&-S3 $ 126* REESE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 http://archive.org/details/childrenunderpooOOchanrich CHILDREN UNDER THE POOR LAW By the same Author. THE BETTER ADMINISTRATION OF THE POOR LAW. Crown 8vo. 6/- Adopted by the Charity Organisation Society. "An able and useful vfoxk."—Athenceum. "Full of valuable information and wise counsel."— Times. "An excellent sketch of the Poor Law question at the present day No Guardian of the Poor is fully equipped for his office until he has read Mr. Chance's book."— Economic Review. "Experts will be the first to admit the interest and value of the book."— Poor Law Officers' Journal. "To Poor Law Guardians it will be invaluable." — Spectator. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Lim. CHILDREN UNDER THE POOR LAW THEIR EDUCATION TRAINING AND AFTER-CARE TOGETHER WITH H Criticism of tbe IReport of tbe Departmental Committee on Metropolitan lpoor 3Law Scboole BY W. CHANCE, M.A. M TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; BARRISTER-AT-LAW HON. SEC. CENTRAL POOR LAW CONFERENCES AUTHOR OF "THE BETTER ADMINISTRATION OF THE POOR LAW* LONDON SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LlM PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1897 REESE A PREFACE IN the preface to my book on the Better Administration of the Poor Law} I excused myself from entering fully into so important and difficult a subject as that relating to the education and maintenance of pauper children, because a Departmental Committee was inquiring into the matter. This reason exists no longer, for the Committee has issued its Report. But the Report seems to me to make it still more necessary than I felt it to be two years ago to examine into what has been done, and is still being done, with respect to the education and training of pauper children, not only in London 2 but in the provinces. For the discussion which the Report has given rise to, and which is still going on, shows very clearly how very little the general public really knows about the subject. Indeed, the effect of the Report has been to leave the public mind under the impression that all the monies which have been expended on Poor Law Schools might just as well have been thrown into the gutter for all the good the expenditure has done. I hope that this book may be the means of effectually dispelling this mistaken notion. There are, so far as I know, only two books which deal with my subject as a whole; but I think it will be conceded that they do not entirely fill the field. One is Miss F. Davenport Hill's Children of the State} and the other is Mr. R. A. Leach's Pauper Children: their Education and Training .^ The object of the former work was apparently to advocate Boarding-out, for 1 Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1895. * The Committee was only appointed to inquire into London Poor Law Schools and Institutions. 3 Second edition, 1889 (Macmillan & Co.)* 4 Hadden, Best & Co., 1890. a 2 163298 vi Preface Miss Hill enhances its advantages by depicting other systems in the darkest colours. The latter work (which I should like to see brought up to date) is a most useful compendium of the acts and orders relating to the subject. In this book I have tried to give a clear and succinct de- scription of the various methods in use at the present time for bringing up those pauper children who are either in Poor Law or other institutions, or are boarded-out, 1 while at the same time weighing as fairly as I could the respective advantages and disadvantages of each method. In this way I hope to be able to convey an accurate impression to the public mind of what Poor Law Guardians and District School Managers have done in the past, and are still doing, to mould the very difficult material which comes into their hands into honest and respectable work- ing men and women. I have modelled the general plan of the book on that of my former one. The Reports of the Inspectors of Poor Law Schools — which are buried in (to most people) inaccessible blue-books — contain most valuable information, hints, and advice as to how the education and training of pauper children may be carried out so as to produce the best results. These reports should not be neglected by anyone who wishes to obtain a mastery of a most interesting subject. Miss Mason's Reports on Boarding-out, of which I have naturally made much use, are better known. But I have thought it well, when quoting from these reports, to let the Inspectors speak for themselves, supplementing from other sources the valuable information they give. I have made free use of the Report of the Departmental Committee, the value of which I have always acknowledged, in spite of the strong bias it exhibits. 1 Boards of Guardians have nothing to do with the education of those children who are classed as outdoor paupers, except that they can withdraw the relief if they are not sent to school {post, p. 19). It is often forgotten how small is the proportion of indoor to outdoor pauper children. On January 1st, 1896, 54,052 children were receiving indoor, and 184,437 (including 5905 boarded-out) outdoor relief (25 Z. G. B., p. 1). Of the 54,052 children, only 24,475 were being educated in Poor Law Schools, the great majority of the remaining 29,577 attending the Public Elementary Schools. Preface vii The plan of my book is as follows : An introductory chapter traces the history of the subject from the notable year of Poor Law Reform (1834) to the present time, so that it may be seen how great the progress of Poor Law education has been. Then follow chapters on Workhouse Schools, District and Separate Schools, Cottage Home Schools, and Detached Homes. 1 Another chapter describes the use made of Public Elementary Schools, a system which answers so admirably in country districts, where the children in workhouses are usually few in number. 2 Next come two chapters on Boarding-out, a system which is becoming so popular that the dangers which surround it need to be carefully pointed out, 3 and a chapter describing the use made of certified and uncertified institutions, and of training-ships. The various kinds of employment open to pauper children, and the means of disposing of them after they leave the hands of Guardians are next discussed, 4 separate chapters being assigned to the important question of their "after-care," 5 and to the vexed question of how that disturbing element in a Poor Law School — the "ins and outs" — can be best dealt with. 6 The concluding chapter 7 criticizes various reforms which have been agitated for in recent years. A sup- plementary chapter, 8 which has been kindly contributed to the book by a friend who has a special acquaintance with the subject, contains some valuable remarks on the education obtainable in Poor Law Schools. In the Appendices will be found a criticism of the recent Report of the Departmental Committee, and various circular letters and forms which are of practical use at the present time. I am prepared to be told that I have depended too much upon the reports and statements of Poor Law Officials for many of my facts. It is remarkable how the opponents of Poor Law Schools refuse to credit the facts and figures of those who have most to do with them, while they lend a ready ear to the tales of those who have never, or at least not in recent 1 Chaps. I. to V. 2 Chap. VI. 3 Chaps. VII. and VIII. * Chap. X. 6 Chap. XL 6 Chap. XII. 7 Chap. XIII. « p. 351. viii Preface years, visited the schools, and who are therefore apt to draw general conclusions from exceptional cases, or to think that what may have been true of the schools in the past accurately describes them at the present time. I, for one, prefer to get my evidence at first hand, and I have never had the least cause to doubt the truth of what has been told me as to how well as a rule the children get on after leaving the schools, even if I had not seen piles of letters and photographs testifying to the fact. Anyway, I must leave it to my readers to decide as to whether my book gives a fair general account of the work of Poor Law Guardians in a particular field, and as to whether their labours have been crowned with as much success as could be expected, considering the class of children who come under their control. I must not conclude this preface without expressing my warmest thanks to my friends, Mr. J. S. Davy, Mr. Vallance, Mr. Clay, Miss Mason, Miss Lidgett, Mr. H. G. Willink, Rev. Brooke Lambert, and most especially to Mr. J. R. Mozley, for the kind help which they have given to me. W. CHANCE. Guildford, September, 1897. CONTENTS INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. The period from 1 834-1861 . „ 1861-1874. „ „ 1874 to the present time CHAPTER I. WORKHOUSE SCHOOLS The difficulty of securing efficient teaching The monotonous life of the children . The evil of close contact with adult paupers . The difficulty of securing proper classification The difficulty of securing proper industrial training The unavoidable contact with "In and Out" children CHAPTER II. WORKHOUSE SCHOOLS {Continued) Page 2 20 35 51 56 58 59 59 60 Results of the system . 61 Industrial training . 71 Education .... . . 76 Health of the children • • 79 Discipline .... . 80 Type of a Workhouse School . 80 CHAPTER III. DLSTRLCT AND SEPARATE SCHOOLS Reasons for their establishment 82 Separation from adult paupers 86 Industrial training 86 Efficient teaching . 94 Education 96 Economical argument 104 Permanence of teachers 104 Future of children assured . 104 Contents CHAPTER IV. DISTRICT AND SEPARATE SCHOOLS {Continued) Page The loss of the family tie . . . . . • 106 The monotonous and confined life . . . . . 107 The system is too good . . . . . . no The massing of children together . . . . . 112 (a) as it affects the physical development of the children . .113 (b) as it affects the moral development of the children . .114 (c) as it affects the mental development of the children . .119 The system a costly one . . . . ... 121 The system favours outbreaks of infectious diseases . . .122 Evidence of the system being depauperising . . . 125 Type of a large school . . . . . . 132 CHAPTER V. THE "COTTAGE HOMES" AND "ISOLATED HOMES" SYSTEMS ^/ Section I. The "Cottage Homes" system Success of the system The family life The dietary . Industrial training Health results Cost of Cottage Homes Description of the Cottage Homes of the Industrial training Education Physical, mental, and moral development Section II. The "Isolated or Scattered Homes" system 135 . 136 140 . . 140 . 140 . . 141 . . 141 Parish of Shoreditch . 14s . ■ 151 . . 154 • 155 les" system ■ 157 CHAPTER VI. THE USE MADE OF PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS Advantages and disadvantages of the system . . . 168 A typical Union . . . . ... 177 CHAPTER VII. THE BOARDING-OUT SYSTEM Regulations under the two Boarding-out Orders Difficulties connected with compliance with the regulations (a) Boarding-out Committees (6) Good homes and good foster-parents . (c) Stringent supervision 180 192 192 194 196 Contents XI Page The objections of Guardians . . . . 205 (a) The loss of the direct control of the children . . . 205 (b) The taking away of the best children, and so affecting the efficiency of the Schools . . ... 205 CHAPTER VIII. THE BOARDING-OUT SYSTEM (Continued) As to the success of the system The necessary conditions for success (a) The necessity of official inspection (b) Wholesale and indiscriminate advocacy endangering success of the system Defects in the system .... Boarding-out within Unions Concluding remarks .... the 209 216 216 220 225 229 235 CHAPTER IX. OTHER SYSTEMS OF BRINGING UP POOR LAW CHILDREN Schools certified under 25 & 26 Vict. ch. 43 Institutions not specially certified Training Ships Sending children to schools of other Unions 237 246 248 254 CHAPTER X. EMPLOYMENT Modes of disposing of girls . . ... 257 Emigration Apprenticeship 261 267 {a) To ordinary trades . 267 (b) To the Royal Navy 271 (c) To the Merchant Service 273 (d) To the Sea-Fishing Service . 274 Entry into the Army and Navy Bands 284 Employment of boys generally 284 CHAPTER XI. AFTER-CARE Supervision generally . . . . . . 286 The M. A. B.Y. S. . . . . . 296 The G. F. S. . . . . . . . 298 The Bristol Preventive Mission 300 xii Contents The Bolton Society for Befriending Young Servants The Sheffield House of Help The Young Men's Friendly Society . The Kensington Lads' Union The South Metropolitan Schools Visiting Association The Homes for Working Boys in London The Lincoln Working Boys' Aid Society CHAPTER XII. "INS AND OUTS" . . . . . 315 CHAPTER XIII. SUGGESTED REFORMS AND CONCLUSION . . 328 SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER Education in Poor Law Schools 351 APPENDICES A. A Criticism of the Report of the Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools . . 358 B. Certificates to teachers in Poor Law Schools . . . 402 C. Memorandum of the Local Government Board on emigration . 403 D. Circular letters on ophthalmia . . ... 404 E. Order of 30th January, 1897, on instruction of children . . 405 F. Circular letter as to industrial trainers . ... 408 G. Various forms in use under the Boarding-out Orders — (a) Forms used by the Burton-on-Trent Union . . 409 {b) Forms as set out in the Orders . . . .413 (c) Rules of the Bristol and Clifton Boarding-out Society . 417 H. List of Homes for feeble-minded girls . ... 420 I. Order of 10th July, 1897, as to outfits for children . . . 421 K. Forms used by the M. A. B. Y. S. . . . 422 L. Memorandum on boys who have left Sutton and Witham Schools 423 M. New scheme of the G. F. S. . . . . . 425 N. Memorandum of the Local Government Board on Isolated Homes 425 O. Scheme of Isolated Homes for the Whitechapel Union . . 427 ABBREVIATIONS P. L. C. refers to the Reports of the Poor Law Commissioners. P. L. B. ,, ,, ,, Poor Law Board. L. G. B. „ „ „ Local Government Board. Children under the Poor Law INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER IN this chapter we propose to trace as briefly as possible the history of the Poor Law, since the reform of 1834, in its dealings with that class of children who are thrown upon it for support. We hope that in so doing we are serving a useful purpose, for it is only by a study of the mistakes and failures of the past that we can hope to steer clear of them in the future, and so maintain steady progress. This chapter, then, must be regarded as purely narrative, and we have introduced as little discussion into it as possible. Still it establishes, we think, two important facts: — (1) that the history of the Poor Law in its dealings with pauper children has been one of continual improvement; and (2) that the success or failure of any system which may be adopted must depend almost entirely upon administration. As to this second point, although reform has followed upon reform — and at the present time no one defends the education of children in a workhouse — it is doubtful whether any existing system can show better results than did the Atcham Workhouse school, to which we refer later in this chapter, 1 more than forty years ago. There we see an inferior system succeeding simply by reason of good administration. On the other hand, bad administration will ruin the very best system that it is possible to devise. We may conveniently divide the chapter into three parts, the first dealing with the history of the period from 1834 to 1861, the second with that from 1861 to 1874, and the third with that from 1874 to the present time. Up to 1861 the workhouse school held the field. After this date we find that system gradually falling into disfavour, mainly owing to the adverse Report of the Royal Commission of 1859, which so strongly advocated these schools being replaced by district schools. 1 Post, p. 15. 2 Children under the Poor Law During the second period we find the latter system being gradually extended in London; while from the important Report of Mrs. Nassau Senior may be said to date the loss of faith in the virtues of large schools, and the rapid growth of other systems of dealing with the children, which are described in this book. (i) The Period from 1834 to 1861. It was with the intention of improving the administration of the Poor Law generally that the Act of 1834 was passed, and naturally the case of pauper children was not neglected by the Poor Law Commissioners, who were appointed under that Act. Indeed, one of the first matters to which they directed their attention after their appoint- ment was the better education and training of these children. In by far the greater number of workhouses outside London the young were at that time merely trained in ignorance, idleness, and vice. l Accord- ing to Mr. Chadwick, than whom no person was better acquainted with the whole subject of Poor Law Administration, not one-third of the children at that time got into any respectable employment. " The girls were pretty enough to be on the streets, the boys were at large as vagrants, and the Bridewells were pretty full of parish vagrants." 2 Dr. Kay, writing in 1836, said : 3 "The education provided for the children sent to the workhouses was valueless, and the children born and bred there were idle and profligate. The means for promoting good morals were so totally wanting in most of these establishments, the reward of idleness was so abundant, the incentives to vice so rife, that an observer might have been excused the inquiry whether on account of the lack of employment for the governors of county gaols, it had been considered desirable to create seminaries for the preparation of victims of the penal code." 4 The Commissioners also, in their 4th Annual Report in 1838, describe the state of things existing previously to the formation of Unions as follows : 5 "The children, who were for the most part orphans, bastards, and deserted children, continued to remain inmates of the workhouse long after the period at which they might have earned their subsistence by their own exertions; and those who obtained situations, or were apprenticed by means of the parish funds, turned out as might be 1 Report, 1885 edit., p. 34. 2 South-Eastern Poor Law Conference, 1871. 3 2 P. L. C. , Report on Workhouses in Suffolk and Norfolk. 4 2 P. L. C. t App. B., pp. 163, 164. r> 4 /*. L. C, p. 89. Introductory 3 expected of children whose education was utterly neglected or at best confided to the superintendence of a pauper. They rarely remained long with their employer, but returned to the workhouse — which, so far from being to them an object of dislike, they regarded as their home, and which they looked forward to as the ultimate asylum of their old age. In this manner the workhouse, instead of diminishing, increased pauperism, by keeping up a constant supply of that class of persons who most frequently, and for the longest period, became its inmates. Pauperism, however, was only one of the evils which resulted from the neglect to provide proper means of instruc- tion for destitute children. Those who have ascertained the early history of persons who in a greater or less degree have offended against the laws, have found that a large proportion have passed their infancy and youth in the workhouse, and can trace the formation of the habits which have led them to the commission of crime to the entire want of moral training in these institutions." . The system of compulsory apprenticeship was in full vigour, with all the evils attaching thereto so vividly described in the early reports of the Sub-Commissioners. 1 In London the workhouses seem to have been somewhat better managed than those in the country, though in some the children were not separated from the adults, were instructed by paupers, and received no industrial training, while their moral training was altogether neglected. 2 Many of the children were " farmed out " in private establishments. A full description of one of these establishments, with an average of 650 children, is given by Dr. Arnott in the 2nd Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners. 3 The arrangements in them were in all respects imperfect, and especially so in every- thing that related to the religious, moral, and industrial training of the children. The children under six years of age had, by 7 Geo. III. ch. 39, to be maintained at a distance of three or four miles, accord- ing to their age, from the Metropolis, and were either kept in separate establishments belonging to particular parishes and managed by the parish officers, or boarded out by contract in private establishments. 4 By the establishment of the Union workhouse and proper classifica- tion, the Poor Law Commissioners hoped that the young might imbibe religious and moral principles and be provided with adequate instructors. 5 Indeed, the formation of Unions enabled the old parish 1 e.g., Mr. Gilbert's Report, 2 P. L. C, pp. 343-350. 2 4 P. L. C, App. C, p. 145. 3 2 P. L. C, App. C, p. 488. See also 4 P. L. C, p. 146. 4 2 P. L. C, p. 10. After the passing of the Act 7 & 8 Vict. ch. 101, it ceased to be compulsory on the Metropolitan parishes to send their young children into the country for nurture and maintenance. 5 1 P. L. C. t p. 219. 4 Children tinder the Poor Law workhouse to be utilised in many cases for the children. 1 In the first Orders and Regulations issued by the Commissioners in 1835 for the management of a workhouse, provision was made for the appointment of a schoolmaster and schoolmistress, who were to instruct the boys and girls for three of the working hours at least every day, in reading, writing, and in the principles of the Christian religion, and such other instruction was to be given them as might train them to habits of usefulness, industry, and virtue. These Orders were, however, merely tentative and only applied in particular cases. In addition to this the Commissioners, acting upon the principle of the Statute of Elizabeth (39 Eliz. ch. 3), which provided that " order shall be taken from time to time for setting to work the children of all such whose parents shall not be able to maintain them," impressed upon the Guardians and officials the importance of obtaining indepen- dent employment for them outside the workhouse as soon as they were old enough to go out to work or into service. 2 Their efforts were rewarded by success, for as early as 1836 they report that the training already communicated to children by better appointed schoolmasters, and a better mode of instruction in the common requirements of reading and writing, had already produced some of the effects intended, and that the children so trained were beginning to be considered better qualified for service. 3 Thus we find Mr. Tufnell writing as follows in 1836 : 4 " The change in the condition of orphan and deserted children when compared with what it was before the formation of Unions, is the most gratifying that can be imagined. Formerly, ill-clothed, ill-kept, un- educated, they were turned out to form the germ of future paupers, and to become the worst members of society. In fact, to have been brought up in a workhouse was usually considered a blot in a labourer's character and an obstacle to his getting employment. The change from this state of things is so thorough and complete, so precisely the contrary of what it was before, that the spectacle of this glaring improvement alone seems to reconcile many persons otherwise hostile to the new system. 'Our children's workhouse,' writes to me a magistrate in the Penshurst Union, ' has been the least unpopular thing in our Union.' 'The youth of both sexes,' says the chairman of the Eastry Union, 'are not only healthy but happy. They are in their respective schools six hours each day, and have such advantages of instruction as they could not have possibly had under their improvident parents. These are indeed invaluable benefits, as they will be trained to be useful and good members of society, instead of adding to the 1 For an instance of the beneficial effects see Mr. Gilbert's Report, 1 P. L. C, p. 256. 2 2P.L. C., p. 35. 3 2P.L. C, p. 35- 4 Report on Kent, 2 P. L. C, App. B., pp. 208, 9. See also Mr. Hawley's Report on Sussex, ibid., p. 216. Introductory 5 future mass of human misery and depravity.' 'I have had many women coming to thank me,' says the Hollingbourne Relieving Officer, ' for taking their children away from them ; they have been to see their children, and see they are so much better contented and better off. Some of them have had liberty to take their children out, and they have refused to do so, because they say it will make them discontented ; they are so much better kept than at home.' In the North Aylesford Union the children are so excellently brought up that they have obtained a high character in the neighbourhood, and the master is overwhelmed with applications for servants from the workhouse. He has at the present time upwards of twenty applications that he cannot comply with. Formerly a workhouse was the exact place which anyone seeking a servant would avoid ; now several persons have mentioned to me their intention of always taking their servants from the workhouse." But the efforts of the Commissioners must have been sadly hampered by the generally backward state of national education at this time. An amusing example of this is afforded by the request of the Bedford Guardians in 1836 that the schoolmaster in their workhouse might teach reading only. "The Board did not recommend this on the ground of economy, but on that of principle, as they were desirous of avoiding greater advantages to the inmates of the workhouse than to the poor children out of it ; withdrawing thereby as much as possible any premium or inducement to the frequenting the workhouse." We are not surprised to hear that the Commissioners did not accede to the application, basing their refusal on the following grounds : (1) that the workhouse discipline would be a sufficient deterrent ; (2) that schools would doubtless soon be accessible to the children of independent labourers, which would give an equally good education to that of the workhouse ; (3) that it was important that workhouse children should be given a good chance of getting on in the world; and (4) that workhouse children should not be treated so as to fix upon them any permanent stigma, in that all other children who learnt to read, learnt also to write, and to be able to read while ignorant of the art of writing, would be a distinguishing mark of those who had received a workhouse education. 1 There can, indeed, be no doubt that in many of the reformed workhouses the education and training given to children was much better than that given to children outside its walls; 2 for the Com- missioners, while careful that their food, clothes, and lodging should 1 2P.L.C, p. 529. 2 Thus Mr. Tufnell wrote in 1836 that "three months' education in a well- conducted workhouse was worth to the children almost as many years of such instruction as they can get at home by attending village schools." 2 P. L. C, App., p. 209. 6 Children tinder the Poor Law not be elevated above that of the household of the self-supporting labourer, rightly decided that they ought not to lower their standard of education on the same grounds. They regarded education as the most important means of eradicating the germs of pauperism from the rising generation, and as the best protection for the institutions of society. 1 But the difficulty of obtaining efficient teachers for the workhouse schools, of securing proper classification, and of giving suitable industrial training to the children, was a stumbling-block in the way of improvement. Both Dr. Kay and Mr. Hall in their Reports on the Training of Pauper Children in 1838 2 refer to these drawbacks, and the former compares the industrial training which a labourer's child got with that of the workhouse child, who had to learn his trade or calling by means of apprenticeship under a most pernicious system. 3 Their remedy was the establishment of central or district schools, which would enable the education of pauper children to be conducted on a more effective system, with a better class of teachers, and on more economical terms. This is the first we hear of the " District School," which has lately been subjected to such severe criticism. Dr. Kay had a grand scheme for establishing one hundred of these schools in England and Wales, whereby the 50,000 children who were inmates of workhouses in 1839, would be separated from the chance of a polluting association with the adult inmates. In such institutions "they would not be daily taught the lesson of dependence, of which the whole apparatus of a workhouse is the symbol ; the school manage- ment would be unencumbered with the obstructions that it now encounters from the interference of the workhouse routine ; and the whole of the moral relations of the district school would assume a character of hopefulness and enterprise better fitted to prepare the children for conflict with the perils and difficulties of a struggle for independence than anything which their present situation affords." 4 His idea of a district school was derived from the success attending the private establishment of a Mr. Aubin at Norwood, which contained no fewer than 1,000 children. 5 The Commissioners expressed their concurrence with the views of the two Assistant Commissioners, although they could not give effect to them without special legislation. 6 Indeed, the arguments in favour of the " District School " as against the " Workhouse School " were 1 Cf. 4 P. L. C, p. 90, and App. B., p. 228. 2 4 P. L. C, pp. 228-272. 3 4 P. L. C, pp. 232-234. 4 5 /J - L - c -> A PP- c > P- x 59- 5 For a full account of this establishment see 2 P. L. C, pp. 488-494, and 5 PL. C. , pp. 147-156. 8 S'& L - C ->P- 90. Introductory J unanswerable, and have nowhere been better or more concisely set out than in a letter from the master of the Boston Workhouse to the Commissioners; 1 for, generally speaking, there can be no doubt that the workhouse schools were inefficiently conducted owing to the difficulties above mentioned. Mr. Tufnell tells us that he, at that period as Assistant Poor Law Commissioner, paid particular attention to the education of pauper children, and, referring to his reports, he found that the schoolmasters and mistresses were in some cases almost ludicrously disqualified for their offices. He says: 2 "I attempted to examine them, but the result was so absurd that I was obliged to give it up. A total ignorance of the Bible and of arithmetic, mis-spelling and blunders of every conceivable sort, characterised their examination papers. Being ignorant of the art of controlling and disciplining children, the teachers sometimes resorted to cruel punishment to maintain their authority. I remember that in one school the master said that he could not keep the boys in order, though he had broken several sticks on them. In another the children apparently read fluently, but on examining their books I found that many were held upside down. The children could not read at all, but had been taught to repeat certain sentences and to hold their books before them as if they were reading, and thus visitors were made to believe that the children were well instructed in reading. In numerous instances I find by reference to my notes, that I had to recommend the instant dismissal of teachers for gross inefficiency, cruelty, or immorality." It is not surprising, then, to find the larger Unions beginning to move in the matter. In 1841 a deputation of the Manchester Board of Guardians visited Norwood and came back with a glowing account of Mr. Aubin's establishment, 3 and by 1843 the Guardians of the Manchester and the Sheffield Unions and also the Select Vestry of Liverpool had decided upon establishing separate schools for their pauper children. 4 It must be observed here that up to 1842 it was a disputed point whether the Commissioners had any control over parishes governed by local Acts. A decision of that year settled the point in their favour, and the consequence was that they proceeded forthwith to make an inquiry as to the way in which the Poor Law was ad- ministered in these parishes. An idea of the way in which pauper 1 See 6 P. L. C, p. 176. The letter is especially interesting, too, as showing that under good management a workhouse education could show satisfactory results as early as 1840. Out of twenty-two children sent out to service from that workhouse in 1839 only two had returned there, one of them under circumstances over which the child had no control. The Atcham Workhouse school afforded another example of what could be done in such an institution with good administration. See post, p. 15. " 20 P. I. P., p. 129. :; 7 P. L. C, p. 237. 4 9 P. L. C, p. 1 8. 8 Children under the Poor Law children were dealt with in some of them will be given by the follow- ing examples. The schoolmaster of the Salisbury workhouse was found to be a pauper whose reduced circumstances were attributable to the habit of drinking to excess, while the schoolmistress could not write. 1 At Coventry the girls were under the care of a female pauper who was not a scholar, and who had not taught them spelling or reading or anything else. At Shrewsbury there was no schoolmaster or schoolmistress, and no attempt at classification nor any attention paid to the moral training of the children. 2 At Oswestry and Chester both schoolmaster and schoolmistress were paupers. 3 At Southampton the schoolmaster was an aged man whose sense of hearing was almost gone. The boys could not make him hear without raising their voices to a painful pitch, and in consequence paid little attention to him. They were not instructed in work of any kind. The schoolmistress, who had been a pauper, could only read a little and not write at all. By an order of the Guardians of this town the master of the workhouse was authorised "to flog all boys who shall go off the premises without leave, and log them by the leg, and keep them upon bread and water for a week for each offence." 4 In some of the parishes, on the other hand, the state of things was much better, and in Kingston-upon-Hull, Bristol, and Birmingham, the children were educated in separate schools, while in Whitchurch (Salop) and Canterbury they attended the National Schools. Where necessary the Commissioners issued their workhouse rules to these incorporations, for as yet no General Order on the subject had been made. We have referred to the mode of apprenticing pauper children in vogue at the time of the reform of 1834. Masters could, under 8 and 9 Will. III. ch. 30, be compelled to receive and provide for them from the age of nine to twenty-one years. The mischievous operation of this system was exposed in various reports of the Sub-Commissioners, 5 but it was not till 1844 that it was abolished. 6 By that Act pauper children could only be bound apprentices to persons willing to take 1 9 P. L. C, p. 137. 2 Ibid., p. 309. 3 Ibid., p. 309. 4 10 P.L. C, pp. 171, 173. "Logging by the leg "was effected by means of wooden clogs chained to the walls, these clogs being fastened to the legs of the boys. 6 See especially Mr. Gilbert's Report, 2 P.L.C., pp. 343-350; Mr. Head's Report, Ibid., pp. 403-407; Mr. Tufnell's Report, 3 P. L. C, p. 15 1 ; Dr. Kay's Report, 4 P. L. C., pp. 233, 234; Mr. Kay Shuttleworth's Report on the Training of Pauper Children contained in the Report of the Poor Law Commissioners to the Earl of Normanby, 1841, App., pp. 1 27- 1 94. 6 7 & 8 Vict. ch. 101, s. 13. Introductory 9 them, and the power of overseers to bind or assign apprentices in districts where there was a Board of Guardians was taken away and transferred to the Guardians. Under this Act the Poor Law Com- missioners were enabled to make regulations in regard to apprentice- ship, and the first three General Orders on the subject were issued in 1845. 1 Some parishes and Unions objected strongly to the impediments placed in the way of apprenticeship by the Orders, more especially as to (1) the limitations upon premiums for appren- tices above the age of fourteen, 2 (2) the payment to be made by the master after they had reached the age of seventeen, 3 and (3) the prohibition against their being taken more than ten miles from the place of apprenticeship without the licence of the Guardians. 4 The intention of the Commissioners was, of course, to discourage the apprenticeship of parish children. "We should not regret to find," they said, " that the regulations imposed by us tended gradually to diminish the number of children thus dealt with. We feel satisfied that greater attention to the education and industrial training of poor children would more than compensate for any supposed inconvenience arising from an indisposition to take apprentices, and that the results of such an improvement would be beneficial both to the master and the child." 5 Being, however, unwilling "to inflict any great or sudden inconvenience on large and populous parishes," 6 they yielded to the insistence of the Guardians and amended the General Orders, (1) by allowing a premium other than clothing to be given upon the binding as an apprentice of any person not above the age of sixteen years, (2) by allowing the Guardians to dispense with the condition 1 See 11 P. L. C, App. A., pp. 72-96. 3 Art. 2. "No premium other than clothing for the apprentice shall be given upon the binding of any person above the age of fourteen, unless such person be maimed, deformed, or suffering from some permanent bodily infirmity, so that the nature of the work or trade which such person is fit to perform or exercise is restricted." 3 Art. 18 (8). "Where the apprentice continues bound after the age of seventeen years the master shall pay to such apprentice for and in respect of every week that he duly and properly serves the said master, as a remuneration, a sum to be inserted in the indenture or to be agreed upon by the Guardians and the said master when that time arrives, or, if they cannot agree, to be settled by some person to be then chosen by the said master and the said Guardians ; and until such sum be agreed upon or settled, not less than one-fourth of the amount then commonly paid as wages to journeymen in the said trade, or business, or employment." 4 Art. 18 (10). "The master shall not cause the said apprentice to work or live more than ten miles from the place or places mentioned in the indenture, according to Article 1 6, without the leave of the Guardians so binding him, to be given under their common seal." ■ n P. L. C, p. 1 6. 6 Ibid., p. 17. io Children under the Poor Law in the indenture providing for the payment of the remuneration to the apprentice after the age of seventeen years, and (3) by pro- viding that the Guardians might authorise the master to change the place of the abode or service of the apprentice without any application to them. 1 By the General Order of the 24th July, 1847, the regulations then in force were made permanent, and they have not been altered since. 2 In 1854 they were applied to cases of apprenticeship to the sea service. 3 But the year 1844 was not only rendered memorable in Poor Law history by the abolition of the old apprenticeship system, but also by the power given to the Commissioners by the same Act to provide, with the consent of the Guardians, for the establishment of district schools. 4 This Act repealed Jonas Hanway's Acts, 5 and relieved the Metropolitan parishes from the necessity of sending their young children into the country for nurture and maintenance, it being thought that the district schools would replace the private establish- ments. 6 But, as the Act provided that no part of the district should be distant more than fifteen miles from any other part, the formation of school districts in the rural portions of the country was practically prohibited. This limitation was removed by an Act of 1848, 7 and the consent of the Guardians of the several Unions wishing to combine was then only required for the formation of such districts. Section fifty-one of the same Act enabled the Guardians of parishes or Unions, the limits of whose boundaries were within twenty miles of a district school, to send their children there with the consent of the managers, and a later Act of 1851 (14 & 15 Vict. ch. 105, s. 6) enabled them 1 See General Orders of 1846. 12 P. L. C, pp. 60-71. 2 See post, p. 267, for an abstract of the present regulations. 3 See 17 & 18 Vict. ch. 104, ss. 141-4. This Act has been repealed and replaced by the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, sections 105-109 of which now regulate this kind of apprenticeship. See post, pp. 273, 274. 4 7 & 8 Vict. ch. 101, s. 40. 5 2 Geo. III. ch. 22, and 7 Geo. III. ch. 39. See ante, p. 3. 6 Up to 1849 these private establishments were outside the control of the Central Poor Law Authority. By an Act of that year (12 & 13 Vict. ch. 13) the Poor Law Board was empowered to cause them to be inspected, to issue rules for their government as if they were workhouses, to remove unfit officers and servants, and to regulate the contracts between the parochial authorities and the proprietors. The practice of farming out the poor had before this year become very limited in its operation, so that only three contractors' establishments were then existing, viz., one at Brixton, which was only used for a few of the poor of Newington Parish, and two at Margate for scrofulous cases. See 2 P. L. B., pp. 16, 17. The Brixton establishment was given up in 1851. 7 11 & 12 Vict. ch. v. Introductory 1 1 under the same limit as to distance to send their children to the workhouses or buildings of other Unions or parishes. We have already referred to Dr. Kay's arguments in favour of district schools. 1 The opinion of the Poor Law Commissioners is well expressed in the following extract from their Report of the 31st December, 1837, (p. 34), on the further amendment of the Poor Laws : " An investigation of the circumstances of the children in the several workhouses, and of the means of affording them adequate instruction, soon convinced us that the instruction of pauper children must remain imperfect so long as the pauper children of each Union are reared in the workhouse belonging to the Union. The number of children of both sexes in each workhouse rarely exceeds fifty or sixty, and sometimes does not amount to more than twenty or thirty. So small a number of children cannot be advantageously distributed into classes for the purpose of instruction, nor are they of sufficient importance to induce the ratepayers to incur the expenses requisite for providing them with competent teachers. Moreover, the number of teachers is unnecessarily augmented, and the difficulty of procuring them increased by establishing a school for pauper children in every workhouse. The inspection of the schools for pauper children is likewise rendered more difficult by the multiplication of their number, which results from the present system. These considerations (together with others to which we need not here advert) show the expediency of congregating pauper children into large bodies for the purposes of education." Not only was it expected that a much more efficient system of instruction and training might be adopted, but that there would be a saving of expense arising from the reduced number of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, and from a similar reduction in the provision of books, furniture, etc. It is an interesting fact, however, that in t86i, when the Education Commission of 1859 issued its report, i.e., seventeen years after the passing of the Act authorising the establishment of district schools, and in spite of the constant ' pushing ' of the Poor Law Board, 2 only six districts had been formed, three in London and three in the country, and these six had been formed so far back as 1 84Q. 3 That 1 Ante, p. 6. 2 e.g., 1 P. L. B., p. 7; 5 P. L. B., p. 8; 8 P. L. B., p. 9; 11 P. L. B., p. 16. In the light of the recent Metropolitan Poor Law Schools Report, 1896, it is curious that in 1852 the Poor Law Board should especially note "the healthy, animated tone which pervades the children, both as respects body and mind ; the improve- ment in their physiognomy and bearing is too striking to be overlooked, and it is especially gratifying to add that a corresponding amelioration in their moral character has been simultaneously produced." (5 P. L. B., p. 8.) 3 Viz., Central London, Farnham and Hartley Winlney, North Surrey, Reading 12 Children under the Poor Law Commission was so impressed with the virtues of district schools, that they recommended their compulsory establishment. Naturally, they could not foresee the drawbacks to which the experience of years has shown these schools to be subject. It is the fashion nowadays to abuse Guardians all round, but it should not be forgotten that had it not been for their passive but dogged resistance, the country would now have some 100 district 'barrack' schools to deal with, instead of merely ten, of which six belong to Metropolitan Unions. The objections to the establishment of district schools in country districts are well set out in a letter from a gentleman of "great experience in Poor Law Administration," from which Mr. Doyle, in his Report of 31st December, 1850, to the Poor Law Board, quotes as follows : "In a district containing an area of over 150 square miles, only 10 per cent, of the children who become chargeable were under the control of the Guardians for more than a very limited and uncertain period. The numbers in different Unions may vary considerably, but if relief is carefully administered I am convinced that the total number of children required to keep up a separate institution with success for those children over whom the Guardians have undivided mitrol must in rural districts be collected from an area which will entirely subvert the great object in view by preventing education altogether, so far as regards the extremities of districts formed, besides which the interest between the distant parts of the district and the institution will be so remote as to militate very seriously against the inmates. This, of course, would not occur in the large towns and more populous parts of several counties, where the districts for this purpose might be of moderate size ; but supposing the existence of such institutions, it will be evident that the present, or some modified system of Union schools, must be maintained for the nine-tenths of the children, who, being relieved with their parents, are probably not two months on the average under the control of the Guardians. As, therefore, such schools must continue (or no education be afforded to the great bulk of the children), I think that, independent of expense, the removal of the orphans, etc., would tend very much to injure the existing schools, and would therefore be objectionable in practice." 1 By their General Order of the 24th July, 1847, the Poor Law Com- missioners added arithmetic to the subjects which were to be taught to pauper children, and ordered that besides their being trained to and Wokingham, South East Shropshire, and South Metropolitan. These districts were all formed in 1849, the managers of the Central London School District having purchased Mr. Aubin's establishment at Norwood (see ante, p. 6), appointing him the Superintendent of the School. (See 2 P. L. B., p. 14.) The regulations for the management of the Central London School are set out in 2 P. L. £., App., pp. 63-81. 1 Return of 5th August, 1851 (No. 646), to the House of Commons, p. 4. Introductory 1 3 habits of usefulness, industry, and virtue, such other instruction should be imparted to them as might fit them for service. 1 With a view of further improving the efficiency of the instruction given to children in the workhouse, Parliament, in 1846, voted the sum of ;£ 15,000 towards the payment of the teachers' salaries, but the continuation of the grant was to depend on their efficiency. At the same time the Government expressed its intention of appointing separate inspectors of workhouse schools, who were to be under the control of the Committee of Council of Education. 2 So early as 1848 the Commissioners were able to report that the influence of this grant was already beginning to be felt, and that it had enabled them to press upon the Guardians with success many improvements in the manage- ment of schools, and in the instruction of the children educated in them. 3 One of the first actions of the Poor Law Board, as the successors of the Poor Law Commissioners, was to issue a circular to Boards of Guardians on the subject of this grant. 4 In this circular they state that " the whole of the salaries of the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses of workhouses became charged on this fund from the 1st October, 1846 ; since which time masters and mistresses have, in several instances, been appointed where no such officers existed previously, and in other cases inefficient officers have been superseded by persons who had been trained and fitted for their duties. No comprehensive effort has, however, hitherto been made to introduce any system for raising the general standard of the qualification of this class of officers. The proper education and training of children in the workhouses are essential to the improvement of their condition, as well as highly important with reference to the social condition of the working classes generally, and the increasing of the efficiency of workhouse schools must therefore always be an object of much solicitude with the Board." With the view of effecting this object the Board adopted a proposal for the examination of the school- masters and schoolmistresses in the several workhouses by inspectors appointed by the Committee of Council, and for the appropriation according to certain scales of efficiency, thus ascertained, of the grant voted by Parliament for the repayment of the salaries of these officers, so that larger sums would be granted to those Boards of Guardians which had efficient schoolmasters and schoolmistresses than to those whose officers possessed inferior qualifications. 5 1 Art. 1 14. By the General Order of the 3rd April, 1878, the standard of education was to be thenceforth the same as that prescribed by the Education Code. See post, p. 40- * 13 P> L. C. t p. 27. s 14 P. L. C„ p. 5. 4 1 P. L. £., p. 22. 5 1 P. L. B., p. 6. As to how the system worked see 2 P. L. £., pp. 12, 13. 14 Children under the Poor Law The Board also, with the assistance of the Committee of Council, were able to help the Guardians in getting useful school books and school apparatus for the workhouse schools; 1 and the result was that some schools which were scantily supplied with them and other schools where books of an unsuitable character were used, became well furnished with the books and maps best adapted for the purposes of popular education. 