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 REFORMATORY SCHOOLS. 
 

 
 
 
 
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REFORMATORY SCHOOLS 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 O. B. ADDERLEY, ESQ., M.P. 
 
 THE REV, SYDNEY TURNER, 
 
 RESIDENT CHAPLAIN OF THE PHILANTHROPIC FARM SCHOOL, RED HILL. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 THOMAS HATCHARD, 187, PICCADILLY. 
 
 . 1855. 
 
LONDON 
 
 G. J. PALMER, SAVOY STREET, STRAND. 
 
T^Sr 
 
 REFORMATORY SCHOOLS. 
 
 % fetter 
 
 TO 
 
 C. B. ADDERLEY, ESQ., M.P. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 I have had lately so many inquiries addressed 
 to me on the subject of the organization and ma¬ 
 nagement of Reformatory Schools, under the pro¬ 
 visions of the Act passed last summer for the 
 better care of juvenile offenders (17 and 18 Viet, 
 cap. 86), that I am anxious to state to you, to 
 whose exertions the passing of that Act is so ma¬ 
 terially due, the practical conclusions to which my 
 experience at Red Hill has led me. 
 
 I cannot but feel that it is a gratifying proof of 
 the increasing interest excited by the important 
 question,—how shall crime be most effectually 
 diminished and prevented — that at this most 
 anxious and exciting time, new reformatory 
 schools, on an efficient scale and system, are in 
 
 B 
 
 797* oq 
 
2 
 
 process of establishment at Liverpool, in Devon¬ 
 shire, Hampshire, Dorsetshire, Warwickshire, 
 and Yorkshire, forerunners of similar and still 
 more numerous institutions elsewhere, as their 
 success gives direction and encouragement. 
 
 TYlq first, and as I may say fundamental, ques¬ 
 tion to be considered by the promoters of reform¬ 
 atory schools is without doubt—What general 
 principle of arrangement and management shall 
 be followed out? There are two to be chosen 
 between, the old one of association, the new one 
 (new that is in its application to public institutions) 
 of family division. Shall we gather the inmates 
 of our schools as into a regiment,—nominally sub¬ 
 divided by wards or classes, but sleeping all under 
 one roof,—feeding all in one common hall,— 
 taught and employed in large masses together, 
 and left to play together in one common play¬ 
 ground,—or shall we really separate and distri¬ 
 bute them into distinct households, placing their 
 dwellings at a considerable distance from each 
 other, giving them, as far as possible, separate 
 fields of labour, making each family, in fact, a 
 complete school or institution on a small scale by 
 itself? 
 
 To this question I can but give one unhesitating 
 answer. If you want show, follow the old plan 
 of association. If you want moral success, follow 
 the new plan of family division. In saying this, 
 
3 
 
 I am aware I go against many strong opinions 
 and long seated prejudices. You will be told that 
 association is essential to cheapness and effectual 
 superintendence. You have but one kitchen to 
 furnish, but one school-room to light and warm, 
 one lavatory to fit up, one well to sink, one system 
 of drains to lay down, one playground to gravel. 
 Your masters can relieve each other; the school 
 teacher rests, and the porter, or beadle, or warder, 
 looks after the boys. Your institution looks far 
 more imposing, your accounts are less complicated, 
 your officers are fewer, and of a cheaper caste 
 (their moral responsibility being less), and espe¬ 
 cially the supervision of your governor, the work 
 of your chaplain, the inspection of your visiting 
 committee, are easier. All which I allow; but 
 there are things more important than economy in 
 cooking, lighting, and warming ;—or than ease to 
 masters, or facilities to governors, chaplains, or 
 committees. The one thing which is all in all is 
 the producing an effectual change in the feelings, 
 tempers, tastes, and habits of the offender whom 
 you act upon. The doing this most surely and 
 effectually is the best economy. All you spend is 
 wasted, all you do is lost, if this be not accom¬ 
 plished. And this, I do not hesitate to say, 
 cannot be accomplished, except in very rare cases 
 indeed, while the offender is left as one of a great 
 undistinguished mass—lost among 200 or 300 
 
 b 2 
 
4 
 
 others, the subject of general teaching and general 
 discipline, and not the object of personal study, 
 personal association, individual care and influence. 
 
 Those who think and speak on this subject, 
 are very apt to be misled by the experience of 
 our district pauper schools, such as Annerley, 
 Kirkdale, &c., not considering—in fact, not gene¬ 
 rally knowing—the vast difference of character and 
 habit between such children as are gathered into 
 these, and such as the reformatory school embraces. 
 No doubt there are mischievous, vicious, perverse 
 children to be found among the common pauper 
 class ; but you will not find among them the sin¬ 
 gular precocity, the deep seated suspicion, and the 
 habitual frowardness of the young criminal. They 
 have known nothing of the wild licence, the in¬ 
 dependence, the self action, the excitements of ap¬ 
 petite and passion, the risks, sufferings, and plea¬ 
 sures which the young London thief of fourteen or 
 fifteen years’ old can usually look back upon. Their 
 moral soil is barren, uncultivated, and often hard 
 and heavy ground enough ; but it is not overrun 
 with the deep-rooted and poisonous weeds which 
 infest that of the juvenile criminal. There is 
 neither the same work to do, nor have you the 
 same instincts opposing and resisting you in the 
 doing of it. You may deal with them (if taken 
 young enough) in larger numbers. They want 
 training and formation, not revolution and reform- 
 
5 
 
 ation. They need, in fact, to be developed, which 
 can be done by instruction, whereas the young 
 criminal requires to be re-cast and re-moulded, 
 which can only be accomplished by influence, ex¬ 
 ample, and association. 
 
