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JOURNAL

OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY

JUNE, 1896.

REFORMATORY and INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS.

(HOWARD MEDAL PRIZE ESSAY.)

By JOHN WATSON, M.A.

[Read before the Royal Statistical Society, 17th March, 1896.
Sir COURTENAY BOYLE, K.C.B., Vice-President, in the Chair.]

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WE are, in this paper, to review Reformatory and Industrial Schools, so as to ascertain, historically and statistically, their present position, actual working, and social results. It will be incumbent on us to trace their rise and growth, both at home and abroad; to inquire into the antecedents and family circumstances of their inmates, the crimes committed and the punishments meted out; to describe the various methods of discipline and education followed for their reformation and life-equipment; to consider the means employed in safeguarding them on their discharge and starting them in honest and profitable pursuits; to ascertain as accurately as possible the degree of success achieved in their individual characters as evidenced by their subsequent conduct and career; and, lastly, to measure or take stock, as it were, of their influence upon the fluctuations of crime in the country, and their value as factors in the national security and welfare. Towards these ends, it may conduce to clearness if we divide the

VOL. LIX. PART II.

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inquiry into two parts, the one relating to the schools when they were almost entirely managed by private agencies and voluntary subscriptions, and the other when they became objects of State control, Government inspection, and Treasury support.

The facts and figures will be taken from official reports, except when otherwise stated.

The Reformatory Movement at Home and Abroad.

The reformatory movement may be said to have originated in this country under the auspices of the Philanthropic Society in 1788. The birthplace was Hackney, then a mere village in the neighbourhood of London, where two or three cottages were hired for the reception of the children of convicts, or of such children as had been themselves convicted, on their release from prison. The number at first taken on hand did not exceed a dozen, but on the establishment being removed to St. George's-in-the-Fields, it was extended and re-organized. Three separate and distinct branches were then instituted, one for the sons of felons, another for their daughters, and the third for criminal boys. Owing to these and other changes the numbers increased largely; the benefits of the institution were thereupon restricted to boys; and, in 1849 the school was removed to Redhill in Surrey, from which it has since radiated its influence over the rest of the kingdom.

Another voluntary agency had been started for girls. The "School of Discipline, Chelsea," was founded in 1825 for the reformation of such as had been imprisoned for theft or other offences, though many at the same time were admitted who were liable to such punishment without having actually suffered it. In the years preceding its becoming a certified reformatory, 479 children had been educated within its walls, of whom 143 became domestic servants and 210 returned to the homes of their parents or guardians.

The system of farm schools, or, as the French would term them, "Agricultural Colonies," had been successfully adopted in Switzerland; and upon it there was engrafted by M. Wicheren in Germany, under his scheme for juvenile reclamation, the family principle. Having had the Rauhe Haus, a cottage in the neighbourhood of Hamburg, gifted to him, he entered it on the 1st November, 1833, along with his mother, and three boys,—the wildest and apparently most hopeless of the hordes that prowled the streets of the Eibe's emporium. The number gradually increased, until, ten years afterwards, the colony consisted of twenty families occupying twenty separate houses, each managed by a superintendent and four or five "brothers," and with an aggregate number of over 200 inmates.

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In France, under the code Napoléon (1810), a young person charged with crime and brought before a magistrate, instead of being committed to prison, might be either discharged altogether or sent to a school of correction up to the twentieth of his age, provided that it appeared to the magistrate that he had acted "without discernment." In furtherance of this idea, M. de Metz, a judge of assize, and M. de Courteilles, a counsellor, determined to found an institution which would supply the place of both a reformatory and a prison, though without the distinctive features of the latter. Five houses were built on the estate of M. de Courteilles, suitable for the reception of about 40 boys each, and a normal school, in which, as the first step of all, a staff of young men could be prepared for the duties and responsibilities of superintendence. Early in 1840 they began to receive their "colonists;" and Mettray since that time has gone on increasing in numbers and importance, till it has come to be regarded as the Mecca to which reformatory devotees all over the world direct their gaze for inspiration and example.

Space will not permit us to do more than refer to the isolated though successful labours of Mr. Nash and Mr. Ellis in London, or of Mr. Bengough and Mr. Barwick Baker in Gloucestershire. So successful had the methods of the last mentioned proved that, whereas there had been in Cheltenham alone, when he entered upon his work, some 20 boys under 14 years of age who had been convicted twice, thrice, or oftener, there were three or four years after not more than 2 at large in the whole county who had been convicted more than once.

If London is regarded as the birth-place of reformatory and industrial schools, Scotland claims to have been their cradle and nursery. The extent of juvenile vagrancy and delinquency in Aberdeen had moved the sympathetic and philanthropic spirit of Sheriff Watson early in his official career in that city, and with a subscription of 100l. he opened the first industrial school in October, 1841, with 20 scholars. The children for whom the school was designed are described as being a peculiar class-sharp, clever, half starved, inured to hardship and hard treatment of every kind at home and on the streets. As individuals they had no love for school, for lessons, or control of any description. The idea of school conveyed to their minds nothing that was agreeable or useful, and much that was repulsive and odious. The new school, however, possessed very different features from those they had heard of or experienced; there were rumours of substantial breakfasts and dinners and suppers to be had after lessons; and there were also whispers of instruction in the arts of tailoring, shoemaking, and net making, and possibly even carpenter work,

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