as near brutes as possible,' and from whose sight it was necessary to keep such tempting delicacies as very old' tallowcandles, soap, raw potato-peels, and other similar articles for which they had a peculiar relish. The distinguishing feature of the Rauhe Haus, as now developed, is the adoption of what is called the 'family system,' which has since been copied with so much success at Mettray and Red Hill. The following account is given by Mr. George Bunsen, son of the late Prussian ambassador to this country, in his evidence before the House of Commons in 1852 :*. 'It began with only one house, a cottage in fact, which had been hired, and some few acres of land around it. Mr. Wichern brought in first a small number; that number increased, and at this present moment the establishment is a hamlet consisting of twenty houses. There are in it 100 children, two-thirds boys, and onethird girls; they are all clothed, lodged, and boarded entirely. They are located (and that is the first principle of what I may call the German system) in different family houses, as they are called, of which the number, as desired by the director, would be always only 12 children to each family; he has been obliged, from local reasons, to augment the number to 15, and even to 16, but it is a matter of much regret to him. A family house of twelve children would have one superintendent, and besides him four or five "brothers" would reside in the house, under the direction of a young candidate for holy orders. Those " "brothers are young men of from 20 to 30 years of age, of the very best character, from the class of mechanics or artisans, who undergo a training of three and sometimes four years, after which they devote their life to such and similar institutions: and this is the second great principle which I would point out.' These two principles,-the division of reformatory institutions into small families, and the training of young men for the office of superintendents,-are of the highest importance. That which distinguishes and gives value to reformatory schools is, not the mere system of mental education, which experience amply shows is insufficient to restrain, much more to reclaim, from crime; it is the moral effect which the influence of the superintendents has upon the children under their charge. This influence is naturally most powerful when the number of children assigned to the teacher is small, and it is consequently possible to give a great deal of attention to each individual. Besides, the greater part of the inmates of these schools have *Report of Sel. Com. H. C. on Criminal and Destitute Juveniles. 1852. either never known what a home is, or have only known it as a place of sin and misery; and it is of the utmost importance that they should have their domestic feelings called out, which becomes difficult in establishments comprising several hundred boys, such as Parkhurst in England or Gaillon in France. Mr. Hall, in his account of his visit to Gaillon, mentions that he asked M. Delaunay whether they were able to gain the affections of any of those committed to their care; he replied, 'No, the numbers were too large for the teachers to establish any individual hold.' This difficulty will, we believe, be found in almost every extensive institution. The great Belgian establishment, indeed, at Ruysselede, affords an example of a more cheering character in this respect; but the class of boys admitted to it differs in an important respect from that provided for at purely reformatory schools, more than half being simply the children of paupers, without the taint of conviction for crime. great mass of the experience which has been collected on the subject appears to show that, although large establishments are the cheaper, small ones, or large ones broken up into small families, are the most efficacious. The The other principle-that of training a supply of men qualified to undertake the is of still greater consequence; for one of management of reformatory institutionsthe chief difficulties with which the founders of such institutions have now to contend is that of finding proper persons to manage them. Mr. Jelinger Symons says truly that there is perhaps no vocation which requires a more peculiar set of qualifications, both natural and acquired, than that of the head of a successful Reformatory. It will take two years to train fully even a well-disposed man; and yet,' he adds, with a natural misgiving, 'reformatories are being established as if masters for them could be raised like mushrooms.' The work of reformation is indeed one which draws largely upon individual zeal, and which cannot be successfully carried on by mere routine, but demands the devotion of the heart to it in a very remarkable degree. It is the moral influence of the master over the boy which effects the change, not a set of rules and a formal course of training. But it is not the less true that there is an art in the process which must be studied, like any other art, with a view to complete success. Even those who have taken up the work from an inward conviction of their aptitude for it, and who may be supposed to have made it the subject of much reflection, have found that in the outset they were beset with difficulties which experience alone has taught them to overcome. How much more then will it happen that those who are engaged by others for a post of which they have but an imperfect idea, will fail in accomplishing the good which is expected of them! The spirit which leads a Von der Recke or a Wichern, a Brenton or a Bengough, to devote their lives to the object of reformation, will guide them through many perplexities, and support them under many difficulties; but where persons are prepared to found schools, but are unable to undertake the personal conduct of them, they too often find that, after erecting buildings, and arranging their plan of operations, they have a harder task than all to accomplish in selecting a proper person to place at the head of their establishment; that their choice is necessarily made as it were in the dark; and that they run great risk of neutralising the whole of their efforts by an unfortunate selection. Such an entry as the following in M. Wichern's Diary (1838) will illustrate the evil to be hended: appre of the class with which he has to deal, and which few are in a position to