2 It was about this time that the pupil teacher system established by the Committee of Council of Education in 1846 began beneficially to affect workhouse schools, as it had already done in the case of the normal schools. It came about in this way : " Many of the pupil teachers, on the expiration of their apprenticeships at about the age of nineteen, had not sufficient funds to pay their expenses in normal schools, and found it necessary to turn their talents to immediate account. The workhouse schools offered fair salaries, with free board and lodging, while the number of children was rarely more than thirty and forty to each school. The ex-pupil teachers were exactly fitted for these schools. They had had five years of training; their knowledge had been tested through public examina- tion by a Government officer every year of their apprenticeship; and they had been accustomed to the management of children. Hence they were infinitely superior in every sense to the old class of teacher." Mr. Tufnell tells us that from the time the services of this class became available (1850) he observed that the small workhouse schools improved materially. 3 It is satisfactory to find that the importance of affording to the children in Union workhouses such an education as might best tend to raise them from the class of paupers to that of independent labourers and artisans was now becoming more and more felt by Boards of Guardians. 4 A very interesting return made to the House of Commons in 1851 5 shows this very clearly. In many Unions the children were found to be receiving an education beyond all comparison better than that which was within the reach of the children 1 1 P. L. B., p. 6. 2 2 P. L. P., p. 13. 3 20 P. L. P., pp. 129, 130. Mr. Tufnell shows how the action of the revised Code diminished the number of these pupil teachers, and how few at the time he wrote (1867) were the applications for the post of teachers in workhouse schools compared with what they had been before the revised Code came into force. Ibid., p. 130. 4 Cf. $P.L.P.,y. 9 ; 7 P. L. P., pp. 8, 9 ; 1 1 P. L. P., p. 14. 5 This return comprises three reports made to the Poor Law Board by their Inspectors — Mr. Doyle, Mr. Farnall, and Sir John Walsham — on the education and training of pauper children in their respective districts in the year 1850. Introductory 15 of labourers in any part of the country. 1 The only difficulty was in finding competent teachers. Mr. Bowyer, one of H.M.'s Inspectors of workhouse schools, wrote : " It is impossible, while viewing a really good and moral workhouse school, not to be impressed with the conviction that few among these children will sink into the degraded condition of paupers, or even into the dull and spiritless peasantry which at seasons of distress crowd the lobby of the Board rooms." (pp. 6-7.) What can be done to make even a workhouse school efficient and depauperizing, is well shown by a letter written in 1850 from Mr. Everest, the clerk of the Atcham Board of Guardians, to Mr. Doyle. 2 In this letter Mr. Everest showed how conscious he was of the difficulties to be contended with in a workhouse school. He did not, however, consider them to be insurmountable, nor really formid- able. Indeed, only a moderate amount of attention was necessary from any intelligent itoard of Guardians with active conscientious officers to place their school in a few months on the most satisfactory footing. He then proceeds to describe from his own fourteen years' experience of the Atcham Workhouse school how the children of the poor could be efficiently taught in such schools and made useful and honourable members of society. " At first, the number of children was small, the Guardians feeling it desirable not to crowd their workhouse until time had afforded all parties concerned in its government a little practical experience therein. A school was at once established, but as no qualified school- master applied in answer to an advertisement for such an officer, the situation was taken by a person who, though deficient in mental acquirements for such an office, was a practical agriculturist, of good moral character, and entered on his duties with a determination to do all that he could for the welfare of the children put under his care. The first step was that of making the school a place of moral as well as physical training, to which I attribute its great success. For this purpose everything that transpired was to the extent of his ability made the subject of some practical and familiar observations, enforced by such illustrations as became weighty by example. Industry was from the first a marked characteristic of the school, to inculcate which various indoor occupations were, and still are, practised, such as knitting, netting, plaiting straw, etc., by which means it became a natural habit in the children to be doing some- thing that was useful; so that when, fatigued with heavier toils, the child sat down to rest, it was, I had almost said, an instinctive feeling that led him to take his straws or needle in hand. And yet 1 Return, pp. 4, 26. See also the account of the Guiltcross Union, Norfolk, ibid., pp. 44-53. ' Ibid., pp. 12-15. 1 6 Children under the Poor Law the gratification afforded when he found he had enough plait for a hat, and the pleasure evinced when by himself or his companion it was so formed, proved that his mind had received a correct bias as to production by his own application. Nor was there ever occasion to enforce this practice when once begun, as it became a source of pleasure to be so engaged." The punishment of a lazy boy was simple and effective. He was taken away from his work to look at the others busily employed, with the result that in almost every case the boy asked for liberty to go to work again. It often happened, too, that the other boys, instead of making any taunting remarks, became petitioners on behalf of their school-fellow. 11 These may appear trifling incidents, but let Guardians and Officers try the plan and watch the issue in future service, and they will find, as I have done, that they are important facts; and I notice them because for the want of seeing this important fact at the outset, that the child is to be trained to the principle of being useful, so much of the other efforts are vain. "Another important point we have always aimed at has been to teach the child to do his work well, to do that work in the right way, and then to make him understand why that particular way is best, and this gives them additional interest in their work, while it tends to make them good workmen in after life." A portion of the land belonging to the workhouse was cultivated exclusively by the boys, and it was found by experience that, with eighteen or twenty boys above nine years of age and not exceeding fourteen years, from two to three acres of land was requisite for school cultivation, and that this land should be kept exclusively for that pur- pose, no adult pauper being allowed to enter thereon. Mr. Everest also recommended the keeping of pigs, to be attended to by the children under the direction of the masters ; but although he knew that some persons strongly advocated a nearer approach to farming by an extension of land, the keeping of cows, etc., his experience was that wherever this plan had been tried it had failed. He then goes on to say : " Having stated the nature and practice of our school for fourteen years, it only remains to speak of its success. It has been said that the tendency of workhouse schools is to make perpetual paupers, and such statements are made, no doubt, in the full belief of their truth, but I am happy to say that, so far as fourteen years may serve for the data of calculation, it is without the shadow of a foundation here. Our children go to service, and I would rather refer inquirers to their employers for their characters as servants than speak of it myself. Suffice it to say that, with a very few exceptions (and those of characters Introductory 1 7 the most vicious and thoroughly formed before they came to us), and one or two cases of serious illness, they have not returned, except, as is frequently the case, to visit the school where they were trained in the habits of virtue and industry, and leave behind them some trifle, either in money or otherwise, to the school fund. If we trained them up as paupers, I think many of them bid fair to forget the place of their training before they return. Scarcely a child who has been taught in our schools leaves it without those feelings of affection which indicate most clearly that the mind has been cultivated, and the assistance they afford in procuring situations for those they left behind proves the genuine character of their attachments j but to return to the workhouse after going to service is felt to be a disgrace, and will, I hope, as it has hitherto done, prevent such a circumstance ever occurring except in cases that are unavoidable ; and in such cases I hope that a sense of rectitude and the love of virtue will seek such an asylum in preference to crime." (pp. 12-14.) In a postscript to his letter, Mr. Everest gives the names of twenty- seven children sent to service (fourteen boys and thirteen girls) between 1843 and 1848. All except two of the girls were doing well. Again, as to the Ludlow Union, Mr. Doyle reports that the girls' school in the workhouse was better managed than in any other Union in his district. He says: 1 "The children are under the care of a very efficient schoolmistress, aided by an assistant who superintends the industrial education of the girls ; they are habitually trained in habits of useful industry proper to their station. The classification in the workhouse is so perfect that the children are brought up almost as much apart from adults as if they were in a separate school. The whole of the girls who come into the workhouse enjoy the advantages of this admirable training. When it is remembered that the fluctuation of children in this workhouse is 2 7 per cent.-, it will be obvious how desirable it is to preserve a good school in the workhouse of this Union." As to the boys in this work- house, he says : " It is true that no considerable machinery exists for the industrial training of the boys, but the number of boys capable of working seldom exceeds six or eight. The highest number at any one time of boys above nine years of age during the past year was fifteen ; the lowest number was seven. Of the boys above nine who were in the workhouse on the 1st December, 1849, 5° P er cent - na d left the workhouse between that day and the 1st December, 1850. In a letter from the master of the workhouse now before me, he says : ' The boys are well able to cultivate the garden by digging, planting, etc. They always leave us at an early age, as we seldom have a boy above the age of twelve \ they seldom or never return, and we have many pleasing instances where our boys are growing to young men, and conducting themselves most creditably, enjoying the confidence and esteem of their masters. Even now we have demands for boys which the Guardians cannot comply with.' " 1 Return, pp. 22, 23. c 1 8 Children under the Poor Law The return contains a great deal of additional evidence as to the success in after life of the children brought up in good workhouse schools. Thus the clerk of one Union wrote to Mr. Doyle as follows : 1 "Clergymen, farmers of high reputation, manufacturers, professional gentlemen, and tradesmen, have applied for and taken children from our workhouse as servants. To these I would confidently appeal as to the character of the children brought up here. I can state that those who have taken one child generally apply for more, as vacancies occur in their establishments, and I can refer to persons who, having kept these children for several years, until they became older than was required for the situation they had to fill, have kept them on until they could secure for them situations suited to their advanced age and worth." Mr. Doyle concludes his very interesting Report as follows : 2 " In considering the state of pauper education, and what may be done to improve it, the fact of the fluctuating class of children dealt with must not be lost sight of." . . . " Nor should it be forgotten that the effect of the distribution of the Parliamentary grant for the payment of the salaries of teachers is only just now beginning to be felt. There are, indeed, many Unions for the schools of which the Guardians are yet unable to find qualified teachers. Taking into consideration these difficulties, some of them accidental and temporary, but the most formidable inherent in the subject, I cannot but think that the actual state of pauper education in this district may be regarded as being satisfactory and the future as reasonably hopeful." (p. 37.) It is clear, then, that even in 1850 something more than the mere three R's was being taught to pauper children. In many cases the boys were being employed in agricultural occupations, and the Guardians had provided land for the purpose. Mr. Farnall reported 3 that in his district nineteen out of the fifty-three Unions had provided land, in the cultivation of which 514 boys were employed. Nor did their mental training suffer, for Mr. Bowyer reported that the introduction of agricultural training had been everywhere attended by a marked improvement in their appearance and bodily vigour ; and their pro- gress in their studies, so far from being retarded by it, had been generally promoted, notwithstanding the reduction in the number of hours devoted to school instruction. 4 In 1 85 1 the Poor Law Board reported that the workhouse schools were still increasing in efficiency, especially in the matter of industrial training. 5 In this year, too, a useful Act (14 & 15 Vict. ch. 105, s. 6) was passed, enabling the Guardians of Unions who had more accom- 1 Return, pp. 9-10. 2 Ibid., p. 37. 3 Ibid., pp. 40-43. 4 3P.L.B., p. 8. 5 A P.L.B. iV . 7. Introductory 1 9 modation than they wanted for maintaining and instructing their own children to take in the children of other Unions. Another Act (18 & 19 Vict. ch. 34), passed in 1855, 1 enabled the Guardians to pay out of the rates for the education of the children of outdoor paupers, although they could not impose as a condition of such relief that the education should be given. 2 About this time, too, Boards of Guardians began more generally to provide for their indoor pauper children by means of schools separate from the work- house. This system had been especially developed in London since the use of the contractors' establishments was given up. 3 Mr. Farnall reported, in 1858, upon this subject as follows : 4 "There are usually 8900 children in the workhouses and several detached schools of the Metropolitan District, and of this number 3700 are found in workhouses, and 5200 in separate or district schools. Of the above 8900 children 6900, or 77 J per cent, are receiving education, the remainder being principally infants. Their education consists of moral, mental, and industrial training, and 3235 of them are being trained in industry. "The branches of industry taught are carpentering, tailoring, the nature and use of a steam engine, shoemaking, spade labour, music to fit boys for the bands of the army and navy, cooking, baking, sewing, dairy work; laundry work, and house work ; and there are 2700 children in separate or district schools, under efficient instructors, receiving in their respective classes this kind of training. " The management of separate and district schools is, in my opinion, on the whole, on a satisfactory footing. As some evidence of this, I may refer to the fact that 846 children attended the South Metro- politan District School during the year ended Christmas, 1858, that of these 183 went out to service, twenty-seven of them returned from their situations on account of sickness and other causes over which they had no control, while four only lost their situations during the year through their own misconduct. "I believe that the industrial training of the separate and district schools still admits of improvement, and I know that the managers are very closely attending to this important subject." Mr. Pigott also reported as follows in the same year on the separate school of the Oxford Guardians, at Cowley, and on the Reading and Wokingham District School : 5 "The schools at Cowley now seem to be well conducted. The weekly cost for food and clothing does not exceed 2s. $d. per head, about 3^. of which is derived from the farm of seven acres. Eight of the boys are regularly taught tailor's and shoemaker's work. The 1 Known as Denison's Act. 2 Education in such cases was not made a condition of outdoor relief till 1873 (see 36 & 37 Vict. ch. 86, s. 3). a 9 P. L. B., pp. 7, 117. 4 11 P. L. B. t p. 14. See also 12 P. L. P., p. 18. s 11 P. L. B., p. 15. 20 Children under the Poor Law remainder work in the field. The children get very readily out to good service. "I am glad to be able to report the same prosperous condition of the Reading and Wokingham District School, that has existed since the appointment of the present superintendent and matron, and which is to be mainly, if not entirely, attributed to their excellent manage- ment of the children and establishment. Indeed, I consider its success as a pauper educational establishment to be complete, notwithstanding many disadvantages of locality, and in the arrangement and position of the buildings. The children are healthy, intelligent, well conducted, and cheerful. Their progress in the ordinary school instruction is on a level with that of the best workhouse schools. A certain number are regularly taught tailor's and shoemaker's work; but the principal occupation of the boys is the cultivation of ten acres of light, fertile land, with the tending of three cows and a number of pigs, by means of which they become healthy and strong, and fit for useful service ; and, moreover, the profit from their labour has enabled the managers to reduce the cost of each child for food and clothing from 3s. &d. to 2S. ^d. per week, and thus to effect a saving (on the average of 150 children in the school) of about ^500 per annum. The total number of children in the school at this time is 143 — seventy-two girls and seventy-one boys. The system pursued with the girls is equally judicious. They perform (with the aid of the cook and the laundry maid) all the household duties, and get readily into respectable service." (2) The Period from 1861 to 1874. In 1 86 1 the Report of the Royal Commission on Education appeared. In this report the respective advantages of district and separate schools are weighed against those of workhouse schools, and as we have already said {ante, p. 12), the decision was not only given in favour of the former, but the report was most thorough-going in its denunciations of the latter. It had hardly one good word for them. This is the more surprising in the light of the Reports of the Poor Law Board, and of the satisfactory results of many of the workhouse schools. 1 We have already given examples (ante, pp. 15-18), but will add one more. In 1858 the Leicester Board of Guardians ordered a return to be prepared by their Clerk of the number of boys and girls who, during the two previous years, had left the workhouse for domestic service or to be apprenticed, showing, as far as practicable, how they had conducted themselves and their then position. It appears that during that period fourteen boys were apprenticed and fifteen girls went into service. Of the boys twelve were doing well, and of the girls two had been returned to the workhouse and four lost sight of, having 1 It is not surprising, however, if Mr. Andrew Doyle's criticism of the report was accurate, as we have every reason to believe was the case. Set post, p. 22, Introductory 2 1 left their first places ; but not one of the girls had fallen, so far as was known, into vice or crime, or had been returned to the workhouse for any stain upon their moral character. 1 Such examples show that even a workhouse school could be made efficient and to produce good results. But it does not seem to have occurred to the Royal Commission that bad administration was at the bottom of the evils which they described, and that whatever system was adopted it would depend for its success or failure upon those who had to administer it. Expert opinion was then all in favour of large schools, and the Commission could scarcely have been expected not to have been influenced by it. They held that the evidence they had taken established the following pro- positions : 2 1. That pauperism is hereditary, and that the children born and bred as members of that class furnish the great mass of the pauper and criminal population. 2. That the best prospect of a permanent diminution of pauperism and crime is to be found in the proper education of such children. 3. That district and separate schools give an education to the children contained in them, which effectually tends to emancipate them from pauperism. 4. That the workhouse schools are generally so managed that the children contained in them learn from infancy to regard the workhouses as their homes, and associate with grown-up paupers whose influence destroys their moral character and prevents the growth of a spirit of independence. 5. That the arrangements of workhouses are unavoidably such as to make it extremely difficult to procure or to retain competent teachers. From these premises they came to the conclusion that the only means of improving the condition of pauper education was to compel by law the general establishment of district and separate schools. 3 As to the fourth proposition, it contradicts two Parliamentary returns of the year 1861. One return 4 gave the number of children who were for a period of not less than two consecutive years, within the ten years ending December 31st, i860, in the workhouses and district schools of England and Wales, and who left them for service or other industrial occupation ; the number of such children who returned to the workhouse by reason of their own misconduct; and the number 1 11 P. L. B., p. 36. 2 Report, vol. i. pp. 384, 385. 3 Report, p. 385. 4 No. 496, 29th July, 1861. 22 Children under the Poor Law who returned from causes not involving their own misconduct. Omitting the district schools, 1 the following were the totals : Number of boys . . Number of girls ..... Number of boys returned on account of misconduct 14,933 I3,4i8 856 (or 57%) u >> 8 irls >> >> » ,» ,, ,, boys who returned from other causes . 1693 (or 1296 (or 12*6%) S-6%) >> »» g lr l S 51 >) 1) || 1 791 (or 13*3%) Mr. Bowyer in his Report for 1871 2 justly considered these statistics by no means unsatisfactory, especially when it was noted that the return did not (1) state how long the children who returned to the workhouse remained there; nor (2) state what proportion of the children had been in the schools for only two years, and who, therefore, could not have had time to benefit by the education and training given ; nor (3) give any definition of the word " miscon- duct," which might include any juvenile or petty offence. The other return 3 showed that out of 14,216 persons who had been inmates of workhouses for five years at least, only 552 could be traced as having been brought up in a workhouse school. Mr. Bowyer carefully looked up those 552 cases, and was unable to find more than two persons who returned to the workhouse in consequence of any moral fault, the cause of the return being, in most instances, mental or bodily infirmity. 4 So conflicting, indeed, was the testimony as to pauper education and workhouse schools at this time that the Poor Law Inspectors were directed in 1862 to make an inquiry into the subject, and with special reference to the effect of this education and training upon the conduct and career of the children. The following extract from the Report of Mr. Andrew Doyle is important, not only as showing how the Com- mission arrived at its conclusions, but also because its criticisms are so applicable to the Report of a certain Departmental Committee issued thirty-five years later. Mr. Doyle says : 5 " Having examined those parts of the Report of the Education Commission to which you have more particularly directed my atten- tion, / cannot help expressing my surprise and regret that upon such insufficient grounds the Conwiissioners should have published so sweeping a conde?nnation of the whole sy stein of pauper education. It appears to me that the inquiry, as conducted by the Commissioners, was unfairly 1 Mr. Carleton Tufnell, indignant that the return showed the district schools in a very little better light than the workhouse schools as regarded "results," looked upon it as "utterly untrustworthy," and supported his views as ably as usual in his Report for 187 1. See 1 L. G. B., pp. 218-223. 2 23 P. L. B., pp. 215-216 ; also Ibid., p. 233. 3 No. 490, 29th July, 1861. 4 23 P. L. B., p. 218. 5 The italics are our own. Introductory 23 restricted ; that the evidence invited was partial ; that the result of this partial evide?ice is not even impartially presented in the Report, and that the conclusions founded upon investigation so iffiperfect are inconsistent with the facts of the actual cotidition of pauper education throughout the kingdom. In the very valuable evidence recently given by Mr. Coode before the Committee on Poor Relief, that gentleman truly says that any inquiry into the state of pauper education must necessarily be incomplete unless it embraced not merely an account of its condition before 1847, Dut a ^ so a history of the progress which has been made since that period, at which workhouse schools were first placed under Government inspectors, and a large annual grant made for the payment of workhouse teachers. But the Commissioners do not appear to have thought it necessary to make any attempt to trace the effect of a system which has completely changed the character of workhouse education. Their ■ conclusions] when they are not merely speculative opinions, are to a great extent founded upon evidence not given before them, but culled from reports published eight, ten, a?id twelve years ago, and altogether, as Mr. Coode observes, inapplicable to the existing state of workhouse education. If the inquiry had been limited to ascertain the state of workhouse education in 1850, some of the evidence upon which the Commis- sioners appear to rely might be not undeserving of consideration. " The Commissioners received Reports from ten Assistant Commis- sioners, not one of whom was instructed to inquire into the condition of workhouse education. They received replies to a series of questions circulated amongst persons of both sexes ' interested in popular educa- tion in different parts of the country,' but this ' circular of questions,' though addressed to fifty-nine persons, was not addressed to one who was known to be directly connected with the administration of the Poor Laws. They examined twenty-five witnesses, but they did not invite the evidence of a single person connected with the Poor Law Board, or who was known to have had recent experience of Poor Law administration. . . . Nor, as I have remarked, can it be said that the result of the evidence thus partially collected is even fairly presented in the Report. ' The evidence satisfies us] say the Commissioners, ' that children cannot be educated in workhouses in a satisfactory manner? . . . But the Commissioners had before them * some evidence ' from other witnesses to which they do not even allude, for although the evidence satisfies the Com- missioners that '■children cannot be educated in workhouses in a satisfactory manner] ' many of the witnesses whose opinions they invited have come to a different conclusion? " It is material to mention here that the Commission also took evidence in regard to the education of the children of outdoor paupers. Nearly 290,000 children of this class were on the rates on the 1st January, 1859, 1 and as a class they were "in a condition almost as degraded as that of indoor pauper children. 2 These children would not go to school voluntarily, and the parents would not compel them to go. 3 1 Report, p. 380. On the 1st January, 1896, the number of outdoor pauper children was 184,437. 2 Report, p. 380. 3 Ibid., p. 384. 24 Children under the Poor Law As a remedy the Commissioners proposed to make it "compulsory on the Guardians to insist on the education of the child as a condition of outdoor relief to the parent, and to provide such education out of the rates. 1 A useful Act was passed in 1861 (24 & 25 Vict. ch. 113, subse- quently replaced by 29 & 30 Vict. ch. 118) enabling Guardians to contract with the managers of any certified industrial school for the maintenance and education of refractory children j and in the following year another Act (25 & 26 Vict. ch. 43) of still greater utility, enabling them to make use of certified schools for the education and training of special classes of children such as the blind, deaf and dumb, lame, deformed, or idiotic. 2 In the light of recent proposals it is curious to find that in 1863, at the desire of the Committee of Council of Education, the superintendence, inspection and examination of the workhouse and district schools was again placed under the Poor Law Board ; no reason is assigned for the change, though probably the Education Department found the work to be more than they could properly perform. It was not intended to alter the conduct of pauper education in any way by the transfer, and the Board said that it would be their earnest desire to provide that a sound and useful education should be imparted to all such children as were dependent upon the poor rates for their maintenance and instruction. 3 It is satisfactory evidence of the progress made in educating and training Poor Law children to become good citizens that in 1864 the Select Committee on Poor Relief were able to report — "that making reasonable allowance for the low condition, physical, moral, and mental, of a large proportion of the children when they first enter workhouses, and for the necessarily frequent changes in their admission and discharge, the state of workhouse education is upon the whole satisfactory in its character and result." At the same time the Com- mittee reported in favour of district or separate schools, as being attended with beneficial results to the children, and as affording the best means of separating them from other classes of paupers. 4 Again in 1867 the Poor Law Board refer to the reports of its inspectors as giving a favourable account of the state and progress of education and the efficiency of the schools, not only of the district and separate 1 Report, p. 385. Nothing was done under this recommendation till the Education Act of 1873. ^ n f act > the Select Committee of 1864 on Poor Relief considered the proposal as inconsistent with the principles upon which the relief of the poor is established. See 16 P. LB., p. no; and ante, p. 19. 2 On the 1st January, 1895, the number of these schools was 208. 3 16 P.L.B., p. 19. 4 Ibid., p. no. Introductory 2 5 schools, but also of many of the schools in the workhouses. 1 But in some of the latter schools the number of children was so small as hardly to afford sufficient occupation for one teacher, and in these cases the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. ch. 113, s. 16) was found of use. It repealed the provisions in previous statutes, 2 which limited the distance within which children might be sent to any district school from a Union or parish not combined in the district or from one workhouse to another. About this time, too, the Poor Law Board gave its consent to some of the oldest and most intelligent boys and girls in large district or separate schools being appointed assistant teachers with small weekly allowances, and when they had attained a sufficient age and experience and had qualified themselves by their attainments to pass the usual examination before School Inspectors and to receive certificates of permission, they were to be entitled to receive such salaries as the certificates would give them according to the usual scale, these salaries to be repayable out of the Parliamentary grant. 3 In view also of the importance they attached to combining industrial with mental instruction, not only as teaching the boys and girls a trade or occupation by which they might in subsequent years earn a liveli- hood, but more especially in improving and strengthening their physical as well as their mental faculties, and promoting habits of industry and application, the Board made equitable provision for payments to the Guardians on account of the salaries of industrial instructors in the schools. 4 But at that time, just as at present, however admirable in its mental effects this industrial training might have been, it does not appear that many of the boys kept to the employment in which they had been instructed. 5 In 1867 the Metropolitan Poor Act was passed, and as by section 69 the maintenance of pauper children in district, separate, certificated, and licensed schools was made a charge upon the Common Poor Fund established by the Act, it was anticipated that it would give, and it did in fact give, a great impetus to the general adoption in London of the district or separate school systems. It is in 1868 7 that we hear for the first time of Boards of Guardians applying for leave to board out certain classes of pauper children on the Scotch system. The Poor Law Board expressed their willingness 1 19 P. L. £., p. 20. 2 Viz., 7 & 8 Vict. ch. 101, s. 51 ; and 14 & 15 Vict. ch. 105, s. 6. See ante, pp. 10, 18. 3 19 P. L. B., p. 20. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid, 6 30 & 31 Vict. ch. 6. 7 See post, p. 28. 26 Children under the Poor Law to give every facility for a fair trial of the system, 1 and in 1869 directed its inspectors to report upon it so far as it prevailed in their districts, while to Mr. Henley was intrusted a special investigation as to how it was carried out in Scotland and to what classes of children it applied in that country. 2 Mr. Henley reported that children were boarded out in Scotland under the three heads of "orphans," "deserted," and "separated," 3 and that while he was favourably impressed with the system generally, he was doubtful whether its apparent success in Scotland could be used as an argument for its working with success in England. He pointed to the different habits and modes of life in the working classes of both countries. While Scotland possessed a class of crofters or small occupiers, who were undoubtedly good foster parents, this class was unknown in England, excepting perhaps in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham. The frugal and provident habits of the northern parts of the country were a household word. Education had made the northerner, if not a better man, at least a more intelligent being. Himself educated, he would feel the necessity of forcing his foster charge to school, which Mr. Henley doubted would be the case in England. Then again, Scotland with its large and densely populated cities had drawn largely upon the population sparsely scattered over its pastoral and rural districts, thus leaving an easier opening to the young at the commencement of life than would be found in the more fully-peopled Unions of England. And Mr. Henley warned those who might attempt to introduce this plan of relief that it could only be successful under the following conditions : (1) Careful selection of nurses, (2) liberal payments, and (3) super- vision by paid officers. 4 He said that neglect on any one of these points would ensure failure, and experience has proved him to be right. He said that it would be necessary to lay down the following rules if the system were tried in England: 5 (i.) The following classes should under no circumstances be boarded out: (a) Illegitimate children of widows still living. (b) Other illegitimate children whose mothers are living. (c) Children deserted by one parent. (d) Children whose parents are living. 1 21 P. L. B. % p. 25. The Board had up to then opposed it. Post, p. 28. 2 22 P. L. £>., p. 2. The Reports of the inspectors, together with that of Mr. J. J. Henley on boarding-out in Scotland, are published in a Parliamentary paper (No. 176, Sess. 1870). 3 "Separated "children are those who have been rescued from profligate parents or evil associations. 4 Report of the Inspectors in 1870, p. 36 (Parliamentary Paper, No. 176). 5 Ibid., p. 35. Introductory 2 7 (ii.) Deserted children should not be boarded out till they have been for some time in the workhouse, (iii.) Children should not usually be boarded with relations, (iv.) No child should be boarded with a person who is, or other- wise would be, in receipt of parochial relief, (v.) A child, before it is boarded out, should be passed by the medical officer, and a certificate given that it is in a proper state, mentally and bodily, to be sent out. (vi.) Not more than two children, except in the case of a family, should be sent to one house, (vii.) Brothers and sisters should usually be kept together, (viii.) The sexes should, as far as possible, be separated in the sleeping rooms, (ix.) Children over seven years of age should not sleep in the same room with married people, (x.) Children should be boarded out as young as possible, (xi.) Children should be removed if (a) They are kept away from school, Sunday-school or Church. (b) If lodgers are put into the same room with the children. {c) If children are taken in to board from other Unions or parishes, or (d) From private people, (xii.) A periodical return should be obtained from all teachers of schools at which the children attend, stating attendance, conduct, progress, cleanliness (in dress and person), and giving any other information as to the child which may seem necessary. (xiii.) If any child is sent out to board beyond the boundaries of a Union or parish, immediate notice should be given in writing to the clerk of the Union or parish to which it is sent. (xiv.) Children should be visited by a paid officer every quarter at least, at uncertain periods; the result of each visit to be entered in a book provided for the purpose, to be placed before the Committee or Guardians at their next meeting. (xv.) If a Committee should visit the children at the nurses' houses, they should be accompanied by a Medical Officer, who should sign their report or make a separate one. (xvi. ) That the fullest securities should be given for a careful selection of nurses, and for their liberal payment, so as to avoid the employment of the lowest class of persons who would be willing to undertake the duty. 28 Children under the Poor Law The inquiry as to how far the system prevailed in England and Wales went to show that only twenty-one Unions practised it, and that 347 children were boarded out in these Unions. In one Union (Warminster) the system had been practised for more than twenty years, and in another (Ringwood) for twelve years. In the large majority of cases the state of the children was reported upon as satisfactory, but in several cases the foster parents were receiving out- door relief, and the Report gives some glaring instances of the abuses to which the system is liable, 1 unless very carefully watched over and safeguarded. In the Unions of Highworth and Swindon, where boarding-out had been in operation for six years, all the cases were reported upon as satisfactory, but then the houses were regularly visited and reported upon not only by the Relieving Officers but also by a Committee of the Guardians. In the Chorlton Union the homes and children were supervised by the Relieving Officers and a Ladies' Committee. In the Eton Union, on which Mr. Henley reported, the supervision was exercised by the Relieving Officers and a Committee of the Guardians, but, even under such conditions, this inspector, who was so favourably impressed by the system, was forced by a case which came under his observation to admit the difficulty of enforcing the proper separation of the sexes. He also acknowledged that the system could only be of limited application. In most Unions the children were only visited by the Relieving Officer and by individual Guardians. The views of the Central Authority at this time upon the subject of boarding-out may be gathered from a letter which the Poor Law Board caused to be sent to the Evesham Board of Guardians in 1 869.2 They admitted that they had hitherto been consistently opposed to the system, "influenced mainly by the consideration that in view of the responsibility imposed upon Guardians as regards orphan children, the Guardians would be unable to exercise the necessary control and supervision of the children who may be removed from the workhouse and placed under the charge of those whose main object in taking the children would be to make a profit out of the sums allowed for their maintenance. Other strong objections occurred to them, such as the difficulty of ensuring that some regular education for the children is given as in the schools attached to the Union. The proposed change appeared to the Board to give insufficient security either for the instruction or the physical well-being of orphan children." But the apparent success of the system in Scotland led them to the conclusion that they ought not to discourage the Guardians from giving it a 1 e.g., pp. 154, 171, 172. 2 22 P. L. £., p. 3. Introductory 29 fair trial under certain conditions, viz., (1) that the children must be of such good health as not to miss the constant attendances given to the inmates of the workhouse by the workhouse medical officer; (2) that the foster parents should be in a position to provide them with good wholesome food, warm and cleanly lodging, and the necessary personal inspection; (3) that the children should be sufficiently near schools of the religion to which they belonged as to ensure their regular attendance at them ; and (4) that the children should be constantly visited by the Relieving Officers, who were to report frequently on their condition and treatment, and to be held responsible for neglect in doing so. So far our remarks have only had reference to boarding-out children within the Union to which they were chargeable, against which practice no legal impediment existed ; an application, however, by Miss Preusser, residing in Westmoreland, to undertake the charge of a certain number of children belonging to the Bethnal Green Union, raised the question of boarding out without the Union. Miss Preusser's application was refused on the very good ground that its being acceded to would create a precedent under which the contracts and pecuniary arrangements would not be made direct between the Guardians and those persons who were willing to become the foster parents of the children, but between the Guardians and third parties. The Poor Law Board thought that any approach to arrangements under which third parties would undertake to place out children on behalf of Boards of Guardians was fraught with danger, except under a thoroughly organized system. 1 Further, the Order prohibiting non- resident relief stood in the way. This obstacle was, however, removed by the Boarding-out Order of the following year (1870). In the explanatory memorandum which accompanied the issue of the Order, the Poor Law Board pointed out the advantages which boarding- out seemed to possess over district, separate and workhouse schools. The risks and abuses to which the system was exposed made it necessary that it should only be allowed under certain conditions and regulations. These were laid down in the Order, 2 and need not be set out here. The new Order was largely made use of. Within one year of its being issued thirty Boarding-out Committees had been formed, 3 and at the present time their number exceeds 150. The whole system is now regulated by the two Boarding-out Orders of 1 889/ a special lady inspector of children boarded out without the Unions (Miss Mason) having been appointed in 1885. 1 22 P.L.B., p. liv. In the particular case the problem was solved by Miss Preusser taking charge of the children without payment. 2 J bid., pp. 18-22. 3 Ibid., p. xlii. 4 Set post, p. 41. 30 Children tinder the Poor Law The Metropolitan Poor Amendment Act of 1869 enabled Boards of Guardians, or the managers of school districts, to acquire, with the consent of the Central Authority, ships for the training of boys for the sea service, and in 1870 the Goliath was fitted up in the Thames under the control of the Managers of the Forest Gate School District for the reception of boys from Metropolitan Unions and parishes. 1 The results of this experiment were in all respects satisfactory. A marked and most encouraging improvement had been effected in the physical development and in the bearing and general intelligence of the boys transferred to the ship from Metropolitan Unions. The rapidity with which, since their transfer to the ship, town-bred boys of stunted growth had increased in stature and bulk was most remarkable. 2 The ship was subsequently placed under the management of the Metropolitan Asylum District Board, and boys were received into the ship from Unions and parishes outside the Metropolis. Upon the burning of the Goliath in 1875, lt: was replaced by the Exmonth. There are at the present time only a few training ships in various parts of the country which take pauper boys. 3 These ships are fully described in Chapter IX. They have fortunately been excepted from the general condemnation by the Departmental Committee of the system of aggregating children in large numbers in a single institution. We have now reached the period when the battle over the education and training of Poor Law children begins to get warm, and it may be well to take stock of the then existing state of things. By 1868 five school districts 4 had been formed in London, and three in the country, 5 only three (one of them dissolved in 1884) having been established since. The children of other London Unions were being educated in large separate schools, but in the country only fifteen Unions had similar separate schools, the large majority of the children being educated in workhouse schools, of which only thirty were detached or separated from the workhouse itself. Boarding-out was, 1 22 P. L. B., p. lv. 2 1 L. G. B., p. xxvi. It appears, however, that at this time only a very small proportion of the boys could satisfy the regulations of the Royal Navy as to physique. (See correspondence on the subject, 1 L. G. £., pp. 237-244.) This is not so now. See post t p. 251. 3 See post, p. 252. 4 Central London, South Metropolitan, North Surrey, West London, and Forest Gate. The Kensington and Chelsea School District was not formed till 1876. The Brentwood School District, formed in 1878, was dissolved in 1884. 5 Farnham and Hartley Wintney, Reading and Wokingham, and South East Shropshire. The Walsall and West Bromwich District was formed in 1869. Introductory 31 as we have seen, in its infancy, and in only seventy Unions were the children sent out to school. Mr. Carleton Tufnell headed the party which still fought for district and large schools, and official opinion, though slightly wavering, still leaned to his side. 1 Although many of the workhouse schools were admirably managed and showed good results, 2 they had very few defenders. They were not, however, to be replaced by boarding-out, nor by sending the children to school outside the workhouse, but by district schools. At the same time, boarding-out was growing into favour, and the practice of sending children to the public elementary schools was becoming more common, and, as the event will show, both these systems were destined not only to put an end to the idea of the universal establishment of district schools, but to bring about the gradual closure of workhouse schools also. In a circular to Boards of Guardians explanatory of the Boarding-out Order of 1870, the Poor Law Board appraised each system at its just value. They said : 3 11 With regard to the ordinary workhouse schools the difficulties are so great that the best efforts of Boards of Guardians to render them efficient are often defeated. Imperfect classification, incomplete separation from the adult inmates, the associations inseparable from the workhouse, and the circumstances that orphans who may be unfortunately thrown out of employment a few years after leaving the workhouse invariably look upon it as their natural home where they have left their friends and acquaintances, the fluctuating terms for which children are admitted, and the smaller competition for the post of schoolmaster and schoolmistress in workhouses as compared with other schools, constitute difficulties of too formidable a character, both in social and educational respects, to justify any preference for the system if any other practice should appear to offer reasonable chances of success. " On the other hand, the educational and industrial advantages of the district and separate schools, especially in the case of boys, are un- deniable, and the Board desire to render full justice to the zeal, ability, and liberality with which many of them have been managed. Indeed, it appears scarcely to admit of a doubt that, as regards the imparting of instruction, they confer a higher degree of education than is likely to be acquired by children boarded out. When permanent and secure employment can be found for boys on leaving these schools, as for instance, in the case of the numerous boys drafted into regimental 1 See Mr. Tufnell's Reports, 20 P. L. B., p. 128; 22 P. L. £., p. 114. Mr. Bowyer actually proposed so late as 1875 that their establishment should be enforced by the withdrawal of the Parliamentary grant to Boards of Guardians for payment of teachers' salaries. See 22 P. L. B., p. 125 ; 1 L. G. B., pp. 232-234 ; and 5 L. G. B., pp. 137-140. 1 20 P. L. B. , pp. 141, 142, 146, 154. 3 23 P.L.B., pp. 12, 13. 