in the more favoured classes of society would be still in the nursery, first deprived by the arm of the law of him who should have been his support, next driven into the streets to find a maintenance for himself and mother, and then com­ pelled by fear to choose a night's lodging in the open air of a winter's month, rather than incur the risk of encountering his mother's anger. Is nothing but a magisterial rebuke to be a remedy for this poor child's position? But even this was not administered.

Bristol Mercury, March 1.-"J. M., was charged with sleep­ ing in the open air; the same hoy who had been found the other day literally sleeping on a bed of thorns. The boy, a good looking and intelligent child, said, in reply to the bench, that when be went down to where his mother had lodged, he could not find her.

"Q. ' Do you mean to say that you have not seen your mother since !'

''Boy (bursting into tears). 'No, sir, I have not.'

"Q. ' Where did you sleep the night before last !'

"Boy. 'I slept out in the Park, sir.'

"The magistrates now said it would not do for the boy to be about exposed in that manner; and they ordered an officer to take him up to St. Peter's Hospital."

How had the poor child passed his days since his last offence of sleeping on thorns? If for those few weeks of neglect society is burdened with him for life as a rogue or a pauper, it is only a just reply to the question it had virtually asked respecting him, and thousands like him,".Am I my brother's keeper?"

Now in all these cases it would really seem that a life of crime is inevitable;——we know that a life of degradation must necessarily be the portion of beings sunk from childhood in such an abyss, if no hand. is held out to rescue them;——but a large portion of those who attain the higher ranks in crime, (for an aristocracy is observed even here,) are from among those who might, but for their vice) fill a respectable position in society, This is the testimony of one whose experience entitles his opinion to the highest respect.

"I speak not now,'' says Mr. Clay,"of the utterly destitute and unsheltered,-the friendless and the fatherless; it is very rarely that they appear in the felon'a dock; but I speak of those young transgressors who have parents and homes ! Two bro­ thers, the elder about thirteen, the younger nine, were com­ mitted, a few weeks ago, charged with obtaining money on false pretences. I ascertained that the father grossly neglected his children, leaving them for days together without food, and that they had committed their offence in order to procure it. Is this a case,"he adds,"for the application of severity !"

The narratives of prisoners contained in his Reports of Preston Gaol (Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria-lane, London), almost invariably give similar instances of gross parental neglect as the original cause of the commencement of a vicious course, and show that if society had interfered, as in justice to itself it should have done, many who are now transported at the country's expense might have been in a position to pay their own way to the colonies, had they been differently treated. We have here a picture of the home of one now a felon, drawn by himself:——

"MR. REV. JOAN CLAY,——I take the pleasure of writing these few lines, hoping to the Lord it will ease my mind a little. This I have had on my mind ever since I came here on the 7th of August last. My mother died of the cholera, and my father was drinking, and had been several days, and he came home on Saturday night, and begun to curse my mother as she lay ill in bed ! He cursed her as long as I could abide to hear him. I had a glass or two in me, so I got hold of him, and put him down stairs,and we started a-fighting, till the police came and my father went off. He came back again on Sunday morning, drunk, and started a-crying, 'whatever must he do if his wife died!' He stopped at home all day, and on Monday, about two o'clock, he went off for another doctor, but he never returned of a week or more, when my mother was dead and buried."

Truly says the excellent Chaplain to whom this narrative was addressed ——

"If a writer of fiction had described such a scene as this, who could tolerate the picture——could believe in the possibility of such wars, their savage brutality, and that it is generated in places sanctioned by law ? This over—true tale may be doubted, but it would not be doubted by any one who could have seen the pallid cheeks and the quivering lips of the strong, coarse-natured man of twenty-four, who has the memory of the terrible scene in which he himself was an actor, as the constant companion of his solitude."

The preceding sketches will fail to give any adequate idea of the reality to those who have not witnessed similar cases; but they contain important elements on which to base the principles which should guide Reformatory Schools, and they are types of various subdivisions of the classes for whom we destine them. These we shall briefly describe, as on the peculiar characteristics of each must depend the nature of the Schools appropriated to them.

In this review of the"perishing and dangerous classes"of children, we shall not here include those who have already subjected themselves to the grasp of the law, and who are inmates of our prisons; these emanate from all the different grades that will be enumerated, and will be the subject of the latter part of this work on Penal Reformatory Schools;­ but we shall comprehend in it all those children who are absolutely unable, whether from poverty or vice, to receive instruction in the existing Schools, and who, without instruction gr grow up utterly destitute of it, and will most pro­ bably become a burden to the State, either as paupers or criminals.

First, then, are the children of those parents whom extreme poverty prevents from sending their children to School, but who yet desire education for them. This poverty may be the result, to them unavoidable, of external circumstances; it may be directly caused by their own vicious habits; in either case it is soul-crushing and degrading, and unless a hand is stretched out to save the children, they will sink into still lower depths of society. It is useless for the charitable to defray the weekly payment of such at the common Schools: their dress, and pro­ bably the habits they have already formed, will expose them to the sneers of their school-fellows, and they will not attend. Yet these very children are raised and stimulated by the education given in a good free School, so far superior to what they were imbibing in the streets. The influence of such an education has been often seen to be most valuable, not only preparing the child to gain an honest liveli­ hood, but indirectly stimulating the parents to exer­ tions for their children which they before felt useless, and inducing a self-respect which is the first step to improvement. In such cases, education is felt by the recipients of it to be a real boon, and there will be that co-operation with the ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• The Social History of Education
• Title
• Copyright
• Preface
• Index
• Introductory Chapter
• Chapter I. First Principles
• Chapter II. Evening Ragged Schools
• Chapter III. Free Day schools
• Chapter IV. Industrial Feeding Schools
• Chapter V. The Goal
• Chapter VI. Penal Reformatory schools