acquire. The Rauhe Haus, as we have seen, contains a special provision for the training of masters. It trains them upon a very enlarged scale. Young men would perhaps be unwilling to run the risk of entering it for the mere purpose of being taught how to conduct a reformatory school, which they might after all feel reluctant to undertake. But the education they receive there is such that their services are eagerly sought for in various occupations, and they have no difficulty in obtaining employment. Some are engaged in hospitals, asylums, and charitable institutions; some have been employed in the management of prisons; others become agents to religious societies, scripture readers, or city missionaries. In one remarkable case six of these brothers have been invited by the authorities of Wurtemberg to reside in some of the worst gaols, wearing the dress, and living and working with the convicts, as a kind of inner mission,' as the German phrase is; and it is said that their intercourse with the prisoners has had most beneficial effects. This brothers' establishment, or training department, at the Rauhe Haus, is distinct from the other part of the institution, and is supported by separate funds. A change of assistants has caused much dif ficulty. The superintendent of the girls' house has left, and her place was not immediately supplied. The old sin quickly re-appeared among them with a few consolatory exceptions. All our regulations, and the efforts of three plain tradesmen's wives, selected one after the other to superintend them, proved unavailing. The utmost that could be attained was superficial decorum, which might have partially deceived me had I not lived so entirely among the chil-wards.** dren. The girls' department was like a garden from which the care of the gardener has been withdrawn.' If the mere change of an assistant in an establishment under the close personal inspection of a man like M. Wichern could produce such consequences, we may easily conceive how the appointment of an incapable master might baffle all the efforts which the best-intentioned committee could make. Nor is the word 'incapable' intended to convey reproach, for there are few indeed who possess that peculiar union of qualities, that sweetness of temper, depth of affection, patience, hopefulness, even playfulness of mind, combined with firmness, courage, good sense, keen insight into character, and power of inspiring respect and fear, which a reformatory master requires for success; and although these qualities are present, he must still possess much positive information as to the habits 'A powerful help is given temporarily by different governments. Thus twelve are now paid for by the Prussian government, two by the government of Wurtemberg, six by that of Saxony, others by such benevolent persons as may desire to avail themselves of their services after The Rauhe Haus, as we have already hinted, furnished the type in which Mettray, the most celebrated of all the European reformatories, was subsequently cast; but the roots of the great French institution are to be sought for in a deeper stratum. The Code Napoléon in 1810 had laid down as a principle of the French criminal law, that accused persons under sixteen years of age might, if the tribunal before which they were tried should consider that they had acted without discernment,' be acquitted on that ground; in which case they might either be restored immediately to their families, or be sent to a house of correction for the purpose of being detained and educated for such time as the court might direct, with the limitation that the detention should not extend beyond the twentieth year of the culprit's age. The Mr. Bunsen's Evidence. criminal courts appear to have somewhat strained this article of the law; and acquittals for want of discernment became the rule instead of the exception. The result was less desirable than the framers probably contemplated, for the youth, though acquitted, was subjected to a long imprisonment, during which be was imperfectly in structed in some handicraft which could be taught within the walls of the house of correction, and came out at length to seek work in the great towns with a damaged character, which at once made the master manufacturers reluctant to employ him, and marked him out as a proper prey for the trained bands of criminals who were on the look-out for recruits. The number of ' recidives,' therefore, or persons who, after undergoing a training in the Penitentiary, relapsed into crime, was very considerable, and the system confessedly worked ill. personal inquiry into the state of the agricultural colonies of Belgium and Holland. These two members were, the late minister and political economist, M. Leon Faucher, and M. Fréderic Auguste de Metz, then a judge of the Court of Appeal at Paris. After a short inspection of the colonies to which their attention had been directed, the state of which did not appear to them satisfactory, M. Leon Faucher returned to Paris, leaving M. de Metz to pursue his researches alone. These ultimately led him to Hamburgh, where he became acquainted with the work which Wichern was carrying on at the Rauhe Haus. It immediately struck him that this was what he wanted, and he returned to France to resign his judicial situation, and to devote himself, in company with an old schoolfellow, the Vicomte de Courteilles, to the exclusive prosecution of the design he had conceived. M. de Courteilles offered his estate at Mettray for the purpose, and the two friends commenced their work in 1839, by building five houses, suitable to the reception of about forty boys a-piece, and by founding a normal school, in which, as the first step of all, a staff of young men of good character were prepared by special training for the task of superintendence. Early in 1840 they began to receive their colonists,' as they called the young détenus committed to their care, and the institution which, since the death of M. de Courteilles, has been under the sole charge of M. de Metz, now contains 681 boys, besides a training school for masters. Nor should these be considered the limits of its development; for its success has been such that no less than thirty-five private, and seventeen government institutions, have been formed upon its model, and the number of children detained in them had risen, at the