 In speaking thus decidedly, I am supported by 
 the experience of Mettray, where the principle of 
 distinct family combination, on which it was ori¬ 
 ginally based, has of late years been still more 
 thoroughly carried out by the formation of out- 
 colonies, or households of boys, placed at a dis¬ 
 tance from the central establishment; whereas 
 the first formed families of boys were closely 
 grouped together. It has been found there, as it 
 has at Red Hill, that the more real and complete 
 the separation of the several households, the fewer 
 the complaints that arise, the greater the comfort, 
 the more gentle and parental the discipline. In 
 the two families that are now really isolated at 
 Red Hill, the punishment cells have been empty 
 for three or four weeks together; quarrels, deser¬ 
 tions, and disorders have been rare ; the waste 
 and damage of food, furniture, clothing, and school 
 materials, have been comparatively little. In 
 this, indeed, the economist will find a set-off to 
 the increased expense attendant on the original 
 formation, and the after-superintendence of the 
 separate household. Police expenses for the re¬ 
 covery of runaways are much less. The spirit 
 
6 
 
 of neatness, order, and self-respect, is much 
 greater. The influence of mischievous and dis¬ 
 contented lads more easily detected and neutral¬ 
 ized,—the presence of vicious or corrupting habits 
 more quickly known and repressed. 
 
 I would, therefore, most earnestly entreat all 
 the promoters of the reformatory movement to 
 make the system of division into small and sepa¬ 
 rate families or households, of about forty boys in 
 each, placed under the instruction or superintend¬ 
 ence of a master specially assigned to and re¬ 
 sponsible for them — an essential part of their 
 plan. If they contemplate large schools, let the 
 buildings be so planned as to gradually carry out 
 this system. There may well be a central kitchen, 
 storehouse, oven, infirmary, and chapel, as at Met- 
 tray, and at Red Hill; all stores being received by 
 the superintendent or matron, and issued in cer¬ 
 tain regulated quantities to each house weekly, 
 the diet being so arranged as to allow of the 
 larger part of the cooking being done before the 
 food is served out. All cases requiring medical 
 attendance being transferred to the sick room, 
 and placed under the matron’s care. The various 
 households of boys attending religious worship, as 
 they would at a church or chapel in the course of 
 ordinary life. 
 
 All we have found it necessary to do is to fur¬ 
 nish each separate house with a hot-plate, a boiler 
 
7 
 
 (of galvanized iron), and a moderate sized iron 
 oven. These would suffice to cook all that is re¬ 
 quired, but it saves trouble, and is more econo¬ 
 mical to prepare the meat dinners for the boys 
 en masse , and to divide them in the necessary 
 proportions afterwards, and as we do not think it 
 necessary to give our lads hot meat, we are able 
 to do this upon the previous day, the Sunday's 
 meat dinner being cooked and sent out on Satur¬ 
 day, the Thursdays on the Wednesday. The 
 bread is of course baked at the central oven, so 
 also the suet puddings, which they have twice a 
 week. All the cooking that really needs to be 
 done in the separate house-kitchen is confined, 
 therefore, to the preparing of the master’s dinner, 
 and the making or warming the soup, which the 
 boys have once a week. The bread and cheese 
 which they have twice a week, requires only to 
 be cut up and served according to the fixed allow¬ 
 ance. Such boys as choose to afford it, by paying 
 twopence out of their small weekly earnings, are 
 
 allowed coffee in the morning, in place of milk 
 
 * 
 
 and water, but there is no great amount of skill 
 or trouble involved in this. Hence the master’s 
 wife, or the female assistant whom you engage in 
 the separate departments to see to the linen of 
 the boys, the cleaning of the house, &c., need 
 not be a professed cook, a very plain one abun¬ 
 dantly suffices. 
 
8 
 
 I hope these details will not seem tedious or 
 impertinent, the objection of increased cost is so 
 often urged in reference to the provisioning a 
 number of separated schools, that I have felt it of 
 importance to show how little difference there need 
 exist between the commissariat arrangements 
 for an associated, or a distributed establishment. 
 