32 Children tinder the Poor Law bands or into the sea service from some of the Metropolitan schools, their success seems complete. But these schools are deficient, especi- ally in the case of girls, from the unavoidable circumstance that no family or domestic ties of any kind are established, and that the children have no other home to fall back upon than the workhouse in the frequent event of troubles befalling them. Besides, they have another disadvantage; orphans and deserted children brought up in pauper schools live there continuously. There is no change from their school life during a part of the year, such as is enjoyed by children brought up in public schools in other spheres of life. The monotony and confinement of pauper schools must necessarily be unbroken, and prevent, to a great extent, the development of many of those faculties of mind and body which, in the case of children who must look forward to a hard industrial life, it is most important to expand. No system of public education can possibly supply the place of that parental care and those home influences of which orphans and deserted children are necessarily deprived. In the district schools, naturally, no attempt of the kind can be made. They aim at and have succeeded in giving the best intellectual and industrial training possible under the circumstances. " The boarding-out system aims at solving the problem in a different direction, and while inferior as an agency for intellectual education, it may possibly secure many other advantages of a very high order, both to the children themselves and to the community, by replacing the children to a certain extent in that family life from which it is a calamity for them to be entirely excluded. It is further urged in the strongest manner by the advocates of the boarding-out system that it tends to merge the pauper children, to whom it is applied, in the general body of the population j and if this result can be achieved, no more powerful argument can be adduced in favour of the scheme. . . . " At the same time the Board desire to state that they are fully aware of the risks and abuses to which a system of this nature is necessarily exposed. They are conscious that its success must depend upon the exercise of the utmost caution and diligence on the part of those who are called upon to administer it, and they have accordingly felt it to be incumbent upon them to embody in the Order certain conditions and regulations upon the fulfilment of which the sanction of the Board will be dependent." One of the defects attending the aggregation of children in large schools, which had evidently not been contemplated by the advocates of the system, was at this time brought into prominence. In 1872 ophthalmia prevailed in several of the Metropolitan schools, and this fact opened the eyes of the Central Authority to the facility with which this or other diseases of a highly infectious character would spread among the large numbers of children congregated in those institutions, unless preventive measures were taken. 1 1 2 L. G. B. t p. xxxi. The danger cannot, however, have been unknown to the Board, for, twelve years before, an outbreak of ophthalmia had occurred at Hanwell, and the attention of many eminent oculists had been from time to time called to the Introchictory 33 A circular was consequently issued to managers and Guardians on the subject, 1 drawing attention to the necessity (1) of immediately removing any child affected by any contagious disease from the body of the schools to the infirmary; (2) of frequent and regular inspections of the children in the schools by the medical officers, so that the removal of any case of sickness which might have escaped the observation of the superintendent and matron might be secured j and (3) of a daily inspection of the children whenever epidemic disease was present in the school. There can be no doubt that these outbreaks have been caused by the infraction of the regulations of the Central Authority in admitting children suffering from infectious diseases into the schools. At the same time the difficulties under which Boards of Guardians laboured in conforming to these regulations were recognized. Owing to the great pressure upon workhouse accommodation, it had been found practically impossible to carry out the regulations with strictness. " Of the two alternatives, to detain a sickly child in the over-full sick wards of the workhouse, or to send him insufficiently cured to the school, where at least he would profit by the healthy air and site, the latter has not unfrequently been chosen. And pending the provision of increased and improved infirmary accommodation, it may be plausibly maintained that the choice involved the least of two evils. The result, however, has been that within the last four years 2 a large number of unhealthy children have found an entrance into these schools, and that the difficulty of maintaining a good standard of health has been unusually great." 3 But by 1874 adequate infirmary accommodation seems to have been obtained in the majority of the workhouses, and the Local Government Board was enabled to secure a stricter observance of their regulations than had up to then been possible. 4 The reports, too, of Dr. Bridges and Dr. Mouatt on ophthalmia in the Metropolitan Poor Law schools, subject by the managers of schools, and curative and hygienic measures recommended. See 3 Z. G. B. , p. xxviii. 1 The letter is dated the 7th December, 1872. 2 Z. G. B., p. 54. "The Board consider that it would add greatly to the efficiency of such inspections if the medical officer examined the children weekly, and recorded concisely the result of his exam- ination in writing, for the information of the managers or Guardians as the case might be." 2 i.e., 1870-74. 3 3 Z. G. B. y p. xxix. 4 For the circulars as to this see 3 Z. G. B., p. 2. The managers of the North Surrey Schools at Anerley, which had suffered very severely from an epidemic of ophthalmia in 1872, have been so strict since then as to admitting unhealthy children, that from that time to this only one slight outbreak of the disease, owing to the accidental admission of an infected child to the schools, has occurred. See post, p. 123. Also 3 Z. G. B., p. xxix ; 4 /.. 6'. B., p. 25. D 34 Children under the Poor Law showed to what causes the outbreak of ophthalmia was to be attributed, and indicated the lines by which it might be prevented. 1 Dr. Mouatt's conclusions were as follows : " To sum up in a few words the result of my inquiry and the matters referred to in the report, it may be stated that, although there is a great deal of ophthalmia in some of the schools, it is not at present epidemic; that the state of the eyes tending to the production of the disease is generated in the habitations of the poor, and is due to bad hygienic conditions j that it was originally introduced into the schools from the workhouses ; that it has continued to infest some of the schools ever since, and that the remedial measures necessary for its control and extinction must be based upon its highly contagious character. " That these measures are : isolation of the worst forms of the disease; careful separation of the less severe cases and of convales- cents ; rigorous regulation of ventilation ; cleanliness in the widest sense of persons, clothing, and wards ; disinfection ; judicious variation of dietaries for all scrofulous children; more wholesome arrangement of schoolrooms, day-rooms, and workshops; greater attention to out- door exercise and physical education ; skilful and skilled nursing, with constant care and watchfulness from all connected with the management of those important institutions. "The means of disinfecting clothing, etc., should, I think, be provided in all schools. "Greater latitude should be given to the local authorities than is allowed by the existing regulations to vary the dietaries of the children at different seasons of the year. By careful attention to the markets, when various articles of food are cheap and plentiful, this would be economical, as surely as it would, if managed with care and judgment, be a wholesome proceeding. "The keeping of proper records of all diseases occurring in the schools, and particularly of those liable to assume an epidemic character, should be compulsory, in order that their existence may not be overlooked, and that the means employed to combat and control them may be known to all future officers employed in them." 2 Dr. Mouatt concludes his report by a reference to a question which has now become a burning one, viz., as to the limitation of numbers beyond which it is not safe, judicious, or economical to congregate children in large buildings for any purpose whatever. But the most exhaustive Report on ophthalmia was that made to the Local Government Board by Mr. Edward Nettleship in 1874. It occupies 114 pages of the Blue Book. 3 While he comes to the con- clusion that there was no reason why ophthalmia should not be got rid of by the bulk of the schools in a few years if his recommendations were carried out, he was of opinion that the only certain way of keeping 1 3 L. G. B., pp. 210-245. 2 Ibid., pp. 244, 245. :i 4 L. G. B., pp. 55-168. Introductory 35 them free from it was by the provision of one or more separate isolation or quarantine schools. 1 (3) The Period from 1874 to the Present Time. In consequence of attacks which had for some years past been made on Poor Law schools, especially with regard to their bad effect on the character of girls, Mrs. Nassau Senior was directed to report upon the education and training they received there. Her Report is dated the 1st January, 1 874.2 In the introduction to it she said that she had confined it almost exclusively to questions affecting the physical, moral, and domestic training at the schools, and that she had divided her inquiry into two parts : 1 st. As to the present working of the system in the schools. 2nd. As to the after career of the girls who had been placed out in the world. She also said that she had tried constantly to bear in mind while making the inquiry (1) that the schools had to deal with bad material, the children who came to them being as a rule below the average standard, whether physical, mental, or moral ; and (2) that they had to go out into the world at an age when other children were still under guidance and protection. She further acknowledged the improvements of the present system upon that which had preceded it, and sincerely and gratefully acknow- ledged the efforts of those who had effected the reforms or were administering the system. What defects she found belonged to the system, and not to the administration of it. Her Report is everything that such a Report should be, and it were devoutly to be wished that the recent Departmental Committee, whose Report bears a suspicious resemblance to that of Mrs. Nassau Senior, but without exhibiting her fairness and freedom from bias, had followed her example also in that respect. Her main conclusions were as follows : 3 1. That the massing of girls together in large numbers was bad and must issue in failure. 2. That their physical condition in the schools and their moral condition on coming out of them was disappointing and un- satisfactory ; and 3. That, while the scholastic training of both boys and girls in the Metropolitan Pauper schools was first rate, the system of 1 3 L. G.B., p. 131. The Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools agree with this conclusion. (Report, p. 36.) 2 3 L. G. B., pp. 311-394- z Z L. G. B., pp. 341, etc. 36 Children tinder the Poor Law education did not answer in the case of girls, even at the very best separate and district schools, and that many of them were, in general intelligence, below children of the same class educated at home. She advocated: 1 (1) An extension of boarding-out for the orphan children ; (2) the breaking up of the present schools, and the education of deserted children apart from the casual children ; (3) the establish- ment for both these latter classes of "schools of a more homelike character, arranged on the Mettray system, each house containing not more than from twenty to thirty children of all ages"; (4) if it was impossible to provide such "Cottage Homes" for a time, then the utilization of some of the existing schools as infant establishments, in which girls after twelve years of age should receive special training, the remaining schools to be reclassed, using some as hospitals, and others as schools for boys and girls. These boys' and girls' schools should be divided into two classes. In one set of schools permanent inmates only should be received, in the other casuals only ; so that the special system of training which she wished to see adopted for the casual children might be carried on in establishments exclusively devoted to this purpose. (See pp. 335-336 of the Report.) Mrs. Nassau Senior supported all her recommendations by powerful arguments, and indeed no one who is anxious to arrive at an opinion as to the best way of dealing with Poor Law children should omit to study her Report. It is no wonder that its condemnation of large schools for girls, and its advocacy of boarding-out, aroused Mr. Tufnell's ire. He was no longer an inspector. He could speak freely, and he did so. His reply, which was published as a Parliamentary paper, 2 is perhaps unnecessarily violent, but still there is great force in his criticisms of Mrs. Senior's Report. For instance, there is some justice in his com- plaints : (1) that out of 701 girls reported upon, only 51 had been actually seen by Mrs. Senior herself, the reports on the remaining 650 being made to her by various ladies to whom she had delegated this duty; and (2) that Mrs. Senior had refused him the particulars which would have enabled him to check the cases, although in the few instances when he had been able to identify them, it turned out that in every case the girl had been grossly maligned. He pointed out that out of the 650 girls reported upon, Mrs. Senior could only mention six who came to a disgraceful end; that the statistics appended to her Report 1 ZL.G.B., p. 345- 2 Sessional Paper No. 10, 1875. A summary of the arguments will be found in the introduction to Boarding- Out and Pauper Schools, by Menella B. Smedley (H. S. King & Co.). This lady was, however, one of Mrs. Senior's staff, and she rather minimises the force of Mr. Tufnell's criticisms. Introductory 37 showed how few workhouse girls became criminals, and that out of 685 women under forty years of age who were in custody on the 9th of April, 1873, only 13 had been educated in pauper schools, while of these 13 only one could be considered as a failure for which the Metropolitan Schools were responsible. He drew special attention to Mrs. Senior's admission that the scholastic training of both boys and girls in the Metropolitan Pauper Schools was first-rate. 1 He criticised " boarding-out " very severely, 2 and as the system was carried on at the time, with some justice ; and concluded by expressing the hope that the Local Government Board would suppress the practice entirely, while at the same time extending the system of district schools as much as possible. The dispute thus started as to the respective advantages of large schools and boarding-out has raged from that day to this, and at the present moment those who advocate " boarding-out " seem to have the upper hand. Mrs. Senior's Report will also be remembered in that it threw out the first idea of a voluntary association of ladies for looking after the girls when they left the schools, and for training them to be good servants. The foundation of that admirable society known as the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants was the immediate result. 3 We have seen that Mrs. Senior advocated very strongly the establish- ment of " Cottage Homes " on the Mettray system. It so happened that at this time "boarding-out" in the Swansea Union had fallen somewhat into disrepute. Mr. Andrew Doyle, indeed, produced evidence to show how every objection which he had heard made to the system had been illustrated in that Union. He advocated, therefore, very strongly that the Union should join with the two neighbouring Unions of Neath and Bridgend to provide for their children by a district school established on the " Cottage Homes " principle. 4 In the Report of the Local Government Board for 1877-78 it is stated that the Board had approved plans for the erection of schools of this kind in the six Unions of West Derby, West Ham, Bolton, Swansea, 1 Report, p. 343. 2 It must be borne in mind that Mrs. Senior did not advocate the boarding-out of deserted children, but that they should be dealt with in separate institutions from casual children. (See Report, p. 345.) 3 Post, p. 296. Mrs. Senior sketched out the idea of the organization of this society in a letter to the President of the Local Government Board, dated 3rd November, 1874. (See4Z. G.B., p. 181.) 4 See Mr. Doyle's letter of the 9th April, 1877, to Mr. Llewelyn, the Chairman of the Swansea Board of Guardians. (4 L. G. B., p. 171.) In the end each Union built its own school separately. 38 Children under the Poor Law Neath, and Bridgend and Cowbridge. 1 The schools of twenty Unions are now established on this plan, and other Unions are adopting the system. 2 It was about this time that the practice of sending the children to the public elementary schools rapidly grew into favour. In 1861 only thirty Unions followed it, but in 1874 the number had increased by ninety-eight. Twenty years later the number was 419. The improvement in the education of the country which followed upon the Education Act of 1870 has been so great that Poor Law children get an equally good education to that which could be given them in the workhouse schools, and the saving to the rates is considerable. In 1886 the Board drew special attention to the increase of this practice, but warned Guardians of the absolute necessity of making proper provision for the care of children out of school-hours, and during school-holidays. It seems that in some instances the Guardians were disposed to assign this duty, nominally, to the master and matron, or some other officer, whilst the children were, in fact, to a considerable extent, left to the charge of pauper inmates, which is, of course, a very reprehensible practice. 3 In their Report for 1876-77 the Local Government Board refer to the inquiries which had been recently made as to the results of the education given in some of the schools. These results were reported as very favourable. 4 The Elementary Education Act of 1876, 5 which prevented children of between ten and fourteen from being sent to labour unless they had obtained a certificate of proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic, was looked upon as likely to produce still more favourable results. The examination for this certificate was at first carried out by the officers of the Education Department in regard to children educated in Poor Law schools, as well as others ; but this was found to be inconvenient, and the duty was soon transferred to the Poor Law Educational Inspectors. The great benefit resulting from the 1 Of these Unions all but West Ham carried out the plans. 2 The foundation stone of the Chorlton Cottage Homes was laid by Mr. A. J. Balfour, M.P., in August, 1896. The twenty Unions above referred to are Birming- ham, Bolton, Bridgend and Cowbridge, Burnley, Chelsea, Christchurch, Dewsbury, Elham, Kensington, King's Norton, Leicester, Neath, Pontypool, Pontypridd, Shore- ditch, Swansea, Warrington, West Derby, Wolverhampton, and Worcester. An interesting Report on the Birmingham Cottage Homes at Marston Green will be found in 1 1 L. G. B. , p. xliii. 3 15 L.G.B., p. xxxiv. 4 6 L.G.B., p. xxxviii. The Board refer more especially to the Reports of Mr. Mozley, Mr. Davy, and Mr. Murray-Browne. 5 39 & 40 Vict. ch. 79. Introductory 39 Act was that each child had to be examined and reported upon individually. Mr. Bowyer thought that the change would act "as a stimulus to improvement, both in the teachers and in the pupils." 1 Mr. Mozley looked forward to the elder children bestowing more care on their annual examination. Mr. Holgate expected that Guardians and managers would become fully impressed with the necessity for every boy and girl obtaining the certificate before passing out of school to labour or to domestic service ; that indifferent teachers would have to improve or resign their office ; and that, for the first time, the actual results of their teaching would be clearly brought before their superiors. A spirit of healthy emulation would be set on foot in schools of more than one department, as either boys or girls showed a larger number of passes in any subject; while the whole status and well-being of the children and the schools would be improved by being thus brought more nearly to the level of other elementary schools. 2 Complaints had for some time been made that provisionally certificated teachers who had been trained in training colleges were not qualified for their parchment certificates by their service in Poor Law schools. This was, of course, a great obstacle in the way of getting the best teachers for these schools. It was, however, to a large extent removed by the modified regulations of the Com- mittee of Council of Education made in 1875, 3 and in 1889 they were enabled to obtain their certificates whilst in the service of the Guardians and managers when they had completed the term of service prescribed by Art. 62 of the Code of Regulations of the Education Department, and had received two and (when necessary) three favourable reports from the Poor Law Educational Inspectors. 4 In 1877 the Board found it necessary to issue an Order 5 regulating the practice of boarding-out children within the Unions to which they are chargeable. It appears that some Unions were accustomed to grant outdoor relief by placing orphan and deserted children with foster-parents, who would otherwise come to the parish for relief. This was, of course, nothing else than relieving the foster parents at the expense of the children, and the danger is one attaching to 1 Mr. Bowyer's remarks on this point are valuable. See 9 Z. G.B., p. 202. 1 See 9 Z. G. B., p. 214 ; also 10 Z. G. B., p. 190. 3 See 6 L. G. B., p. 5. The regulations are set outmost. See Appendix B., p. 402. 4 20 Z. G. B.j p. 30. For a copy of the circular letter on this subject see post, Appendix B. , p. 402 ; and see Mr. Mozley's remarks on the effect of this change, 19 Z. G. B., p. 157. 5 7 L.G.B., p. 193. The Order of 1877 is now replaced by the later one of 1880. 4-0 Children under the Poor Law boarding-out in both its forms. The regulations provided for the homes being suitable and proper for the children, and for their periodical supervision by the Medical and Relieving Officers, who were to report the results of their inspection to the Guardians. In the following year (1878) the interest of the Central Authority in raising the standard of Poor Law Education to the proper mark, and keeping it on a level with that of Public Elementary Education generally, was again shown by the issue of a General Order 1 prescrib- ing the keeping by the masters and mistresses of Attendance Registers. These registers were to be produced to the Visiting Committees on their visits to the schools, and to the Guardians or Boards of Management when they should desire to see them, and had to be preserved for ten years. The order also contained the important regula- tion that the standards of examination to be observed should be those prescribed in the Code of the Education Department in force for the time being. 2 Time-tables were also to be prepared. And as showing how the industrial training of children was still regarded as of the highest importance, the Board authorised in many cases the with- drawing from school of children over thirteen who had passed the fourth standard of the Code for the purpose of their getting more of such training. At the same time the arrangements for mental instruction were to be such as to ensure these children being kept up to the fourth standard while they remained in the school. 3 It is satisfactory to find the inspectors reporting continued improve- ment in education since this time (1882), notwithstanding the dis- advantages under which so many of the children were placed owing to the short periods during which they were under instruction; the number of children presented in the higher standards, and the proportion of passes in each subject taught, increasing year by year. 4 The progress is especially remarkable in the subject of arithmetic. In 1894 the Elementary Education Act of 1893 came into operation. This Act raised to eleven years the minimum age for exemption (whether total or partial), fixed by the local bye-laws made under the Education Acts. Although this provision of the Act had no application to Poor Law schools, many Boards of Guardians and 1 General Order of 3rd April, 1878. 2 Up to this time the general words of Article 114 of the Order of 1847 controlled the education of Poor Law children. 3 See 12 Z. G. B., p. xxxvi. 4 See 12 Z. G. B., pp. 74, 108; 13 Z. G. B., p. 130; 14Z. G. B., pp. 45, 56, 59; 15 Z. G. B., pp. 42, 45, 50; 16 Z. G. B., p. xlix. ; 17 L. G. B., pp. 89 and 95 ; 18 Z. G. B., pp. 144, 149, and 155 ; 19 Z. G. B., pp. lxxxvii., etc. ; 20 Z. G. B., p. 258 ; 22 Z. G. 8., pp. 103, 113 ; 23 L. G. B., p. 151 ; 24 /.. G. B., pp. 70, 75. Introductory 4 1 Managers of Schools have, as Mr. Holgate advised, read " this legisla- tion as affecting the children in their schools not merely so far as regards their discharge into the world to service or paid occupation, but as regards their exemption from any industrial labour (other than needlework for girls) and their attending schools as whole-timers until eleven years of age, quite independently of any standard " which they might have passed. 1 Ten years having elapsed since the issuing of the order relating to children boarded out beyond the limits of their own Unions, the Central Authority caused their inspectors to report upon the 601 children so boarded out in their several districts. The reports so obtained are generally favourable to the practice, only a few cases having been discovered where the homes had not been selected with sufficient care, or the regulations infringed. 2 Mr. Murray Browne was charged with making a special report upon the children under the supervision of the King's Norton Boarding-out Committee. He described it as " one of the oldest and most important in the country," and while his Report is on the whole favourable to the system, he is obliged to make the important admission that the children did not, as a rule, impress him in any respect more favourably than the workhouse-bred children, whose history he had investigated some years previously. 3 In fact, the percentage of failures among boarded-out children was twice as great as among those who had received their education in workhouses. 4 Further reports were made by the inspectors in 1884, and they were generally favourable to the system. 5 But the great increase in the number of children boarded out withoict the Unions necessitated the appointment of a special inspector, and in 1885 the present inspector, Miss Mason, was appointed to the post. Her Reports, which have been published annually since 1886, must be read by anyone who wishes to have a real grasp of the subject. Although many cases of cruelty and neglect on the part of foster parents, and of undesirable homes are noted by her, her evidence with regard to the interest taken in the welfare of the children by members of Boarding-out Committees, and the warm feeling entertained for 1 See 23 L. G. 2?., p. 154. 2 See 11 L.G.B., pp. xxxix.-xlii. A list of the Boarding-out Committees authorised to act at this time will be found in 12 L. G.B., pp. 281-283. They were 80 in number. 3 11 L. G. B. } p. 140. 4 The report on the results of a workhouse education referred to by Mr. Murray Browne is printed in 6 L. G. B., pp. 36-47. The failures were 5*26 per cent, in the case of the workhouse schools, and 11*3 per cent, in the boarded-out children. 5 14 L. G. B., p. xxxiv. OF THE ^K ( UfVlVFPQf-rx, 42 Children tinder the Poor Law them by their foster-parents, seem to furnish satisfactory proof of the successful working of the system. But it cannot be too often emphasised that the system is one which cannot be universally applied, and that it depends entirely for its success upon constant and close supervision and inspection. An important step was taken by the Board in 1883 in regard to emigrating children. For some years previously they had been applied to by Boards of Guardians to authorise the emigration of orphan and deserted children to Canada, but had consistently declined to do so so long as no arrangements were made by the Dominion Government for the systematic inspection of the children after they had been placed out in homes in Canada. They had now been able to arrange for this being done under certain conditions, and during the eight months from the issuing of the memorandum on the subject to the end of the year, no fewer than 133 children were so emigrated. 1 The regulations were revised in 1888, the principal alteration being that each child before being emigrated to Canada should be examined by the medical officer of the Union, who was to report in writing as to its general health, and whether it was in all respects a suitable subject for emigration. 2 In 1889 the Boarding-out Orders of 1870 and 1877 already referred to were rescinded and replaced by two new and more stringent orders, which regulate the practice at the present time. The principal changes relating to the boarding-out of children beyond the Unions to which they are chargeable are as follows : 3 1. The Order was made to apply to all Unions and separate parishes in England and Wales. (Art. i.) The old Order only applied to some of them. 2. Wider definitions were given to the terms " orphan " and " deserted." (Art. xvi.) 3. The Order allowed the boarding-out of a child about ten years of age, when it was to be placed in the same home with a brother or sister under that age. (Art. vi. 2.) 4. The Order forbade the boarding-out of a child in a family where there were already more than four children. (Art. vi. 3.) 5. The Order prohibited the boarding-out of children with any 1 13 L. G. B., pp. xlvii. and 32. See post, p. 261. 2 17 L. G. B., pp. lxv. and 50. For the regulations as to Emigration see Appendix C, p. 403, and as to Emigration generally post, p. 261. They have had the effect of increasing the number of children emigrated. Thus, Mr. Mozley tells us that only eight pauper children were emigrated from Lancashire in 1871, while between 1883 and 1890 from 500 to 600 children were emigrated by Boards of Guardians in that county (20 L. G. B., p. 259). 3 See 19 L. G. B., pp. 32-35. Introductory 43 persons in receipt of relief, or who had received relief during the twelve months preceding. (Art. vi. 4.) 6. Any relief given by boarding-out to any deserted child might be given by way of loan to the parent of the child. (Art. xi.) 7. Boards of Guardians were authorised to advance each quarter, if desired, to the Boarding-out Committees three-fourths of the probable expenditure on the children during the quarter. (Art. xii.) As to the Boarding-out within Unions Order, important changes were made as follows : l 1. Boarding-out Committees might undertake the charge and super- vision of the children, if the Guardians thought fit. (Art. v.-ix., xii., xiii.) 2. The same definitions were given to the terms "orphan" and "deserted" as in the Boarding-out withoitt Unions Order. (Art. xv.) 3. Children were to be withdrawn at once from any foster-parents who should at any time receive relief. (Art. i. 1.) 4. No child was to be sent to any school where the schoolmaster was unwilling to send a written report upon it to the Guardians at least once a quarter (Art. i. 8) ; and 5. Any relief given by boarding to any child under 16 might be given by way of loan to the parent. (Art. xi.) 2 There were being boarded out in 1894, under the Boarding-out without Unions Order of 1889, 1794 children, and under the Boarding-out within Unions Order 3778 children. The effect of the report of the Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools will probably be to cause a great increase in these numbers in the immediate future. We have already 3 referred to the steps taken by the Local Government Board in 1872 and 1874 to prevent the introduction of infectious diseases into the Metropolitan Poor Law Schools, and to difficulties connected with a strict compliance with the regulations. In 1889 a further circular-letter on the subject was issued. 4 The Order, which accompanied the letter, prohibited the admission of children suffering from any affection of the scalp, skin, or eyes, and also provided that no child should be admitted without a certificate from the medical officer of the workhouse that he was free from such affection and able at once to take part in the ordinary discipline and 1 See 19 L. G. B. } pp. 45, 46. 2 For the various recommendations made in the Circulars which accompany the two new orders, we must refer the reader to Chapter vii., post, pp. 182- 191. 3 Ante, pp. 32-34. 4 24th July, 1889. (See 19 L. G. B„ p. 76.) The Order referred to in the letter bears date the 23rd July, 1889. 44 Children under the Poor Law occupations of the school. (Art. ii.) An exception, however, was made by Art. iii., which allows children suffering from any of the affections specified to be admitted into a school, if separate accommo- dation, with an entirely distinct administration and staff of officers, is provided for them. It cannot be said, therefore, that the Central Authority has left any stone unturned to keep the schools free from disease ; nor has it been unsuccessful in its efforts towards that object. In 1894 a Departmental Committee, resulting from a deputation to the President of the Local Government Board, which urged an inquiry into Poor Law Schools, was appointed. The Minute of Appointment is dated the 18th September, 1894, and the Committee had "to inquire into the existing systems for the maintenance and education of children under the charge of managers of district schools and Boards of Guardians in the Metropolis, and to advise as to any changes which might be desirable." 1 This Committee reported on the 28th February, 1896. Their Report condemned the system of aggregating children in large numbers in one large building, accorded a very small measure of praise to "Cottage Homes," and advocated more use being made of boarding-out and certified houses. The Sheffield system of " detached " homes was approved of. The establishment of a new Central Authority for the supervision of all the Poor Law children of the Metropolis was recommended. 2 The allegations of the Report had the effect of arousing a storm of indignation in the public press, during which sober people were not able to get a hearing, although it soon began to be rumoured that many of the statements of the Report were not borne out by the evidence. When the evidence was published glaring discrepancies between it and the Report were disclosed. 3 Whether rightly or wrongly the Committee were accused of bias ; and indeed the whole- sale condemnation of large schools, the attack on the Central Authority, 4 and the very scanty acknowledgment of the work of the 1 The Committee as originally appointed consisted of Mr. A. J. Mundella, M.P. (Chairman), Sir J. E. Gorst, M.P., Hon. E. Lyulph Stanley, Rev. Brooke Lambert, Dr. J. Russell Reynolds, Mr. W. Vallance, and Mrs. H. O. Barnett; but on 6th November, 1894, Mr. E. Nettleship was appointed in the place of Sir J. Russell Reynolds, resigned, and on the 29th January, 1895, FJr. Fitch (now Sir Joshua Fitch) was added to the Committee. Mr. A. F. Aveling (clerk to the Paddington Board of Guardians) was appointed secretary to the Committee. 2 We have dealt with this important Report separately. See Appendix A, p. 358. 3 The publication of the Report preceded that of the evidence by some weeks. 4 The Report is in fact much more an attack upon the administration of the Local Government Board than on the Guardians and school managers. Introductory 45 Guardians and the school managers, seem to lend some colour to the charge. But when on the strength of the Report, which after all only affected Metropolitan schools, an Education Bill was produced by the Government which proposed to transfer the supervision, care, and con- trol of the Poor Law children both of the Metropolis and of the provinces to new and untried bodies, (the introducer of the Bill being himself a prominent member of the Committee), Boards of Guardians, which are slow bodies to act, were put on their mettle. At a special Conference of Guardians from all parts of the country held in London in June, 1896, a resolution was carried recording its opinion that the evidence given to the Committee did not substantiate the case made out by the Report against the Local Government Board and the Guardians, or furnish grounds for the transfer of the children to the Education Department and to new County Educational Authorities. But at the same time the Conference expressed itself as entirely in favour of assimilating the teaching of the children in all respects to that of other children, and that they should also be afforded the benefits of technical instruction. How the Bill was dropped by the Government is a matter of history. The controversy on the subject of the Report still goes on, and what- ever may be said against it, no one will deny that fair consideration should be given to its recommendations. 1 It must not, however, be forgotten that most of the recommendations were actually suggested by what the Committee saw being carried out in some of the schools, 2 and had the Committee frankly acknowledged their indebtedness in this matter, they would not have exposed themselves to the charge of prejudice and bias against the system of large schools. We shall now proceed to describe the various systems of educating and training Poor Law children in force at the present time, endeavour- ing to weigh the/;w and cons of each system fairly and dispassionately. We shall begin with the oldest system, viz., that of the Workhouse School. 1 One of the results of the Report has been the Order transferring the care and maintenance of particular classes of children to the Metropolitan Asylums Board. See Chapter xiii. , p. 339. 2 See the Memorandum of the Rev. Brooke Lambert and of Mr. W. Vallance. Report, p. 174. CHAPTER I. WORKHOUSE SCHOOLS WORKHOUSE schools are of two kinds. They may either form part of the workhouse buildings, or they may be detached. 1 But a further subdivision must be made according as the "detached" workhouse school is under the general supervision of the workhouse master, or under a separate superintendent inde- pendent of him. Where the workhouse school is entirely separated from the workhouse by not being on the same piece of ground, and by being under a separate superintendent, it is to all intents and purposes a "separate" school, and does not come within the purview of this chapter. Such are the "detached" workhouse schools at Nottingham, Ormskirk, Flimby, Chesterfield, Merthyr Tydfil, etc. In this chapter we merely refer to those Poor Law schools, whether detached or not, which are situated on the same area as the rest of the workhouse buildings, and which are, in the distinct sense of the word, " workhouse schools," where the teaching as well as the maintenance of the children is provided for. There are two main disadvantages which are peculiar to the workhouse schools of which we speak in this chapter, the first arising from the difficulty of securing and retaining good teachers, and the second from the monotonous life which the children lead. In the larger workhouse schools the difficulty of getting efficient teachers to stay is not so much felt, since the numbers of the children encourage them to put forth their best efforts ; but in the smaller schools, with perhaps less than thirty children in them, the difficulty is a very real one. Later on we shall enlarge on these two disad- vantages along with other disadvantages of the system which are not specially peculiar to it. 2 We hope, however, to show how the workhouse school system has produced and can still produce results 1 According to the last Report of the Local Government Board, in ninety-eight Unions and parishes the children were being educated in workhouse schools. 2 See/toA, pp. 50-60. Workhouse Schools 47 of no slight merit, and that its disadvantages, although real, do not often reach the point of being a calamity to the child. 1 How far the average workhouse school may have improved during the last thirty years may be judged from the reports of the Inspectors. Thus in 1868 Mr. Bowyer reported of the schools in the Eastern and Midland districts that most of the teachers were possessed of no higher qualification for their office than a moderate acquaintance with Scripture and arithmetic, together with tolerable reading and writing; 2 and later, in 187 1, Mr. T. B. Browne told us that he knew instances of the appointment of persons related to the Guardians who were utterly unfit for their work 3 or of persons appointed out of compassion because they had failed in their ordinary business, or lest they should become chargeable to the Poor Rate. "In a recent case," he wrote, "I found a girl of thirteen acting as schoolmistress for no intelligible reason but because she happened to be the governor's daughter. It does not appear from what I have heard as to the appointment of teachers that the best candidate is always selected. The inferior teachers are usually appointed to the smaller schools." 3 Then there was the difficulty in forming classes, and of giving proper industrial training. On the last point Mr. Bowyer 4 says : 11 If, as is generally the case, the children are mostly very young, it is impossible to set apart a piece of land to be cultivated exclusively by the elder boys, who are consequently employed, if at all, on the same land as the men, and often under the charge of the superintendent of adult labour, or of an old inmate. The girls, on the other hand, are overburdened with needlework and household duties, which there are not sufficient able-bodied women in the house to perform, and their progress in school instruction is consequently retarded. Nor does the training they obtain from these labours fully compensate for the intellectual and moral sacrifice they have entailed, as they are of a nature to fit girls rather for employment in a wholesale clothing establishment than for domestic service, the calling to which most of them are destined. One or two girls may, it is true, be employed in the kitchen, together with some of the able-bodied women; but this 1 See post, Chapter ii. Miss F. Davenport Hill's criticism on workhouse schools in her book, The Children of the State, second edition (1889), pp. 13-44, must be received with caution. Most of the evidence she adduces against the system is prior to 1870, and she appears to think that the evils of the workhouse school of the present day are as intense as they were in 1841 ! She also quotes largely from Mr. Tufnell's Report, who was as pronounced an opponent of " workhouse " schools as he was an ardent advocate of " district " schools. But when Mr. Tufnell is not on her side — e.g. , he strongly opposed the boarding-out of pauper children — I cannot find that she even mentions his name. 2 20 P. L. ft., p. 139. 3 1 L. G. B., p. 235. 4 20 P. L. B., p. 139. See also ibid., p. 156. 48 Children under the Poor Law can seldom be done without violating the classification established by the Poor Laws among the inmates of workhouses, a regulation to which it is nowhere of greater importance strictly to adhere than with reference to the children who are there for the purpose of being unpauperised." Mr. Bowyer then goes on to describe an ordinary workhouse school at that time (1868) as follows : 1 "It generally opens on a yard enclosed by a high wall, with a circular swing in its centre for exercise during play hours. The room is usually about 20 feet long by 10 broad, with a flat ceiling 10 or 11 feet high, imperfectly ventilated by means of openings high up in the wall, or perforated zinc tubes traversing the room from wall to wall, and opening outside. The windows are small and square, and if they should look out upon an adult ward they are darkened by whitewashing the panes. During the dark days in winter the instruction of the children is much hindered by want of light, while their spirits and probably their health must be affected by the closeness occasioned by the lowness of the ceiling. I must, however, add that the windows are always opened whenever the weather is such as to allow it, so that the children do not suffer so much in health from these defects as would otherwise be the case. The floors are generally of brick or stone, but wooden flooring has supplanted the colder material in many instances. In the older schoolrooms the desk and the benches are placed against the walls; in the new ones or in the old ones that have been refurnished parallel desks have been intro- duced. The school apparatus is generally sufficient, though that part of it which consists in maps cannot unfortunately be renewed so often as would be necessary to keep pace with the changes effected by events in political geography. The books most in use are the reading series of the Irish Commissioners, but they are beginning to be superseded by more recent educational works. Some of these are an improvement on the former; others, compiled with a view to enabling the children in schools inspected by the Committee of Council to pass the examination required under the revised codes, are purposely made too easy and too uninstructive to be a desirable importation into schools not examined in the same manner." In spite of all the defects of workhouse schools at that time, Mr. Bowyer considered that in religious knowledge and in reading, writing, and arithmetic they would bear comparison with any other elementary schools, and would probably surpass these latter in the proportion of the number of children who attained proficiency out of the total number on the books. 2 He also bore witness to the improvement in the moral training of the children during the twenty years that they had been under his inspection, and to the important fact that they turned out on an average as well as other children of the labouring 1 20 P. L. £., p. 139. 2 Ibid., p. 141. Workhouse Schools 49 classes ; while those of them who had been educated in the best schools generally rose to a condition of comfort, and sometimes to one of comparative affluence. 1 Mr. T. B. Browne, reporting in 1867 on the workhouse schools in the Western District, said that the number of really good ones was very considerable, and that the children generally beame emancipated from pauperism when they left them. 2 He gives a very interesting comparison between the results of the training and education of the children in two Shropshire Unions. Whitchurch sent its children out to school; Atcham educated them in the workhouse school. Although the population of Whitchurch Union was considerably more than half that of Atcham, yet for one child whom the Whitchurch Guardians educated nominally, the Atcham Guardians gave a real education to ten. 3 He recurs again to the same subject in 1873, and shows how it was possible for the standard of education in a workhouse to be higher than what was obtainable in a national school; for the reason that in the workhouse school an intelligent and conscientious teacher, who had the children at all times under him, would be in a position to form their characters and principles in a way which most parents of the labouring classes would be quite incompetent to do. He goes on as follows : " National and British Schools are often very large, and the utmost the teachers can do is to instruct and qualify the children to pass before the inspector; but the absence of all control over the children out of school hours would alone prevent education in the higher sense of the term. It is plain that this last can seldom be done at home. The parents are too busy, too tired after their day's work, and usually ill qualified. I apprehend that there are few labourers' wives who would not punish a child more severely for accidentally breaking a cup than for telling a falsehood. The child is apt to be hastily punished, rather because the parent is in a passion, than because the child has done wrong. In drunken homes matters must be still worse. On the other hand, teachers in workhouses, if qualified for their office, must not only have a wider range of ideas than is at all common with labourers and their wives, but they are likely to be less impulsive, more just, more judicious, and according to the regulations of the Local Government Board they cannot punish until after a certain interval. The behaviour of little children, the confident way in which I have seen them go up to the schoolmistress more especially and 1 20 P.L. B., p. 142. See also 23 P. L. B., pp. 232-3. 2 20 P. L. B.,p. 146 ; 23 P. L. B., p. 237. See too the very interesting letters from a workhouse master to Mr. Browne on this subject, showing how little a workhouse education had to do with hereditary pauperism, 3 20 P. L. B., p. 147. E 50 Children unde7' the Poor Law take hold of her hand, is a proof that she is often very kind to them. In a well-managed workhouse there is a salutary influence always present; it is more deeply felt and more constant because the numbers are often small, and because the children have no other home; and, as I believe, it does bear fruit in after life, although more can hardly be done with children who leave school at twelve years of age than to sow the seed. In national and British day-schools the teachers are confined almost exclusively to instruction, but the work- house teachers are not; their attempts at education may be humble, and they are broken off at an early age, but they are rear as far as they go, they are not limited to school hours, and they are not so liable to be lost among a crowd of children." 1 Later in 1873 we find Mr. Bowyer again confirming his previous opinion that there were then many rural districts in which the ordinary schools were not equal in results to the workhouse schools. In con- firmation of his opinion he cites a fact which had recently come to his knowledge. One of the ablest chairmen of Boards of Guardians in the kingdom had requested two competent persons to inspect the schools of his Union, and their report was that they had not found one school that approached in efficiency the workhouse school. "Now this school was but a good specimen of the class of average-sized mixed schools under a mistress, who was untrained, and had never had the charge of any but workhouse schools." 