commencement of 1853, to the large It number of 6,443. In the year 1833, the same in which M. Wichern took possession of the Rauhe Haus, M. Lucas, inspector-general of prisons, laid the foundation of an association for the patronage of young convicts, in the districts round Paris, the object of which was to assist them in their efforts to obtain employment, and to watch over their subsequent career. This association introduced a system analogous to our 'ticket of leave,' which allowed young détenus to be set at liberty provisionally, subject to the liability of being recommitted to La Roquette (the juvenile prison) in the event of any serious misconduct, without the necessity of further judicial interference. The Patronage Society were thus enabled to procure good places for the young prisoners on their discharge, as the master manufacturers were encouraged to take them by the knowledge of the control afforded by the law of provisional enlargement, and the number of recidives was sensibly reduced. But the society did not stop here. obtained from the government the appointment of a commission to inquire into the means of reforming the young, The com missioners arrived at the conclusion that a course of rural training was the system best adapted for the purpose, both because of the moral and physical benefits of a life of hard labour out of doors, and because the chances of obtaining honest employment at a distance from temptation, would be much greater in the case of the agriculturist than in that of the mechanic. When, however, this conclusion had been arrived at, the want of practical knowledge prevented their proceeding to try the experiment; and to supply this defect they deputed two of their number to make a The Mettray School is well deserving of attentive study. Our readers will find a full and interesting account of it in a lecture by Mr. Hall, the Recorder of Doncaster, as well as in several papers laid before the Committee of the House of Commons. Indeed, there are few works on the subject of the Reformatory movement which do not contain some particulars respecting this great institution. The leading principle of its founders has been to make it a place of moral influence and not of physical restraint; to win the affections of those committed to them; to arouse in them a spirit of emulation, and to induce them to co-operate in their own reformation. With this view, not only have they absolutely rejected all such appliances (stone walls and the like) as would have given the place the air of a prison, but they took pains to fix their institution in a pleasant country and on a fertile estate, in order that the inmates might be the better won to love labour by witnessing a rapid return for their toil. In Belgium and Holland the principle had been adopted of employing the convicts upon the cultivation of waste lands; but however such a practice might be suitable as a punishment for past offences, M. de Metz found that it must have the effect of disgusting the workman with his work, and sending him out less disposed to labour than when he came in. In a recent publication* he recalls the plaintive saying of a Belgian convict, who told him, with an accent of despair, To deserve being sent here a man ought to have murdered his father and mother; there is not a blade of grass which does not cost a drop of sweat.' The system of M. de Metz is an elaborate use of the passion (for so we must call it) of emulation. A French writer (M. Cochin) describes it as a kind of alliance between vanity and the conscience,' and remarks that the founders of Mettray, in addressing themselves to this quality, have shown a remarkable knowledge of human nature, and of French nature in particular.' The military principle is also one of its remarkable features; the regiment is the type of the constitution of the colony, the officers in their several ranks represent the colonel, the subaltern and the serjeant; and military discipline, military honour, and military practices, are appealed to at every turn. The colony is divided into thirteen families, each of which occupies a separate house. All the houses are built upon an uniform plan, containing two stories, of which the lower is fitted up as workshops, and the upper serves both as dining-room and sleeping-room. The family consists in every case of a chef, a souschef, and fifty boys. Two of these boys are distinguished from the rest by a scarlet band round the arm, and by the title of Frères Ainés; they are elected every three months by the boys themselves out of a list which is periodically prepared of those who have incurred no punishment during the past quarter; and they are charged Rapport sur les Colonies Agricoles, lu à la Réunion Internationale de Charité.-Tours. Three of these are out-colonies, intended to accustom the inmates gradually to self-regulation; for the general tone of the colony subdues the independence of individual character, and induces too much reliance upon the support of a system. with assisting the chef and sous-chef in the maintenance of discipline. This list of honour, as it is called, is a general one for the whole institution, and is displayed in the class-room, which is their common place of meeting. Mr. Hall was struck by this manuscript, which at the time of his visit 'contained the names of 305 colonists, who during the three months ending June 30, 1853, had given no occasion for punishment. Out of this list forty-seven names had been struck, showing that those individuals had given occasion for punishment since its preparation.' A similar list is exhibited weekly in each family house, and it is considered a mark of distinction for a family to be able to display what Mr. Hall calls a clean bill of health-i. e. a list showing that no member has been punished in the preceding week. When this is the case, a flag is hoisted, and the insignia of the house (consisting of presents made by former inmates) are displayed, all of which distinctions are removed as soon as an offence is committed by any of the family. This system has the advantage of making the good conduct of each individual a matter of concern to the whole househould; and when we remember the strong influence which the opinion of their fellows has upon schoolboys, we can easily judge that it is a powerful incentive to good behaviour. So keen, indeed, is the emulation of the several houses, that cases have occurred in which families have petitioned for the expulsion of an incorrigible member, on account of his keeping down the character of the house. 