"bureaux de bienfaisance," from the barbarous system pursued in some of the communes, and which is not yet extinct, under which the aged, infirm, and orphans dependent on public largess, are hired out to individuals; and to obtain the most favourable terms possible for the commune, the price of their maintenance is fixed by a public auction of each of these poor creatures. “These auctions," states M. Van Damme, Commissaire of the arrondissement of RoulersThielt, in a general report to the Provincial Council of West Flanders, in 1846, 66 are conducted in much the same manner as the sale of any piece of furniture or beast of burthen. Those who have a fancy for the thing, called together by the ordinary modes of public advertisement, attend in considerable numbers to aid in the proceedings. The poor creatures who are to be put out undergo a sort of public exhibition. Every one is allowed to calculate the disadvantages which infirmity would entail, and the profits to be derived from the remaining strength of each object submitted. Often they are knocked down to the highest bidder amidst the most revolting remarks, and the bargain becomes the subject of mutual jokes or lewd congratulations, according as it is deemed advantageous or otherwise for the parties. The paupers thus placed out are, for the most part, exposed to severer treatment than the greatest criminals in the worst organized prisons." "The orphan child," says a country pastor, appealing to the Belgian Home Office against this practice, "after being examined like a horse or a Negro slave, is put up, and the rate at which the bargain is struck is commonly determined by an estimate of the vigour of its health, and the services that can be got from it as an instrument of mendicity."

This barbarous mode of "assistance" was excused, or at all events explained, by the destitution of means on the part of the several communes; but there was only one way of putting an end to it, which was to prove by the most indisputable facts that it would not cost more really to give comfort to the aged and the orphan, than thus to press them to destruction; and this proof has been afforded by the fermes-hospices.

In East Flanders, the fermes-hospices have chiefly originated in private charity, but under various forms; while in some communes they have been exclusively the work of individuals, who have erected the buildings at their own cost. In others it is the bureaux de bienfaisance that have formed these places, with the aid of subscriptions and special gifts; while in others, again, property of the bureau de bienfaisance has been sold to provide the requisite funds. But every

where, before commencing the work, a fruitful canvas has been made among the wealthier inhabitants, and the peasantry have taxed themselves in the leading of materials, &c. Usually, the commencement has been on a very small scale. At first, some few paupers have been assembled in a house belonging to the bureau de bienfaisance; these have been employed in public work for the commune; then a field has been taken for them to plant potatoes in it, and presently this first commencement of cultivation, by their agency, has been extended. Each establishment is managed by an administrative commission, named by the communal council, and each forms a kind of farm, the labour of which is performed by the aged and the orphans, who raise

produce enough to supply themselves with food. The domestic work is performed by the women, and the clothing is chiefly made in the house. In fine, each hospice is a little agricultural colony of the aged and infirm, and of orphan children, helping each other according to the measure of their capacities, under the direction of superintendents, or, more commonly, of some sœurs de charité. The extent of land attached to each is very small; the greatest in West Flanders is 12 acres. In almost every establishment, however, two or three cows are kept; and the inmates. paying neither rent nor taxes, cost the communes very little indeed, the greater part of the inmates being yet able to work somewhat. They use the spade or the hoe, spread the manure, get in the seed, and pull up the weeds; they sew, wind bobbins, and weave linen; their food consists of milk, potatoes, vegetables, ryebread, and lard-all the produce of their own husbandry. Their clothing is of coarse stuffs, woven and made at home. And to these resources are even added the profits earned by the schools and teaching shops conducted by the sœurs, gifts from the charitable, &c.

On the 1st of January, 1851, there were in the arrondissement of Roulers Thielt (West Flanders), according to a return furnished by its Commissaire, M. Van den Berghe, the following fourteen fermeshospices, the establishment and cost of which were as follows:

sup

I have entered the more fully into this description of the origin and present state of the fermes-hospices of Flanders, because it plies a graphic description of the moral and economical basis upon which all analogous institutions have to be founded, at least in countries where there is no elaborate system of legal relief for the poor, as in our own, and which, in fact, underlies all such superstructures even in more indulgent England. The old Flemish condition of the pauper had its exact parallel in Switzerland; and the orphan poor who survived the hard slavery of their childhood, grew up in ignorance and

destitution, to be the authors, in their turn, of families destined to perpetuate the like degradation.

Farm Schools of Switzerland, and their Employment in Reformatory

Discipline.

Jean Henri Pestalozzi, born at Zurich in 1746, was the first to recognise the impropriety and danger of such gross neglect; he sacrificed all his limited means in founding a rural school for pauper children at Neuhof; and he pursued to the end of his life, through misapprehension and through scorn, the work of humanity which he had undertaken. This was recommenced on a striking scale, in 1799, by M. Phillippe Emmanuel de Fellenberg, at Hofwyl, whose views and institutions embraced the education of the highest, as well as the most destitute, members of society, and whose most valuable agent in the management of his poor-school, Werhli, still perpetuates the spirit and realizes the views of Pestalozzi, at the normal school of Kreutz

lingen, near Constance. The poor-school at Hofwyl is no longer maintained; but it must not be supposed, therefore, that its influence has been lost.

The number of rural schools erected on the plans of Wehrli have rapidly increased, and there are now one or more in almost every canton. These have not exactly the same object, but admit of being divided into the two classes which we have already adopted. 1. Correctional and reformatory schools for delinquent and vicious children ; and, 2. Asylums and homes for pauper, orphan, deserted, and morallyendangered children, who are destitute of the education supplied by the common relationships of a family.