2 In 1876, Mr. Murray Browne remarks on the gradual but marked improvement which had taken place in workhouse schools ; 3 but since then public elementary education has made great strides, and there are now few workhouses where the education which can be given is equal to that in the ordinary village schools. The raison d'etre of the workhouse school has thus disappeared, and its disadvantages far outweigh any advantages which it may have originally possessed. Its two special disadvantages arise, as we have already pointed out, from the difficulty of securing efficient teaching, and of relieving the monotony of the children's life. Other disadvantages, some of which, however, attach to other systems, 4 arise (1) from the close contact of the children with adult paupers ; (2) from the difficulty of securing proper classification ; (3) from the difficulty of securing proper in- 1 2L.G.B., pp. 108-9. 2 3 L. G. B., p. 278. See also 2 L. G. B., pp. 108, 109. 3 6L. G.B., p. 41. 4 Thus, when the children are sent out to school, all these four disadvantages exist ; when they are boarded-out, they lose the industrial training ; and when they are in a district or separate school they are brought into contact with the " ins and outs." Workhouse Schools 51 dustrial training; and (4) from the unavoidable contact with "in and out" children. These evils are, of course, diminished if the number of children in the schools is large enough. But the majority of workhouse schools are of small size with less than thirty children. (1) The Difficulty of Securing Efficie?it Teaching. The efficiency of schools of all kinds depends on the teachers. 1 Unfortunately the workhouse school has usually no attractions for the best of them. They naturally dislike teaching in schools in which they feel that they can do themselves no credit. But there are also other reasons for this dislike. Firstly, "the schoolmaster of a workhouse school, while necessarily in some respects in a position subordinate to the master of the work- house, will frequently be the superior of the two in education and acquirements, and he will feel keenly assumptions of superiority on the part of the latter, which may be neither unnatural nor intended to be offensive." 2 Secondly, the small number of children, as a rule, in these schools is very discouraging. As Dr. Clutterbuck wrote in 1875 : "It is easier to teach a large number than a small. There are greater facilities for classification, greater liveliness, and, though it may seem a paradox, greater power of command. Children are keenly alive to their companions' criticism ; the sense of shame is vigorously awakened, and a skilful teacher knows how to turn this feeling to good account. Sympathy is contagious. A lively, energetic teacher acts and is reacted upon by the sympathy of numbers. Now, in a very small school these conditions of success are wanting. The lesson becomes, as a rule, mechanical and perfunctory. The children have that "dead-alive," inattentive look which betrays utter want of interest in the subject, and reflects only too faithfully the listless, spiritless character of the teaching. All this is natural enough. It is useless to ignore secondary motives. Good teachers cannot, as a rule, be secured without good pay. There are, as I have stated, bright exceptions — men and women whose singleness of heart and earnest- ness of purpose create ' a sunshine in a shady place ' ; but such in small Unions are rare. In these the average teacher is at best a conscientious, painstaking drudge, with but imperfect skill or know- ledge, and so perpetually engaged with the children as to have but 1 20 P. L. P., p. 149 ; 21 P. L. P., pp. 94, 97. 2 Per Mr. Mozley, 3 L, G. P., p. 261. Mr. Mozley's remarks as to how a master or mistress may be led to take a greater interest in their work are well worth perusal. Ibid., p. 262. 52 Children under the Poor Law little time left for self-improvement. Under these circumstances no wonder * The hungry sheep look up and are not fed ! '" * Thirdly, there is the want of liberty. In 1875 Mr. Mozley remarked on this as follows : "It sometimes happens that schoolmasters of quite mature age are bound by regulations from which their position might, I think, exempt them. For instance, it appears to me unreasonable that a schoolmaster of upwards of thirty years of age should be compelled to be within the workhouse walls at nine o'clock, or half-past nine, every night ; or that he should on every occasion be obliged to ask leave of the master of the workhouse before he can go outside. Such regulations are not unknown in workhouses ; and though they may not be unreason- able as regards some officers of the establishment, a schoolmaster might properly be considered to occupy a higher position than a porter or cook. A case like the following, communicated to me by an informant on whom I can rely, must have a very depressing effect on the energies of a teacher, and by consequence of the children also : " He (a workhouse schoolmaster) had received a ticket for a concert in the neighbourhood from the chaplain. It was not on his fixed evening out, so he had to obtain permission of the master (of the workhouse) to go. The latter for some reason or other declined to sit up for him; said the hours of closing the gates fixed by the Guardians was nine o'clock, and that up to that time he was at liberty to be out. As the concert only began at eight, and was to take place at some ten minutes' distance, this was a practical refusal, and the schoolmaster consequently remained at home." 2 Mr. Mozley again recurs to the amount of work imposed on the teachers in his 1883 Report. He says : " There is a great difference in this respect between different schools. I have in my mind now two boys' schools; in one, which is about twenty per cent, the larger of the two, the schoolmaster is engaged in looking after the boys from the time when they get up in the morning to the time when they go to bed at night ; in the other, the schoolmaster is entirely free before and after school hours. Such a case as this last is, it is true, quite the exception, and in my opinion it errs on the side of giving the schoolmaster too little to do, and too little connection with the boys ; but in the other and far more common case the schoolmaster is too much pressed with work. A certain amount of time in each day, during which the teacher's time may be free from the pressure of duties, is, I am certain, necessary for him to exercise the proper influence on the intelligence of the children." 3 1 4 Z. G.B., p. 215. See also 20 P.L.B., p. 154; 1 Z. G.B., pp. 228, 229; 11 L. G.B., pp. 137, 138; 12 Z. G.B., p. 106. 2 5Z.G. B., p. 142. 3 12 Z. G. B., p. 76. Workhouse Schools 53 Fourthly, there is the overwork to which teachers are subjected. 1 "It is certain," wrote Mr. Mozley in 1876, "that workhouse school teachers are often so overweighted with duties as to produce very poor results in every way, and certain that they often feel the irksomeness of their position keenly. I gave some instances illustrative of this last year ; and lately I have seen a letter written by a schoolmistress who had migrated from the school in which her duties had been excessive (and where, consequently, the results to the children were in every way bad), to another where they were comparatively light ; she expressed in the most lively manner her satisfaction at the change she had made." 2 Lastly, there is the monotony of the life. When we consider all the above drawbacks, we cannot be surprised how in their early reports the Inspectors used to speak of the ignorance of many of the teachers. Mr. Mozley remarks that "a teacher can hardly be thought to know arithmetic who is unable to work an easy sum in fractions. But there are cases of ignorance on far more elementary points." 3 In his 1873 Report 4 he repeats that those among the teachers who can work sums in fractions and decimals correctly are quite in the minority. But a teacher who can do sums in fractions and decimals correctly may, in practice, be a much inferior teacher to one who cannot. For instance, to give an analogous case, some of the greatest geniuses in the world have been unable to spell correctly. We know a man who won a University prize for an essay on a philosophical subject, who never could master anything but the most simple arithmetic. Indeed, Mr. Mozley in a later Report anticipates this criticism. He says, " No one compels workhouse teachers to attempt to teach rules more difficult than he or she can manage. If a schoolmistress (and we may add a schoolmaster) cannot teach more than the simple rules, let her confine herself to these; if she cannot teach (or the children cannot learn) more than simple subtraction, let that be her limit, only whatever is done should be done correctly. A simple addition sum done right is better than a sum in decimals done wrong. The same principle, of course, holds for other subjects. Nothing would more improve the instruction in workhouse schools than the resolute restriction on the part of teachers of their own efforts to such subjects as they can really manage," 5 and he testifies to the schoolmasters in his district (the Northern one) being, with rare exceptions, industrious, and in the majority of cases energetic 1 As instances of this Mr. Mozley publishes in his 1875 Report two letters which he received from two schoolmasters on the subject. See 5 L. G. B., pp. 143, 144. 2 6 L. G. B., p. 74. 3 2L.G.B., p. 91 note. 4 3 L. G. B„ p. 263. 5 6 L. G. B., p. 75- 54 Children under the Poor Law so far as the mere inculcation of knowledge was concerned, while in respect of the technical subjects of instruction the schools were in a satisfactory state. 1 How devoted has been the interest taken by many schoolmasters and schoolmistresses in the workhouse children is well known, and we do not think the following case, which Mr. Wyndham Holgate mentions as one of " exceptional thoughtfulness, ingenuity, and perseverance," is so exceptional as he supposes. "At the Dover Union Schools," he writes in 1889, "the mistress has endeavoured to advance the intelligence of her girls, and to give them some practical knowledge of everyday life, by laying the foundation of a very useful museum, which she has obtained chiefly from leading manufacturing firms, who have gratuitously supplied her with specimens of their wares from the commencement to the finished article. Amongst others I noticed complete collections from Messrs. Strutt, cotton spinners; Messrs. Bryant and May, match manufacturers; and Messrs. Fry, the well-known cocoa and chocolate house. "She has also painted on the floor of the schoolroom and on the door-posts various diagrams showing the cardinal points of the compass ; the motions of the earth ; the zones ; latitude and longitude j squares, cubes, angles and triangles ; yards, feet, and inches. She has further decorated her walls with flowers of her own painting, and with some of the pictures used as advertisements by the well-known firms of Pears, Nestle, etc. " She has not forgotten to take advantage of the country walks with her children, by making them collect and telling them the names of the various wild flowers of the district; whilst her window-sills are filled with growing plants and ferns of many kinds. I need hardly say that this humanising process, though only of a few months' growth, is rapidly raising the tone and intelligence of her children in a very marked degree." 2 The difficulties which attend the education of children in workhouse schools are illustrated in the following extract from Mr. Mozley's 1874 Report. He is speaking of the state of education in the girls' schools as being not entirely satisfactory. "This unsatisfactoriness is, indeed, not in every case due to the fault of the individual schoolmistress, or at least not to that principally. Defective apparatus, untidy books, a dark, dreary room, are powerful antagonists to the energies of any teacher ; and instances of all these are to be found among the schools to which I refer. Sometimes a school sinks into a state too low to be restored to efficiency by any but a first-rate teacher; and schoolmistress after schoolmistress tries her hand at it and resigns in despair. In some schools the fluctuations 1 4 L. G. B., p. 198. 2 19 L. G. B., p. 155. Workhouse Schools 55 among the children are so rapid that little permanent impression can be produced on them, and this again discourages a teacher. Several of these schools are too large to be managed by a single teacher; several are too small to attract a competent teacher. Nevertheless, when all these sources of failure (in themselves for the most part sufficiently to be regretted) are taken into consideration, it remains true that a by no means inconsiderable proportion of workhouse school- mistresses are very defective in the qualities which constitute a teacher." * Mr. Mozley was at this time (1874) unable to suggest a remedy, for although it would be an easy matter to refuse certificates to these inferior teachers, it is doubtful whether any better could be got in their place. And then, as Mr. T. B. Browne remarked in 1872, the possession of a certificate of merit might be a test of a person's attainments, but it was by no means a test of his teaching power. 2 It is to the causes we have mentioned that must be attributed the constant changes of teachers. Dr. Clutterbuck, writing so late as 1884, referred to the growing tendency to make service in a Poor Law school a mere stepping-stone to employment elsewhere. He said that a restless desire for change was the marked characteristic of the majority of the teachers. "The causes of their restlessness are not far to seek. Their work is much more laborious, trying, and responsible than that of teachers in public elementary schools; while the restrictions of workhouse life, necessary perhaps under existing circumstances to the discipline and organization of these institutions, become at last insupportable to energetic and capable teachers. It is, indeed, but natural to rather dwell upon the drawbacks than to appreciate the advantages incident to any position in life. Hence it is in vain to endeavour to point out to them the real greatness of their work. Insensibly, but not without many self-sacrifices cheerfully made, they begin to relax efforts which appear to meet with so little sympathy, and which are persistently depreciated by an ignorant outside public ; and hence even noble natures retire in disgust at last from thankless toil." 3 It is unnecessary to give any more abstracts from the Inspectors' Reports to emphasize a fact which it is mpossible to gainsay. 4 This rapidity of change also leads to an interval occurring between the resignation of one teacher and the 1 4 L.G.B., p. 198. 2 2 L. G. B. y p. 109. As to the qualifications for teachers in Poor Law schools see post, p. 95. 3 14 L. G. B., p. 52. 4 If further evidence is wanted, see e.g. 2 L. G. B., pp. 90, 107 ; and n Z. G. B. t p. no. 56 Children tinder the Poor Law appointment of another, which is, of course, very prejudicial to the education of the children. 1 It may, of course, be urged that the above criticisms are founded on what is "ancient history," and that the decision 2 of the Education Department in 1889 to grant parchment certificates to teachers in Poor Law schools who had qualified themselves for them has lessened the difficulty of getting good teachers for the workhouse schools. No doubt this decision has had the effect of raising the status of the teachers, and may have induced them in some cases to remain permanently in their situations; 3 but we are afraid that the tardy recognition of their services by the Education Department is not a sufficient set off to the defects which we have pointed out. The monotony of a teacher's life in a workhouse school may be relieved in many ways, but where (as is the case in most workhouse schools) the number of children is small, this fact alone will make it very difficult to get competent teachers for them. 4 Writing as lately as 1894 Mr. Byam Davies says, that "in the case of small schools it is generally only with the greatest difficulty that a vacancy, when it occurs, can be filled, as there are scarcely any applicants. It is rare, however, now," he adds, " for any schoolmaster or schoolmistress to be appointed who has not had some experience in teaching." 6 Country Guardians have in most cases solved the difficulty by giving up their schools in the workhouse, and sending the children to the public elementary schools. 6 (2) The Monotonous Life of the Children. This is a defect from which no institution where children are continuously kept is free, but undoubtedly the evil is enhanced in a workhouse school. It can, of course, be relieved by a little care and attention on the part of the Guardians. Mr. Mozley, who has often in his reports expressed his opinion that the degree of confinement of children within the walls of workhouses may be overstrained and so act prejudicially both on their faculties of observation and on their acquisition of practical knowledge, suggests the line which Guardians should take in this important matter. He alludes to the provision of materials of amusement for boys and girls, footballs, bats, stumps, 1 See 4 L, G. £., p. 200. Mr. Mozley suggests that during such an interval the children might be sent to schools outside the workhouse. Ibid. 2 Ante, p. 39. 3 See 19 L. G. B., p. 157. 4 See 21 L. G. B., p. 188. 5 24 L. G. B. } p. 75. e Mr. Mozley foresaw this end to the difficulty in 1886. See 16 L.G.B., p. in. Workhouse Schools 57 and a ball for cricket, skipping-ropes, battledores and shuttlecocks, circular swings, etc. ; and for the infants, boxes of wooden bricks, etc. ; to the provision of a suitable library for the children who can read, and a certain number of illustrated books for children of all ages ; l the provision of means for teaching singing, books of songs, etc. ; the hanging up of pictures, either of animals or remarkable scenes, on the walls of the schoolroom and dayroom ; to the children walking out at least once a week to some place comparatively distant from the workhouse, so that they may know something of the country round. 2 It is perhaps not generally known, so that it may be as well to state it, that the Local Government Board will authorise anything which may have a tendency to promote the healthy development of the workhouse children. 3 Mr. Mozley, who in his eagerness to promote mental development does not forget the importance of physical development, quotes the case of the Flimby Schools of the Cockermouth Union, where both boys and girls have good pieces of garden, and where the boys, under the direction of the schoolmaster, have wheeled up great stones from the beach and made rockeries of them. And on a recent visit to the same Union he found the same energetic schoolmaster, immediately after the afternoon school, sitting down to teach two of the boys the violin, and a third the horn. He adds : " The performance did not grate on my ear, and this, considering the difficulty of playing the violin, is considerable praise." 4 In his 1873 Report also he describes the boys in the Whitehaven Workhouse as cultivating small patches of flower gardens, which is, of course, always a practicable form of amusement. 5 In his 1889 Report the same Inspector gives other instances of the pains which Guardians take in many Unions to provide for the amuse- ments of the children j 6 and, indeed, the lamentable sight of children " sitting perfectly idle and listless within four square walls of a court," which he refers to in an earlier Report, 7 is not often presented to an observer nowadays. Probably no workhouse school labours under more disadvantages than that of the Medway Union. The school is situated in the centre of the workhouse, which is itself in the centre of a large town. Under such conditions it would seem impossible for the children to thrive, 1 Mr. Mozley gives a list of desirable books in his Report. See 5 L. G. B. } p. 146. 2 5 L. G. B., p. 145 ; see also 2 L. G. B. } p. 92 ; 16 L. G. B., p. 99. 3 14 L. G. B. } pp. 47, 48. 4 17 L. G. B., p. 92. ■ 2 L. G. B., p. 92. 6 19 L. G. B., p. 147. See also 14 L, G. B., p. 47. » 14 L. G. B., p. 47. 58 Children under the Poor Law and yet under the charge of an excellent master and mistress both boys and girls do remarkably well, and "failures" are very few. In 1889 Mr. J. S. Davy gives an account of the amusements which the boys have. " The boys of the Medway Workhouse Schools have, I am pleased to report, won for the second year in succession the challenge cup for Association football open to clubs of boys under fourteen in the Chatham district. There are over twenty entries for this cup, the competition for which excites great interest in the neighbourhood, and I am informed that the workhouse boys usually win their ties by their superior staying power. Their cricket club is very successful in their matches. These schools are an integral part of a large urban work- house, and no enthusiast for boarding-out, or cottage homes, or separate schools will believe that boys brought up in them can be healthy or energetic enough to be capable of playing an honest game of football, much less of beating boys like the sons of the Royal Engineers. However, the fact remains, and is alike creditable to the officers of the workhouse, and to the Guardians who interest them- selves in the matter." 1 Mr. Wyndham Holgate takes up the tale 2 of this extraordinarily successful school. He tells us that "the boys played and won three matches at cricket against the three best school teams of the district, while at chess they won three of the six matches played. Two of the boys were among thirty of the best players of the district chosen to meet Mr. Blackburn in an exhibition game. One of them was among the last four who fell. Mr. Blackburn was highly pleased with their play, and as a reward each boy was given 55. This school also gave three public concerts during the year, at which they were well received, and the audience greatly pleased." It is this monotonous, confined, isolated life which is alleged to have an especially bad effect upon girls, rendering them stupid and timid, and we would not deny that this is true in many instances ; but that in zvell-managed workhouse schools this is not so is shown by the happy and cheerful letters which many of the girls write to their friends and teachers at the workhouse after they have left it. 3 (3) The evil of close contact with adult paupers. It was the acknowledgment of this evil which led Poor Law re- formers to advocate the establishment of district schools. 4 "The efforts to impart industrial instruction to the children in a workhouse school has a constant tendency to throw them into at least 1 19 Z. G. B. t p. no. 2 Ibid., p. 156. 3 Mr. Mozley has published one of these letters, which he describes "as one of the most attractive that I ever saw of the kind." See 10 Z. G. B., p. 175. 4 Seeposl, p. 83. Workhouse Schools 59 occasional intercourse with the adult members. Eagerness to avail himself of fine weather for the setting or getting up of potatoes, or for other agricultural operations, is a strong temptation to the master of a workhouse to set boys and men at work together, while the desire to utilise the labour of a journeyman tailor or shoemaker, who may have been driven to the workhouse by vicious and intemperate habits, occasionally leads to his being employed in the same workshop with the boys." 1 And the above remarks, of course, apply with still greater force to the industrial training of girls. (4) The Difficulty of Securing Proper Classification. Classification is almost impossible where the number of children is small. As Mr. Bowyer remarked in 1867, "one or two dozen children of all ages and standing as pupils cannot be formed into classes according to their proficiency without exhibiting the absurd result of a first class consisting of only two or three children ; or, as is often the case, of the entire absence of a first class, owing to these two or three children having left the school, and there being none sufficiently instructed to take their place." 2 (5) The Difficulty of Securing Proper Industrial Training, This is also a difficulty which results from small numbers. The number of boys is generally not large enough to justify the appoint- ment of any special industrial trainer; nor are there often enough elder boys to cultivate a piece of land by themselves without mixing them with adult paupers, as we have already mentioned. 3 As to the girls, their work does not suffer to the same extent as the boys, as there is always the housework and needlework to do, although there is the danger of their being overworked if the number of hands does not suffice. Mr. Mozley, in his 1879 Report, said that " in small workhouse schools the boys have sometimes hardly any industrial work ; it is, indeed, seldom, I believe, that they do not do some little sweeping and scrubbing; but even in household work they fall much short of what the girls do. Gardening is not often carried oh outside the summer months; and some workhouses have either no land at all, or too little to give the boys any employment." i We go more fully into this question in the next chapter. 5 1 Per Mr. Wodehouse, 20 P. L. £., p. 156. 2 20 P. L. B., p. 139. See also 1 L. G. B. f p. 228. 3 Ante, p. 58. 4 9 L.G.B., p. 209. 6 Post> pp. 71-76. 6o Children tinder the Poor Law (6) The Unavoidable Contact with "In and Out" Children. The smaller the school the greater is the evil of permanent and casual children mixing. It is not so much in the school hours that the bad influence of the latter class of children is felt as during the play hours. But we need do no more than refer to this subject here, as we shall have occasion to touch upon it in a later chapter. 1 Another difficulty of the system, and which may almost be con- sidered the main one, is connected with the fact that the temper which qualifies a master or matron to deal with adults is not always the best for dealing with children. 2 1 See Chapter xii. 2 22 L. G. Z>\, p. 105. CHAPTER II. WORKHOUSE SCHOOLS ( Continued ) t IT is not easy to point out at the present time any advantages possessed by the " workhouse schools ■ system over other systems. They were good in their day, and the attacks upon them had little justification. Miss Davenport Hill, for instance, declared in 1868 that 80 per cent, of the girls they sent to service were failures. 1 They were denounced as the nurseries of paupers and criminals. They were supposed to be training up a race of hereditary paupers. We cannot, however, regret these gross exaggerations, 2 because they aroused the indignation of the educational inspectors of the schools, who knew the real facts, and caused them to institute inquiries as to the fate of the children after leaving the schools. The results of their inquiries showed that whatever might be the defects attending the education of children in workhouse schools, they could not be held responsible for many failures, considering the class from which the children came and the short time that so many of them remained in the schools. Thus the master of the Runcorn Workhouse, which is a country workhouse, supplied Mr. Mozley in 1872 with a list of ninety children who had been sent from the schools since the workhouse was opened fifteen years before. Of these four were dead, three were supposed to be dead, six had been lost sight of, and twelve were married. Three of those lost sight of, and three of those whose position was known, were of doubtful character. Thus, putting it at the worst, only six out of the ninety were doubtful, and could be set down as failures. 3 1 Children of the State, 1st edition, p. 17. This statement is apparently founded on observations and inquiries pursued in every part of England for many years by the late Hon. Mrs. Way. Ibid., 2nd ed., 1889, p. 37. See her evidence before the Poor Relief Committee of 186 1. Miss Davenport Hill gives no credit to any evidence to the contrary. 8 See e.g. 22 P. L. B., p. 134; 23 P. L. B., p. 232; 2 L. G. B., p. 104; 5 L. G. B., p. 149 ; 12 L. G. B. t p. 78. 3 2 L. G. B., p. 94. 62 Children under the Poor Law Mr. T. B. Browne stated in 1873 that from inquiries made not more than five per cent., if so many, of those children who left the workhouse, and were capable of earning a living, returned to it in after years. 1 Mr. Bowyer, who started as an Inspector of Poor Law Schools with the preconceived opinion that the plan of training children, whose tendencies might reasonably be supposed to be the reverse of industrious, to a life of industry and morality in the very refuge of pauperism and vice was paradoxical and absurd, was led by the facts he observed and by most careful inquiries to a directly contrary opinion. He found that by far the greater part of the children who returned to the workhouse did so from no fault of their own ; but that even these children remained but a very short time in the house, unless the cause of their return was ill-health or mental infirmity. As to those who were returned in consequence of misconduct, the great majority were only guilty of slight faults incident to youth and inex- perience, and a large proportion of them subsequently turned out well. He gave cases to show how little influence the association of the workhouse exercised in causing the children to turn out ill. 2 Two years before, the same inspector had obtained statistics from the masters of various schools with regard to the fate of the children who had left them during a certain number of years. We can only give one of the returns here, and must refer our readers to Mr. Bowyer's very valuable Report for the others. From the Wisbeach Union, sixty-five boys and sixty-seven girls went out to service between 1858 and 187 1. Of these only one boy and seven girls were returned to the workhouse for misconduct. It is further reported of the boys that "a large majority are known to be well situated ; many of them have proved themselves excellent work- men and exemplary characters"; and of the girls "many of them are doing exceedingly well, having held the same situation for many years, while others have entered the service of very high families." 3 In his Report for 1874, Mr. Murray Browne went most fully into 1 3 Z. G.B., p. 283. 2 2 Z. G.B., pp. 96, 104. It is perhaps well to say that all the similar inquiries which have been made since 1872 by the Poor Law Inspectors have shown similar results. See e.g. 4 L. G.B., pp. 183-190, 193 ; 5 L. G.B., pp. 150, 152 ; 6 L. G.B., PP- 75-77 i 9 L. G. B., p. 212; 10 Z. G. B., pp. 180-190 ; 11 L. G. B., p. 135; 15 L. G. B., p. 41 ; 19 Z. G. B., p. 148 ; and 22 L. G. B., pp. 105-106. 3 See 23 P. L. B. , pp. 227-228. Mr. Bowyer gives statistics from other work- house schools, which all show equally satisfactory results. Ibid., pp. 229-230. From the Dunmow Workhouse Schools thirty-five girls were sent out to domestic service between 1861 and 1871 and all were doing well. Ibid., p. 230. See also 2Z. G.B., p. 97. Workhouse Schools 63 the subject. He admits, of course, that the existing workhouse schools were defective in many points, and that he could easily suggest material improvements ; but he shows most distinctly that the great majority of the children educated in them turned out well in after life. 1 Mr. Bowyer in 1875 stated that out of 11 09 boys and 11 70 girls placed out by the Guardians of thirty-eight schools in his district, 90*9 per cent, of the boys and 84 per cent, of the girls were known to be prospering. 2 Mr. Mozley in his 1877 Report publishes a list of the boys who had been sent out from the Teesdale Workhouse since 1848. The list therefore covers a period of twenty-eight years, and it appears that out of the fifty-three boys educated in the Teesdale Workhouse only one could be said to have turned out badly. One was dead, eight had been lost sight of, forty-three were doing well. Among these forty-three was an owner of tea plantations, a master file-cutter, two master tailors, a master coach-builder, a master painter, a commercial traveller, one who was going to be ordained, and several others holding positions of not less responsibility than the above. 3 Mr. Murray Browne, in a Report on the results of Workhouse School Education in 1877, which is a continuation of his 1875 Report referred to above, confirms by further examples the result of his previous inquiry. 4 In 1880 Mr. Mozley refers to two workhouse lists of children sent out to service during a long term of years. From the Thirsk Work- house eight boys and ten girls had been sent to employment since 1 qL.G.B., pp. 183-190. The general result was found to be 1*5 per cent, of failures in the case of the boys, and 10*4 per cent, in the case of the girls, fdzd., p. 187. 2 4 L. G. B., p. 193- 3 6L.G.B., p. 77. 4 6 L. G. B. t pp. 36-38 See also post, p. 213. Mr. Murray Browne justly says that no system of education had, so far as he was aware, been subjected to so severe a test as he had applied to workhouse schools, and he continues : "Were such applied the results produced might possibly be of an unexpected nature ; for example, out of thirty-six sons of gentlemen whose after lives are known to me, six (or about 17 per cent.) would, I think, be considered failures if they were workhouse-bred lads. This, be it observed, is the result of the best education the world can supply. It is to be hoped that the specimens upon which I have chanced have been singularly unfavourable. Again, out of 100 children educated in the National School of an agricultural parish in Gloucestershire, eighteen (as stated to me by the clergyman of the parish) have turned out badly. This again, it may be hoped, is an exceptional case, but the citation will at least serve as a caution to the inexperienced not hastily to assume that the pauper 5 per cent, of failures is an abnormally high proportion." (6 L. G. B., p. 39.) He refers again to this point in 1882, and says that two friends in different parts of the country have since been kind enough to make a similar calculation at his request. The net result of the three calculations is that out of 122 sons of gentle- men, twenty-one (or 17*2 per cent.) have so misconducted themselves as to be reckoned as social failures. (11 L. G. />., p 145.) 6 4 Children under the Poor Law 1868, and all were doing well except two girls, one of whom had been doing well for a time, but had been " lost sight of." " The others," said the master, " are doing remarkably well, and write to us regularly, and visit us too, whenever they can make it convenient." From the Tynemouth Workhouse twenty-nine boys and seventy girls had gone out to employment since 1870. Twenty of the boys were known to be doing well, and of the girls fourteen were either doubtful, or had turned out badly, or had been lost sight of, while forty-two were doing well, the remaining five being dead. In this instance Mr. Mozley is not contented with the result as regards girls, although he rightly says "it is far removed from entire failure." 1 Dr. Clutterbuck in 1881 gave a most instructive account of the results of his inquiry into the character and general capacity of the children who had been sent out to service during 1880 from every Poor Law School in his district. In answer to questions which he had put to employers of labour in the case of 710 children (348 boys and 362 girls) he had received replies in regard to 506 of them (243 boys and 263 girls). Of these 506, 360 had been characterised as truthful, 397 as cheerful, 365 as intelligent, 345 as clean, 450 as honest, 344 as industrious, and 450 as healthy and strong. 2 On examining the tables it will be found that only in honesty and health are the girls returned as equal to the boys, but these are perhaps the most important points of all. Mr. Wyndham Holgate in his 1882 Report 3 published a return which had been obtained for him by a schoolmaster lately holding office in his district, which in his opinion proved that even in rural workhouse schools the results obtained by the teaching and training were decidedly satisfactory, where the officers of those schools were capable of instilling into the minds of their charges sound religious principles and habits of industry, and were supported by the rest of the workhouse staff in protecting the children from the dangers which surrounded them. This master gave a list of eighteen boys and nine girls who had been taught and trained by him during his tenure of office, and of whom only two boys had disgraced themselves. Mr. Mozley tells us that he had a singularly good account given him in 1885 of the children who had been sent out from the Gainsborough Workhouse since the beginning of 1880. There was not a single bad report. 4 The same inspector relates that from the Malton Union 1 9 Z. G. B., p. 212. A further and very similar report on the results of the training and education in this workhouse school will be found in 13 Z. G. B., pp. 125-126. a 10 L. G. B., pp. 180-190. 3 11 Z. G. B., p. 135. 4 15 Z. G. B., p. 41. Workhouse Schools 65 Workhouse twenty-two boys and twelve girls had been sent out to service between 1877 and 1890, and that the master and matron were able to tell him the present situation of all of them except two brothers who had come somewhat late into the workhouse and were rather ne'er- do-weels. All the rest were doing well except one girl, who was only doing fairly. So also from the Durham Workhouse between 1885 and 1890, four boys and thirteen girls had been placed in service by the Guardians. All these children are doing well, except one girl who was doing moderately, and another girl who was in the workhouse suffering from a permanently disabled arm. 1 At a recent meeting of the Isle of Thanet Board of Guardians it was stated that an investigation had been made as to the children who had left the workhouse schools between 1881 and 1897. It was found that 178 children (69 boys and 109 girls) had left the schools during that period, and been placed in varying positions, and that out of that number only two boys and five girls had turned out unsatisfactorily, or could honestly be deemed failures. It is also a significant fact that in the case of the girls five had been sent to Lady Rose Weigall's, and that two of the failures had occurred from that Institution. 2 The children were accounted for as follows : BOYS. Emigrated 39 To Sea Service .... 8 To House Boy Brigade . . .19 Office 3 Total . Failures 69 2 GIRLS. Emigrated 24 To Service . . . . . 50 Homes 23 Schools 9 Adopted ..... 3 Total . . 109 Bad, 2; Doubtful, 3 • 5 We have considered it important to refer at length to the subject because of the wrong impression under which the public labours, that workhouse children do not succeed in the world. In order to clinch the matter we will now refer to statistics which show how few of the adult inmates of workhouses at the present time have received a workhouse education. Had all the charges made against these schools been true we should naturally expect our workhouses to be at the present time full of adult paupers who twenty-five years ago were receiving a Poor Law education in workhouse schools, for it must not be forgotten that at the time three-fourths of the Unions had such schools. 1 19 L. G. B., p. 148. Similarly good returns were obtained by Mr. Mozley from the Workhouse Schools of Derby and Boston. 2 Poor Law Officers' Journal, F [th June, 1897. 66 Children under the Poor Law Two returns which were obtained by Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Davy in 1892 and 1894 should have exploded the fallacy. Mr. Lockwood's return is as follows : 1 Return of adult inmates of fifty-four workhouses on the 15th March, 1892, who during childhood were educated in and from a workhouse, classified under head- ings, giving causes for needing relief. The last heading refers to adult female inmates not brought up in any workhouse. MALES. Weak-minded . . . -23 Cripple . . . . . -17 Defective eyesight .... 3 Able-bodied but not in regular em- ployment 24 Total. . . 67 FEMALES. Weak-minded . Cripple ...... Defective eyesight , Able-bodied but not in regular em- ployment . Pregnancy (illegitimate) . 35 »7 36 Total . . .101 Unmarried mothers, not brought up in workhouses . . . .221 " It will be seen from this return," says Mr. Lockwood, " that on a given day there were, in fifty-four workhouses with a total of 5550 adult inmates, sixty-seven men who in childhood received a workhouse education, but of these twenty-four only can be set down as responsible failures, the destitution of the remaining forty-three being caused by mental or physical infirmities which would in any case prevent their being self-supporting. " Of the total 101 women, seventeen are returned as able-bodied, forty- eight as mentally or physically afflicted, while the cause of destitution in thirty-six cases is illegitimate maternity. It is deplorable, no doubt, that a cause implying immorality should be responsible for so high a percentage of the whole. I say implying, because as often as not, in her first misfortune at any rate, the girl is as much victim as delinquent ; but, however that may be, the figures in the last column should give pause to the censors of a workhouse education, seeing that, whether victims or delinquents, the unfortunates who began life untainted by the workhouse outnumber the early tainted ones in the proportion of seven to one." The following is Mr. Davy's return : Return of adult inmates in fifty workhouses who during childhood were educated in or from a workhouse, classified under headings giving the causes for needing relief. The last heading refers to adult women not brought up in any workhouse. MALES. Weak-minded . . . -57 Cripple ...... 22 Defective eyesight . . . . 15 Able-bodied, not in regular employ- ment 31 Total . 125 1 22 L. G. #., p. 76. FEMALES. Weak-minded . . . -54 Cripple 7 Defective eyesight .... 6 Pregnancy 5 Able-bodied, not in regular employ- ment 24 Total . . . 96 Unmarried mothers, not brought up in workhouses . . . 187 Workhouse Schools 6 J Mr. Davy comments thus upon this return : "Among a workhouse population of over 11,000 there were 221 who had been brought up in workhouse schools, and of these all but sixty were relieved because they were weak-minded, crippled, or other- wise disabled. Of these sixty several were old people who must have been in workhouses before 1 848, when the education of pauper children was first organized after a fashion. At the same time in the same workhouses there were 187 unmarried mothers who were not brought up in a workhouse school. It is frequently alleged with much assurance, and in spite of clouds of witnesses to the contrary, that children who are educated at a workhouse school generally return to the workhouse and make it their home ; and past experience makes it probable that the allegations will continue to be made and to be believed. Mis- representations of this kind must be endured, however mischievous they may be ; but it is curious that it has never struck the people who make them that if these statements are true the workhouses would be full of able-bodied inmates. As a matter of fact, the number of able- bodied paupers is extremely small either in or out of the workhouses, and are for the most part either widows with children or deserted wives." 1 Mr. Baldwyn Fleming has also quite recently got out a similar return. 2 He shows that out of 7844 workhouse inmates only 160 had at some time or another been brought up in Poor Law Schools or workhouses, while of these 160 no less than 124 were unable, from physical or mental incapacity, to earn their own livelihood, thus leaving thirty-six (less than five per mille of the total number of workhouse inmates) who might be regarded as failures. He goes on to give full statistics of these thirty-six "failures," which show that six of these cases can scarcely be regarded as necessarily casting a reproach upon their training. He continues : "Out of 7844 workhouse inmates there are, according to the above returns, about thirty who may fairly be counted as failures. These figures may not be wholly complete, but even assuming that they should be doubted, they cannot but give comfort to those who have spent time and effort in furthering the cause of pauper children, and they show how unfair and untrue is the popular cry that children 1 24 L. G. B. , p. 25. Mr. Lockwood has since had prepared very similar returns with regard to Metropolitan Workhouses. See post, p. 128. Mr. Davy, in a later report (25 L. G. £., p. 173), says : " It is generally conceded that in some respects the least satisfactory of the existing methods of bringing up pauper children is the workhouse school. Such schools are now comparatively rare, whereas formerly they existed in all but the smallest Unions. They had been much improved before this plan of bringing up children in them was, for various reasons, generally abandoned. Yet defective as many of them were, it is absolutely certain that they were so far success- ful that with few exceptions the children brought up in them have been able to earn their own living." 2 25 Z. G.B.,pp. I93-I9S. 68 Children under the Poor Law brought up by the Guardians habitually become paupers in after life." * These returns only bear out similar statistics of twenty years before. Mr. Doyle, while criticising very severely the Swansea Workhouse of 1875 as a most unsuitable place for the education and training of children, expressed his preference for it to "boarding-out," as carried out in the Union, and showed how even this workhouse was not "a nursery of vice," to which a very large proportion of the children brought up in it found their way back as the mothers of illegitimate children ; for out of 547 able-bodied women admitted to the work- house between September, 187 1, and February, 1875, on ^y seven were so brought up, and these had not received their entire education there. 2 It must not be forgotten that even Mrs. Nassau Senior, in her celebrated Report, never alleged that children educated in workhouses return there in any considerable proportion. She contended that they turned out ill in other ways, but she admitted by implication that they had at least been depauperised. Mr. Murray Browne also reminds us that her unfavourable remarks, whether ill or well founded, applied only to girls, and only to Metropolitan schools. He says : " It is in truth the undoubted success of modern schools in this respect which has occasioned the cold reception which Guardians in general have given to the boarding-out movement. They know that the children sent forth from their schools do not return upon their hands; and they wisely hesitate to abandon a system which, upon the only point certainly known to them, produces certainly good results." 3 The same inspector refers to "a certain class of gainsayers who will be satisfied with nothing short of an exact history of every individual child who has ever left a pauper school, vouched for by someone who has no connection whatever with the administration of the Poor Law. Such absolute sceptics must," he fears, "remain unconvinced"; but he is persuaded that "any reasonable person, who will take the trouble of reading the evidence," will be satisfied that the provincial pauper schools were doing excellent service to the country. He explains the cause of the persistent attacks which had been made from time to time upon these schools as in part arising from an undue impatience of the defects which exist in every system ; but he believed the real explana- tion to be that the workhouse schools of former days were very bad ; that the gradual but marked improvement in them which had taken 1 Mr. Baldwyn Fleming merely wishes justice done to the workhouse schools; for he has always expressed his opinion very strongly that the workhouse is not the place for choice where children should be educated. {Ibid., p. 195.) 2 4Z. G. A, p. 179. :! 6Z. G.£.,v. 41. Workhouse Schools 69 place, and which had been gradual and silent, and effected without flourish of trumpets or alteration in the outward fabric of the institu- tion, had escaped the attention of the public ; and that the reader of Oliver Twist still conceived all workhouse schools to conform to the model there described. Mr. Tufnell's denunciations of the modern workhouse schools of twenty years before were quoted as if they were applicable to the country workhouse schools of 1877. Mr. Tufnell, however, himself admitted the change that had taken place, and his latest opinion was that it was unnecessary to interfere with them. 1 Dr. Clutterbuck in 1886 wrote to the same effect. 2 Far from endorsing the opinion that a child born and bred entirely in a workhouse was necessarily so inoculated with what so many people regarded as the evil genius /oci, that it could not become a useful self-supporting member of the community, but must sooner or later after its discharge relapse into the ranks from which it sprang, he went so far as to assert that "for many little desolate pauper" children no home in the world could be found better than some rural workhouses in his own district, where master, matron, and teacher (the latter often the master's daughter) were alike united in their efforts to launch the frail little bark well equipped in every respect for its life voyage. He could state from his own personal knowledge that many grown-up men and women, now filling very respectable positions in life, and not a few of them occupying offices of trust and dignity, look back with gratitude to the lessons of thrift and self-reliance learned in the despised work- house school which had made them what they were. He protested against the shameless misrepresentation and calumny, born of sheer prejudice or gross ignorance, or both, which sought to depreciate every form of goodness which did not recognize its own shibboleth. He extracted the following from a letter which he had received from the clerk to the Guardians of a very small Welsh Union. "No children who have been inmates of our workhouse have ever come back upon the rates; the matron takes great care of them, and is as kind to them as any mother." 3 He also gave figures showing the numbers of children who had been returned to the workhouses in his district during the ten years ending 1877, and who had been for at least three years on the books of the school prior to their first discharge. 4 It appears that out 1 6 L.G. B., pp. 41-42. 2 16 L. G. B., p 103. 