Industrial Schools, to which magistrates can commit children in danger of becoming criminals, the Society is working in co-operation with the Local Government Board and Boards of Guardians, by having Cottage Homes certified for the reception of pauper children. Many Boards of Guardians are arriving at the conclusion that the best training for a child is not in a workhouse, or even in large district schools, and are seeking to dissociate as far as possible the pauper children from the Unions, so that when they are grown up they will not return thither, and become adult paupers. I should also mention that our Society works hand in hand with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which, as is well known, has no permanent homes of its own, and therefore has to depend upon the Waifs and Strays Society, and similar organisations, when it requires a permanent home for a child whose legal custody has been transferred from its cruel parents to others. Besides this general classification of homes there is a more particular one which depends upon the age of the children. Some are for children of school-age, and, in most instances, the inmates attend the national school in the village or town where the home is situated, and are to all intents and purposes of some larger family than usual, mixing with the children of their neighbours. They wear no uniform, and, in appearance, they are certainly not like charity children.”