 I would add that the same principles of division 
 as dictates the establishment of separate families, 
 recommends also that the house contain three or, 
 if possible, four dormitories, so that the boys 
 should not sleep in larger numbers than fifteen or 
 twelve together; that in their working parties 
 there should not be more than about twenty to 
 each labourer, or industrial instructor; and that 
 the land to be cultivated be so divided as to give 
 to each house a certain extent of ground adjacent 
 to it, and specially assigned for the employment 
 of its inmates. It will be found a very conve¬ 
 nient arrangement if suitable persons can be 
 found, to attach to each house a married labourer, 
 the wife helping in the cooking and needlework, 
 the husband taking charge of a portion of the 
 boys of the house and in the fields, having the 
 care of their tools, and generally assisting the 
 master in their ordinary management. 
 
 The next question that has to be answered is— 
 What should be the system of discipline, employ¬ 
 ment, and instruction ? 
 
0 
 
 Of course, the adoption of the “Family System” 
 entails as a necessary consequence that the disci¬ 
 pline be kindly and domestic, such as to attach 
 and not merely control the boy. But it does not 
 at all mean that the boy should be under no dis¬ 
 cipline at all, that his whims should be given way 
 to, or his faults overlooked. The rules as to 
 order, punctuality, cleanliness, civility, decorous 
 behaviour in religious services, should be and may 
 be just as thoroughly observed, as to all essential 
 points, in a common farm house with a fence 
 only round it, as if the boys were shut up within 
 high walls, or under the eye of a regimental 
 sergeant all day long, escape impossible, and sub¬ 
 mission absolute. Each house should have its 
 appointed play ground, whose bounds must not 
 be passed except at the permitted times. The 
 master will see his boys leave for their work, 
 giving them over to the industrial teachers, or 
 labourers, who have the charge of them during 
 the working hours, receiving from them an 
 account, kept daily, of their behaviour and their 
 industry. He will himself be their supervisor at 
 school, at meals, in the play ground, at chapel, 
 and in their dormitories (which his bed-room 
 should adjoin and overlook). He should keep a 
 register of their conduct to be gone into weekly, 
 every fault and complaint being fairly investigated. 
 
10 
 
 A system of small earnings, or rewards for labour, 
 varying according to the boy’s industrial exertion, 
 from one penny to fourpence or fivepence per 
 week, will allow of a system of small fines or 
 penalties for all the lighter classes of misconduct, 
 and make the boy his own regulator, giving him a 
 direct interest in his good or bad behaviour. If 
 it be arranged that sundry little luxuries, such as 
 coffee for breakfast, treacle with his pudding for 
 dinner, sweets, fruit, postage stamps, knives, neck 
 handkerchiefs, Sunday caps, the journey home 
 when allowed to go for a holiday to see his 
 friends, &c., be all paid for by the boy himself 
 out of these same earnings, and be diminished 
 and interfered with therefore by the fines which 
 folly, or disobedience, or bad temper involve, the 
 power of the system as an instrument of disci¬ 
 pline will soon be felt. It contributes most 
 essentially to the teaching the boy what he most 
 needs to learn, self -control and se //'-regulation. It 
 has been in full action at Red Hill since we began 
 six years ago, and I believe it has been a matter 
 of no small surprise to those who watch and en¬ 
 quire into the daily working of the school, that 
 our boys keep within our boundaries, and observe 
 our rules as to work and discipline so steadily, 
 and with so little interference, or direct compul¬ 
 sion. The secret is that each boy is responsible 
 
]1 
 
 for himself, and feels that he has something at 
 stake; that he is doing his own business in fact, 
 and is a gainer or loser by his own act. 
 
 There are, however, tempers and dispositions 
 that are slow to be influenced by such motives, or 
 that at times are hurried away by sudden im¬ 
 pulses to forget or to defy them. It will be 
 advisable for each house to have one or two cells, 
 well separated from the school-room and dormi¬ 
 tories, in which any that are guilty of serious 
 faults may be secluded. Confinement in a cell, 
 with a bread and water diet, for periods varying 
 from a few hours to a few days, will be found in 
 general a sufficient punishment, provided always 
 that the cell is not warmed and fitted up as com¬ 
 fortably as a fashionable boudoir, but gives the 
 inmate just as much cold, and privation, and dis¬ 
 comfort, as proper regard to health, cleanliness, 
 and the making a kindly impression on the 
 offender, will allow of. Cases may arise when 
 the cell fails or is inappropriate, and in which a 
 whipping will do the culprit far more good, faults 
 of indecency and cruelty ,come under this head, 
 so does anything like insolence or defiance of the 
 master. I would only recommend—1st, that 
 when corporal punishment is inflicted, it be so in 
 the ordinary school fashion of a common birch 
 rod. 2nd, that it be inflicted with as much 
 solemnity and form as possible, the manner being 
 
12 
 
 often of more consequence than the amount of 
 punishment. 3rd, that the boy’s companions be 
 allowed but not invited to witness it. 4th, that 
 the chief superintendent, whether governor or 
 chaplain , administer it himself. I laid down this 
 rule six years ago to myself, and disagreeable as 
 is the duty it occasionally imposes, I have found 
 its utility in the rareness and the moral effect of 
 the infliction.* 
 
 As to the employment ;—by all means let 
 agriculture be the basis. There is nothing like 
 
 * Taking the last three years, the average annual number 
 of corporal punishments inflicted at Red Hill, have been twenty- 
 seven ; the average number of boys in the school for the three 
 years being 154. Asa general rule the number of punishments 
 varies directly as the inefficiency of the master, i . e. as his ina¬ 
 bility or failure to command the respect and win the confidence 
 of the boys of his department. Changes of masters, involving 
 as they must do some irregularities of discipline, and extra 
 opportunities for mischief, will always entail more punishment. 
 