3 Ibid., p. 105. 4 Dr. Clutterbuck rightly says that less than three years' training would afford little proof of the value or the reverse of the influences brought to bear upon the child. He also excludes from the list all Unions which, whether recently or for a long period, had sent the children out to school, since the officials employed in the workhouse could not be held responsible for the success or failure in the training of children subjected to any other influence than their own. jo Children under the Poor Law of 2887 boys and 2436 girls, 93 boys and 177 girls had been returned for misconduct, or only 7*26 per cent, in the case of the girls, and 3*22 per cent, in the case of the boys. Dr. Clutterbuck could not believe that any other system of education for this class of children could show a fairer record, when it was remembered at how early an age the children were thrown upon the world. He added that, in the case of the girls, the alleged " misconduct " was in many instances of so trivial a nature that they might be considered as only temporary failures, new places having been found for them almost immediately after their return — which places they had managed to retain — thus considerably reducing the numbers of real failures. 1 The assertion is of course made that, although the children may not return to the workhouses, they go wrong in other ways, but Mr. Murray Browne, writing in 1877, says : " It is surely incumbent upon the assertor to prove his case, and setting aside the Metropolitan schools, of which I have no personal knowledge, there is absolutely no evidence which even pretends to establish so sweeping an assertion. It is possible indeed that there still remain, here and there, bad workhouse schools. Maladministration will spoil any system, and when such instances occur, no efforts should be spared to remove them. But we are at present concerned with the system in general, and not with possible exceptions. And there is strong positive evidence to show that the system in general works well." 2 In 1 89 1 the master of the Tonbridge Workhouse sent Mr. Davy a return, which showed that out of forty-nine boys and girls who had been sent out to service from the schools of the Union during the previous fourteen years, twenty-two were in the same situations to which they were originally sent, four had been returned to the work- house for various reasons, and only one, a girl who was taken away from her situation by her mother, had been lost sight of. 3 In 1892 Mr. Wyndham Holgate, while expressing his satisfaction that the workhouse school of the Mile End Board of Guardians has been broken up, acknowledged that the result of the education and training under the old system had been surprisingly creditable, con- sidering the drawbacks and difficulties with which a deserving staff of officers had had to contend. 4 1 16 Z. G. B., p. 108. 2 6 Z. G. B. t p. 41. Mr. Murray Browne alludes especially to the results of his own inquiries (4 Z. G.B., p. 183, and 6 Z. G. B., p. 36), to Mr. Bowyer's Report (2 Z. G. B., p. 96), to Mr. T. B. Browne's Report (2 Z. G. B., p. 104), and to Dr. Clutterbuck's Report (5 L. G. B., p. 152). We have already referred to these Reports, ante, pp. 62, 63. 3 21 Z. G. B. t p. 151. 4 22 Z. G. B. t p. 112. Workhouse Schools 71 If the workhouse schools, then, had been so successful in their depauperising influence, it may fairly be asked, Why have they been almost universally broken up? The answer is a very simple one. The improvement in 'national education' generally since the pass- ing of the Education Act, 1870, has rendered them unnecessary. Guardians find it much more convenient in every way for themselves, and also better for the children, to send them to the public elementary schools, where for many years the education given has been equal to that given in the workhouses. The point cannot be too strongly insisted on that it has not been a contest between the workhouse school and "boarding-out," but between the former and the public elementary school. The advantages in country Unions of sending the pauper children to the elementary schools will be pointed out in another chapter. 1 INDUSTRIAL TRAINING. We have drawn attention to the principal weak points of the workhouse schools, which, however, it is not impossible to overcome by good management. It will be observed from the statistics we have given that in many cases the system has not been so successful with girls as with boys. The Parliamentary Return of 1861 2 showed the proportion of girls who had been returned to the workhouse on account of misconduct to be 12*6 per cent., while that of the boys was only 57 per cent.; the proportion of girls who had been returned from other causes being 13-3 per cent., as against 8*6 in the case of the boys. Mr. Bowyer, in commenting on this Return in 187 1, accounted for the difference by the fact that most boys are apprenticed, which ensured, in the majority of cases, their not returning to the workhouse for seven years, while the girls were all sent to service, a calling in its nature precarious, and rendered more so in their case by the very early age at which they were too often sent out, before they were either mentally or physically strong enough to perform the duties expected of them by their often not over-considerate masters and mistresses. But he -considers the great disadvantage under which they laboured as compared with boys to be that they received no special training for domestic service, while the boys were often taught shoemaking, tailoring, baking, and spade husbandry, so that if apprenticed to these trades or employed by a farmer, they had only to extend the know- ledge they had previously acquired, instead of, as in the case with the girls, plunging at once into a sphere of duty entirely strange to them. 1 See Chap. vi. a See ante, p. 21. 72 Children under the Poor Law Mr. Bowyer admitted that the training of girls (except in the depart- ment of needlework) was the weak point of workhouse education. 1 This defect still existed in 1885, according to Dr. Clutterbuck, 2 although many Boards of Guardians were then taking steps to send out girls into the world better equipped with practical knowledge than heretofore ; for few mistresses are found with the necessary patience to train young girls in practical work, however good the character of the latter may be. But while Dr. Clutterbuck rightly draws attention to this great drawback of a workhouse training, he thinks the particular defect can be easily removed, and mentions what had been done at Gloucester in providing a simple training kitchen and simple wash-house and scullery. The Shepton Mallet Guardians had also started still earlier (1880) a separate cooking kitchen for the purpose of teaching the elder girls. It was quite apart from the adults, and the matron took the superintendence of it. "We have two girls in each day," writes the master of the workhouse to Dr. Clutterbuck; "they come in early, clean the kitchener, light the fire, and prepare our own breakfast, wash up, prepare vegetables for dinner, and take part in cooking the same. Our reason for starting this is that when girls go out to service they are frequently called stupid because they are unacquainted with the names and uses of kitchen articles, whereas it is simply ignorance from not having used them." 3 As an example of the improvement which has taken place in one particular workhouse, that of the Bedminster Union, to which Dr. Clutterbuck specially refers in his Report as having had such a large number of girls returned to the workhouse on account of their defective industrial training that the Guardians had been led to take special action in the matter, 4 we will quote the words of the present Chairman of the School Committee to show what a beneficial change has been the result of that action. He writes as follows : 5 1 23 P. L. B., pp. 216-217. See also 4 L. G. B., p. 194. As showing what can be done with girls in a workhouse school, Mr. Mozley in 1879 mentioned the interesting fact that a girl in the Stockton Workhouse obtained during the year a first prize for sewing, open to the competition of all the girls in the town below fifteen years of age. 8 L. G. B., p. xliv. 2 14 L. G.B., p. 54. 3 10 L. G. B., p. 180. The workhouse children are now sent out to school, but the present matron makes it a practice to have one girl give up every Saturday for instruction in the kitchen, and after a girl has passed the sixth standard she is instructed regularly in cooking until she gets a situation. 4 14 L. G. B., p. 54, note. 5 1 6th November, 1896. i UNIVERS J \^ L I F ORJ^J^ Workhottsc Sch ools 7 3 "I am unable to compare the state of things in our school now with that of twelve years ago, or with that of other institutions. The girls were declared by Mr. Longe, at a recent inspection, to ' have lost all pauper traces.' They certainly look bright and cheerful. The schoolmistress takes great interest in them ; the cook trains the seniors well in the kitchen ; the industrial trainer teaches them to work, to cut out and make clothes. " I do not see how in so large an institution much more could be done to prepare them for domestic service. So far as I know, none return to the workhouse who have been trained in the school." In 1887 Mr. Mozley describes the style of needlework done by the few girls in the small Thome Union workhouse school as excellent, while they were not overworked. Nor did he know any school where he had seen better examples of fine needlework than the girls' school at Stockton-on-Tees. 1 Mr. Byam Davies, in his Report for 1894 on the schools of the Midland and Eastern Districts, was unable to express himself as satisfied with the industrial training of workhouse children, notwith- standing the fact that some Boards of Guardians had interested themselves very much in the matter, and had taken care that the instruction given both to the boys and girls should be good and sufficient. But he describes the girls as being well instructed in needlework and housework. 2 Now that there are so many voluntary associations for looking after girls who leave workhouses, so many training homes, and so many ladies on Boards of Guardians to see that they have suitable industrial training, there would seem to be no reason why the number of girls returned to workhouses from first situations should not be decreased to an infinitesimal proportion. 3 We have already referred to the difficulty of securing proper in- dustrial training for the children in workhouse schools, and how it arises. 4 Still, as early as 1874 Mr. T. B. Browne describes it as very good in several schools. 5 As regards the kind of industrial training to be given to boys, opinion is divided as to whether tailoring and shoemaking are suitable occupations for them. Dr. Clutterbuck was strongly against the trades being taught, as tending to perpetuate the various forms of disease to which pauper children are hereditarily disposed. He said : "The confinement of the tailor's and shoemaker's shop, the con- strained postures, the disagreeable smells from the leather or fustian, must act unfavourably upon a naturally feeble physique. In some 1 17 Z. G. B., p. 91. 2 24 Z. G. B., p. 75. 3 See post, Chap. xi. 4 Ante, p. 59. ■ 3 Z. G. B., p. 282. 74 Children under the Poor Law Unions the boys are taught to bake. I do not venture to pronounce any opinion on the abstract healthiness or unhealthiness of the baker's trade, but I can scarcely think the flour-dust other than injurious to children so easily affected by cutaneous diseases, or the hot air of the bakehouse harmless to children with an hereditary tendency to con- sumption. Indeed, except in very few cases, I would banish these trades altogether from pauper schools. For what is our object in educating the pauper at all? Surely it is to strengthen him in mind and body, that his labour may be of real service to his country. Everything, therefore, which tends directly or indirectly to enervate the pauper child tends to perpetuate the pauper race." 1 Mr. T. B. Browne, writing in 1867, was also of opinion that there was some disposition to overrate the importance of industrial training for very young children. "I asked a tailor, not long since," he says, "whether he would prefer a boy twelve years old who had received some instruction in tailoring as an apprentice, to one who had received none. His answer was, that he would prefer an apprentice who had received no previous instruction, and whom he could instruct entirely himself. Sedentary employments are not desirable for young boys, but it is very important that they should acquire industrious habits at an early age, and very healthful that they should work as much as possible in the open air." 2 Mr. Mozley has also remarked on the difficulty of finding employ- ment for boys in the trades we are referring to, 3 and Mr. Holgate, while admitting that a knowledge of tailoring may be useful to boys who go into the army, says that in other respects the two trades are not well suited for the feeble physique of many boys, as the rooms set apart for them are often small and close, the character of the work is entirely sedentary, and the position of the workman cramped and unhealthy. 4 Mr. Sutton, however, the experienced master of the Swinton schools, has expressed himself as favourable to the teaching of these two trades, not so much on account of their being taken up in after life, but because of the benefit which the boys receive from the training. 5 Dr. Clutterbuck considered fresh air, vigorous exercise, good food and clothing, industrial instruction in those mechanical arts which call into healthy activity the energies of mind and body, as the essential conditions of the profitable development of pauper children. The forms, therefore, of industrial training which he advocated were firstly 1 6 L. G. B., pp. 84, 85. Later, however, he seems to have admitted that a knowledge of shoemaking and tailoring was in fact useful in after life in many cases. See 14 /. G. B., p. 53. 2 20 P. L. B., p. 151. a 16 L. G. B., pp. 97, 95- 4 4 L. G. B., p. 237. 5 10 L. G. B., p. 176, quoted post, p. 91. Workhouse Schools 75 all gardeni?ig and farming operations. These should, however, include "something more than the picking up of stones in a basket, the dibbling in of potatoes, or the weeding of paths. Something of the science of agriculture should be taught the lads if the garden or the farm is to be made profitable by their labour. An ounce of brains is worth a ton of manure. Some knowledge of the chemistry of soils, the principles of the rotation of crops, the management of trees, drainage, irrigation, manures, etc., might easily be given ; but of course this implies a degree of knowledge and skill seldom found in the average industrial trainer." Secondly, he advocated drill. " No good school should be without an efficient drillmaster." Thirdly, he advocated carpentry. "A carpenter's or joiner's shop could be made to pay. In nearly every Union there is a deficiency of adult pauper labour ; such deficiency could be amply made up by the work of the elder lads." 1 Mr. Byam Davies is of the same opinion as Dr. Clutterbuck, looking upon work in the fields and garden as far more useful than any other work that can be given to boys. 2 Of course the efficient teaching of such trades can only be properly carried out in the large workhouse schools, but in smaller schools much might be done if the master would take one elder boy under his charge and teach him some of the more advanced points of garden work, such as taking cuttings, budding roses, planting and potting, watering flowers, etc. Mr. Holgate in his 1874 Report says : " In the only school in which I have found this plan thoroughly carried out, the boys so taught are snapped up immediately by the neighbouring families; and as there are but few Unions in which the master does not take a pride in his flowers, and often even finds a corner for a small greenhouse, there would be no difficulty in carrying it out more frequently. I think also that a system of school gardens both for vegetables and flowers might be devised without much diffi- culty, and would meet with the best possible results, both physically and morally. The selection of a fitting man as farm bailiff or gardener is of the greatest importance, as in addition to his own practical ability in working the land to the best advantage, it is necessary that he should be able to keep the boys placed under him well up to their work, and to make them put good honest labour into it, and not allow them to shirk as many are apt to do, and accomplish the looking on to their heart's content whilst their master toils." With girls there should be no such difficulty. Where the matrons of the workhouses devote themselves to the work, and really endeavour to 1 6 L.G.B., pp. 85, 86. 2 12 L. G. B., p. 109 ; 13 L. G. B., p. 131. J 6 Children under the Poor Law bring the girls up well, they can be taught the usual duties of domestic service very easily, and never come back to the workhouse when they have once found a place. 1 It must not be forgotten that it is part of the duties of the matron of a workhouse "to assist the schoolmistress in training up the children so as best to fit them for service." 2 Mr. Holgate, in his Report for 1874, refers to a Union where the matron had carried out this duty "with great energy and corresponding success." 3 " She has formed a class of her own, numbering about twelve of the girls of fourteen and upwards, whom she instructs thoroughly in all branches of domestic service, and by them, and them alone, the whole of the cooking, washing, and ironing of the Union is carried out ; they are carefully kept from any of the adult women in the house, they sleep in a detached bedroom, wear a neat simple dress and cap similar to that of a house or kitchenmaid in private service, and each in turn has the opportunity of learning the smaller details of their duties by waiting on the master and matron, laying their table, and washing their china ; during the time of training they do not attend school, but the master sees that they have books, and do not forget what they have learnt in school." Mr. Holgate thinks that Boards of Guardians might well press for a closer attention to this Article on the part of matrons, and they would find a few months' training of the kind he describes for girls who have reached the age of fourteen pay them far better than the plan of sending them out to service at that age, with often too little knowledge of the character of the first mistress to whom the children are sent, or of the quality or amount of work to which they are put. 4 EDUCATION. We have already referred to the better results which are now obtained from the education given in workhouse schools. 5 As early as 187 1 Mr. T. B. Browne drew attention to improvement in this respect. He said : " In proof, not merely of what is practicable, but of what is actully done in a workhouse, I give the results of a very recent inspection of the school at Liskeard, in Cornwall. Out of thirty boys present twenty-seven read the Acts of the Apostles well and distinctly, and passed a good religious examination ; the same number could write well, and sixteen wrote a sentence from dictation without a single mistake ; twenty-five worked sums correctly in arithmetic in different rules, ten of 1 12 L. G. B., p. 109. 2 Order of the 24th July, 1847, Art. 210, No. 3. 3 4 L. G. B., p. 237. 4 Ibid. 5 Introductory chapter. Workhouse Schools yy whom worked a sum in practice; twenty-three passed an intelligent examination in geography, and fourteen in English history and grammar. Twenty-five girls and infants present, taught by a school- mistress, passed generally a creditable examination, though less advanced than the boys. It is not probable that these results can be often exceeded elsewhere. I apprehend that there cannot be many national schools where nine-tenths of the boys can read and write well, and where five-sixths would prove correct in arithmetic, the majority in the compound and higher rules. Liskeard is not a solitary place. In the Hereford, Atcham, Bristol, Clifton, Truro, Great Boughton, Stroud, and many other workhouses, the state of education is very satisfactory, and two Shropshire workhouses, Wem and Church Stretton, may be mentioned as proofs that much may be accomplished with a small number of children." 1 In 1882 Mr. Byam Davies reports upon the writing and arithmetic of the workhouse children in his district as being in general decidedly good, but that the children in the upper standards, though reading fluently enough, seemed to do so without intelligence, not having the least notion of the meanings of the more unusual words which they met with in their books. " In very few of the schools," he says, "have they advanced beyond the most simple elements, and though at some I was surprised and pleased with the knowledge displayed of geography, and even, in one or two cases, of English history, in far the greater number of cases the children did not even know the chief towns and rivers of the British Islands." 2 He refers in a later Report 3 to the one great difficulty in training the children to read intelligently, arising from the fact of their confinement in the workhouse, and their consequent want of opportunity of seeing and hearing about the common things of everyday life, and of associating with grown-up people. "Could the quality of the reading," he continued, "be brought up to the proper standard, I believe that elementary education in workhouse schools would be little, if at all, inferior to that given in National and Board Schools, and would at all events be sufficient for its purpose, and as good as can be expected to be given entirely at the expense of the public." 4 In 1885 Dr. Clutterbuck is found writing to the same effect as regards reading, which — in the matter of distinct articulation and 1 23 P.L. £., p. 231. In 1868 Mr. Bowyer stated that workhouse schools would probably surpass the elementary schools of the time in the proportion of the number of children out of the total number on the books who attained proficiency. See 20 P. L. £., p. 141. 2 11 Z. G.B., p. 137. 3 12 L. G. B. y pp. 108, 109. 4 The above was, of course, written before Free Education was established in the Public Elementary Schools. yS Children under the Poor Law correct pronunciation — was the worst feature of a workhouse educa- tion. On the other hand, he says : " In some few schools, especially in Wales, the reading is excellent — spirited, clear, and very intelligent. Of original composition very little is of course attempted, although here and there I have met with specimens that would do credit to children of a very different social grade. In most schools there is a very praiseworthy effort made to encourage recitation, though here again the efforts meet with very partial success. The poetry is for the most part monotonously drawled out, the rhymes unnecessarily accentuated, and the prepositions nearly always made emphatic. It is very difficult to effect a reform herein, as the teachers are too often themselves examples of the faults they ought to check. But good reading is, after all, in all grades of society a rare accomplishment, and it is perhaps useless to expect it in the lower ranks. There are, however, in the matter of recitation some very bright exceptions, and I think the recitation of some pauper children (in the Birkenhead Schools for example) might fearlessly challenge comparison with some of the very best utterances of our public schools. There has been, I am glad to remark, a very decided increase in the number of the passes this year in the higher standards, and in a few cases what are termed the ■ specific subjects ' have been taught with marked success. Pupils from Hereford Union Schools have gained prizes and certificates from South Kensington for a knowledge of agriculture and for proficiency in drawing in a pro- portion exceeding that of all the neighbouring schools. In the infant department, attached to most of the lower schools, the kindergarten system is gradually being adopted with very beneficial results. An admirable example of the good to be derived from this system (when the teacher is something more than a mere machine) is presented by the infant school of the Cardiff Union." l Mr. Mozley more than once in his reports expresses the doubt whether the intellect, and still more the soul of the children is vitally touched by the course of instruction they receive, but acknowledges that that is a thing of which the manifestations must by the nature of the case be rare, and as to which traces of improvement can only be ascertained with difficulty. " Moreover, the shortness of the time during which many of the children remain in the schools is a great impediment to the growth of slow-growing influences, and still more to the observation of them by outsiders. Yet real intellectual interest in the things around them is frequently shown by the boys ; by the girls more rarely. Also one may conclude from the letters written by the children after they have left the schools, that the deeper springs of charac- ter have sometimes been touched in them by their education there." 2 So far as statistics are to be trusted, the results of the education given in workhouse schools show a great improvement. Mr. Byam 1 14 /.. G. B., p. 52. 2 16 L. C. /?., p. 94. See also 9 L. G. B., p. 208. Workhouse Schools 79 Da vies, Inspector for the Midland and Eastern District, has tabulated these results since 1882, and the following table is compiled from his Reports for 1882-83 and 1894-95. l 1882-83. 1894-95. Number of Percentage children. of passes. Children presented for Exami- nation in the six different Number of Percentage of children. passes. standards . . . 3531 ... — 2132 ... — Passed in Reading . .3114 ••• 88 Writing . . 2539 ... 72 ,, Arithmetic . . 2499 ... 71 1957 ••• 91 1892 ... 88 1741 ... 8l Mr. Mozley's Reports testify to the same improvement in the Northern District, the following table being compiled from his Reports for 1881-82 and 1 892-93.2 1881 -82. 1892-93. Number of Percentage Number of Percentage of children. of passes. children. passes. Children presented for Exami- nation in the six different Standards . . . $261 — 5262 ... — Passed in Reading . . 4848 .. 92 4971 ••• 94 ,, Writing . . 4072 •• 77 4586 ... 85 ,, Arithmetic . . 3641 .. 70 4263 ... 81 The effect of the new Order on the "Instruction of Children" 3 may be to secure better educational results in Poor Law Schools, but will render it still more difficult than it was before to secure efficient industrial training. HEALTH OF THE CHILDREN. It might be imagined from what we have said with regard to the monotony of the life of children in a workhouse school that they would not be healthy. The facts do not seem to support the supposi- tion. In 1 88 1 Dr. Clutterbuck was able to state, on the authority of the medical officers, that in nearly every school (127 in number) in the Western District the health of the children was decidedly good, there having been in only twenty-seven of them any epidemic of a character sufficiently serious to interfere with the instruction of the children. 4 Again, in 1885 Mr. Mozley reports that "the number 1 12 L. G.B., p. 108, and 24 L. G. B., p. 75. The decrease in the numbers of the children is, of course, accounted for by the closing of many workhouse schools since 1882, and by the children having been sent to the public elementary schools. 2 11 L. G. B., p. 104, and 22 L. G. B., p. 103. Our reason for taking the figures for these years is that the year 1881-82 is the first year for which Mr. Mozley gives a table, while after the year 1892-93 North Wales was added to his district. 3 See Appendix E., p. 405. 4 Dr. Clutterbuck appends to his Report a very interesting return on this subject. 10 L. G.B., p. 178. 80 Children under the Poor Law of children withdrawn by reason of sickness from the inspection in the schools inspected by myself was 319. It will be seen that the total number of the children in the workhouse schools in my district on the day of inspection was 7701, so that the number of sick children was almost exactly four and one-seventh per cent, of the total number, which certainly is a small proportion, and creditable to the schools from the point of view of health, especially when it is considered that the children are naturally below the average, physically speaking." 1 DISCIPLINE. The discipline of a workhouse school is provided for by the General Order of 1847. Under this Order the schoolmaster or schoolmistress are " to regulate the discipline and arrangements of the school, and the industrial and moral training of the children, subject to the direction of the Guardians." 2 They are "to accompany the children when they quit the workhouse for exercise, or for attendance at public worship, unless the Guardians shall otherwise direct," and " to keep the children clean in their persons, and orderly and decorous in their conduct." 3 Half an hour after the ringing of the bell for rising, they are required to call over the names of the children, and to inspect them. 4 As to punishments (1) no child under twelve years of age may be confined in a dark room or during the night; and (2) no corporal punishment may be inflicted on any female child, and if a male child is so punished the punishment must not take place until two hours after the commission of the offence, it must be by the schoolmaster or master, and by means of such a rod or instrument as has been approved by the Guardians or by the Visiting Committee. 5 But no male child over fourteen years of age can be flogged, and whatever the kind of corporal punishment may be both master and schoolmaster must, if it is possible, be present. A TYPE OF A WORKHOUSE SCHOOL. Before concluding this chapter, a short account of a small work- house school (with about forty children, twenty-two boys and twenty girls) may be of interest. This school is actually part of the work- house, standing in front of the main buildings, but entered through the workhouse gate. On one side of the path leading to the school building is the girls' playground, and on the other side, the boys'. The children were at play as we walked up to the door, the boys at cricket, and the girls with skipping-ropes and other amusements. 1 14 L. G.B., p. 47. s Art. 212, No. 2. 3 Ibid., No. 3 and No. 4. 4 Art. 103. 5 Articles 136-139. Workhouse Schools 81 Their voices sounded very merry. The school is under the control of the master of the workhouse, and there is one schoolmistress, who has charge of both boys and girls. The matron assists in the training of the children. The children can be visited once a month by their friends, and they have their toys and a small library. Boys and girls go out together for walks three times a week in the summer, and in the winter as often as the weather permits. The elder boys have their garden allotments, which are a great interest to them, and they can work in these just as they like every afternoon in the week. They play cricket in the workhouse fields, and have matches with other schools. The majority of the boys learn to play in a band with a view of joining the army bands. Both boys and girls go out to Sunday School, and they are often sent out on errands for things, being given money to pay for them. The training given to the girls is such that there is a great demand for them for service, as for a year or eighteen months before being sent out they are individually trained to do house work in the matron's own rooms under her own eye. The matron is very careful as to the kind of place a girl goes to, always going herself to see it first, and she keeps a watch over them, visiting them now and then for six or seven years after their leaving the school. She has never known a case of failure since she has been matron at the workhouse, the girls never coming back to her, and she has occupied the position for seven years. The only difficulty she has is connected with the " ins and outs," the bane of all Poor Law Schools, and especially of small ones. Both boys and girls are isolated for three or four days, however, before they are drafted into the school. This particular workhouse is by no means an isolated instance, and it is only when the workhouse schools have vanished altogether that the nation will appreciate what a great part they have taken in the work of depauperisation. It is at least doubtful, as we have shown, whether either the systems of sending workhouse children to outside schools and of boarding-out, which are rapidly supplanting the workhouse schools, will show any better results. At any rate, there is nothing to justify the abuse of these schools, which is nowadays so frequently heard. When it is considered with what unpromising material they have had to deal, they have produced results which the best educational establishments in the country might be proud to equal, and it is sad to see " the statements made and too generally accepted which are as ill-founded as they are cruel in their injustice and untruth." 1 ■ 25 z. a s. t P . 195. CHAPTER III. DISTRICT AND SEPARATE SCHOOLS IN this and the following chapter we shall deal with that class of Poor Law Schools to which the epithet of " barrack " has come to be applied on account of the children being aggregated together in large numbers in barrack-like buildings. 1 According to the report of the Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools, the " barrack " schools of London range in size from the " separate " school at Tooting with 174 children to the "district" school at Brighton Road, Sutton, with 1541 children. In the provinces the largest separate school is at Swinton (Manchester Union), with about 750 children, and the smallest is at Hartismere with thirty-eight children, while the four district schools have 105, 150, 169, and 220 children respectively. The main difference between the class of school we refer to in this chapter and workhouse schools is that they are all under superin- tendents who are entirely free from the control of the workhouse masters, although, as we have seen, certain workhouse schools detached from the workhouses are also under separate superintendents. 2 Where this is the case these " detached " schools may fairly be con- sidered as in all respects "separate" schools, and therefore coming within the scope of the present chapter. Mr. Bowyer, who was a strong advocate of the establishment of district schools all over the country, looked upon the consolidation of workhouse schools as the only means by which educational progress could be made. He said that during the four years after 1847, when workhouse schools were first placed under inspection, their improve- ment both as to instruction and industrial training was very considerable, but that with the year 1852 the stationary period commenced which had continued up to 187 1. 1 Mr. Ernest Hart claims the credit for the invention of the term "barrack school," and we are not in the least inclined to deprive him of the honour. See evidence before the Poor Law Schools Committee. Q. 15. 2 Such are the detached schools at Nottingham, Ormskirk, Flimby, Chesterfield, Merthyr Tydfil, etc. District and Separate Schools 83 " The reason for this immobility is that whatever progress had been previously made (and it was not inconsiderable) was due simply to the examination of the teachers and the inspection of the schools, and that these agencies had by that time produced the full amount of benefit which was permitted to them by the system according to which pauper education has been, and still mainly is, carried on — a system which appears to me as inefficient for the education and training of the children brought up in workhouses as it is costly to the country. "The defects of the present organization of pauper education are the necessary consequence of its origin. At the time when the existing system of Poor Law administration was instituted, upwards of thirty years ago, the value of education as a means of stemming the flood of pauperism then deluging the country was not so fully recognized as it is at present. The schools were consequently not formed with the single view of educating the children in the most economical as well as the most efficient manner in order that they might not grow up to be paupers. " The school was considered as a mere adjunct to the workhouse ; a room in the house devoted to the instruction of the children of indoor paupers, just as a room is set apart in a private house for the instruction of the children of the family. This is the cause of the anomalies in the system of workhouse education to which I have often adverted in former reports. For example, the Committee of Council of Education would not have recognized, either for building grants or for annual grants, a school containing so insignificant a number as less than twenty children ; yet of such schools there are more than sixty in my district. Neither would that Committee have recognized a school of between twenty and thirty children ; yet there are about seventy of that size in my district. All these schools are chiefly supported by public money, as the salaries of the teachers paid out of the Parlia- mentary grant form the principal cost of their maintenance. From such anomalies, of which the above examples are an illustration, have flowed consequences that materially detract from the utility of the education received by workhouse children, and have arrested the improvement impressed upon it by inspection." 1 We have quoted Mr. Bowyer at length because of his long experience as an Inspector of Education, and also because it enables one to understand how the formation of school districts 2 and the 1 1 L. G. B., p. 224. 2 The district school system may be said to have held the field in official circles so late as 1877, when the last school district, viz., that of Brentwood, was formed. For fifteen years, then, from the time (1861) when the Royal Commission on Educa- tion reported in its favour, the Central Authority had been urging its adoption as by far the best way of dealing with pauper children, and for fifteen years Guardians (though not always influenced by the highest motives) had been as steadily resisting its imposition upon them. (See e.g. 20 P. L. £., p. 145; 21 P. L. B., p. 103; 22 P.L.B., pp. 121-123 ; 1 L.G.B., pp. 222, 231; 5 L.G.B., p. 138; and 6 L. G. B., p. 96). The Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867 caused the London Unions to adopt the system, but it never ' ' took " in the provinces. The Brentwood District 84 Children under the Poor Law establishment of large schools came to be advocated. At the time he wrote boarding-out was in its infancy and mistrusted, while Board Schools to which the workhouse children could be sent had not yet been established, and the education given in the Village Schools was lamentably deficient. Just as Mr. Bowyer emphasises the weak points of workhouse schools, so Mr. Wodehouse stated the arguments used in favour of " district " and " separate " schools in his Report of the 31st December, 1869, 1 as follows: "The reasons for which I myself advocate the erection of separate schools in all the large towns, and the formation of school districts in less populous places, are, first, that it is desirable to remove the children from workhouses in which the mere presence of adult inmates, apart from the question of contamination, familiarises their minds with an idea of the place to which they can return in after life whenever they find a difficulty in getting their own living, and thus renders it more difficult than it would otherwise be to implant in them habits of industry and self-reliance; secondly, because a far more thorough industrial training can be imparted to them in separate and district schools, and one more calculated to enable them to get their living in after life, either in farm service, in the army, navy, or mercantile marine, or in various kinds of handicraft ; and thirdly, because this system would afford at a comparatively small expense a thoroughly good education to the children of the smaller workhouses, where the scanty numbers in attendance render it impossible to secure the services of competent teachers, and where the education which is given is at once costly and inefficient." As concerns " district " and " separate " schools, it was alleged that a certain superiority existed with the former in regard to their manage- ment. Mr. Carleton Tufnell, the great apostle of district schools, stated the argument as follows : 2 " Every pauper school established by a Union or single parish is necessarily managed by the Guardians of such Union or parish, who are elected mainly for the purpose of superintending the workhouse, and directing the distribution of outdoor relief. Their appointment has no special reference to education or the arrangements, often necessarily very complex, of boarding schools, and hence they often take little interest in the instruction of pauper children, and sometimes grievously mismanage them. I do not mean to say that this is universally true. Nothing can be better managed than the school of the Stepney Union, and there are other instances of similar success- ful management. But these cases are exceptional, and on consideration above referred to (which combined the two Unions of Hackney and Shoreditch) was dissolved in 1885, Hackney taking over the existing schools for itself, and Shoreditch establishing the Hornchurch Cottage Homes. 1 22 P. L. B., p. 135. " 20 P. L. B., p. 131. District and Separate Schools 85 it will be obvious that they must be so. What probability is there that persons elected for a particular purpose shall be equally well qualified to serve an entirely different purpose? Is it likely that gentlemen chosen to manage the poor rates should be able to conduct the by no means easy business of arranging a large boarding school, where, in addition to the ordinary intellectual instruction common to all schools, means must be provided for the children's physical and industrial training and placing them in permanent situations? "A district school, however, belongs to several Unions or district parishes, and the managers are selected by each set of Guardians from the component Unions or parishes for the express purpose of superintending the school. Now a Board of Guardians will generally contain two or three individuals who take special interest in the subject of education, and such persons naturally get elected to the District School Board, and it must be obvious that a Board so chosen must have superior qualifications for school management. But this is not all : each set of Guardians may elect any ratepayer who is rated to a specified amount, and is not confined to a selection from its own body ; and what is more important still, the Board so elected may, by order of the Poor Law Board, be elected for three years instead of one, as in the case of ordinary Guardians. Gentlemen elected to office for one year often cease to hold office, when at the end of the year they have become acquainted with the duties by experience. "In schools belonging to single Unions I have often had to lament the absence of gentlemen who had thus become experienced in school management, but whose year of office being ended were not re-elected. I am convinced by experience of the great superiority of triennial to annual elections in procuring fitting members to fill these offices." The same inspector was convinced that no plan for the education of pauper children could equal in efficiency that of large schools, whether " district " or " separate." x He considered that this was the plan which accorded best with the principles laid down for dealing with pauper children, which he stated as follows : 2 1. The children ought never to be reared with adult paupers. 2. They should always be brought up industrially. 3. They should be instructed by efficient teachers. 4. The classification, and therefore the instruction, is more effectually carried out in large than in small schools. 5. It is proportionally cheaper to feed and superintend large than small numbers. 6. No school can be maintained in a state of efficiency in which the teachers are continually changing. 1 20 P. L. B., pp. 131, 156 ; 23 P. L. B. t pp. 206, 207. 2 1 L.G.B.y p. 215. 86 Children under the Poor Lazv 7. The chances of a pauper child earning an independent livelihood are proportional to the distance of its removal, when launched into the world, from its own low relations and haunts of vice, among which it has probably passed several years of its life. (1) The Separation from Adult Paupers. As to the first condition — the separation from the adult paupers — no one will deny that this is effected by the system we are considering. 1 (2) Industrial Training. As to the second condition — the securing of industrial training — there will not be much difference of opinion on the subject with respect to the boys, and, as Mr. Tufnell said, the training of boys in music and seamanship is all but unattainable under any other system. " It is im- possible," he wrote in 1870, "to introduce into small schools the industries that are found to be most successful in training boys. Carpentry, black- smithery, engineering, cannot be introduced into small schools, from the impossibility of finding the work on which to practise the boys, and the expense of paying the instructors. But preparing boys for the musical service of the army and navy has been found to be by far the most successful industry. In the boys' school under my inspection 277 boys have been disposed of in this way during 1870. Now this industry is unsuitable to any day school, or to any pauper school with less than 100 to 150 boys, the schools that are still larger being most successful in training musicians." 2 By 1867 every Metropolitan school had its band, taught by an efficient bandmaster. The demand for boys who knew how to read music, had acquired a good mastery of their instruments, and were well practised in playing in concert, was soon found to be very great, while their playing had contributed to the order and discipline of the schools in a marked degree. The bands were exceedingly popular among the children, and had a great effect in softening and humanising them. 3 These boys invariably gave the utmost satisfaction, some of them being selected to be trained as bandmasters. From one school alone, that belonging to St. George's in the East, ninety musicians were 1 See$L.G.B., p. 156. 2 23 P. L. B., p. 206. To Mr. Tufnell's Report is appended a list of these 277 boys and how they had been disposed of {ibid., pp. 210-214). Mr. Wodehouse was also in favour of large schools, on account of the good industrial training which could be given in them. See 20 P. L. £., p. 156. 3 20 P. L. B., pp. 132-133. District and Separate Schools 87 enlisted into army bands during five years, every one of whom had turned out well. 1 In 1884 Mr. Holgate notices the same satisfactory results which had led to the salaries of the skilled bandmasters appointed to instruct the boys being paid in full out of the Parliamentary grant instead of being charged upon the Poor Rates. 2 This musical training is also praised by the Poor Law Schools Committee, who testify to its beneficial results. 3 Next after musical training Mr. Tufnell placed training in seaman- ship, which offered then, as it does now, a good opening for boys. He was much impressed with the Mettray system, like every one who has visited the institution there, and would have liked to see a full-sized model of a ship erected on the premises of each school. The experience of Mettray had shown that it was quite possible to train boys to be three parts sailors on dry land. Mr. Tufnell alleged that captains of ships preferred boys so trained to any others, and some of them had informed him that they would rather have a boy so trained fourteen years of age than a finer boy of sixteen untrained, the training advancing the boys two years in the profession of a sailor. He described the success which the Stepney Guardians had met with after adopting this mode of making sailors. " Many years ago," he says, " the Guardians were in the habit of paying ^10 premium to captains of vessels who would take their boys to sea; but, determining to train their boys for the sea service, they spent a considerable sum in erecting a full-sized ship in the playground, fully equipping it with sails, rigging, etc., causing the sailor's class to sleep in hammocks, and engaging a seaman to instruct the class in sea matters. Nothing could answer better. Captains eagerly engaged these boys without premium, and in five years this school sent 183 boys to sea." 4 The little difficulty which Guardians met with in disposing of their boys seems to have been the reason of their unwillingness to incur the expense of the erection and fitting up of such ships, but Mr. Tufnell gives two reasons for the proposal. (1) That it was an object of national importance to increase the number of sailors, and that a great benefit would be thereby conferred on the country, and (2) that sea service was peculiarly well fitted for the class of children who came under the control of the Guardians. On the second point he said: "All persons who have had much experience in pauper schools are well aware that when the children are launched into the world 1 21 P. L. B., p. 87. 2 14 L. G. /?., p. 56. 3 Report, p. 47. 4 20 P. L. />*., p. 133. 88 Children under the Poor Law it is of the utmost importance that they should see as little of their relations as possible. If a well-trained pauper boy fails to become independent, or falls into crime and misery, in nine cases out of ten the cause may be traced to the influence of pauper parents or relations. Remove him from this influence, and he is almost certain to turn out well. I believe this conclusion to be sanctioned by unimpeachable evidence. " Now boys engaged in the army or navy are at once removed from the evil influences I have alluded to. They have a certain occupation for fourteen or fifteen years, are during that time kept under proper tutelage, which is specially desirable in the case of these friendless youths, earn good wages, and, as experience shows, almost invariably give the greatest satisfaction to their superiors. If I had my will I would bring up every pauper boy to be a musician for the army or navy bands, or to be a sailor for the royal navy or merchant service. "The school belonging to the Stepney Union is the only one that has completely carried out my ideas on this subject. In that establishment the boys are allowed to choose their own occupations, and ninety-five per cent, volunteer for the Royal Navy or Merchant Service. The London pauper schools alone could, if furnished with the above described appliances, 1 turn out about 400 sailors annually. They would all be able to read or write well, to understand all the parts of a ship, to mount aloft without hesitation, most of them to swim and dive, and, if necessary, they shall all be instructed in the theory and management of a steam engine, and to stoke, there being a steam engine in most of the schools. Surely such a result must be of some national importance." 