except for self-indulgence; a vicious career of short duration, ending in despair or in a return to the workhouse, to become perpetual or thoroughly vicious paupers; so that in the case of such a girl, the cost of a life of pauperism must be carried to account … Nor let it be forgotten that we secure to these orphan and destitute children spiritual instruction, free from the distraction of ungodly companions; moral supervision, moral training and example; a knowledge of everyday duties; a comprehension of the value of well-employed hours; a perception of the evil consequences of a temporary indulgence in sin; the difference between a dwelling like this and the workhouse. We try to make this a home, and the matron a parent. The children feel that they are free agents; they learn the value of self-exertion and of an earned subsistence."[1]
Mrs. Austin adds: —
"Mr. G. Johnson concludes with an earnest wish that the attempt to rescue the children of workhouses from the contagion of bad example might become more general. I am told from high authority that the ratepayers almost universally resist any such attempt. This is a deplorable fact, and only shews more clearly the necessity for earnest endeavours to convince them that parsimony is, in such a case, the worst thrift."
Such "homes" as these, containing, perhaps, not more than forty girls or boys, must be far more hopeful attempts for educating the destitute children of the lowest classes than the large establishments now spreading in the neighbourhood of London for the reception of children from the various unions, and where many hundreds are congregated together in masses too great to constitute in any sense a "family."[2] Such numbers collected under one roof must be managed by a machinery exercised by a few paid persons, who, however efficient, can ill supply the place of relations and home affections. This want is indeed a very difficult one to be supplied, for it must be remembered that these poor children have no homes. There is for them no going home for the holidays, none of the happy, joyous objects for thought which fill the hearts of most children. And here, when
- ↑ Lest the plan should be objected to on the score of expense, we will subjoin a statement of the comparative cost of maintenance in the Norwich homes and in the workhouse, including washing and firing:—"In the latter, 2s. 10d. per week; in the boys' home, 2s. 3½d., which the earnings of the boy reduce by 9¼d., leaving the real weekly expense 1s. 6¼d. The earnings, however, are brought in by only 15 working boys out of 64 inmates, the rest being schoolboys; so that if the earnings of the 15 boys were appropriated only to themselves, they would more than pay for their maintenance. The girls' home is 2s. 9¾ d., a little less than the workhouse. There is thus a decided direct pecuniary saving effected by the establishment of institutions, of which the indirect saving, even in a temporary and worldly point of view, is incalculable."
- ↑ The numbers in the largest Metropolitan District Union Schools in the first week of January, 1856, were as follows:— Central London, 1,178; North Surrey, 667; South Metropolitan, 748; St. George-in-the-East, 404; Whitechapel, 2,992; Lambeth, 507; Stepney, 450.