 The faults for which corporal punishment was administered 
 in the eighty-two cases, occurring in the three years 1852-54 
 as above mentioned, were as follows:— 
 
 36 for desertion. 
 
 15 for stealing, or attempting to steal, fruit from a neigh¬ 
 bouring orchard. 
 
 1 for throwing a stone at a railway train. 
 
 3 for trespassing on the railway. 
 
 3 for indecency. 
 
 14 for insubordination and insolence to the teacher. 
 
 10 for lying, dishonesty in the school, &c. 
 
13 
 
 gardening and farm work for giving a new bias 
 to the young criminal’s tastes and habits. 
 
 The handling the spade spoils the fingers for 
 the delicate operations of the pickpocket and the 
 till-stealer ; and what is of far more importance, 
 the sights and sounds of Nature—the associations 
 of the field, the garden, and farm-yard, take away 
 the inclination to pursue them. Out-door work, 
 indeed, entails much hardship, and trial of courage 
 and endurance; and the London or Manchester 
 thief shrinks a good deal on the winter’s mornings 
 from the cold wind, and the snow, and is more 
 disposed to lounge than to work on the hot sum¬ 
 mer afternoons. But the earnings in view, and 
 the activity and desire for employment natural to 
 the boy, soon counterbalance this, especially if his 
 teachers encourage him by example as well as 
 precept. 
 
 Our lads have not stopped or shrunk from work 
 during the severely cold weather and deep snow 
 which we have lately had here for so many weeks, 
 nor did they throughout the still more trying sea¬ 
 sons of continual rain in the autumns of 1852 and 
 1853. 
 
 The great rules to be followed are, 1st. assimi¬ 
 late your employments to those of ordinary country 
 life. Let the boys follow the rules as to work, 
 weather, time, &c., by which the ordinary labourer 
 is regulated. 
 
14 
 
 (Thus, in the winter quarter let them breakfast 
 before they come out to work, and let them cease 
 at an earlier hour in the afternoon 4, 4 30, and 5, 
 &c., according to the shortening and lengthening 
 of the days). 
 
 2ndly. Carefully avoid giving the boy the im¬ 
 pression that you set him to work for the benefit 
 or profit of the school. In point of fact, what 
 little he is able to do is nearly counterbalanced 
 by the cost of the superintendence and teaching 
 that he requires, and the tools, &c., that he breaks 
 or wears out. And it is of the first importance, 
 as regards his activity and his cheerfulness, that 
 he feel the truth of the Scripture rules, “ He that 
 laboureth, laboureth for himself for his mouth 
 craveth it of him,” and “ He that will not work 
 neither should he eat.” Labour should be im¬ 
 posed and pressed upon him on the grounds of 
 duty, self-improvement, and future livelihood. 
 
 3rdly. The more his work is given him by the 
 task the better. I have seen many a boy eager 
 to clean out a wet, muddy ditch, or trench a hard 
 stony piece of land, or grub a large, deep-seated 
 root, when it was “ let to him ” at so much per 
 rod or yard, and he had it to himself. The in¬ 
 stincts of exertion, and mastery over difficulties 
 are at once called out when the boy can say, “ I 
 have undertaken to do this, it ? s my job.” 
 
 I would add, that a farm school cannot be kept 
 
15 
 
 up without such an extent of land as will give 
 constant and varied work, suiting the seasons; 
 with land at the rate of an acre for every three or 
 four boys, a judicious superintendent will be able 
 to provide employment throughout the year. 
 Trenching, draining, grubbing, stone-digging, will 
 all come in aid of the ordinary farm operations. 
 Our own bailiff, though a plain country, self-taught, 
 and self-raised man, has never failed me in this 
 most important particular. 
 
 Many branches of employment will naturally 
 be resorted to in a large establishment, in aid of 
 agriculture; as tailoring, shoemaking, and brick 
 and tilemaking, while no farm or institution can 
 be carried on without there being a sufficiency of 
 carpenters’ and smiths’ work to afford instruction 
 and occupation to boys of a higher calibre, and 
 better education in these branches of industry. 
 The one great rule of the school should be con¬ 
 stant employment. Idleness has been, in most 
 cases, the chief source, or at least the chief instru¬ 
 ment for producing the disease—industry and la¬ 
 bour must be constantly called on for the cure. 
 