2 At the time to which we are referring (1870), and also at the present time, the other chief occupations in which boys were employed were shoemaking, tailoring, employment on the land, and under the carpenter, smith, engineer, and bricklayer, and in general household cleaning. Dr. Bridges was, and still is, a great advocate for employment on the land in preference to any other occupation, and quotes the motto of the Mettray founder, ameliorer la terre par Phomme, et Vhomme par la terre, as one that has every motive of experience and common sense to recommend it. He pointed to the physical vigour and longevity of agricultural labourers, even when underfed, and to the favourable effects on the health of the children wherever this employment was largely practised. 3 He admitted, however, that it was not always easy to find places for boys trained simply as farm labourers, unless it were thought well 1 Mr. Tufhell thought that the Admiralty might well pay the cost of erecting and furnishing the ships. 2 20 P. L. B., p. 134. See also 21 P. L.B., p. 87 ; 23 P. L. B., p. 207. :{ 3 L. G. B., p. 229. District and Separate Schools 89 to establish a stream of emigration to one or more of our colonies, but he anticipated that the demand for them would be inexhaustible. He also advocated skilled gardening, in which the youngest children, outside the limits of infancy, could be employed out of doors, and which would train the faculties of observation better than most things learnt in schoolrooms. 1 At the time he wrote his Report about 400 boys, or one-fifth of the total number of boys who underwent industrial training, were employed in field or garden work ; 289 were employed in shoemaking ; 303 in tailoring; 72 in the blacksmiths' or engineers' shops; and 81 as carpenters and bricklayers. 2 Mr. Birchall, the head-master of the Kirkdale Schools, held Dr. Bridges' views. " I think," he said, " that the best and only suitable industrial work for our boys is the cultivation of the soil, as it would best strengthen and develop their constitution, not of course to train them to be farmers, etc., but to give them muscle." 3 With regard to employing the boys in shoemaking and tailoring, Mr. Tufnell thought these trades the worst in which they could be brought up. He said it was impossible to instruct them in a school to do anything better than slop work, so that when launched into the world they could only earn the lowest wages, and in towns frequently became applicants for relief. 4 Mr. Sutton, the head-master of the Swinton Schools, however, thought more favourably of the effect produced on the boys themselves by learning tailoring, shoemaking, etc. "Although," he said, "the boys are frequently put to trades which they do not follow in after life, I still consider the training here has been, and will prove, distinctly beneficial to them afterwards. Indeed I have heard young men, former inmates, express the opinion decidedly." Mr. Mozley, from whose Report we are quoting, adds that it must not be supposed from Mr. Sutton's commendation of the educational results of tailoring and shoemaking in the Poor Law Schools, that Swinton is deficient in field labour; as a fact nearly every boy is employed on the farm for two half-days weekly, with very good results. 5 At Swinton the boys now receive instruction in ambulance classes. Mr. Mozley says he saw them binding up broken heads, broken thighs, broken legs (*>., of boys who were supposed to have suffered from these accidents), and carrying off the broken-legged patients on stretchers. 6 1 sL.G.B., p. 230. 2 Ibid. 3 10 Z. G. B., p. 176. 4 20 P. L. B. y p. 132. See also Ibid., p. 151. 5 10 Z. G. B., p. 176. 6 24 Z. G. B., p. 67. 90 Children under the Poor Law The Guardians of the Newport Union (Monmouthshire) employ a County Council lecturer to instruct the boys at the Ely Schools in tree-planting and grafting. 1 As showing further what is being done in the large London schools in the way of real technical education for the boys, Mr. Wyndham Holgate writes in 1889 as follows : 2 "At the South Metropolitan Schools at Sutton three capital work- shops have been provided, in which the trades of carpenter, tailor, and shoemaker are thoroughly taught in all their branches to large classes of boys, with very promising results, whilst the old shops, in which the cobbling, the patching, and the repairs for the premises are done, continue to be maintained by a less advanced class. In the St. Pancras Schools at Leavesden excellent work is being effected in the engineers' shop, from which a large number of boys are getting first- rate positions at the Royal Arsenal and elsewhere ; whilst in October last, two of the lads, not yet 15, gained the first and second certificates of merit for amateur turning at the Exhibition of the Turners' Company. Their medals were presented to them at the Mansion House by the Lord Mayor, and on the occasion Mr. T. T. Holtzapfel, one of the judges, said that although the exhibits were few in number, they were better than usual, while in finish and form they stood pre- eminent over those shown in the previous twenty exhibitions." The weak side of the large school system shows itself in the industrial training of girls. Their occupations are naturally less varied than those of the boys, and are practically limited to general charing, needle, kitchen, and laundry work, the training being directed to fitting them for household service. Their industrial training in the district schools is, however, so far as it goes, well spoken of, and was long ago stated to be infinitely superior to what they would receive in a labourer's cottage or in elementary schools. 3 And that this is true at the present time must be known to all who are acquainted with village life. Mr. Mozley, in his Report for 1890, mentions that the instruction in cooking in the Swinton Schools was particularly good and useful ; twelve girls were then learning the art daily, and about sixty had lessons twice a week. 4 In most of the Metropolitan schools the elder girls are taught to cook in the ordinary way in which cooking is done in small middle-class homes. They cook for the officers and for the matron, and also for the infirmary under domestic trainers. Thus, as early as 1867, the Central London 1 24 L. G.B., p. 67. 2 19 L. G. B., p. 156. The Central London School at Han well took steps in the same direction at this time. See 20 L. G. B. } p. 281. 3 See e.g. Mr. Bowyer's Report for 1875 (4 T. C. B. p. 197). 4 20 L. G. B., p. 266. District and Separate Schools 91 District School is mentioned as excelling in its methods of training plain cooks — a class of servant for which there is always a good demand. 1 At Swinton the older girls attend cooking classes in Manchester, besides doing practical work of this kind at the schools, and the Guardians of the Cardiff Union employ the services of a public lecturer on cookery to give lessons to the girls at the Ely Schools once a week, and Mr. Mozley testifies to the interest of a lesson at which he was present. 2 Mr. Sutton, the head-master of the Swinton Schools, admitted that the household work of the girls laboured under disadvantages, being in a large institution ; but he said that it had the advantage of giving them a high model. He was of opinion that with proper care there was but little detriment, if any, to the children. Fire-lighting, black- leading grates, scrubbing floors, bed-making, and sundry other household duties, which were the bulk of the duties a girl of thirteen or under could do, were all done there and taught well. Cooking, fire ironing, in fact, advanced household work, was all that was not well taught ; but then that was difficult to teach to a school girl of tender years. 3 Mr. Tufnell has told us that he was always asking the question from the superintendents of the schools whether there was any difficulty in finding employment for either boys or girls, and the uniform answer was that they could not supply the demand. For domestic servants especially the demand was so pressing that in one of the large district schools he was informed that there were six applications for every girl that could be recommended for service. The applicants came from all parts of England, and even from Scot- land. 4 If this was the case so early as 1868, it is much more the case now; and with regard to the situations obtained for the girls from the London schools, the Metropolitan Association for Befriend- ing Young Servants sees that they are good ones, where the girls are likely to be well looked after and happy. Most of the suggestions made by Mrs. Nassau Senior in her valuable Report of 1874 on Metropolitan Pauper Girls 5 are now carried out in all the large London schools in conjunction with the M. A. B. Y. S., of which admirable society she was the founder, and that so few of the girls fail in after life is strong evidence in favour of the education and training which they receive. 1 20 /'. L. B., p. 132. See also 23 L. G. £., p. 154. 2 24 L. G. B., p. 67. 3 10 L. G. B., p. 176. 4 21 P. L. B., p. 89. 5 3 L. G. B., pp. 311-391. 92 Children tinder the Poor Law As to what was being done in provincial Poor Law Schools at the time Mrs. Nassau Senior wrote, Dr. Clutterbuck gives in his Report for 1876 an account of the industrial training given at the Carleon separate schools (with about 170 children) of the Newport Union. l Vocal Music. Singing in parts at sight on the tonic sol-fa method. The children can sing several concerted pieces from Mendelssohn and others. Instrumental Music. There are twenty-four boys in the regular band who can play moderately difficult music at sight, besides a number of learners coming on. Needlework. The whole of the girls' clothing is made on the premises, together with the boys' shirts, and all the mending and darning. Physical Education. A regular system following Maclaren's book, including so far : Movements and positions, dumb-bells, leaping, with graduated standards and bar; use of leaping-pole, horizontal bar. There is a set of parallel bars in preparation. The boys have won several cricket matches, and every game of football they have played. Gardening. There are nearly fourteen acres of land entirely managed by the boys under the supervision of the bailiff. The garden, notwithstanding the unfavourable season, is now in excellent condition, and was much praised by the School Committee at their last visit. Several of the members of the Committee are large farmers. There are five cows on the premises at present (another will shortly be bought). Eight girls can milk and churn, as also eight boys. Miscellaneous. Every girl can scrub and wash clothes (according to her strength). Many of them can do a little cooking and ironing. The elder girls are put, by turns, to do all the work they would be required to do in any respectable service. In all the large schools nowadays a practical training is given to the girls to fit them for service. As early as 1886 Mr. Holgate noted an advance in this respect in several of the London schools. " In these schools," he writes, 2 " there is a domestic training class for six or more girls, who by age and school progress are next in the list for going out to service. These six girls live in a separate set of apartments in the infants' block, with kitchen, laundry, etc. attached, under the charge of a special officer; two being cooks, two house and parlourmaids, and two general servants. The average time for 1 6L.G. £., p. 87. 2 Mr. Holgate mentions specially, Forest Gate, Anerley, and Leavesden. See 16 L. G.B., p. 112. District and Separate Schools 93 each girl under instruction is about four months, and each has two weeks in rotation at each kind of duty. " The new and most interesting point in the system, as carried out at Forest Gate, is that the girls who are on duty as cooks are sent daily to the shops in the neighbourhood of the schools to market for their provisions, all articles, quantities and prices being duly entered by them in books given them for the purpose, and thus bringing into practical proof their capacity to work a ' bill of parcels ' sum correctly, breaking them in to the use of the value of money as coin, and to the daily requirements of a small household, and giving them self-reliance, which will be of good service to them when they go out into the world to earn their bread." Mr. Holgate goes on to suggest that the system should be extended to the purchase of the materials for their outfit, by which the girls 11 would gain a knowledge of the quality and price of plain articles, and the quantity required to make their various garments, and be educated to exercise a sound judgment as to the colours and style of dress befitting their future position in life." At Hanwell, Forest Gate, and Edmonton, cookery classes have been organized under the instruction of a peripatetic technical instructor and demonstrator with very satisfactory results, and in two or three cases the Metropolitan School Managers, realising that the training provided for the girls in their large schools is not a very suitable preparation for domestic service, arrange for some of the elder girls to live in a separate portion of the building as in a home of their own, which is fitted up as an ordinary dwelling-house. In other schools they serve with a similar object for three months in the houses of the officers of the staff. At Anerley the domestic training class for girls has always been worked out in detail and most satisfactorily. 1 With regard to the needlework done by the girls in the London schools, Miss Poole, the secretary to the M. A. B. Y. S., said in her evidence before the Poor Law Schools Committee that it would quite compete with that done in the London Board Schools, and that in some cases it was perfectly exquisite. 2 In respect both to boys and girls it is as true now as when Mr. Tufnell wrote that there is a steady demand for trained labour, efficient labour, and intelligent labour. "A shopman who wants an errand boy will not take a boy from the streets who is dirty in his habits, unable to read the directions of a parcel, has never heard of the Eighth Commandment, and is unconscious of any moral or religious feeling; but he will readily engage a boy trained in one of these district schools, as he is tolerably sure of getting thence an intelligent, well-behaved lad. 1 Poor Law Schools Committee's Report^ pp. 52, 53. 2 Evidence, p. 132. 94 Children under the Poor Law Nothing can be better than the training of the children in these large establishments. I am aware it is costly, but it is cheaper than allowing them to become thieves or paupers, or prostitutes, as was the case formerly. When I see those shoeless, half-starved arabs turning somer- saults in the streets I long to send them to a district school, whence I would warrant to turn them out in two years worth at least 6s. or 75-. a week. The girls in these schools are all taught to wash, to sew, to cook, to clean, in short to do all that is usually required of a maidservant; the boys are accustomed to labour, and their intel- lectual instruction alone is sufficient to enable them to write good hands, to keep accounts with accuracy, and thus they often become clerks, telegraph assistants, and many are turned out as musicians into the army and navy, as previously observed." 1 All the large schools have for years been provided with swimming baths, which can be warmed in winter so that the children can be taught swimming throughout the year, to the great benefit of their health. 2 In Mr. Wyndham Holgate's Report for 1885 it is stated that no fewer than 672 boys and 212 girls passed in swimming in 1884. 3 The Poor Law Schools Committee recommend that all girls should be taught to swim, 4 which is somewhat amusing, inasmuch as they recommend also the abolition of large schools, where alone it is possible . that such instruction can be given to pauper children. As a matter of fact, at most of the large schools both boys and girls are taught to swim. Thus, Mr. Mozley tells us how at Swinton "the boys swim and dive with great spirit, and they are taught how to rescue a drowning person, and how to revive him when rescued. They did this in my presence. I may mention that an old Swinton boy, who learned swimming at these schools (which he left about three years ago), rescued last autumn a little boy who had fallen into a deep millpond near Manchester, and received the certificate of the Royal Humane Society for so doing. 5 (3) Efficient Teaching. As to the third condition — efficient teaching — the best teachers will always seek the largest schools, as in them the emoluments are the largest, and the field for exertion greatest. 6 The teaching in the large 1 21 P. L. B., p. 89. 2 2 L. G. B., p. 85 ; 8 Z. G. B., p. xliv. (Kirkdale) ; 9 L. G. B., p. 210 (Swinton). 3 14 Z. G. B., p. 57. 4 Report, p. 171. 5 24 L. G. B., p. 67. See also 18 Z. G. B., p. 148 (Portsea Island). 6 Under the General Orders of the 12th February and the 17th June, 1879, the schoolmasters and schoolmistresses of a workhouse school (i.e. of any school other than a district school) appointed after the 28th February, 1879, and the super- intendents, matrons, schoolmasters, and schoolmistresses of district schools appointed District and Separate Schools 95 schools has shown continuous improvement since Mr. Tufuell wrote his Report, and follows upon a steady increase in the number of certificated teachers. 1 The salaries have been raised, and consequently teachers of high qualifications, good tone, and recognized status come forward for the vacancies as they occur. "Quite recently," writes Mr. Holgate in 1894, "a lady who passed in honours at Girton College has been appointed as an assistant schoolmistress at one of my largest schools." 2 But while it is very essential that teachers should be trained in the art of teaching, there are other qualifications necessary for the teachers of Poor Law Schools, which nothing but experience in the working of the system can give. Mr. Holgate writes as follows on this point : 3 M I have found in more than one instance that teachers who have had schools under the Committee of Council, and hold high certificates from that department, have not succeeded well when placed in charge of either a district or an ordinary workhouse school. I am impressed with the necessity which exists in our schools for the teachers to identify themselves with the whole life of the children committed to their charge, and I find that those schools are progressing most favourably, and showing the best results as to intellectual ability, morality, general happiness, and intelligence, in which the teachers take part in the amusements and moral supervision of the children out of school, and do not consider their responsibilities at an end (as in the schools of the Committee of Council) when the hour for closing school arrives. In all my best ordered district schools the managers are becoming aware of this, and I am pleased to find that the question is more often put to candidates for a teacher's place, whether they are prepared to take such responsibility as clearly attaching to their office." Of recent years it has become increasingly the practice in large schools to allow the teachers to reside off the premises. This, of course, has a very good effect on the teaching given, for the teachers maintain their vigour and independence, and are afforded greater facilities for self-improvement and reasonable social intercourse with after the 24th June, 1879, may be dismissed at any time by the Guardians (in the first case) or by the Boards of Management (in the second case), with the consent of the Local Government Board. Whether the superintendent and matron are husband and wife or not, the dismissal of one of them renders the office of the other vacant at the expiration of the quarter's notice. They may not perform their duties by deputy except with the special permission of the Local Government Board on the application of the Guardians or of the Boards of Management (General Orders of the 24th July, 1847, Art. 198, and of the 14th November, 1879, Art. I.). 1 9 L. G. B., p. 217 ; 10 L. G. B., p. 191 ; 13 L. G. B., p. 129. 2 24 /. G. B., p. 73. 3 5 L. G. B., pp. 171, 172. g6 Children under the Poor Law the outside world. Besides which, they have a greater freedom than would be possible if they resided within the school precincts. Mr. Holgate, in recommending this course, points out how easily arrange- ments can be made for it. He says : l " In ordinary district and large separate schools, where the teachers have to be present with the children in the play-hours, and at their meals in one common hall, provision can easily be made for such supervision by weekly turns j whilst in the more recent system of cottage homes their presence is not needed for such duties, which there belong to the foster parents. At the new homes shortly to be opened at Hornchurch for the children of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, no teacher is to be resident, and consequently the cost of an officers' block has been saved, and the result will, I have no doubt, prove eminently satisfactory, both from the increased brightness and energy of the teaching staff and the absence of divided interests in the homes themselves." (4) Education. As to the fourth condition — effectual classification and instruction — it is obvious that this condition can be better fulfilled when the number of children is large. Mr. Tufnell instances the action of the London School Board, who had recognized the superiority of large schools on the grounds of economy of time, of money, and of teaching power. It must be remembered that at the time that large schools were so warmly advocated, national education was in a very backward state, little more than the three R's being taught in the National Schools, and we have seen that in many of the much-abused workhouse schools the education given was better than what could be obtained outside. Mr. Tufnell was perfectly justified in looking forward to a better education for Poor Law children in the large schools than could be obtained in the small ones. 2 The result proved him to be right. But 1 18 Z. G. B., p. 151. 2 In 1872 Mr. Mozley remarked that while three-fifths of the children educated in schools containing more than sixty children received what might fairly be called a good education, i.e., an education advanced and varied enough for their capacities, and impressed upon them with such care as to render them able to retain its principles with accuracy, not more than one-fourth of those educated in the smaller schools received an equally good education, and out of this one-fourth nearly three- fourths belonged to schools with between forty and sixty children. He instances the education given in the Kirkdale Schools as what he calls a "good education." The first class in this school, consisting of forty boys, read a passage from Ivanhoe, which they had never seen before, with correctness ; in one or two instances with spirit and emphasis, in a fair number of cases with a knowledge of the meaning of the more difficult words. Twenty-seven boys in this class were sufficiently advanced to be presented for examination in fractions and decimals, and (taking them altogether) to pass creditably. Fifteen boys did fair and some very creditable papers in geography and history ; had it not been for a certain want of practice in paper work, I have District and Separate Schools 97 since he wrote education generally has made great strides, and the Poor Law Schools may, perhaps, not have been able to keep pace with it. Still, no one, and the Poor Law School authorities least of all, was prepared for the sweeping strictures of the late Departmental Committee. They reported as follows : "Standard of education. The general course of education is that laid down in the regulations of 1847, and except in the matter of drawing has undergone no change or development since. This standard is therefore lower than that attained in public elementary schools; for example, no class or specific subjects or manual training are provided. "Thus the children already under special disadvantages by birth and environment receive a lower education than that provided for the offspring of persons of the same class but in happier circumstances. Their intelligence is to some extent dwarfed by their secluded and artificial life, and the mechanical routine of their exercises neither arouses interest nor kindles inspiration. To counteract these influences a wider and more varied and generous course of instruction is all the more necessary." 1 The public were thus given to understand that, except as regards drawing, the kind of education given in Poor Law Schools had remained stationary since 1847, an d the criticisms of the Press showed that to be the impression which the public mind had received; whereas, in point of fact, as we have shown in the introductory chapter, the General Order of the 3rd April, 1878, which laid it down that the standards of examination should be those prescribed in the Code of the Education Department in force for the time being, produced a very great change. Children were to be examined individually, and the passes and failures of each child had to be recorded. . Over and above little doubt that others would have done well also. The elements of grammar were taught in this class. The age of the boys, with one or two exceptions, varied from eleven to fourteen ; the average time during which they had been in the school was not quite four years. Taking the whole school, about 160 boys out of 400 were advanced enough to be presented for examination in rules of arithmetic at least as high as long division of money, and of 310 sums given to these boys 196 were done right. (It should be remarked that perhaps one-third of these sums were in no definite rule, but of a kind to exercise the common-sense of the boys. There is a greater increase of difficulty than might perhaps be supposed in even a very slight variation from the common type of sums to which the boys are accustomed.) Nine classes, containing 270 boys, learnt geography, but only in six classes was the amount taught considerable. Three classes, or about 100 boys, learnt history. The spelling was in no class perfect, but in the upper classes mistakes were made only in words of some real difficulty. See 2 L. G. B. , p. 90. Dr. Clutterbuck, however, writing in 1884 upon the schools in the Western District, would not admit the superiority of the large schools over the small ones so far as regarded the three R's. See 14 L. G. B., p. 52. 1 Report, p. 44. H 98 Children tinder the Poor Law this formal change the general improvement in public education has affected to a marked extent that given in the Poor Law Schools, as we show later on. The great increase in the percentages of passes to children examined seems to us to be a sufficient proof of an improvement in the teaching of the schools. As to the provincial Poor Law Schools, we have in another place shown what an advance has been made; 1 and as to those in the Metropolitan and South Eastern Districts, Mr. Wyndham Holgate's annual Reports from 1884 onwards show how great the progress has been. In fact, the Poor Law Schools Committee have to admit that in the Metropolitan schools "reading, though generally lacking in expression, is for the most part taught laboriously, and with fair success; writing is almost always neat and accurate; and arithmetic, so far as it can be tested by written work and the answers to questions given in the shape of ' sums ' rather than problems which require thinking, is generally up to the level of good schools." 2 They also have to admit that as regards drawing, "the teachers are able to secure for that subject creditable reports and grants from the Science and Art Department." 3 Still they allege that even this subject, and also "simple exercises in English grammar and analysis, the systematic lessons in geography, history, and elementary science, which are now found so useful in awakening the intelligence of children in the public elementary schools, form no part of the scheme of instruction f and the examination of the inspector does not extend to such subjects. Teachers are indeed recommended to give instruction of this kind incidentally in connection with reading lessons, but they are not required to do it. There is no definite examination or report upon such teaching ; maps are seldom used ; and, in fact, simple questions respecting the geography of places mentioned in the reading lessons, the lives and work of famous persons, and the meanings and formation of the words and sentences in those lessons, are generally answered by very few, and with far less readiness and intelligence than in ordinary schools. Such object lessons as are given are miscellaneous and occasional, and form no part of a systematic plan submitted to the inspector and approved by him. In several instances teachers have, by their 1 See Chapter ii. 2 Report, p. 39. Directly after the passing of the General Order, Mr. Holgate reported that he had several schools passing as accurately in every standard presented to him as could possibly be desired. See 8 L. G. B., p. 150. 3 Ibid. 4 The italics are our own. District and Separate Schools 99 own enthusiasm and their interest in the scholars, sought to make the reading lessons effective instruments in developing the intelligence of the children, and have supplemented those lessons with some fragmentary instruction in geography or history. But there is nothing in the present official requirements, or in the manner in which the schools are tested and reported on, to encourage such efforts, and, in fact, we have seen no Poor Law Schools which, if measured by the usual tests of the Education Department, would be classed as excellent." J We need not argue whether or not the inspectors are under any obligation to do more than report upon the efficiency with which the three R's are taught, or whether the teachers are bound to teach more. It would be a question for reform if more were thought necessary. But possibly many persons would be found to agree with the observations of the Committee appointed by the Ipswich Guardians to draw up a report relative to the Education Bill, and to the Departmental Committee's Report so far as it affected their own schools. After referring to the admitted fact that the children are " well taught in all elementary subjects, while religious instruction received more than ordinary attention," and stating that in needlework their children far exceed those in the ordinary elementary schools, they go on to say : "It is a question whether a pauper child is not better prepared for his after life, if his time up to the age of fourteen is spent in the thorough acquisition of elementary knowledge, combined with efficient industrial training and good religious instruction, than if he is required to obtain a superficial knowledge of many subjects." We can only say that we have seen with our own eyes one of the inspectors examining a class in geography, and have watched a schoolmistress giving object lessons to the elder girls; but whether the duty be an obligatory one or not, the fact is that in all large Poor Law Schools many other subjects than the three R's are taught, and that the words " such other instruction shall be imparted (to the children) as may fit them for service, and train them to habits of usefulness, industry, and virtue," are very widely construed by the Poor Law school authorities. 2 Although the charge is levelled against Metropolitan schools in particular, other large schools will feel that they are included in the indictment, and we shall give instances to show that the charge is not a true one in either case. 1 Report, p. 39. 2 See ante, p. 96, note 2. ioo Children under the Poor Law Let us see what the two head -masters of the South Metropolitan and Kensington and Chelsea Schools say on the subject. In a letter to the Editor of the Poor Law Officers' Journal they write : 1 "We, sir, have had some years' experience under the London School Board in schools classed 'excellent,' and unhesitatingly state that the standard of attainments in these schools in the three R's is considerably higher than in excellent schools under the Board. " No class subjects. We know Poor Law Schools where geography, grammar, poetry, and singing have been taken on code lines for some years. " No ?nanual training. What about the boy carpenters, shoemakers, tailors, plumbers, and bakers at work in the school shops, so eagerly sought after by the tradesmen who want apprentices ? If hand and eye training is meant, in many Poor Law Schools colouring, paper-cutting and folding, and mosaic work are all taught on Rich's method. "The Report states : 'No systematic plan of object lessons.' Why, sir, this Inspector on the Committee specially complimented a teacher on his blackboard illustrations (consisting of sections of plants, seeds etc., tinted with various coloured chalks) of a lesson in horticulture, one of a series, which had been given the day previous to the visit, expressing surprise to find such lessons given in Poor Law Schools. " In drawing, these schools are examined by the same inspectors as other schools, and compare favourably with them, gaining the 'good' and 'excellent' award, and we find that many are so well up to date that they use a school newspaper or magazine. " The lads are all taught swimming; cricket and football matches are arranged with other schools ; they have a good library, the books being changed weekly. " During the winter months the class rooms are used two evenings a week as reading rooms, all the best magazines and illustrated papers being supplied, while those who prefer it may spend their time playing chess, draughts, halma, or other similar parlour games. " Interesting lectures, illustrated by the lantern, are given, while the staff provide plays, musical entertainments, and occasionally form them- selves into a minstrel troupe for the amusement of the children. "What more can be done? These, sir, are the facts, and yet we have it on the authority of the Departmental Committee that nothing is taught in these schools except reading, writing, and arithmetic." 2 One of the school managers of the West London District Schools has kindly supplied us with a list of the subjects beyond the three R's taught in the schools. 1 May 15th, 1896. 2 In an able criticism of the Departmental Committee's Report (Knight & Co.), Mr. H. D. Aslett tells us that the writers of the above letter had only taken up Poor Law work quite recently, having been teachers under the London School Board. ' ' So that their sympathies would naturally be with Board Schools ; but they honourably stand up for the Poor Law Schools, speaking of them as they find them, and their dual experience gives the greatest weight to their opinion." District and Separate Schools 101 Boys 1 Department. Drawing, scripture, geography, picture and object lessons in Primer Class and Standards I., II. and III., recitation, singing (tonic sol-fa) from note, grammar (a little), composition in all the standards excepting the primers, letter-writing from Standards III. upwards. Girls' Department. Singing (tonic sol-fa), object lessons, needle- work (ist and 2nd Standards do it in the class-rooms, higher Standards in the needle-room), grammar, geography, scripture, recitation, compo- sition, ambulance, physical drill (pole and dumb-bell), paper weaving and cane weaving. Cooking is now being taught by a trained teacher. Boys' and Girls' Departments. At the Leavesden Schools the three R's are taught according to the education code of 1896. In addition are taken object lessons, English and recitation, geography, singing at sight in all the Standards, and drawing (freehand, model, geometry, and to scale). By means of daily and weekly papers the children are kept informed of passing events. The infants take kindergarten. The standards of the London schools are, we are given to understand, stricter than those in the Board Schools. The following extract from the letter of a school manager of one of the district schools, throws more light on the true facts of the case than can be obtained from the Departmental Committee's Report. In that school "the schoolmistress goes through a very good geography reader with the girls one day in the week, and varies this with social and domestic economy. When you look at the well-grown children who are working at the very rudiments, on account of previous neglect, and when you remember that for the children's own good they are put to industrial work as soon as they have passed Standard III. or eleven years of age, so that they shall not go out without the use of their hands, and when you consider the proportion of 'ins and outs,' you see that there are not many who can go far in school learning. If you were to talk to one of the school teachers and then visit a Board School in the special districts that feed the Poor Law Schools, I think you would find that children in extreme poverty do not anywhere learn many accomplishments. We may call these children by any name we like, and we may break off the entail of their parents' vices ; but we cannot put them on an equality as to learning and as to manual training with children of intelligent respectable artisans." With such difficulties to contend with it would be no matter for surprise if the children of "the Poor Law Schools of the Metropolis are far below the standard usually attained, age for age, by the children in public elementary schools." 1 But this statement is really an indict- 1 Report of Departmental Committee, p. 39. 102 Children under the Poor Law ment against the educational authority of the district from which the children come. " On the admission of children," writes a head school- master of one of the district schools, "we find, in the majority of the cases, that they have attended school irregularly, and that in some instances they had been withdrawn from instruction entirely." These children (to use the words of the Report) are " far below the standard usually attained, age for age, by children in public elementary schools." It is a misfortune undoubtedly that such neglected and ignorant children should be found at this time, but it is certainly the gravest injustice to send backward, neglected, and at the same time delicate children to a Poor Law School and straightway charge the school with inefficiency, holding such children up as the results of the work rather than crediting the school for attaining such satisfactory results with such inferior material. Children in those schools advance a Standard each year. What more is done in any other class of school ? The attendance is undoubtedly regular, but the stay at school is short (less than six months on an average). In estimating results it should be borne in mind that before the recent Order all who had attained the age of eleven and had passed Standard III. were half-timers. Mr. Wainwright, the Chairman of the Board of Management of the North Surrey District Schools, says : "The school instruction described in the Report is a caricature of what exists at Anerley, where the teachers are trained and certificated, and the education on a level with that of Board Schools, the boys not being allowed to work as half-timers till they have passed Standard IV., and are twelve years of age. The industrial training is complete and thorough; every boy is taught a trade, and no boy is ever sent to service except when he can follow that trade; and we have built up so good a reputation among employers by really skilled teaching, that we have never any difficulty in obtaining suitable situations. As to the girls, it is admitted in the Report that our systematic training of young servants in domestic work has always been worked out most satisfactorily, and it is a significant fact that we have twice as many applications for girls as we are able to supply." 1 What was being done in the London schools in 1890 can be learnt from the very full particulars given by Mr. Holgate in his Report for that year. 2 At Sutton, evening lectures on elementary science and general subjects of interest were being given by the assistant-masters, to the boys who liked to attend ; the nucleus of a museum had been formed, and the library in the senior school contained 520 volumes, and in the junior school 409, the use of the books being much valued by the boys. 3 In the girls' school, too, a similar museum 1 Letter to the Times, 1896. 2 20 L. G. B. y pp. 280, 297. 3 Ibid., p. 282. District and Separate Schools 103 had been started. At Forest Gate a certain number of boys (from eight to twelve in number) were allowed to attend the classes for technical instruction in carpentering, plumbing, smith's work, and drawing at the Carpenters' Institute, Stratford, the experiment having met with marked success "by the creation of a spirit of emulation and a desire to excel, which it is difficult to arouse when a lad has to gain a knowledge of a trade with the limited means at the command of an industrial trainer in the school." 1 At Banstead and Enfield museums had been started of objects useful for instruction. 2 At Edmonton industrial classes of girls had been formed for occasional evening instruction, and had met with satisfactory results. 3 Mr. Wyndham Holgate noted in 1894 a distinct advance in the endeavour to improve the intelligence of the children by a well- considered system of object lessons; 4 and we have shown by examples of the educational work carried out at the present time, how inaccurate are the statements made in the Report of the Depart- mental Committee. The giving of prizes, which is now carried out in most of the large schools, has also a great effect in developing the intelligence of the children. Mr. Holgate remarked on this point as follows in his Report for 1879 : 5 "In my opinion it is necessary that general good conduct should be required in combination with proficiency in any subject, and that at least a fair standing in the school should accompany excellence in any purely industrial pursuit. In carrying out this system of prize-giving, the assistance of the wives and daughters of Guardians or Managers in judging of the proficiency of the girls in their branches of industry would be of the greatest possible benefit, and would go far to meet the objections which from time to time appear in the public press against the system which at present obtains, by permitting women to do women's work in thus kindly and unofficially inspecting and reporting on the purely domestic departments of these schools." It may be well to state that the expense of these prizes can be, and sometimes is, paid out of the rates. We may add that many of the pupil teachers in the schools have themselves received their education there. They are promoted from the ranks for good conduct and ability, and most of them do well. Some of them pass into college and become Board School teachers. 6 If the education given in the schools was as defective as the Depart- 1 20 L. G. B., p. 285. 2 Ibid., pp. 286, 295. 3 Ibid., p. 293. 4 24 L. G. B., p. 70. 5 9 L. G. B., p. 217. 6 Evidence before Committee, p. 274. 104 Children under the Poor Law mental Committee's Report described it to be, such a thing would be impossible. Time alone will show what will be the effect of the recent Order on " Instruction of Children " on the industrial training which is now given in the schools; but there cannot be the least doubt that the freedom of School Managers and School Committees will be much fettered in dealing with the children according to their individualities, unless they are kept much longer in the schools than at present, or sent to training homes. It is not difficult to see that the whole tendency of the Order is to break up the schools and to get the children sent to the public elementary schools, and to sacrifice industrial training, and the getting the children out into the world as early as possible, to more education of a purely scholastic character. (5) The Ecoftomical Argument. As to the fifth cofidition — the economical argument. Mr. Tufnell thought it would be allowed that it was proportionally cheaper to feed and clothe 20 people than 10, 100 people than 50, and so on. In proportion to the increase of numbers, less attendance and less coals would be required, and the contracts being larger would be obtained at a lower price. (But see infra, p. 121.) (6) Permanence of Teachers. As to the sixth condition — permanence of teachers. It is found that in large schools the head teachers rarely change, the reason being that in large establishments the salaries are justifiably larger, the arrangements more comfortable, and the field for exertion — always an object to a conscientious teacher — greater and far more interesting than in small ones. In these latter the teachers are always changing, and Mr. Tufnell had rarely known a teacher remain more than three years in them. (7) Future of Children Assured. As to the seventh condition — the placing the child in a position to earn an independent livelihood — district schools are not usually placed in the parish or even in the Union whence the children are drawn. Hence, if they are placed out, as must often be the case, in situations near the school, they are sent away from their native haunts and low relations. Further, the trades that have been found most effectual in depauperising— music and seamanship — which are peculiar to district schools, cannot be thoroughly taught in any other than large schools. District and Separate Schools 105 There are also other occupations taught, which often prove of the greatest advantage in after life, such as engineering, drawing, carpentry, cooking, sewing by machinery, swimming, which are difficult to teach effectually and systematically in small schools. We have already shown in this chapter 1 what, under good manage- ment, the large schools are capable of doing in the matter of industrial training, and so of enabling the children to get good situations and employment by which the success of their future careers is assured. 2 There is no better method of placing children in the way of earning an independent livelihood than the early inculcation of thrift. In Mr. Holgate's important Report of 1890 on the Metropolitan schools, he tells us how interested the managers of the schools are in encouraging it, sometimes giving prizes with that object. 3 1 Ante, p. 86. 2 Mr. Wodehouse sets out the advantages of the large schools over the small schools very clearly in his Report for 1867 (20 P. L. B., p. 156). See also 23 P. L. B. , p. 12; $L.G.B., p. 137. 3 See 20 L. G. B., pp. 282, 286 and 294. CHAPTER IV. DISTRICT AND SEPARATE SCHOOLS (Continued). WHILE a system which satisfies the conditions laid down in the last chapter cannot be condemned as absolutely bad, as has been recently done by the Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools, it has like every other system its special defects, which are well known to those who have to administer it. These defects must always be present in a greater or less degree. But they can be minimised by good administration. We may enumerate them as arising from — i. The loss of the family tie. 2. The monotonous and confined life of the children. 3. The system being too good. 4. The massing of children together preventing their physical, moral, and mental development. 5. The costliness of the system. 6. The liability to outbreaks of infectious disease among the children. (1) The Loss of the Family Tie. t It is alleged that it is almost impossible to establish family or domestic ties of any kind. We fully admit that no system of public education, even where the intellectual and industrial training is of the very best, can supply the place of that parental care, and those home influences of which the orphan and deserted children are necessarily deprived ; but on the other hand it must be pointed out that in the classes to which these children belong, the advantage of the " family tie " is very doubtful. Indeed, there is a great deal of truth in Mr. Tufnell's remark that, when pauper children have parents, those parents are often the children's greatest enemies, and the less they see of them the better. 1 It must be remembered, also, that even where the 1 23 P. L. B., p. 207. District and Separate Schools 107 family tie is absent, affection is not, pupils often becoming much attached to their masters and mistresses, and to each other. Indeed, this alleged disadvantage is apt to be much exaggerated. (2) The Monotonous and Confined Life. The monotonous and confined life of the children who, when orphan or deserted, live in the schools continuously, must to a great extent | prevent the development of many of those faculties of mind and body which, in the case of children who must look forward to a hard industrial life, it is most important to expand. 1 Anything, therefore, which will relieve this monotony and bring them into closer connection with the outside world is to be welcomed. The efforts of Guardians and School Managers have been directed to this end, and with a considerable amount of success. Mrs. Nassau Senior, in her well- known Report of 1874, observed that "with some striking exceptions, the girls at the schools showed a curious dulness as to play, which was significant of undeveloped natures. On making this remark to some of the officers, I found it was a matter of common observation. I have I seldom seen energetic play going on, either in the playgrounds or day- rooms. Though there is a marked superiority on this point in some schools over others, I have rarely found, when I asked girls to show me a game, that they could set themselves spontaneously to anything of the sort : all seemed to depend on the promptings of the yard mistress. There appears to be no tradition of games in the schools. To teach them to play with intelligence and enjoyment would be well worth the trouble as an educational process. Playing with energy would be a step towards working with energy." 