The habits of domestic life form the basis upon which these establishments are founded. The superintendence of each of them is ordinarily committed to a married teacher; he fills the office and bears the title of the father of the family (hausvater); his wife assists him in all that appertains to the housekeeping and the supervision and industrial instruction of the girls; she bears the title of "hausmutter." Organised upon the domestic plan, the greater number of these schools receive children of both sexes.

This union of girls and boys under the same roof is somewhat contrary to received usages, and one might dread its giving rise to some inconveniences. But experience has proved, and proves every day, that these inconveniences are more apparent than real. It is observed, on the contrary, that the imaginations of children are more excited when the sexes are separate than when united, and fraternal and daily relations have been established between them. In a village, the habitual contact of girls and boys, under the general surveillance of the parents, forms the rule, and it has never occurred to the mind of any person to prohibit or even seek to restrain it. The rural school, destined to represent, in a minor degree, domestic life and village routine, can and ought to admit of the like toleration, provided that the necessary precautions are taken that the intercourse shall not degenerate into abuse. Amongst these precautions, may be mentioned

1. The vigilant supervision of the mother and father of the family. 2. The admission only of children under 12 years of age, and their dismissal at 17.

3. The separation of the dormitories appropriated to children of each sex.

Subject to these precautions, which even common sense dictates, the union of children of both sexes in the same establishments presents numerous advantages, viz. :—

1. In respect of economy of management.

2. In respect of a judicious distribution of labour, as best suited to the capacities of either sex.

3. In respect of instruction and education, by softening the dispositions, creating emulation, and strengthening the fraternal ties which should unite the members of one family.

But that a genuine domestic spirit may prevail in the establishment, the number of inmates should be limited, in order that the adopted parents may have daily, and, to a certain extent, continuous intercourse with the children entrusted to their care, and that the work of individual education may progress equally with that of collective education.

In the Swiss rural schools, the number of pupils usually varies from twenty-four to forty; in some establishments, as at Bächtelen, on a plan similar to that of the Rauhen-haus, at Hamburgh, the entire family is sub-divided into lesser ones, of twelve or more children, who are placed under the superintendence of an assistant "father." The children generally are usually admitted between 6 and 12, and quit, as already stated, at 17 or 18 years of age, after confirmation.

The plan of instruction is that adopted at common elementary schools. Agriculture forms the basis of their industry, and various other occupations are usually introduced, to economise the expenditure of the establishment, and to employ the children when they are prevented from out-door work, or when such is not required.

The conditions of admission vary with the nature of the establishments, poverty not being generally held as a sufficient qualification; the want of education and parental care are necessary. Formed by free societies, these schools are principally supported by voluntary contributions; to complete their resources, a small annuity is paid by the communes or by benefactors, in order that a child destitute of all support may be admitted gratuitously.

The supervision of each establishment is entrusted to a committce, who also direct the placing out of the pupils on their departure, and take a benevolent interest in them.

A system of normal schools, especially designed to furnish teachers for pauper children, is an essential part of this system of rural schools for their training. Some of these establishments are attached to the rural schools, as at Hofwyl, Trogen, Carra, and Beuggen; elsewhere, as at Kreutzlingen, they exist separately. The Société Suisse d'Utilité Publique" has fully conceived the importance of training fit persons for the rural schools; it has set aside a certain sum of money to allow of a proportionate number of candidates being placed in the normal schools, where they learn the theory and practice of teaching, initiate themselves in the habits and occupations of a country life, and prepare themselves for fulfilling the humble duties of a laborious profession, in a pure spirit of self-denial and devotion, for which the world offers no recompense, and which can hope for its reward only in heaven.

Cost of Maintenance in the Rural Schools of Switzerland.

The mean cost of maintenance in these thirteen establishments is 185 francs per head per annum, or 50 centimes per day*.

A more detailed instance or two of the mode in which these institutions have been formed, will show the sources from which we must expect analogous movements at home, and yield us the important injunction, never to clog the springs of voluntary charity or of missionary effort among the people, but, by the hand of authority, merely to render aid and assistance wherever it is obviously wanted. It will hereafter be seen, that even all the despotic governments of Europe have already learned this maxim, or there would have been little material for the present paper. In Switzerland, and, in fact, throughout Europe, the agricultural poor-schools and reformatory schools all have the like origin and support, for the most part in private charity and effort, more or less seconded by the public authorities. The influences of religion are esteemed an essential condition of their useful existence; and their management is in the hands of local committees, of a more or less public character, according to the degree in which private or public sacrifices take part in their formation and support.

The institution of the agricultural poor-schools had proved a great benefit to Switzerland, by powerfully contributing to relieve distress and to stop the progress of pauperism. But experience showed that these establishments alone did not suffice to meet the case of vicious and offending children. When intermingled with others in the poorschools, they are the means of introducing into them the germs of a demoralization which the vigilance of their managers cannot always counteract. Hence arose the necessity for drawing a line of demarcation between them, and of forming special establishments for the vicious and offending class. One of the first promoters of this reform,

* Considerable use appears to have been made by M. Ducpetiaux, in his account of the Swiss schools, of a work published, in 1845, by M. J. C. Zellweger, Director of the Pauper School at Schurtanne, near Trogen, entitled "On the Pauper Schools of Switzerland, erected on the Principles of Fellenberg."-(Die Schweizerischen Armenschulen nach Fellenberg'schen Grundsatzen. Trogen, 1845.)