 As to the school instruction, it need not be 
 carried very high. The hands and the heart re¬ 
 quire more attention, in the juvenile offender’s 
 case, than the head. Take care that the boy 
 reads easily, and writes and cyphers fairly—you 
 have secured all that is essential. The schooling 
 
16 
 
 of the Reformatory Institution, however, presents 
 some difficulties, especially where the boys are 
 received, as at Red Hill, from all parts of England. 
 They come in all degrees of previous instruction. 
 Some, and those often the oldest, grossly ignorant; 
 others, and they perhaps the youngest, well-taught 
 —proficients in Scripture and Catechism, practice 
 and interest; you have, therefore, no slight diffi¬ 
 culty as regards the classifying for instruction. 
 We have found it advantageous at Red Hill to di¬ 
 vide each family of boys into two parts for school 
 purposes—one moiety attending every morning 
 one week, the other every morning the other 
 week. We have no afternoon school. But the 
 long winter evenings enable our masters to give 
 from one to two hours additional instruction 
 after the boys’ supper. I would remark, that as 
 
 the master shows more interest and assiduitv in 
 
 •/ 
 
 teaching, the boy, however reluctant and idly in¬ 
 clined at first, gradually attends more to his in¬ 
 struction, and attaches himself more to him. I 
 have seen many a hard, wilful lad brought to 
 thoroughly like and obey his master, from feeling 
 that the latter had an interest in enlightening and 
 informing him, and took pains to do so. 
 
 The next question to be answered is, from what 
 class, and by what means, can masters fitted to 
 superintend reformatory schools be found ? A 
 question presenting, at present, by far the most 
 
17 
 
 numerous, and the most serious difficulties of any 
 that beset the subject; because, on the one hand, 
 reformatory agency is almost a new thing amongst 
 us, and the number of those who have had any 
 experience in it is still very small; and because 
 on the other, the qualifications that make a mau 
 a really able workman in the cause, are so differ¬ 
 ent from those that are required to fit the school¬ 
 master for any other branch of training and in¬ 
 struction. 
 
 1st. You want a religious man. I mean a man 
 who takes up his work as a mission—something 
 given him to do by God—something in which he 
 is responsible, not only for the means he uses, or 
 the methods he pursues, but for the results he at¬ 
 tains to. Such a man views his work as one 
 which he cannot , dare not leave, just to get more 
 salary, more leisure, less worry, or less confine¬ 
 ment. Such a man conducts his work in the 
 spirit, and by the instruments of the missionary. 
 Not only teaching but praying, not only admon¬ 
 ishing and advising, but giving the daily example 
 of patience, kindness, industry, endurance, and 
 devotion in his personal life. Before such men 
 the stubborn tempers bend, the hard hearts soften, 
 the idols of vice and crime are cast down. They 
 need not be men of extraordinary talent. But 
 they must be men of earnestness, love, and a 
 sound mind. Earnestness based on faith in their 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 work, and shown in energy and resolution, is the 
 sine qua non. The vacillating and the timid, the 
 dawdler and the chatterer, have no place in the 
 reformatory enterprise at all. Let the man have 
 something in him to be feared, while he strives 
 wholly to be loved, he will soon prove himself 
 victorious. 
 
 2ndly. While the master need not be a man of 
 remarkable acquirement, with first or second class 
 certificates, he should be so far skilled and prac¬ 
 tised in his calling as an instructor, and in the 
 mechanical arrangement of his school, as to have 
 his scholars' confidence and respect; and if he be 
 a man of the right tone of mind and character, he 
 will soon study and attain to this, even if at first 
 deficient. 
 
 3rdly. The master must not have any physical 
 defects, or oddities of manner or appearance. A 
 good countenance, and manly figure are great helps 
 to his influence. 
 
 4thly. He must not be afraid of losing caste or 
 lowering dignity, by taking interest or sharing in 
 the boys’ industrial training. Gloves, thin boots, 
 and neatly fitting paletots, must have no place in 
 a reformatory Farm School, and no man ought 
 to be there, either as chaplain or schoolmaster, 
 who is afraid of mud and rain, or cannot, when 
 occasion offers, take a turn with the spade or 
 mattock. 
 
19 
 
 5thly. He should not be engaged to take charge 
 of a school till he has had some experience of the 
 class of boys he will have to deal with. 
 
 Where shall we find men of this sort ? 
 
 The national schoolmaster is usually too much 
 the intellectual teacher only, to be of use. He is 
 very effective in the school-room, but lie is usually 
 very helpless at the meals, in the dormitory, and 
 the field. He has been used to schools where all 
 are young, where all are assembled for a given 
 time for the specific object of instruction, and 
 from which the disorderly and mischievous are 
 usually, after a trial, expelled. He is very apt to 
 be at a nonplus in a school where all are origin¬ 
 ally, and at first, “ bad subjects ,” where many are 
 fifteen, or sixteen, or seventeen years of age, where 
 he has to govern as well as teach, where he has 
 his work always going on, his judgment, his know¬ 
 ledge of character, his skill in management, con¬ 
 stantly called out and exercised. 
 