2 A Memorandum issued by the Local Government Board in March, 1880, recommends for all Poor Law Schools (1) covered play-sheds sufficient to contain all the children in wet or inclement weather; (2) a piece of turf or meadow-land for outdoor exercise; and (3) in the yards and in the play-sheds, or in rooms specially devoted to such purposes, the means of physical training, such as swings, parallel bars, ropes and rings, and other simple gymnastic apparatus. Further, in a circular issued in January, 1891, the Board enlarge on the desirability of a good supply of illustrated books and periodicals, and of bats, balls, and skipping-ropes and toys. It is satisfactory to learn from the Report of the Departmental Committee on Poor Law Schools (p. 167) that there are now playing fields attached to nearly all the Metropolitan schools. 23P.L.B., pp. 12, 13. 2 3 z.(?.A f p. 326. io8 Children tinder the Poor Law Mr. Mozley writes as follows of the Swinton Schools in 1883 : 1 "At the Swinton Schools fives-courts have just been built for the boys, and on my asking Mr. Sutton, the head-master, a question as to the amount of play-time the children (and especially the girls) had, and how they employed it, he gave the following account (which, however, was not meant to be exhaustive ; I see, e.g., it makes no mention of the cricket and football ; of the swimming taught both to boys and girls ; nor of a half-hour's walk which the girls have on summer mornings early) : " * About two-thirds of the children (both boys and girls) who have industrial work, only have one half-holiday weekly, the Saturday afternoon. The others have both (Wednesday and Saturday) half- holidays. A few, but very few, work on Saturday afternoons. The play-time on half-holidays commences at 1.30 to 2, and continues, with the exception of supper and three-quarters of an hour drill, until they go to bed. " ■ When the boys and girls go out for walks, they invariably go four deep ; but our walks have been reduced since we had the large field — nearly five acres — opposite the schools, near the church. On every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon an hour is devoted to walking, or playing in the field. " ■ The day-room master accompanies the boys, and the school- mistresses, in turn, accompany the girls. " ' The girls play games at the recreation times, and at all times when not at school or at labour, e.g., 12.15 t0 I2 -3° daily, 1 to 1.30 or 2 daily, 5 to 6 p.m., 6.30 to 8, and Wednesday and Saturday after- noons. The boys play at the same time. " ' The boys have just completed a hand-ball contest in the fives- court conducted by the schoolmasters, and an examination for prizes in skipping is now being conducted by the schoolmistress. Other games played by the girls are ball, hoop and stick, twos and threes, and serpent' " From the Leavesden Schools the bigger children have expeditions up to town. One of the Guardians invites parties of the girls up to see the Zoological Gardens once a year. The boys have expeditions, and now and then go out nutting. They have a good many breaks during the summer. 2 It is not so true now as it may have been a few years ago that the tendency is to keep the children, especially the girls, too much within the four walls of a yard, and not to use the play-fields as much as they should be used. 3 The schools are generally fairly well supplied with periodicals, and many have capital libraries. 1 13 L. G.£.,p. 123. 2 Evidence of Miss Lidgett before the Departmental Committee, Q. 1201. 3 See 20 L. G.B., p. 269. District and Separate Schools 109 In some schools, notwithstanding the regulation 1 which by implica- tion directs the contrary, the elder boys and girls are now allowed to take walks without any supervision, and it seems that the confidence thus placed in them is very rarely abused. Thus at Anerley the elder boys go for two hours a week just as they like, and where they like ; while the elder girls go shopping in twos and threes, and some elder girls to the parish church on Sunday evenings. In answer to a question before the Departmental Committee on Poor Law Schools put to Miss Thompson, one of the committee of the girls' schools at Sutton, as to whether the girls in the schools as they grew older enjoyed any freedom at all, or were allowed to walk out unattended, the witness replied in the affirmative as follows : " Every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon they are allowed to go out for two hours in pairs, two and two together, under no supervision ; they can go into the town, do their little shoppings, and amuse them- selves as they please. They have perfect freedom in that way; very often they do little commissions for their house mothers, or teachers, or anything of that kind, and they may go out and spend their money. Every girl has a separate locker of her own for her private property. They are encouraged, of course, to save their little moneys, but they need not do it : there is no pressure put upon them : they may spend them as freely as they please." 2 The Poor Law Schools Committee make a most valuable suggestion as to allowing the children regular vacations, which they consider are required as much by the teachers as by the children. 3 The school bands, besides training a considerable number of boys each year for the army bands, must also help to vary the monotony of school life. But besides helping indirectly in this way they may do so directly. Thus at Kirkdale Schools the band boys are hired out to fetes by outsiders, and earn enough to give the whole school a treat. Mr. Mozley describes such an incident in 1883 as follows: 4 "The children's excursion took place on the 20th June. They embarked on board a large steamer in Canada Dock, not far from the schools, and sailed up the river to Eastham, where they spent the day in games and sports, rambling in the woods and through the Zoological Gardens, and in witnessing the performance of Blondin on the high rope. The cost of the excursion was defrayed out of gratuities given to the band for services rendered at school fetes and 1 This regulation runs as follows : ■ ' The managers may make such arrangements as they may deem expedient for allowing the children to quit the school, under the care and guidance of some one of the officers and assistants of the school, for the purpose of exercise." 2 Evidence, p. 275. 3 Report, p. 168. 4 13 L. G.B.,p. 122. no Children under the Poor Law Bands of Hope galas, etc., in the neighbourhood. Every child in the school able to go was taken, the whole number being a little short of 800. The day was fair, the sail was a pretty long one (over two hours each way), and the children will not readily forget such a delightful treat." (3) The System is too Good. It is further objected that the schools are on a scale which reverse all the probable conditions of a child's after life. This defect especially affects the girls, who go from comparative palaces to houses "where 'elbow grease' takes the place of furniture polish; bath bricks of Kent's machines ; a small kitchen of the spacious dining hall ; an open stove of the patent kitchener j a tub of soap-suds of the steam-worked washing apparatus, etc." 1 This was written in 1874, and refers to a defect which it is difficult to k_3A>--&avoid where children are massed together in large numbers, and the a Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools allege it still to exist. They say, " The laundry operations are, in the majority -of these schools, conducted on a large scale. In one of the district schools no less than 35,000 articles are washed each week. The magnitude of the operations necessitates the use of steam and the employment of a number of laundry-women, whilst the girls, instead of being taught the arts of washing, starching, and ironing, become mere drudges to fill drying racks and turn the handles of washing T machines." 2 The recommendation of the Committee that the laundries ould be broken up and the work done in small wash-houses and ironing rooms so as to accustom the girls to the usual appliances of domestic life, is one with which no one can disagree. As we have shown, it has been established in many of the schools. But some machinery must be used. Mr. Birkby answers the question, "How can a girl acquire any knowledge of housework when she never sees an open fire, when the rooms are warmed by hot -water pipes, the cooking done by gas, and the washing by steam?" by replying that the question implies that which does not exist at Swinton. 3 He says : " The building generally, and for very good reasons, is heated by hot- air pipes, but there are resident officers who occupy sitting rooms that have open fires. These fires are made by the girls, under the direction and supervision of an efficient housemaid and other officers. The cooking, if done by gas, will only be in part, and is it not a prob- ability, in the future, that in homes where servants will be required 1 4 L. G. B., p. 223. See also 14 L. G. B.> p. 54. 2 Report, p. 53. 3 Swinton is a Poor Law ' ' barrack " school near Manchester where some 700 children are educated and trained. District and Separate Schools 1 1 1 this improved method will certainly be adopted? The whole of the washing is done by steam. To do the washing by hand is unknown even now in a marked degree in modern houses. In the school laundry steam has to be used for the quantities of children's clothing required weekly. The washing of the officers' clothing is done by hand, and herein comes the opportunity for teaching. The elder girls are taught ironing." Mr. Birkby then quotes a letter he had received in 1894 from the Hon. Secretary of the Manchester School of Domestic Economy and Cookery, which a number of girls from the Swinton Schools were allowed by the Guardians to attend. " Dear Sir, — We were all exceedingly pleased with your girls from Swinton, when they came for the cooking lessons. These were so nice in every way that we have repeated the offer of free lessons this session. The girls were well-mannered, intelligent, and respectful, without any of the servility so much to be deplored in public institutions like yours. They had been well taught kitchen work before they came to us, and reflect much credit on Mrs. Birkby and you." He ends up this portion of his interesting paper by saying that the children are taught, and have as part of their duty to learn, " how to lay fires, and the mysteries of saucepans and stew-pots, wash- tubs, and hand-dollies." 1 There is also, no doubt, some reason for complaint that the children are overfed. The paternal care of the Local Government Board has carefully prepared suitable dietaries for the children, and the quantities allowed are ample. In the opinion of some people they are too much. " The usual custom is for the carver to weigh out to each child the quantity to which by its registered age it is entitled, quite regardless of its appetite or condition of health. The result is that one child gets more than it either could or should eat, while another, needing more than the regulation quantity, does not have enough. All who have to do with children know that some will overeat themselves if provisions are placed before them, while a delicate child will leave most of its food untouched unless it is to its taste, or if excessive in quantity. The present dietary system, in fact, tends to overfeeding on the one hand and to malnutrition on the other." 2 No one would be inclined to deny the truth of this criticism, and the efforts of school managers and school committees have been directed to getting the Central Authority to allow them more freedom in the matter. There need be no waste, and in these days there is 1 Paper read before the North-Western Poor Law Officers' Association at Man- chester in 1896. ■ Report of Departmental Committee, p. 163. 1 1 2 Children under the Poor Law little risk of the children being underfed. There can be no doubt that the cost of Poor Law Schools would be much reduced if the principles of domestic economy in the management of the kitchen were applied to them. The defect of a uniform dietary, irrespective of whether the children can do justice to the food put before them or not, is one which is by no means inherent in the system. In the Cottage Home Schools the children are trained to eat what is given to them, and what is left at one meal is used up at the next, and Mr. Mozley tells us that this was the plan of the Nottingham detached school. He writes in 1887 as follows : l " At Nottingham the regulations respecting the food of the children deserve notice; a good deal of latitude is allowed in what is given to them, and it is not supplied to them strictly by weight as in ordinary establishments under the Poor Law. 2 The superintendent tells me that it costs is, 8d. and is. gd. weekly per child, or about a penny per meal per child. And the result seemed to have justified the plan; on my recent visit (January 6th, 1887) there had not been a child on the medical officer's list since last April. The number of children in this institution has of late averaged 150 or so; on Saturday 6th it was 170, but this was the highest number it had ever reached, trade being exceptionally bad at Nottingham just now." The defect, then, that the " barrack school " system is too good, in that everything is done for the children, is one by no means impossible to remedy, and it is very apparent that the Poor Law Schools Committee much exaggerated it in their Report. (4) The_ Massing of_CMldren together is bad. The assembling together of large numbers of children of the lowest class in one large establishment is also considered a great defect. It is alleged to affect both their physical, moral, and mental development, and to be fatal to educational success. 3 It is especially said to be bad for the girls: "Among so many there must be a large number who know much that is evil, and these are likely to corrupt the others. In a day-school where the children only meet for instruction, the 1 16 L.G.B.,y. 93. 2 The regulation permitting this was as follows : — "Provided always it shall not be necessary that the quantities of the several articles of food supplied to the children shall be weighed, but that more or less than the quantity specified in the dietary table may be supplied to individual children according to the direction of the superintendent or matron, and that in case any portion of the provisions prepared for any meal be not consumed, such portion may, if fit for such purpose, be used for supplying a future meal, with such departure from the dietary table as may be necessary. " 3 See 4 Z. G. B., p. 223. District and Separate Schools i 1 3 number may not be of much moment; but it is otherwise in a boarding- school, where the girls are constantly together." 1 Mrs. Nassau Senior 2 urged the further objection that the girls were unable to get the cherishing care and individual attention that was of far more importance in the formation of a girl's character than anything else in the world. " It is the fault of no one in particular," she says, " that at a large school a girl's affections are not called out. The officers have so much routine work to get through that it is absolutely impossible for them to give sufficient time to individualising and influencing the girls under their care. The inquiries I have made on all sides have convinced me that what is wanted in the education of the girls is more mothering. Many of them who have fought their way bravely and are doing well in life have indicated this to me. One will say, ' We were kindly enough treated, but I have felt very lonely ' ; another, ' I was very fond of Miss A., but there were so many of us to look after that she could not be expected to make much of me,' and so on. If this is the opinion of girls who are successful in life, it would, I am sure, be echoed by those who have dropped out of sight or done badly." The new buildings (occupied in 1885) of the Lambeth separate schools at South Norwood, which are in detached blocks, were specially arranged to avoid a large number of children being massed together in one day-room or playground; the dormitories are divided off by wooden partitions, which do not interfere with perfect ventilation, but which certainly increase the comfort and individuality of the children in each division. (a) As to the System Preventing the Physical Development of the Child. All that can be said on this point is that everything that can be done is being done in these large schools to encourage the physical development of the children. It must be remembered that the class from which they are drawn is one of low vitality. When Dr. Downes, the senior Poor Law Medical Inspector, first entered upon his duties, he was pleased to find that the general condition of the children in the large London schools was better than he expected from what he had read about them. He found them well fed, well clothed, and, so far as he could see, well cared for and clean. He also thought the younger children in particular, on the whole, bright and happy, while the elder children were more lively than he expected. The class he was 1 2 L. G. B., p. 107. 2 3 I. G. B., pp. 319-320. See also Ibid., p. 343. I 1 14 Children under the Poor Law least satisfied with was the younger boys in the large schools, who appeared to him to be in many cases of defective vitality, and did not seem as if they took exercise enough, and they suffered too much in some cases from chilblains, superficial whitlow, and diseases of that class. 1 But this evidence seems to tell rather in favour of the schools than otherwise, because one would naturally expect the younger children not to have had time to throw off the evil effects of their life and surroundings previously to entering the schools. We have already pointed to the way in which physical development is encouraged at the present time by means of gymnastics, drill, cricket, football, and outdoor exercise of other kinds. The Exmouth boys might be supposed to be physically stronger than the boys of a " barrack " school, and yet they often get beaten in their games with the others. A greater variety in the dietaries of the schools might possibly be an advantage ; 2 but, when all has been done that can be done, it is impossible to deny that the want of liberty and variety in large institutions where the children are kept without any change of scene for several years is not the best atmosphere for encouraging physical development. {b) As to the Moral Development of the Children. Large schools do not appear to have any deteriorating influence on boys in this respect, but as regards girls the evidence on this point is conflicting. The Poor Law Schools Committee have never shown their bias against large schools more than in the paragraphs of their Report which deal with the question. 3 Miss Whitworth and Miss Townsend, the honorary secretaries of two branches of the M. A. B. Y. S., and Dr. Barnardo are the only witnesses whose evidence was considered as worthy the attention of the Committee. Thus they find the follow- ing to be the list of the faults which specially characterise girls brought up in large schools : " Rudeness, sullenness, violence, destructiveness, carelessness, idleness, obstinacy, and a curious ignorance of common things." The sullenness and obstinacy are specially described as " intense." Further, they " do not for a time respond to kindness " ; " have very little affection " ; " are generally helpless without personal supervision, and leave their places for bad temper, dirty habits in their work and person, laziness, dishonesty." The statement of Dr. Barnardo, who regards " barrack schools as an unmixed evil," that " very few will come from Poor Law institutions who have not been apparently more 1 Evidence before Poor Law Schools Committee, p. 323. 2 See Poor Law Schools Committee's Report, p. 163. 3 Report, pp. 12, 13. District and Separate Schools 1 1 5 or less contaminated," is accepted as unquestionable. There is nothing in what the Committee report on the question which would not lead the ordinary reader to suppose that the girls who were sent out from Poor Law Schools were very devils. 1 That anyone not carried away by prejudice or preconceived ideas, or who has had to do with the girls referred to, would endorse such accusations, is inconceivable. The evidence to the contrary is positively startling. The Committee preferred Miss Whitworth's and Miss Townsend's evidence to that of the secretary of the M. A. B. Y. S. We, on the contrary, prefer Miss Poole's, and, although the Committee took no notice of results, we have done so. 2 If, indeed, the girls were such little devils as they are described to be, how is it that so few of them do badly in after life, considering the class from which they are drawn? Nor does the Committee take any note of the success of the M. A. B. Y. S. in its noble work. Thus, in her first return Mrs. Nassau Senior could only classify out of 490 girls from the Poor Law Schools who were in service during 1871 and 1872 forty-six per cent, as "good or fair." In 1895, some twenty years later, the M. A. B. Y. S. could classify as such ninety- one per cent, in a total number of 3654 girls. 3 The method of classification, too, has not been altered. 4 Mrs. Nassau Senior included under " fair " such cases as the following : 1. "Honest, truthful, but sullen; very good needlewoman, but did not know much of housework. The girl was very unsatisfactory in her last place, but has improved. 2. " Much improved. At first was untruthful and pilfered ; could do laundry work and common scrubbing when she came, but hardly any housework ; no cooking ; could not pare a potato. 3. " Very bad temper j not truthful, but hard-working ; willing and tolerably clean. Her mistress does not at all despair of her as she is improving." Then, as to the standard of comparison, Miss Poole considers that the public hardly judge the girls fairly. " The girls should be com- pared with the same class who have not passed through the Poor Law Schools, not with ideal young servants." 5 Judged by this standard, Miss Poole's evidence goes to show how the mistresses who take this class of girl prefer those from the Poor Law Schools to local girls. In Lambeth 1 It will perhaps be observed that the girls have escaped the charge of immorality. The schools should therefore at least be credited with turning out moral girls. 2 See ante, p. 91, and post, p. 361. 3 See a letter from "A Subscriber" in the Guardian newspaper, November 4, 1896. 4 Miss Poole, indeed, says the standard has been raised. "We never lower it, we intend to raise it. " (Evidence, p. 156.) 5 Evidence, p. 147. ■ FTHE *K 3ITY n6 Children under the Poor Law the agent of the M. A. B. Y. S. says that " the school girls keep their places best, and the mistresses decidedly prefer school girls." The special virtue of the school girls is that they are more truthful and cleaner and neater than locals, and pay their debts for clothes and lodging far better, and their failings are that they are apt to be dull and mechanical when first placed out. In the Holborn branch the agent has worked for ten and a half years, and has had 200 girls under her care. She thinks the local girls keep their places best, and the mis- tresses prefer local girls. She thinks the special virtue of school girls is gratitude, and that their failing is temper. In the Islington branch the agent has worked ten years, and had 1200 school girls under her care. She thinks the school girls keep their places best, and that the mistresses decidedly prefer school girls. The special virtues of the school girls are that they are more industrious and honest than local girls, and cleaner and neater, and their failings are temper and untruthfulness. In the Chelsea branch the agent has worked nineteen years ; she has had 300 school girls under her care. She thinks there is no difference between school girls and local girls as to the way they keep their places, and the mistresses have no preference as to which girls they engage. She thinks the school girls attend service on Sunday better, and are more steady and obedient. Their principal failing is temper, but many are very nice girls. 1 It would occupy too much space to give Miss Poole's evidence on the point in full; 2 but anyone who wants to arrive at the whole truth of the matter must not rely on the Report alone, which absolutely ignores all Miss Poole's evidence on this head. But did we choose to pick out many of the epithets applied by the agents of the M. A. B. Y. S. to Poor Law Schools girls, we might describe them as " truthful, clean and neat, grateful, industrious, honest, steady, obedient, docile, affectionate, well-behaved, teachable, proud of their schools and anxious to do them credit, self-controlled, chaste, willing and anxious to do well." The one great defect they seem to suffer from is temper, and if it were not for this defect their combination of the qualities of the devil and the angel would make them " nice " girls, as, indeed, we believe them to be. And even as regards temper and the charge of untruthfulness made against them, we find that " local " girls, as might naturally be expected, have the same failings. 3 Another witness 4 says, " I have been a worker among the poor since 1 Miss Poole's Evidence, p. 149. 2 We have given a summary of it at p. 361, post. 3 See Miss Poole's Evidence, p. 150. 4 See Miss Thompson's Evidence, pp. 275-276, District and Separate Schools 1 1 7 I was eighteen years of age, and I certainly think that the results in after life of the girls in the pauper schools compare wonderfully with those who have been brought up in their own homes. I know there are difficulties. The greatest complaint I hear is that the children have bad tempers. I think that is quite accounted for. It is what we should naturally expect ; it is simply the development of the germs from their wretched parentage. I think it is only another form of the low, common, rowdy girl that we see about in our back courts ; that is another form; it develops in that way when they have not been in school j it develops in another way when they come to these small places, and I think the difficulty is that they have not been tried in the schools as they are in after life. When they first go out to service they only get the small places ; the mistresses are not all that we should desire. They expect a finished servant instead of a child, and the child is not prepared to meet the little difficulties." This witness also thought that these tendencies were inherited in the children, for the schools took the very lowest class of child — that is to say, children who could not get admittance into orphanages and other voluntary insti- tutions, all of which require a certificate of health, and so took the very cream of the children. In consequence, therefore, of the difference of material the comparison of Poor Law children with those of other schools was not fair. We have referred later on (see p. 130) to the Warren Farm Schools 1 at Brighton as an instance of the depauperising effect of the education and training of a large school. The following remarks appeared in a Brighton newspaper in reference to a highly successful and gratifying Christmas meeting in 1882 in which some sixty boys, varying in age from fourteen to twenty-four years, who had been educated at the schools, and who were then earning their own living, took part, and Mr. Holgate quotes them in his 1882 Report. 2 " There are, or have been, those who have questioned the wisdom of providing, and doubted the efficient administration of such institutions as the Warren Farm Schools of this town. All doubts and question- ings would have been removed could those who had them have been present at this gathering. The bright intelligence and contentment seen in the faces, the proof of good hard work manifest in most of the hands, the evident marks of well-being and well-doing borne by nearly all, together with the tokens of self-respect as well as regard for others, which were abundantly manifest, gave clear testimony to the good results which the system, when properly worked, may be made to produce. We say 'when properly worked' because we feel that, 1 The average number of children in these schools (" barracks") is 270. 2 12 L. G. B., p. 106. 1 1 8 Children under the Poor Law for such a result to be arrived at, it is necessary that those who are responsible for the management should be men who know what they have to do, and have the qualifications needful for the doing of it. Such men, when found, are worthy of all consideration ; and, looked at in every light, we think the gathering to which we refer is one on which we may congratulate our fellow-townsmen, and express the hope that it may some day be repeated on a larger scale." It is scarcely necessary to say that the Warren Farm Schools still continue to be well managed, and consequently to produce good results. Thus Mr. Davy in his latest Report 1 says: "At schools like Brighton, where the superintendent is not only capable, but constantly anxious to do the best he can for the children, and where the Guardians spare no trouble, there are many more appli- cations from mistresses for girls than can be supplied, and the school committee are in this way able to make a strict selection of the most promising places. About half the boys join the army and navy bands, and of these a certain proportion go to Kneller Hall to be trained as bandmasters. The only possible explanation of these facts is that the children receive a careful industrial training, which puts them into a position superior to that of the children of independent labourers, so far as earning their own living is concerned. If regard is had to the fact that the pauper children are mostly badly bred, badly treated in infancy, and often severely handicapped by the misconduct of their relations, this result goes far to prove that whatever improvements may be possible in details, no sudden and violent change in existing methods is necessary." Miss Mason, although a great advocate for boarding-out under the proper supervision of committees, has also a good word for Poor Law Schools. "As showing that in some at least of the Poor Law Schools children are happy and kindly treated, I may mention that two Lambeth girls, who had been boarded-out for more than two years in an excellent home, were, with their foster-parents' concurrence, saving up their pennies in order to re-visit the Norwood Schools, where, they told me, they had been so happy. They wished especially to see the matron, to whom they were much attached." 2 That girls, much more than boys, require watching and befriending during their early years of service after leaving Poor Law Schools may be admitted, but nowadays there are so many societies and ladies who take an interest in them that the failures are comparatively few. We agree with Mr. Birkby that "given fair play, and treated as human beings, our" (Poor Law School) "girls will, and do, make excellent servants," whether they be educated and trained at Swinton, or in any 1 25 L. G. B., p. 174. 2 20 L. G. B., p. 307. District and Separate Schools 1 1 9 other large Poor Law School. Considering the class to which the large majority of them belong, however their physical development may be affected, their moral qualities rather improve than deteriorate in a " barrack " school, if it be well managed. (1) As to the Mental Development of the Children. Under this head the Departmental Committee say : " We have received abundant evidence to show that children, when housed together in large numbers, suffer from mental dulness, and are not as apt and intelligent as other children." "When it is remembered that the wisest system of education has for its object the development of individual tastes, capacities, and interests, it becomes evident that the instruction of the scholars in these large establishments is carried on under unfavourable conditions." This "abundant evidence" is that of Miss McKee, Dr. Warner, Miss Brodie Hall, and Dr. Littlejohn. Miss McKee has for some years been one of the managers of the Marylebone Union School at Southall. The Committee, referring to only seven of her 350 answers, 1 quote her as a lady who, having had opportunities of comparing Poor Law children with others, "thinks that the Poor Law children are of poorer stamina than others, and although they have the advantage of better sanitary conditions at the schools, and a better dietary, the fact that at the schools the children have everything done for them, and that there is less activity in their life, accounts for the absence of mental alertness. They are apt to become dull and wooden, and the girls are very slow in everything they do." Here the Report stops, and neglects to mention the fact that Miss McKee qualified this last statement, partly accounting for this dulness 2 "that they (the girls) know that they have never done work, and that directly they have done one task another is set for them," but that the Schools Committee had "made an alteration in the last six months" (#.*., since July, 1894), "and the girls have an hour or two in the evening for themselves, so that the sooner they have done their work the more time they will have to themselves." Nor does the Report tell us that Miss McKee also said " the number of teachers and managers is sufficient to enable them to give some individual attention to the children; they are able to look after them, and to study their different characters and treat them accordingly, instead of treating them en masse." 3 Nor does the Report state that Miss 1 Evidence, 7962-7968. 2 Ibid., p. 287. Question 7968. 3 Ibid, Question 7779. 120 Children wide}' the Poor Law McKee is in favour of the very kind of school that Southall is, 1 where these " dull " children are alleged to be produced, 2 actually preferring them to cottage homes of twenty to twenty-five children. Nor does it mention that in spite of this "dulness" Miss McKee states that in the Reports from the M. A. B. Y. S. on the Southall girls, the schools were second best of all the schools, that fairly good places were found for them, and that some of them have stayed two or three years in their places; that when they are servants they go on writing to the matron, and come and pay her a visit in the holidays ; that there is an affectionate relation between the girls and the schools; that there is a treat in the summer at the schools, to which they are invited, and to which all those who can be spared come; 3 that when they leave school nearly all of them, except those that are defective in mind, can write a nice letter, nicely written and fairly spelled. 4 Such little incidents as these are not important enough for the Departmental Committee to mention. Then we come to Dr. Littlejohn. On his answers to two questions 5 out of 239 is founded the following state- ment in the Report : " The tendency of large schools is to make the children 'rather morose, sullen, and obstinate.' They cannot be individualised, but are apt to run in one groove, and those who enter the school with marked characteristics lose them little by little, and tend to become like the other children." 6 It is not mentioned that Dr. Littlejohn does not think it produces dulness so much, and with regard to the girls being rather morose, sullen, and obstinate, we will give the whole question and answer. "490. (Mr. Mundella.) 'You said the tendency was to make them grow in one groove, mechanical?' — 'I did not use the word "mechani- cal," I said the tendency was to run them all into one mould ; as to the influence on their characters, among the girls up to within recent years, there was a most marked tendency to make them sullen — rather morose, sullen, and obstinate. But at that time I should say the girls were not treated in the same way that they are being treated now. I?i recent years the alteration in discipline and treatment has been such that the girls are very much better than they used to be as far as temper goes." 7 After such a striking instance of the bias of the Report, we do not think we shall be required to go into Miss Brodie Hall's and Dr. Warner's statement on the subject, or into any more of the abundant 1 The Southall schools have on an average from 315 to 340 children, although they could accommodate 390. (Evidence, p. 282.) 2 Evidence. Question 7791. But Miss McKee would like the children sent to the Board Schools outside. 3 Ibid. Questions 7956-7960. 4 Ibid. Question 7976. 5 Ibid. Questions 430, 490. 6 Report, p. 12. 7 The italics are our own. District and Separate Schools 121 evidence, etc., which is contained in the answers to twelve questions only out of 17,566 ! It is quite clear that this alleged " dulness " need not necessarily be inherent in large schools, if the girls are not kept in them too long. Then Miss Lidgett tells us that before they introduced more life into the Leavesden Schools she observed a good deal of dulness and discontentedness in the children, and that when she visited the Roman Catholic School at Totteridge, where they kept a good many of the girls till they were sixteen, she noticed the same expression of countenance which the girls used to wear at Leavesden when she first visited the schools fifteen years ago. 1 She did not consider that the amount of work that the girls in the schools had to do either depressed them physically or made them dull or nervously timid. On the contrary they always seemed happy while there. 2 That there must be a certain loss of individualisation in large schools is indeed apparent ; that the physical, moral, and mental development of the children are rendered the more difficult the larger the school is, we would not deny for a moment. Aggregation of children in great numbers in large barrack-like buildings cannot be good for them. All we have tried to show is that Guardians and school managers, working with voluntary associations for the after care of the children, have tried to minimise undoubted evils, and that success has attended their efforts. It is a pity that these efforts should have met with so little acknowledgment from a Committee which, according to Mr. Brooke Lambert and Mr. Vallance, drew the greater part of its recommendations from con- ditions already existing in Poor Law Schools. 3 (5) The System is a Costly One. The earlier supporters of district schools urged in their favour that they would be economical, principally on the ground that it would be less expensive to educate and train a large number of children in one institution than small numbers in many institutions. But when they wrote thus the practice of sending children from country workhouses to public elementary schools was not much in vogue, nor indeed recom- mended on account of the backward state of national education at the time, while boarding-out was hardly known. The battle then was between workhouse (or small) schools and district or separate (large) schools. There could not be the least doubt that the latter system was the least expensive, if the education and training which could be given in the large schools were taken into consideration. And Mr. TufnelPs arguments were at the time, 4 indeed, perfectly sound. Almost all the 1 Evidence, p. $3- 2 Ibid., pp. 57-58. 3 Report, p. 174. 4 Ante, p. 84. 122 Children under the Poor Law expert opinion was on his side, 1 and the defects which Mrs. Nassau Senior and Dr. Nettleship pointed out in 1874 were not foreseen. While there cannot be the least doubt that the education and industrial training given to pauper children, and especially to boys in large schools, was for many years a great deal better than they would receive under other conditions, and that it has had a depauperising effect, it is questionable whether, now that national education has so much im- proved, these large schools are necessary. An idea of the cost of the different systems is given in the Report of the Departmental Committee On Metropolitan Schools as follows I 2 Average Cost a year per Child. £ s. d. Metropolitan Schools ..... 29 5 6 Sheffield Scattered Homes .... 15 12 o< Certified Homes (normal children) 15 12 „ „ (special cases) .... 18 4 Boarding-out ... 13 6 8 * The cost is really considerably greater. See post, p. 165. But the question of cost is not the determining factor as to what system is best, and although " barrack " schools are condemned, the still more expensive system of " cottage homes " is supported by very strong arguments, and is probably the system best suited for large centres of population. Boarding-out is undoubtedly a cheap way of dealing with pauper children, and a good one when properly supervised, but it can only deal with certain classes of children, and the rest must be provided for by means of institutions of some kind. (6) The System Favours Outbreaks of Infectious Diseases. Mrs. Nassau Senior, while admitting that the low death-rate at the Metropolitan pauper schools, as compared with the death-rate among the street children of large towns, 3 told well for the care bestowed on the children in the schools, said that the fact remained that these children were subject to constant ophthalmia and skin diseases. These, as well as other infectious diseases, are, of course, 1 See 22 P. L. B., pp. 123-124, where Mr. Bowyer comes to the same conclusion as Mr. Tufnell. Workhouse schools were undoubtedly kept alive and the Guardians led to resist the pressure put upon them to establish district schools by the Parlia- mentary grant made for the payment of the salaries of teachers. Mr. Wodehouse and others, who also advocated district schools, hoped that this grant would be with- drawn, and the money spent on the building of those schools. See 21 P. L. B., p. 104. 2 Report, p. 159. 3 For the evidence of this see 22 P. L. B., pp. 116, 117 ; 2 L. G. B. } p. 86; 3 L. G. B. t p. 225 (note) ; 19 Z. G. B. } p. 164. District and Separate Schools 123 encouraged where all kinds of children are massed together in one large building, for when by accident or neglect an unhealthy child is introduced into such a school it may be the means of its infecting the other children. This danger was early recognized by the Central Authority, and the attention of Metropolitan Boards of Guardians and school managers was directed to it in two circular letters of the 3rd December, 1873. 1 It is quite certain that if the precautions mentioned in these letters are taken there will be very little risk in having a considerable number of children in one building. In regard to ophthalmia, the example of the Anerley Schools shows that it is not necessarily inherent in large schools. Mr. Tufnell refers to the outbreak of this disease in 1872, which was caused entirely by defective industrial and sanitary arrangements. 2 These defects were remedied, 3 with the consequence that in only one year since then (1885) has there been any further outbreak of the disease. 4 The outbreak of 1885 was "owing to the reception of an infant into the probationary wards, who, on its arrival, was not observed to have diseased eyes, but who, in less than a week, communicated the disease to forty other children." Since then no child is allowed to be admitted into the schools which shows any sign of a tendency to eye mischief. Such children are returned to the infirmaries of the Union to which they are chargeable. This plan, joined to most careful administration, has been successful in entirely protecting the schools from ophthalmia since that time. 6 The Swinton Schools, near Manchester, afford another example of how preventible these outbreaks of ophthalmia are. Mr. Birkby, the superintendent, describing the health of the children generally, says : " It is an 1 3 Z. G. B. t pp. 2, 3. These circular letters are set out in Appendix D, p. 404. 2 2 L. G. B. t p. 85 ; and also by overcrowding. 3 While the schools were being put into a sanitary state, between 300 and 400 of the worst cases of ophthalmia were transferred to a separate building in White- chapel, the managers of the schools carrying out the suggestion "with very great energy and loyalty." (Evidence of Dr. Bridges before the Departmental Com- mittee, Q. 635.) 4 See 4 L. G. £., p. xxv. Dr. Bridges' evidence before the Departmental Com- mittee. (Q. 635.) Probation wards were established in which every child coming in was very carefully examined, and a rule was made that no child with any degree of ophthalmia, however slight, was to be allowed to enter the school. It was to be kept elsewhere. {Ibid.) Mr. Nettleship, who has always favoured the separation and treatment of all ophthalmic children (whether admitted from without the schools or from within) in one or more isolation or quarantine schools, referred in his exhaustive Report on Ophthalmia in 1874 to the Anerley Schools as having then a better prospect of permanent freedom from the disease than other schools on account of their improved structure and regime. 6 Report of Departmental Committee, p. 23. 124 Children under the Poor Law interesting fact that for fifteen months there was not a single death in the Swinton Schools, and that in twelve months, with 700 children in the schools, there were only an average of 2^5 cases of ophthalmia and 0*25 cases of itch under treatment per week. The Medical Officer (Mr. W. F. O'Grady, l.r.cp.) has had fifteen years' experience in these schools. The quarantine is strictly observed, children remaining in the ward a fortnight before being drafted into the schools." But, in spite of the greatest vigilance, there is always the possibility of outbreaks of infectious disease in large schools, and there can be no doubt that the greater the aggregation of children, the greater is the risk of any disease spreading. Still, whether the schools be large or small — whether arranged on the " barrack," " cottage home," or "detached home" systems — the same precautions will have to be observed, and by getting rid of the "barrack" schools it does not by any means follow that " ophthalmia " will be got rid of, for probably the majority of the children who come under the control of the Guardians are predisposed to this and other diseases by the nature of their home surroundings. It is, of course, beyond our power to deal fully with this question of ophthalmia. Voluminous reports have been written on the subject, to which we must refer those who wish to know more about it. 1 The worst outbreaks of infectious disease in large schools seem in most cases to have been caused by overcrowding. Mr. Tufnell was fully alive to this danger, and attributed many of the objections made to large schools to this cause. He said, "If we put 1000 children into an establishment fitted only for 800, of course difficulties immediately arise, owing to the increased numbers. This has actually been the case in several of the large London schools during the past year (1869). They have been overcrowded," and hence complaints of the aggregation of large numbers, which would never have occurred if no school had contained more children than that for which it was built." 2 This defect is a serious one, and the tendency of the London Boards of Guardians has been hitherto to overcrowd the schools. The reason is mainly an economical one. "In the case of a work- house the Guardians cannot draw from the common poor fund any sum in excess of their certificate, but in the case of schools they are 1 Notably Mr. Nettleship's Report, 4 Z. G. B., p. 55; Dr. Bridges' Reports, 3 Z. G. B., p. 210, and 19 Z. G. B., p. 161 ; and Dr. Mouat's Report, 3 Z. G. B., p. 232. Dr. Stephenson's Report (1897) gives the latest particulars. 2 22 P. L.B., p. 116. District and Separate Schools 125 entitled to charge the whole of the maintenance of the children in these schools irrespective of the certificate, so that there is every inducement to Guardians to remove them from the workhouse." 1 Of course, the practice acts by no means economically, because overcrowding not only favours outbreaks of disease, but also, if an outbreak does occur, renders it much more difficult and costly to prevent the disease spreading than at ordinary times. We should have expected some suggestion from the Departmental Committee as to how this overcrowding was to be prevented, but all the advice given is (1) " that the minimum cubic space " (now laid down as three hundred feet) "allowed for each child be increased," and (2) "that such minimum space be further and progressively increased with any increase in the number of children aggregated in one dormitory." 2 But as the Committee also recommend that "the existing schools be not enlarged," 3 and "that the numbers for which they are at present certified be considerably reduced," the question arises what is to be done with the surplus children? Are they to be left in the workhouse? The only answer we get from the Committee is, " Establish the new Central Authority we ask for, and everything will be arranged." But there are many people keenly interested in the question who are not thus willing to give a "blank cheque" to such an amount to a new authority, the constitution of which is left so much in the dark. We can only hope that the earnest attention of the Guardians will be directed to the important matters of overcrowding and sufficient ventilation. But although the system is liable to all these defects they are by no means inherent in it, nor impossible to remedy, and taking the system at its worst, it cannot be denied that it has had a depauperising effect. The evidence on this point is particularly strong. As early as 1869 Mr. Tufnell reported that it was "a very rare circumstance for any child brought up in these large pauper schools to fail to maintain an independent livelihood when launched into the world," and he said that he had " ascertained that not four per cent, of those reared in these establishments fail to become independent work- people." 4 1 Evidence of Dr. Dowries before the Departmental Committee (Q. 8763). 2 Report, p. 20. 3 Ibid., p. 16. 4 22 P. L. B., p. 114, and 23 P. L. B., p. 209. Mr. Tufnell prints several most interesting letters in his Report for 1873 in illustration of his statement, which he again emphasises. See 3 L. G. B., p. 245. 126 Children under the Poor Law All the evidence from that time to the present proves the same thing. When the children come to grief, after they have been launched into the world, it is either because they have not been long enough in the schools to benefit by the education and training given there, or because they have got demoralised parents and relations who induce them to abscond from their situations, or who plunder them, or in some way allure them to crime and destitution. 