'On 'It is a more characteristic [and, let us add, a more satisfactory] trait,' says Mr. Hall, 'that on one occasion a family compelled one of its members to give back a book which he had received for a prize, he having disgraced himself by subsequent bad conduct.' occasion of a public subscription for the sufferers by an inundation at Lyons, the whole establishment volunteered to give up a meal, that the cost The appeof it might go as their contribution. tite of one poor fellow was stronger than his which was served to him as usual without objeccharity, and he preferred having his dinner, tion; but his comrades punished him by sitting at table with him whilst he ate it.' This principle of emulation, and the dread of public opinion, may easily be pushed too far; and however it may suit the French character, we should be sorry to see a prominent place given to it in an English establishment. No one can doubt its power as a motive of action, and if reformatory schools aimed at nothing beyond the maintenance of discipline, and the per formance of work within their own precincts, we might have less to say against it. But they are only means to an end, and that end is, the implanting in the pupil such principles of conduct, such feelings of religion, such strength of mind under temptation, as may preserve him from evil when he has left. There is danger lest the lad who strains every nerve to win the praise of his comrades in a contest of honour, should be equally ready, on falling into bad company, to exert himself to obtain their applause by audacity in crime; and, though we advance the idea with fear and trembling, we cannot help submitting that perhaps there was something as respectable and as indicative of future steadiness in the moral courage of the little her. who ate his dinner while the rest looked on, as in the fear of ridicule which had very probably induced, some of his critics to give up theirs. A refinement upon the system of mutual responsibility is to be met with in the establishment of Petit Bourg, near Corbeile, where Mr. Hall informs us that he found several of the inmates undergoing imprisonment merely as 'protectors' or bondsmen, the meaning of which is this: when a boy has made himself liable to imprisonment, he is sometimes set at liberty, on procuring security for his future better behaviour by getting a boy of good character to engage himself to undergo the punishment should the culprit thus let out offend again.' The idea of this vicarious punishment seems strange, but it must awaken many of the best feelings of our nature on the part of both protectors and protected, and may sometimes serve to remind both that our misconduct in ordinary life seldom fails to bring trouble upon others as well as upon ourselves, and thus to make them weigh more strictly the consequences of their faults. The moral lesson is so good that we are disposed to waive the objection which we should otherwise take to this exceptional arrangement; but we must repeat our caution against the whole class of what are called interesting' modes of treatment in these institutions, which are, we think, exposed to no danger more serious than that of being made into playthings by those who take them up because they are the fashion, or to gratify a passing desire for a novel kind of excitement. Hundreds of visitors may lounge through Mettray or Red Hill, as they would through a zoological garden or a palace of industry, for the sake of amusing themselves with the sight of tame criminals, and with the inspection of new and ingenious devices for their manage ment, and such persons will be best pleased where the greatest novelties are exhibited: but those who have at heart the true welfare of the children, will witness with pain the tendency to buoy them up during their residence in the school with supports which do not strengthen them, and which they will find altogether withdrawn as soon as they go out into the world. Teaching them to be good by means of an artificial system of emulation, is like teaching them to swim with the aid of bladders; it is not the true way to give firmness and stability to their character. แ One of the most valuable parts of the Mettray system is the patronage (as it is called) of the lads who leave the school. After remaining at Mettray about four years, or sometimes more, the boys are usually provided with situations in the employment of farmers and tradesmen in various parts of France :— 'No difficulty is found in providing for them, there being more applications than can be satisfied. Whenever a boy is thus placed out, a man in the neighbourhood is engaged to interest "patron" is obtained for him, i.e. some gentlehimself in his conduct and welfare. Reports from these patrons are obtained every six months, from which a list is made out and suspended in the large school-room of the colony, stating the situation and character of the youths who have left. This is called the "Table des Colons placés." If the lad behave well, he is presented, on arriving at his twentieth year, with a ring engraved with an appropriate device. If he turn out ill while under twenty years of age, he is either received back for a further trial, or is sent to the house of correction from which he originally came, and remains there to the end of his sen tence."* The value of this system of patronage cannot be exaggerated. Those who have any practical acquaintance with the temptations, the rebuffs, and the difficulties of all kinds, to which youths who have once fallen into crime are exposed when they seek to regain a position in society, will easily imagine of what advantage it must be to them to have the countenance of a self in their behalf. The duty which the person who has undertaken to interest himlittle trouble. It is not he who obtains the patron undertakes is one which involves himself in any way responsible for his good situation for the youth, nor does he make behaviour; he merely engages to visit him from time to time, to show him that he is not forgotten by those who have taken an interest in him, and to report periodically Report on Mettray, by the Rev Sydney Tur ner, and T. Paynter, Esq. |