 The ragged school teacher is often as deficient 
 in the necessary qualities. He rarely understands 
 discipline, and can seldom effectively carry on the 
 teaching, when the school contains three or four 
 separate classes. 
 
 The boy who comes as a volunteer to learn is a 
 very different subject from one who is a detenu 
 under a legal sentence, or the terms of a condi¬ 
 tional pardon ; and the order, regularity, quietness, 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 and neatness, essential to the comfort and good 
 working of a large and well-organized public esta¬ 
 blishment, on the compulsory system, are very 
 different from what may suffice in a small casual 
 refuge, whose inmates may leave or be dismissed 
 at pleasure. 
 
 The union schools seem, on the whole, to offer 
 the best fields for training. The boys in these 
 being boarded, and not merely gathered for in¬ 
 struction ; their food, clothing, and general 
 management having to be attended to, and the 
 class they belong to having more points of contact 
 and similarity with that from which the reforma¬ 
 tory school recruits its inmates than any other. 
 
 It is very much to be regretted that the Com¬ 
 mittee of Council for education have hitherto done 
 so little to promote the training of masters speci¬ 
 fically for reformatory schools. Application 
 was made, two years ago, that Red Hill should be 
 regularly inspected, and the facilities which it af¬ 
 fords for the preparing such teachers taken advan¬ 
 tage of. The application was, however, refused, 
 as interfering with a former “ Minute/’ as yet un¬ 
 acted on. And our masters are excluded from 
 deriving any benefit from the government certifi¬ 
 cates they may have gained before engaging in 
 our school. 
 
 It may be as well to observe, that training by 
 practice is the sort of preparation wanted, training 
 
21 
 
 by lectures and questions, for reformatory work, 
 is emphatically moonshine. The man wants ex¬ 
 perience , and till he has this he may know every¬ 
 thing in theory, but he will be worth little prac¬ 
 tically. The supply which will be needed of effi¬ 
 cient masters for reformatory schools, will be 
 best secured by every existing institution that is 
 in good working order, taking into training one, 
 two, or more assistant teachers, according to its 
 size and numbers. I hope and believe, that men 
 calculated for the work will ere long be found ap¬ 
 plying to be thus prepared, entering the school, 
 and serving as apprentices for nine or twelve 
 months, and giving their services in return for 
 their board, lodging, and practical instruction. 
 
 I would add, on behalf of the reformatory 
 schoolmaster, that in his case, most emphatically, 
 “ The labourer is worthy of his hire,” and that that 
 hire should be liberal. If he <rive himself in ear- 
 
 o 
 
 nest to his work, and thoroughly fit himself for it, 
 he necessarily gives up all other opportunities and 
 prospects. He unfits himself for other paths of 
 educational exertion, and the more we demand 
 from him high moral aims and feelings, the self- 
 forgetfulness, and devotion of time and faculty, 
 which characterize the missionarv, the more are 
 we bound to show our appreciation of these quali¬ 
 ties, and to relieve his mind from all distracting 
 anxieties as to his personal or family provision, 
 
by such an adequate remuneration as may enable 
 him not merely to subsist but to lay by. 
 
 The next question to be answered is, What 
 provision should be made for the inmates of re¬ 
 formatory schools on leaving them ? This is in¬ 
 deed a matter of the greatest importance, for un¬ 
 less there be a definite and practical prospect be¬ 
 fore the boy, he will not profit much from the 
 teaching and employment he is under, however 
 skilful and complete that be. 
 
 Here, indeed, is the grand cause of the failure 
 of all prison discipline, quoad reformation . Let 
 the man be ever so well taught, and managed, and 
 cared-for in the prison, he usually leaves all the 
 instruction, and management, and care, behind 
 him when he leaves it, is discharged without pros¬ 
 pect or resource—is sent back to the scenes and 
 circumstances, and companions by which, or among 
 which, he has been vitiated, and which must almost 
 certainly corrupt and deprave him again, however 
 well he may mean, however strong may be his 
 impressions and his wishes when he leaves the 
 gaol. 
 
 If the boy goes out of the reformatory under 
 the same conditions, the same results must be 
 looked for. The apres must form a special sub¬ 
 ject of concern and exertion to the promoters and 
 managers of the school. This is well understood 
 in France—the “ patronage,” or after-supervision 
 
and protection of each boy that leaves Mettray 
 being carefully provided for by interesting some 
 person, in the vicinity of his future home., in his 
 welfare, and by keeping up inquiries, and obtain¬ 
 ing reports, year by year, on the subject of his 
 conduct and well-being. Our far denser popula¬ 
 tion, the different position of our farmers, the want 
 of any such police surveillance and control, as 
 would enable our school managers to maintain 
 any effectual cognizance of the boy, if he chose to 
 leave the situation he was placed in, render such 
 a system of after-guardiansliip in England, a thing 
 to be rather desired than hoped for, especially as 
 regards boys from London, and our other larger 
 towns and cities. Wherever, however, a boy is 
 placed in employment in this country, the endea¬ 
 vour should be made to enlist some such oversight 
 in his behalf as a check, not less wanted as regards 
 the master that the boy is placed with, than the 
 boy himself. 
 
