many might it not be the means of rescuing from sin and misery, or an early return to the workhouse? If such a result were attainable, it would be wise in boards of guardians to encourage rather than check a system of inspection, which women alone are able and willing to undertake.[1] It is well known that a large proportion of women prisoners have been reared in workhouses; and the master of a large union has stated that the pauper schools furnish a large number of the unhappy women who are abandoned to the most vicious lives. The reason is, not that they are ill cared for in these schools, but that parish children are generally orphans, or the children of profligate parents; and that after they are placed in service by their respective parishes, they, having no person to whom they can look with affection and respect, leave the places to which they have been consigned, and gradually are lost among the crowd of profligates who throng our streets.[2]
The possibility of carrying out an industrial system of training is the great advantage of the schools on a large scale, and the entire separation of the children from the associations of pauperism and from intercourse with their relations is insured. To some persons this last reason has appeared to be an objection, but we hardly think that it can be so considered by those who know what their relations (generally speaking) are, and what an influ-
- ↑ We cannot refrain from remarking here how important it is to secure the services of really superior and lady-like women to superintend these large establishments;—persons who would be capable of managing the household, and yet who would be looked up to with respect by the teachers, male and female (who now feel themselves the superiors in education), as well as by the guardians and other inspectors.
- ↑ Extract from Mr. G. Bowyer's Report on Pauper Schools for 1855:—"I have, ever since I have been an inspector, endeavoured to ascertain what was the subsequent conduct of the children who have left the school in which they were educated and trained. In some workhouses, where either the workhouse master, the schoolmaster, or the chaplain happened to take an interest in the same question (and these were generally well-conducted establishments in regard to the education and training of the children), the answers I received to my questions were definite and satisfactory. But, in the majority of instances, the only thing that was known on the subject was, whether the children returned to the workhouse or not, and what situations some of them occupied." In some of the district schools it is part of the chaplain's work to visit the children in their different situations for two years after they leave. We cannot help thinking that this is a portion of the work which might well be performed by women. Why should not ladies in each parish of the union be appointed to visit the girls, and keep up a friendly intercourse with them, which surely could be done by them as efficiently as by the chaplain, whose time must be fully occupied in the schools? Many of the boys sent out from district schools are said to be doing very well in Australia, in good situations. A proposal has been made to receive the boys and girls from these schools into our colonies, where thousands of them would be gladly employed. It would be a more hopeful experiment than that lately tried of sending out grown-up girls from our unions, after they have already been a considerable expense to their parishes, and have, many of them, acquired a sad experience of vice. The complete industrial training given to both boys and girls in these schools would fit them admirably for life in the colonies, and it would surely be a wise policy to adopt such a measure.