 But I have no hesitation in saying, that the 
 greatest and most effectual benefit that can be 
 conferred upon the boy who has been led wrong, 
 and become involved in vicious or dishonest 
 courses in his childhood, is to start him in a new 
 country, or in a line of employment that effectually 
 separates him from all former associations. He 
 has usually been much more a delinquent through 
 circumstances, than a criminal through choice. 
 
24 
 
 Place him, after proof and training, in new and 
 better circumstances, you will see no more of his 
 delinquency. 
 
 It is, I own, a matter of surprise to me, that any 
 children grow up honest and upright in some dis¬ 
 tricts of our large towns; and while we allow such 
 dens of vice, filth, and wretchedness, to exist, 
 as may be found in Seven Dials, Lisson Grove, 
 Whitechapel, Spitalfields, &c., and give such com- 
 parative impunity to receivers of stolen goods, to 
 the keepers of singing rooms, gaffs, and lodging 
 houses, the wonder is, not that we have so many 
 young thieves and vagabonds to infest our streets, 
 and pilfer from our shops and houses, but that we 
 have not many , many more. It is not that the 
 boy is born with thievish or profligate instincts, 
 but that he has been influenced so early, or has 
 been tempted so strongly, by the vicious, and the 
 dishonest, that he has hardly had freedom of will, 
 or choice, or knowledge, to enable him to resist 
 them. 
 
 To make the reformatory process lastingly ef¬ 
 fectual, the boy should be encouraged and assisted 
 to seek his living in the colonies, when old 
 enough, and sufficiently instructed in some indus¬ 
 trial calling. 
 
 An useful alternative will indeed occasionally 
 present itself in the army. So many cases have 
 come under my notice, in which the discipline and 
 
25 
 
 restraints of the soldier's life have proved an effec¬ 
 tual antidote to a lad's wild and uncertain temper, 
 and a means of developing and exercising his 
 spirit of enterprise and action, that I could wish 
 there were more facilities afforded for the training 
 of the inmates of reformatory schools for military 
 service. At Mettray, and in the French reforma¬ 
 tories generally, the enlistment of the boys shel¬ 
 tered in them is studiously promoted, and many 
 hundreds of those who, in the outset of life, were 
 hurtful and disgraceful to their country, are now 
 serving her in usefulness and honour. It would 
 be well if it could be so in England. Of course, 
 where the situation of the school allows of the 
 needful preparation, the navy, or merchant ser¬ 
 vice would present advantageous openings for the 
 boy’s employment at sea. In general, anything is 
 better, as regards the future of the lad, than ap¬ 
 prenticeship to tailoring or shoemaking in some 
 populous town neighbourhood. 
 
 In bringing this letter to a close, it seems right 
 to allude to our prospects of effective reformatory 
 action, under the provisions of the Act of last 
 year. 1 confess I am not sanguine of any con¬ 
 siderable results from that Act until it has been 
 modified and amended in two or three important 
 points. Foremost amongst these stand—The de¬ 
 fective power of discharge from the school,—The 
 amount of allowance which seems to have been 
 
26 
 
 virtually fixed by it, as the treasury contribution 
 towards the maintenance and training of the 
 offender,—and The total absence of any provision 
 for assistance, either towards the formation of the 
 school, or the disposal of its inmates on leaving it. 
 As the Act now stands the offender must remain 
 in the school for the full period for which the 
 magistrate has sentenced him, unless discharged 
 by the order of the secretary of state; that is, in 
 effect, if incorrigible and corrupting others in a 
 far greater degree than he is receiving any benefit 
 himself, he cannot be dismissed; if greatly im¬ 
 proving and reformed, he cannot be sent out and 
 rewarded by an earlier re-entrance into life. No 
 reformatory school, I believe, can work effectually 
 unless its managers have, and are known to have, 
 the power of discharge fully and entirely confided 
 to them. They being at the same time respon¬ 
 sible to the Government for this and every other 
 power and privilege they are entrusted with. 
 As the Act now stands, five shillings per week 
 seems fixed as the maximum of payment for the 
 maintenance &c. of the offender in the school. 
 However such an amount may suffice in country 
 districts, and with small schools, in which some 
 resident gentlemen of the neighbourhood exercise 
 a practical and constant superintendence, as in the 
 case of Hardwicke, Saltlev, Kinffswood, &c., I 
 do not believe it will be found adequate for large 
 
27 
 
 establishments, in which the London, Liverpool, 
 and Manchester boy is to be dealt with, where 
 industrial training on a large and varied scale is 
 given, and where educational and religious agency 
 of an effective sort is to be applied. There is the 
 same difference between the common child and 
 the juvenile offender, as there is between the man 
 in health, and the man suffering from infirmity 
 and disease. The Hospital must be more ex¬ 
 pensive than the Home; all those who have 
 studied the economics of crime will agree, that if 
 you reform and turn from dishonesty and vice, at 
 the rate even of ten or twelve shillings per week 
 for two or three years, you have paid far less than 
 the boy’s thefts, and prosecutions, and punish- 
 
 0 
 
 ments, are sure to cost, as you follow him step by 
 step in his career. 
 
 The Act also makes no provision for the heavy 
 expenses necessarily incurred for the land, build¬ 
 ings, &c., in the first establishment of the refor¬ 
 matory. Had it provided that local contributions 
 for this purpose should be met by proportionate 
 assistance from the treasury, we should have seen 
 it in much more extensive and effectual operation 
 by this time. 
 
 And in reference to the expenses of dis¬ 
 posal, if the boys, are to be encouraged to go out 
 as emigrants, there are few schools whose re¬ 
 sources could meet, unassisted, the heavy demands 
 
28 
 
 which the costs of passage, outfit, &c., must entail 
 upon them. 
 
 In districts, however, where we may look for 
 liberal subscriptions and great personal efforts, 
 such as you have yourself given us the example 
 of, the Act, imperfect as it is, may yet do much if 
 rightly used. I only hope that the magistrates, 
 by whose agency it will be carried out, will keep 
 before them, as conditions for its successful opera¬ 
 tion, for at least some three or four years to come, 
 
 1st. That the offenders they commit for deten¬ 
 tion must be neither too old nor too hardened. 
 
 2nd. That they will be the better prepared for 
 the more softening and kindly agency of the re¬ 
 formatory school, if they have undergone an 
 amount of previous punishment proportionate to 
 their offence. 
 
 3rd. That the period assigned for their deten¬ 
 tion in the school will need to be of such a length 
 as to allow of an effectual impression being made, 
 not only on their feelings and their minds, but on 
 their habits. 
 
 I cannot conclude these remarks without ex¬ 
 pressing my fervent hope that our educational 
 agencies will ere long be so extended and im¬ 
 proved, as to make the demand for reformatory 
 schools less general and pressing. However 
 necessary and satisfactory it is to have first-rate 
 hospitals, free dispensaries, and able surgeons and 
 
29 
 
 apothecaries, for the cure of disease, it is far 
 better, far more rational, and in the end, far 
 cheaper to take such measures as may maintain 
 and protect the general health, and keep sickness 
 at a distance. So as regards juvenile crime, cer¬ 
 tainly more than half of the youthful delinquency 
 that we now have to punish, and are here and 
 there trying to remedy, is the growth of circum¬ 
 stances, the result, in fact, of our own social 
 neglect and indolence. One single measure alone 
 at once compelling the attendance at school of 
 the thousands of idle children now left to ruin 
 and depravation in our low streets and alleys, and 
 making the instruction and training of such 
 schools really useful and efficient, would do more 
 to thin our prison ranks than a hundred reforma¬ 
 tories put together. So long as we allow the 
 
 depraving agencies that are so busy in our large 
 
 / 
 
 towns and cities such immunity, nay almost en¬ 
 couragement, as they now have, so long we may 
 be sure that juvenile vice and crime will be far 
 ahead of all our efforts to rescue and reform. Of 
 course it is much easier to subscribe to a refor¬ 
 matory, than to grapple with the real difficulties 
 of the preventive system. But as to the real sup¬ 
 pression or effectual diminution of crime, we but 
 spend our strength for nought, and our labour for 
 that which profiteth not, so long as we are con- 
 
tent to let thousands he infected, while we cure 
 hundreds. We cannot slay the monster while we 
 are continually feeding and supporting him. 
 Make it compulsory that the child attends school, 
 and is not found idling in the streets. Make the 
 parents, when there are any, responsible for the 
 proper training of the child, and to some extent 
 for his maintenance, in a good school, if they can¬ 
 not keep him out of vice and crime at home. 
 Make the parish he belongs to responsible for 
 this, if he be an orphan and destitute. Make 
 your schools really effective, teaching in them the 
 science of life, the common daily business of 
 well-being and well-doing, social and personal 
 economy. Make them, therefore, not merely 
 intellectual but industrial, and bring your laws 
 home to the abettors and receivers of crime, the 
 lodging-house keeper, and the penny theatre and 
 saloon owner, and we shall soon, I believe, see 
 our calendars shortened, the juvenile wards of our 
 prisons more thinly peopled, and reformatory 
 efforts made thoroughly effectual to the great end 
 for which they are directed. When shall these 
 things be ? When, I believe, statesmen will give 
 our great social questions their true importance, 
 and feel that the moral and religious training 
 of the coming generation is more really urgent 
 than all the more political or commercial ques- 
 
31 
 
 tions, that now divide parties or agitate consti¬ 
 tuencies. 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 Your faithful and obedient servant, 
 
 Sydney Turner. 
 
 Philanthropic, Red Hill, 
 March 27, 1855. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 G. J. PALMER, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.