1 Thus, in the Annual Report for 1880 of the managers of the North Surrey District Schools, it is stated "that in the very few cases where failure has occurred in girls placed in service from these schools, it is more frequently found amongst those who have entered the schools at or above the age of thirteen years, as in such cases a year, or at most a year and a half, is all the training they get in the school, and this is not enough first to eradicate the evil learnt previously, and then to inculcate sound principles in its place." 2 But the failures are very few in proportion to the numbers of children turned out each year. Thus, from the Marylebone separate school at Southall ninety- seven boys and forty-one girls were sent out to industrial employment during the three years ended 1869, viz. : Fifty-seven boys for regimental bands : two of whom are dead, and the rest are doing well, two of them being under instruction of the Training School for Bandmasters at Kneller Hall. Eleven for domestic service : six of whom remain in that kind of employment, one is otherwise employed and doing well, one is living with an uncle, one has been returned to the schools, and two have been lost sight of. Thirteen as apprentices to various trades : eleven of whom continue in their situations, one has left and been lost sight of, and one is dead. Twelve as sailors : eleven of whom are following that calling, and one has returned to join his mother. Four to their friends : who are bringing them up to some business. Forty-one girls have been sent to domestic service, and two are serving as pupil teachers; of these thirty are known to be doing well in service, seven are now with their friends, three are now in servants' Homes, and one is in the workhouse. 3 "Again, the Portsea Island School, which contains (1869) 500 children, has sent out during the last eight years (1861 to 1869), 171 into the Royal Navy, and 119 into the Army, mostly as band 1 23 P. L. B., p. 207. 2 See 11 L. G. B., p. 132. 3 22 P.L.B., p. 115 note. District and Separate Schools 1 2 7 boys, and by a late inquiry it appeared that only one of that number was in the workhouse, and that was owing to the loss of a leg." 1 Again, instancing the Marylebone schools at Southall, Mr. Tufnell says : "During the past three years (1869-1872) 166 children have left these schools, and of these three boys are now receiving parish relief, and who may, therefore, be deemed failures. This is less than two per cent., no unsatisfactory outcome from any educational establish- ment. I have made special inquiry into the causes of these failures and I annex the result : " One is a French boy, son of an ill-conditioned mother ; he entered the school at twelve years of age, thoroughly demoralised, and was only eight months in the school. " The next was a boy who entered the school at the age of fifteen. He was apprenticed to a trade, but owing to the influence of his mother, a woman of the worst character, he lost his situation, and was obliged to take refuge in the workhouse. "Both of the above are examples of the common occurrence in this class of children being ruined by their parents. "The third failure was an imbecile boy, who is now removed to the Leavesden Asylum for Imbeciles." 2 Mr. Tufnell further notes as a remarkable fact that in January, 1873, there was not a single girl in the Marylebone Workhouse who had been in the workhouse schools. 3 In 1880 Mr. Bowyer writes as follows of the Hoxne and Hartismere Union School : 4 " Having inspected this school for thirty years, I can bear my testi- mony to the fact that there has never been any prevalent disease in it, and that the children have always been the healthiest I have seen, though it was, in the earlier part of my official connection with it, nearly as crowded with children from the Hartismere Union alone as it now is with the addition of those from the Hoxne and Guiltcross Unions. I think, therefore, that I may reasonably expect it to maintain its character for healthiness, especially as it is admirably managed by the present head-master and mistress. The building has been somewhat improved by a partial alteration, but it still continues to be substantially nothing but an old, rough farm-house, with small windows and whitewashed walls, a small and dark schoolroom, whose ceiling of rough boards and beams is only ten feet above a floor of coarse bricks, worn uneven by constant use. The instruction of the children and the management of the establishment are entrusted to a master and mistress, who are in every respect suited to the duties they have to perform, as they make the best of the difficulties occasioned by the imperfections of the building, instead of complaining of them and making them an excuse for shortcomings in regard to 1 23 P. L. B., p. 207. 2 2 L. G. B., p. 83. 3 Ibid. 4 gL.G.B., p. 204. 128 Children under the Poor Law instruction. The boys are taught shoemaking, and agriculture by a man who has been there as long as I can remember, and the girls laundry work, etc., by a woman who is also an old officer. I am convinced that this humble establishment has done as useful a work in rescuing the children educated in it from pauperism, as if it had been built in a more costly manner, and lavishly provided with all the conveniences to be found in the newest district schools. I believe, indeed, that a certain degree of roughness and a certain amount of inconvenience in the arrangement of such schools (especially in an agricultural district) is a better preparation for the duties of a labourer or artisan, and for those of their wives, than the theoretically more perfect appliances so much in vogue." These schools are now generally in about the same state as described by Mr. Bowyer, although there have been some structural additions to the laundry, etc., since. It continues to train the children in a some- what similar way, but the number of them has been considerably reduced from ioo in 1879 to 36 at the present time. "The children turn out, as a whole, very favourably, seldom returning unless it is to pay a holiday visit to their former master and matron, the latter of whom has held office for nearly thirty years." 1 Mr. Wyndham Holgate, in his Report for 1883, gives a complete list of the boys and girls sent out as apprentices and servants from the separate schools of the Westminster Union during five years ended September 30th, 1882. The total number was 81. Of these seven had been lost sight of, and only one girl could not be classed as satis- factory. The matron had an appointed day when all the girls could meet at the schools again, and at such times she was much interested to note their general respectable appearance and to hear of their experiences of life away from the schools. 2 The latest Parliamentary Return 3 showed that out of 38,000 inmates of London workhouses on June 1st, 1896, only 435 had been educated in pauper schools, while out of these 435, 232 were there from causes beyond their own control. The opponents of large schools, however, seem to ignore all the evidence in their favour. Thus Mr. Mozley in his Report for 1872 4 refers to Miss F. Davenport Hill speaking in her book entitled the Children of the State, of the ruin of the girls proceeding from the 1 From information kindly supplied to me by Mr. John Bond, Clerk to the Hartismere Board of Guardians (26th Nov., 1896). 2 12 L. G. B., pp. 99-104. 3 Lord War k worth's Return of the 22nd July, 1896, confirming that of Mr. Lockwood. 4 2 L. G. B., p. 93. The interesting statistics printed periodically by the Liverpool Select Vestry relating to the children who leave the schools, show how unfounded are the charges which Miss Hill made. See 13 L. G. B., p. 124 ; 16 L. G. B., p. 99. District and Separate Schools 129 schools at Kirkdale and Swinton as a result of most lamentable frequency. There is, at the present time, not a tittle of evidence to sup- port such a sweeping charge, nor, according to Mr. Mozley, was there in 1872, and he calls on those who believed that that was the case to bring positive material evidence in proof of their assertions. For his own part he was "compelled to disbelieve the alleged fact, otherwise than as an exceptional phenomenon." He then brings forward evidence to show that, as regards Kirkdale, it was the rarest exception for a girl sent out from the Kirkdale Schools to go on the streets or to return to the workhouse to be confined of an illegitimate child, and says that Miss Hill's accusation had occasioned special inquiry at the time, and that no truth could be found to exist in it. He has no reason to doubt that the same could be said with regard to the Swinton Schools. That the statistics should show such favourable results is the more remarkable when it is considered how small a proportion of the chil- dren in large schools remain there for any time. In a paper read by Mr. Birkby, the superintendent of the Swinton Schools, before the North- Western Poor Law Officers' Association in 1896, he states that out of 700 children in the schools at the time he wrote, 441 had been in the school one year or less, 94 for two years, 53 for three years, 40 for four years, 38 for five years, 12 for six years, 14 for seven years, 4 for eight years, and 4 for nine years; in other words, only four children had been in the school for the generally-accepted term of school-life. These statistics are not compatible with the sup- position that the children stay long enough in the schools for the formation of a trained, industrious, and orderly character, and yet large schools are held responsible for every failure in the case of the children sent to them. So, in an interesting analysis of the children in the Sheffield detached workhouse school in 1885, 1 Mr. Mozley shows how the Guardians could really only be held responsible for the future of 114, or about a quarter of those children who had gone out into the world during five years. But of these 114, twenty-two were present at only one of his inspec- tions, so that he concluded that they cannot have been more than one year in the school. "But," he asks, "if one of these twenty-two children were to turn out badly, would it not be very rash to consider the Guardians of the Poor Law system chargeable with the unfortunate result? Yet any inquirer who looked into the matter technically, and considered as a ' worthless child ' any child whom the Guardians had 1 The children now attend the Public Elementary Schools, and the Isolated Homes have been established. 130 Children under the Poor Law sent out to service, would regard these twenty-two as precisely on the the same footing as all the rest." 1 Mr. Holgate draws attention to the fact that in the Warren Farm Schools near Brighton, nearly 500 children had been sent out from the schools during the ten years ending 1890, and that no case of serious misconduct or dishonesty in any boy or girl who had left the schools with a good character and recommended by the superintendent, was known. Not only was this the case, but the applications for servants had been nearly ten times more numerous than the number qualified, as the girls were much sought after for their excellent training and integrity, 2 and this is still the case in these well-managed schools. In 1 89 1 the superintendent of the Islington Schools reported to Mr. Holgate that an unusually large number of old girls had visited the schools during 1890, all of whom were doing well. 3 The superintendent of the Leavesden Schools also reported in the same year that several girls in service, who had been classed in previous reports as "unsatisfactory" or "lost sight of," had been heard of during 1890 as having amply redeemed their unsatisfactory character, and as now " doing well." He adds that he could not trace a single instance of a girl educated in the schools as being then in the workhouse. 4 From the ladies who visited the girls sent to service from the Brentford Union Schools, came the following satisfactory report : "Considering that our girls are not picked cases we think we may be thankful for the results, and we can point not only to many girls individually with pride and pleasure, but to several characteristics among them generally, as honesty and openness, neatness in dress, and willingness to be kept at home in the evenings, efforts to save money, habits of regular church-going, and in many cases of attendance at the Holy Communion." 5 In the Bethnal Green Schools the demand for girls for service greatly exceeded the supply. 6 Indeed, there never seems to be any difficulty in finding places for the girls in the case of any one of the schools. In a recent discussion at the Derby Board of Guardians it was stated that the career of fifty-two boys who had been sent out during the ten years, and that of forty-two girls who had been sent out during the fifteen years preceding 1896, had been traced. Of the fifty-two boys four had turned out badly, six had been lost sight of, and forty-two were known to be doing well. Of the forty-two girls one was dead, three 1 15 L. G. B., p. 40. We give some further statistics on the point in Chapter xii., pp. 315, 316. 2 20 L. G. B., p. 296. 3 Ibid., p. 289. 4 Ibid., p. 291. 5 Ibid., p. 294. 6 Ibid., p. 286. District and Separate Schools 131 had been lost sight of, while the other thirty-eight were " doing on the whole uncommonly well." 1 In a letter to the Councillor* Mrs. Kilgour writes as follows : " I have been supplied with particulars of the cases of the unmarried women who have passed through the maternity wards of the Paddington Workhouse in eleven years. The number of cases is 916; of these 446 are grouped together, and the group is described thus : " They are principally girls brought up in London by their parents, relations, or foster-parents, and educated in London Elementary Schools. The exceptions are foreigners, girls who have had no education at all, and a few girls of a higher class. "The next group contains 411 cases 'brought up in the country by parents, relations, and friends, or boarded out.' "There are thirty-nine cases of girls who were brought up in orphanages, convents, and private institutions ; seven brought up in country workhouses, and thirteen brought up in Metropolitan Poor Law Schools. "Thus the whole 916 cases are accounted for. I wish my informant could have told me how many of these unmarried women were more or less feeble-minded." Only 1 "4 per cent, of these women had, therefore, been brought up in Metropolitan Poor Law Schools. There is, further, no reason to suppose that many of our criminals have been educated in Poor Law Institutions. Even in 1873 Mrs. Nassau Senior could only find thirteen out of 685 women in one of the Metropolitan prisons, who had been so educated. 3 The fact that large schools have now to compete with "boarding- out," greatly militates against their efficiency, because where Unions adopt the system the very children who do most credit to the education and training given in the schools, viz., the "permanent" class of orphan and deserted children, are taken away. 4 At the same time judicious boarding-out of children suitable for it, no doubt helps to prevent that overcrowding of the schools which is so dangerous to the health of them. To talk of abolishing the existing schools is foolish. It cannot be done. Even the Departmental Committee do not recommend such a course. The system of isolated houses as carried out at Sheffield could not be generally applied to London. The establishment of a second training ship on the Thames might relieve the pressure on the district schools to some extent. The number of boys who entered the Royal Navy from the Exmouth 1 Derby Mercury, 28th October, 1896. 2 3rd July, 1896. Compare with this the interesting statistics of Mr. J. S. Davy and Mr. Lockwood set out in Chapter ii., p. 66. 3 3 L.G.B., p. 348. 4 See/W, Chapter \ ii. , pp. 205-208. 132 Children under the Poor Law during 1894 was 133. The country wants more men for its navy, and we are glad to see that in Lancashire and Yorkshire, Boards of Guardians are discussing the question of establishing training ships on the Mersey and on the Humber. Those people who talk about abolishing the large schools forget the large number of boys who now form part of our army and navy bands who have been educated and trained in them. They do not know how large a proportion of both boys and girls succeed in after life. If they will study the figures we have given above they may be led to pass a fairer judgment upon the work which these schools have effected. In conclusion, the following description of the Swinton Schools will, we think, be found interesting. It is partly compiled from information kindly supplied to me by its able superintendent, Mr. J. Birkby. 1 The schools are arranged for boys, girls, and infants, the average number of them being 714 in 1896. "The children are admitted from two years of age, and they remain, as a rule, until they attain the age of fifteen or sixteen years. The halls and rooms in the institution are large in area, very commodious, and well ventilated. They consist of spacious entrance hall and museum, containing many objects of interest, utilised for the instruction of the inmates, large schoolrooms for boys and girls, excellent dormitories, lavatories, etc., Protestant and Roman Catholic churches, excellent dining hall, large gymnasium, good store rooms, roomy kitchens, and very good officers' residences. The playgrounds are also very extensive, the infants especially being provided with a field for the purposes of recreation. 2 For general purposes the staff consists of ten certificated teachers, three laundry women, one housemaid, the officers' cook, the master's servant, four nurses, a children's cook, and a dining-hall attendant. For the boys: — A boys' superintendent (out of school), a band and drill master, a tailor, two shoemakers, one farmer with two assistants, a painter, a plasterer, an engineer with two assistants, and a joiner. For the girls: — A superintendent of girls (out of school), a girls' wardrobe keeper, and a sewing mistress with two assistants. For the infants: — One day attendant and one night attendant. Each officer is also a trainer. About thirty of them are resident. As regards dress, the aim is to make it so that the children when out in the village may not be distinguishable from other children of the same class if going singly or in pairs. 1 A most interesting account of this school will be found in the paper read by Mr. J. Birkby before the North-Western Poor Law Officers' Association in 1896. The paper, together with the discussion which took place upon it, has been published in pamphlet form. {Poor law Officers' Journal, 10, Queen Street, Manchester.) 2 Report of Newcastle Deputation, 1894. District and Separate Schools 133 The best comment on the dress was made by a girl, who, when dressed for out of doors, in a straw hat, dark mantle (up to date), etc., said: "Why, we are like outside children." As regards education, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and elementary grammar are taught. Object lessons are given. The infants are taught kindergarten. Drawing (the last Report of the Science and Art Department being "good") and singing (by note) are also taught. Manual training in woodwork is given. The girls are taught the use of sewing and stocking-knitting machines, and the elder ones attend the Manchester School of Cookery. They also do work in the kitchen and laundry, and housemaid's work. The elder boys are taught shoemaking, tailoring, farming, painting, and plastering. Each department of education and training is in charge of a paid officer. (We have already referred to Mr. Mozley's account of the industrial training given at the schools. 1 ) It is also important to note that the girls have to attend to the officers' sitting-rooms and bedrooms, and thus see ordinary sized rooms and become acquainted with house- work. As to games and amusements, there is a large playing field, the outdoor games being cricket, football, handball, hockey, skittles, shuttlecock, skipping-ropes, balls, etc., and the indoor games such as chess, draughts, etc. Concerts and magic lantern entertainments are given from time to time. For the last three years all the children have been taken to the seaside for a day, the cost of which has been defrayed by voluntary subscription. One of the best features of the schools is that to each of the elder boys and girls is given a small plot of ground to lay out and cultivate in their own way, which they generally use half for flowers and half for vegetables. " This year were grown, for example, potatoes, turnips, carrots, beans, etc. When ready the children brought them to the matron, who had them cooked for the child whose produce it was. On the excursion day each child had a button-hole taken from its own garden." As to visiting, the boys and girls have occasionally a day out to visit friends, etc. On holidays those children who are old enough to take care of themselves are allowed to go for walks by themselves in the neighbourhood. The boys, for instance, go to the Ship Canal and other places of interest in the locality. They are allowed to go where they choose so long as they return by a certain hour. This privilege has never been abused. The elder boys see many of the matches played by the local football team. Visiting by friends of the children is allowed every Wednesday and 1 See ante, pp. 89-91. 134 Children under the Poor Law Saturday afternoon. As a rule, the same friends are not expected to come oftener than once a month, but this regulation is not rigidly adhered to. The children write letters to their friends at least once a month as occasion may require. The Schools Committee attend every week, one week for business and the other for visiting. There is no official visiting by ladies, but one of the lady Guardians is very indefatigable in the discharge of her duties, and is of great help in the work of the schools. There is little difficulty in getting boys out to service, although they go off more slowly than formerly. The collieries do not now absorb such a large number of them as they used to do. The demand for girls much exceeds the supply, many applicants having to be refused. The girls are sent from the schools to a training home in the neigh- bourhood for six months, the Guardians paying for their maintenance therein 55. per head per week. The Institution is private, conducted and governed by charitably-disposed ladies. It is principally supported by voluntary contributions. The girls during their training in this Home are sent out to assist in ladies' houses. The Home is in a large residential district. If a girl returns to the schools from a situation she is sent back to the training home. The girls are visited in their situations by one of the lady Guardians, who is a member of the Girls' Friendly Society. 1 The cost of the schools is about 5 J-. $d. per head per week for each child. Finally, from the Report of a deputation from the Newcastle Board of Guardians in 1894 we gather that "the children in the Swinton Schools are well clothed. They are, as a rule, very bright in appear- ance. They are evidently carefully educated and trained, and they have altogether a better appearance and a more contented look than the children in workhouse schools usually present. It is found, however, that the temporary cases, that is to say, children who are taken out frequently, and sometimes for short periods, by their relatives, are very difficult to deal with. Mr. Birkby would solve the difficulty by giving Guardians increased powers of detention. We deal fully with this question in another chapter. 2 We would recommend those who are anxious to know more about the work which is carried on in a large Poor Law School to consult the annual Reports of the schools. For example, we can specially refer them to the Report of the Managers of the Forest Gate District School for the year ended Lady-day, 1897. 1 Report of Newcastle Deputation, 1894. 2 Chapter xii. CHAPTER V. THE "COTTAGE HOMES" AND "ISOLATED HOMES" SYSTEMS Section I. THE "COTTAGE HOMES" SYSTEM. THE " Cottage Homes " system was introduced in order to remedy certain defects which seemed to be ineradicably implanted in the so-called " barrack " schools, and to which we have referred in the preceding chapter. The idea was taken from Mettray. The system is sometimes confused with those of " detached or isolated Homes," and of " boarding-out," but it has little in common with either. It is correctly described as "a little colony of separate homes, substituted for one large residential establishment." 1 The Cottage Homes with their adjuncts, the chapel, the infectious hospital, the class rooms, swimming baths, the playing fields, farm, etc., are, however, situated on one compact area with the same boundary fences and iron entrance gates, as in the case of a "barrack school." The main difference, and a most important one, between them and "barrack schools" is that the children are housed in cottage-like buildings, each cottage being superintended by paid officers of the Guardians, who act as foster parents to the children, and are called " fathers " and " mothers." The boys' cottages are generally placed under the care of a married couple, the husband being as a rule one of the industrial trainers, while the girls' cottages are each superintended by a single woman or widow. The numbers of the children in each cottage vary in the different homes ; for instance, at Banstead there are twenty-six beds in the girls' cottage, and forty beds in the boys' ; and at Hornchurch, Fazakerley, and Marston Green, each cottage has thirty beds. The opinion of the Departmental Committee was that no Cottage Home should contain more than fifteen children, 2 and in the new Homes arranged to be built at Styal (Chorlton Union) there are to be twelve homes of twenty beds each, and four smaller homes of ten beds each. The 1 Report of the Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools, p 101. ■ Report, p. 107. 136 Children under the Poor Law objection which the Departmental Committee had to the system was that it was at best an artificial one. It did not provide a real home, it separated the children from the general population, the inhabitants were too much of the same age, the influence of the foster mother on a child ceased when it left the school, the children could not make friends outside the community, and the officers lived in seclusion away from their friends and relatives. 1 To this objection we might surely reply that the system of " boarding-out," which found so much favour with the Committee, is distinctly artificial, and although we quite admit that it is so in a less degree, yet it is extremely doubtful whether the advantages which the Cottage Homes system offers to the children do not make up for its extra artificiality. The main advantages are (1) the more direct control over the children by the Guardians; (2) the greater facilities for good industrial and physical training; and (3) the certainty that the children will be well fed and cared for. If we are to judge the two systems by " results," we shall find that the children from Cottage Homes succeed in after life at least equally well with those who are "boarded out." The objections to the system are, in short, theoretical, and not practical, and the par- ticular statement that "the influence of the foster mother ceases when the child has left the school " is not supported by facts, as anyone will find who takes the trouble to question the foster parents on the subject. Dr. Clutterbuck, writing in 1886, said that the evidence, so far as it had gone, was entirely in favour of the system. 2 "Thus, in the case of the Cottage Homes of the Neath Union, under the management of an exceptionally able master and matron, there have been sent out -to service, during the period the Homes have been opened (since May, 1878), thirty-three children, twenty-one boys and twelve girls. Of these not one has been returned to the Homes, or decoyed from service by parents or other relatives." The last Report (1896) of the Marston Green Cottage Homes now lies before us. The Homes were among the first to be established, and were erected in 1879, and it is interesting to mark the reason which brought them into being. The Birmingham Board of Guardians began with a workhouse school, but, not content with that, adopted, partially, the boarding-out system, under a certified committee. They contracted (with specific limitations as to control) to place out 150 children, making a statutory payment to the foster parents, the re- sponsibility of selection of suitable homes being left to the certified Boarding-out Committee. However, after a patient investigation of 1 Report, p. 107. a 15 L. G. B. t p. 43. The "Cottage Homes" System 137 results, they decided that their experience of boarding-out had not been such as to justify them in granting facilities for its extension or continuance. Still, the reasons which led them to board out their children, in seeking to remove them from the associations of the workhouse, remained, in spite of failure in that direction, equally strong to induce them to seek an alternative remedy. 1 They, decided to build the now existing and admirably managed Cottage Homes, and have, so far as we know, never regretted that decision. 2 We gather from the Report referred to above that fifty-three boys were sent to service during the three years ended Lady Day, 1896. On forty-eight of these the Sub-Committee of visitors were able to report, the addresses of five only being unknown. Of these five two were known not to be "doing either themselves or their old Homes credit, one getting his living by street hawking, and the other by working at a 'show' which travels the country." Of the forty-eight one had been influenced by his relations to leave his situation, and one was not being well treated by his master, while in another instance the workshop in which lads were working was not considered satis- factory. " In two or three cases we found the boys not doing so well as we should wish." But generally the Sub-Committee were more than satisfied with the way the lads were conducting themselves. "We found most of the boys with P.O. banking accounts, a point on which we made careful inquiry, and many reported themselves as teetotallers and regular in attendance at Sunday School or some other place of worship." 3 As regards the girls, the Ladies' Visiting Committee reported on seventy-four who had been sent to service from the Homes during four years up to 1896, and tabulated the results as follows : Very good, 28 ; fairly good, 22 ; unsatisfactory, 10 ; bad, 2 ; doing well till relatives caused removal, 2 ; lost sight of, 7 ; feeble-minded, 3. The Committee seem to think that better results would be shown if 1 Report of Homes, 1896, pp. 8, 9. 3 Mr. Byam Davies gives an interesting account of these Homes in his Report for 1881. See n L. G. B., p. 139. On the important question of industrial training he says, " I was present the other day at the distribution of prizes, some of which were given for work actually done by the children who are receiving industrial training ; and the specimens exhibited not only reflect the highest credit on the instructors, but would, in many cases, by no means have disgraced grown-up men ; and there can be no doubt that here at least the industrial training is carried on in such a manner as to be a reality." It is quite certain that the industrial training of the Homes is no less efficient at the present time than it was sixteen years ago. 3 Report of Homes, 1896, p. 20. 138 Children under the Poor Law more attention were paid to the special wants of the girls; and as their suggestions seem to us very wise, we will set them out in full, merely remarking that the special training of elder girls is actually carried on not only in other "Cottage Homes" (such as those at Hornchurch), but also in "barrack schools." "We are very anxious to urge on the Committee the need there is to carry out, at as early a date as possible, the arrangements now under consideration for more definite and technical training of the girls before they are sent out to domestic service. We are fully aware that they are brought up in the Homes with such domestic training as is found in the homes of respectable artisans ; but we have a desire that the training they receive should be carried further, so as to fit them for a better class of situation than that to which they have hitherto been sent. We want, as far as possible, that the girls should have at least an equal preparation for the battle of life as that which is so excellently given to the boys. We are of opinion that this may be done by definite general training in domestic subjects under a good teacher, and by special training of elder girls in a cottage set apart for residence of elder girls with such teacher during six months or more, prior to being sent out to service." 1 At Banstead the girls leaving the schools come under the care of the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants, and therefore they have every advantage in starting life that it is possible to give them ; and in the last Report of the Schools 2 it is stated that at the "Coming of Age Festival" of the Association, held at the Albert Hall on July 4th, 1895, twenty-six girls from the schools were among those who received medals for retaining their situations. 3 The boys are looked after by Mrs. Lascelles, and 217 came under her care since 1890. Of these only four were known to be doing hopelessly badly, and five or six had been lost sight of; all the others were doing well when last heard of. 4 Many of the old scholars visit the schools from time to time, and during the three years ended Michaelmas, 1895, these visits had averaged 120 per year. 5 It does not seem, therefore, that these boys and girls considered themselves as affected by the "pauper taint," since evidently they were not ashamed of their connection with the schools. 6 1 Report of Homes, 1896, p. 23. 2 Fifth Report, for three years ended Michaelmas, 1895. 3 See post, p. 298. 4 Evidence of Mrs. Lascelles before the Departmental Committee, p. 252. An account of the work carried on by Mrs. Lascelles is given post, pp. 304-306. 5 Fifth Report of the Homes, p. 33. The fact is also evidence of the good influence exercised by the foster parents and school officers over both boys and girls. 6 A most striking example of this is referred to post, p. 330. The "Cottage Homes" System 139 From the Warrington Union Cottage Homes comes the report that there is a good demand for both boys and girls when they are ready to leave. The boys go out to general trades, and the girls to domestic work, none of them to mill work. These schools were established in 1883, and during the eleven years following only two girls had again become chargeable, while none of the boys came back. Of the West Derby Cottage Homes we hear that not one per cent, of the boys and girls turn out failures. But it is unnecessary to multiply instances. Whatever may be said against the artificial life of Cottage Homes, they are successful in depauperising the children; and when it is considered how much of the material with which they have to deal is bad, the results are most remarkable. On this point the Committee of Management of the Marston Green Cottage Homes write as follows in their last Report (p. 19) : "The Cottage Homes system has difficulties which are common to all systems ; the separation of the children into small households brings into prominence at an early time in the life of the child peculiarities of temper or character as well as those physical and mental imperfections which set them apart from their healthy com- panions. But the feeble child does not get more feeble by reason of this system, or the child of weak intellect more weakly; on the contrary, they, with few exceptions, considerably improve by contact and environment. These handicapped children are, under all systems, the trouble of Committees, and ultimately form the percentage of failures. "That the percentage is so small is an answer to paragraph No. 417 in the Report (of the Departmental Committee) already referred to, which alleges that : " ' At best the system is artificial ; the children have none of the natural interests of ordinary life, and they are unable to learn by witnessing the experience of other people. Owing to the demands of health and economy, these village homes are placed at a con- siderable distance from other centres of habitation, and are necessarily out of touch with the outer world.' " Your Committee offer their favourable experience of sixteen years, during which time numbers of children have been trained for success in honourable pursuits, as the best argument in favour of Village Cottage Homes. It is not true that they are out of touch with the outer world ; the points of contact are numerous ; there is no distinc- tion in dress or otherwise from other children. Where they are under the entire control of the Guardians they escape in early life much of the evil that the touch brings with it. So far as is in the knowledge of your Committee, they are singularly free from evil habits, so common in public schools, and (if letters mean anything) there are evidences of deep and abiding impressions fostered there in many hearts which will influence their lives for good in the best sense." 140 Children under the Poor Law The advantages of Cottage Homes over the aggregated schools are undeniable, and they are set out fully in the Report of the Depart- mental Committee. l These advantages lie (1) in the nearer approach to family life, (2) in the dietary, and (3) in the greater facilities for good industrial training, and (4) in better health results. The Departmental Committee also refer to the greater freedom of life enjoyed by the children in these homes than it is possible to secure in overgrown " aggregated " schools. (1) The Family Life. There is a certain kind of family life : the children in each Cottage Home are of varying ages, the infants (boys and girls) being dis- tributed through the girls' homes, and the little boys being removed at seven years of age to the boys' homes. "When children who have been discharged are re-admitted to the schools, they are returned to the cottage they were in before if there is room for them, and if not, they await the first opportunity of such return. Care is also taken to place brothers and sisters together, subject to the regulation which separates boys and girls at the age of seven." 2 (2) The Dietary. Although we do not think it would be impossible in aggregated schools to arrange for a more economical distribution of food, there can be no doubt that in the Cottage Homes this desideratum is rendered easier of attainment. "The foster mother is supplied with certain quantities (of food) each week, sufficient for the number of the children in the home, and it is left to her judgment to see that the food is properly cooked and distributed among the children." 3 (3) Industrial Training.^ Here again the Cottage Home facilitates the girls learning to do washing and working in the way which will be most useful to them in after life; and as the boys may be put in a cottage with a foster father who is also their teacher in the industrial shop, he has the opportunity of supervising them both there and at home. We have already 5 commented on the effect which the recent Order on "Industrial Training" may have on the industrial training at present given in the large schools. Most of the managing authorities of 1 Report, pp. 102-104. 2 Ibid., p. 102. 3 Ibid. 4 See post, pp. 151-154. 5 Ante, p. 104. The "Cottage Homes" System 141 Cottage Homes are up in arms against it, as it will affect their work most seriously, and, in their opinion, act most disadvantageously for the children. (4) Better Health Results. It is impossible to doubt that where the children in any institution are divided up into small groups the risk of the spread of infectious diseases is much lessened. As Dr. Downes said in his evidence before the Departmental Committee i 1 "If you put ten apples in a barrel, one amongst them being a diseased apple, that diseased apple can only affect nine others. If you have a hundred, the risk is extended to ninety-nine." But, except for the increased risk, we cannot say that the evidence given before the Departmental Committee satisfies us that where the "barrack schools" are properly arranged as to ventilation, and the children have sufficient exercise, they show any worse " health " results than the Cottage Homes. We have already referred to the Swinton Schools as an example of this. 2 Cost of Cottage Homes. The only real objection that we can see to the Cottage Homes system relates to cost, but taking the two London ones, Banstead and Horn- church, the average weekly cost per child, exclusive of loans, is 7 J - . 7 Id. and gs. g\d. respectively, and as the average weekly cost for all the Metropolitan schools is gs. i\d., this question of cost should not prevent Boards of Guardians from adopting the plan wherever possible. The cost of the Marston Green Cottage Homes near Birmingham averages 6s. 6\d. per head (exclusive of capital charges), and the Guardians find it cheaper than maintaining and educating the children in a workhouse school, which they estimate at 75. o\d. per head. From an excellent Report of a Deputation appointed by the Newcastle-on-Tyne Board of Guardians to visit certain provincial separate schools and cottage homes, we extract the following particulars relating to the cost of those schools : 1 Evidence, Q. 8725. 2 Ante, p. 123. Mr. Byam Davies, writing in 1881, tells us that at the Marston Green Cottage Homes only forty-seven children out of 400 had been admitted to the infirmary during the last nine months of that year. " If there is one thing," he continues, " that strikes one more than another on visiting the school, it is the bright and happy appearance of the children." Having visited the Homes ourselves recently, we can say the same, and indeed no visitor can fail to be impressed by the healthy, happy, and contented look of the children. H Children tinder the Poor Law Separate Schools or Cottage Homes. Where Situate. i a 9 < •0 So m t u •* 1 < i 6 °c2 Cost per head per week. Union, Parish, or Township. « C c 111 « y S§0 rSg, IS M J < * Manchester . Warrington . Liverpool West Derby . Birmingham . Chorlton Separate Schools Cottage Homes . Separate Schools Cottage Homes . Cottage Homes . Schools near to Workhouse Swinton Padgate, near Warrington Kirkdale Fazakerley Marston Green Withington . 25 15 43 7 70,000 16,500 1170,000 83,836 41,857 27,200 Children 780 200 740 600 438 300 48 17 86 43 43 19 4 2067 588 3047 1850 2013 965 2 H 2 li 2 8 4 4l 2 10 3 «1 1 8i 2 O 2 II 2 9} 2 6J 2 3 1 9 1 5 t5 3* 1 11J 7* s. d. 5 S 5 4l 7 12 5* 7 3i 6 10 * To these amounts must be added the cost of rations for the indoor officers. || This cost was incurred for buildings which have accommodated 1500 children at one time, as referred to in the report herewith. A considerable section is not now in use. Also the Local Government Board required more space per child. t This amount includes 3s. 6\d. in respect of repayment of loans. In 1886 Dr. Clutterbuck reported as to the cost of the Cottage Homes at Neath and Bridgend, as compared with that of the work- house as follows : x Neath Union. Weekly cost per head. Workhouse. s. d. Food . .34 Clothing . 3| Total 3 71 Homes. s. d. 2 2 5i 2 7£ Bridgend Union. Weekly cost per head. Workhouse. s. d. Provisions . 2 io| Necessaries . 8f Clothing . 5} Total Homes. s. d. 2 3f 4f 31 3 o| The Cottage Homes system has outlived the criticisms to which it was subjected when it first began to attract attention. In an interesting description of the Banstead "village community" 2 Mr. Wyndham Holgate points out the difficulties to be contended with, and, although these difficulties have been overcome, it may be well to quote his remarks on the subject. He wrote in 1881 as follows : "The difficulties which have to be contended with will, in my opinion, be mainly those of expense ; already it is feared that it will be necessary to have a reserve of mothers to supply vacancies in the event of illness, or the many other causes which may even temporarily take the present staff from their post, and, further, it will probably prove impossible to carry out the original intention of doing the laundry work of the whole village in the girls' homes, owing to the small number of girls of sufficient age and strength who can be allotted to this work, if the other industries of cooking, needlework, and household duties are to be duly taught." 1 i$L.G.B.,p. 43. 2 10 L.G.B., p. 193. See also some interesting remarks of Mr. Bowyer on the subject, 9 L.G.B., pp. 205,206. The "Cottage Homes" System 143 And in his Report for 1882 he recurs to the subject i 1 " I cannot but feel that to develop, realize, and maintain to the full extent the object of these schools will require the utmost vigilance of a carefully selected and highly intelligent body of officers as ' fathers ' and ' mothers ' of the various cottages ; for not only have they by religious principle, by consistent firmness and kindness, as well as by habits of diligence, frugality, and neatness to win the love of their 1 families ' to them and their ' home,' but they have also to guard against creating, by these very qualities ; in the child such an attachment to its life in the ' home ' as to make it lose its spirit of independence, and decline to face the battle of life for its daily bread by honest hard work. Mr. Tufnell, in alluding to a proposal suggested some years ago for erecting a school for pauper children above thirteen or fourteen years of age, referred to this danger in the following terms, in which I most fully concur : ' If a pauper school is well managed, the number above thirteen or fourteen will be very small, and it is very undesirable to keep them above these ages, if they are willing and fitted to earn their own living. It is found practically that if a child remains in a pauper school beyond fourteen it is apt to become pauperised in feel- ing, i.e., to like the school better than independence — to be dissatisfied when it gets into employment ; and so to dissatisfy its employers, and to wish to return to the school where everything is found it without trouble or forethought. I believe it to be quite impossible to make any collection of paupers, whether children or adults, self-supporting. It is found to be next to impossible to exact as much work from a boy or girl in school, as when they are in the world earning their own living. The stimulus that they must support themselves or starve is wanting. The danger of these schools always has been lest the children get so accustomed to find everything provided for them, that they become incapable in after life of providing for themselves. At about the age of fourteen they become restless and wishful to go out into the world, and it is very desirable to take advantage of this feeling by supplying them with situations.' " I think these remarks should be especially borne in mind at these schools, in which the domestic work in each cottage is cetainly heavy as compared with the number of children strong enough to undertake it, and the tendency naturally may be to detain the elder children as long as possible in the schools for the purpose of providing for it." Dr. Clutterbuck considered the great danger to the Cottage Homes system was its tendency to become a huge institution, in which the individual was lost in the mass. He wrote on this point in 1887 as follows : 2 " The necessity for the individual training of children in every rank of life cannot be too strongly insisted upon, and this is the one condition of success in after life in the case of a pauper child above all others. A real home in the proper sense of the word supplies this 1 11 L. G. B., p. 129. « 16 L. G. B., p. 105. 144 Children tinder the Poor Law training. No doubt the influence of children upon each other in large numbers is an important factor in education, and the general intercourse and discipline of the playground {under proper and judicious and sympathetic supervision, too often quite ignored) are extemely valuable. But the lessons of the playground should only supplement, not super- sede, the lessons of home. It was the opinion of Dr. Arnold that boys who enjoyed the privilege of a well-regulated home while attending the day school for instruction were of all scholars the most fortunate. " Such is the fundamental conception of the Cottage Home system. It was intended to supply a genuine home to outcasts who knew nothing by experience of that sacred word; but above everything, in the keynote of the system, the home was to be a well-ordered, lovingly disciplined, and model home, in short, not an artificial reproduction of barrack life, or such homes as are only too often found amongst the dwellings of labouring classes — fertile nurseries of vice, disease, and pauperism. The cottage was to be a typical home under a wise and kindly father and loving mother, not a home officered by mere machines ; but a home where children were trained in habits of filial obedience, self-denial, and industry." The above considerations have been borne in mind in the manage- ment of Cottage Homes where they have been established. Thus at Hornchurch, where the Cottage Homes were erected seven years ago, the Guardians very wisely decided to dispense with the machinery of the rules which usually prevail. " In these detached cottages, which contain an average of either thirty boys or thirty girls and infants of both sexes, the former having foster parents at their head, and the latter a foster mother only, the children are reared in ordinary home life, the individuality of each is recognized, their temperaments and sympathies are known, and in the homely up-bringing they receive they quickly acquire self-respect and self-reliance. To cultivate these qualities among destitute children should be the true aim of Poor Law administrators. Nothing demon- strates better the success of the Shoreditch system than the self-relying attitude taken up by the children. On these points the superintendent and the matron exercise particular care, and recognize fully the necessity of encouraging the individuality of the children. The Guardians themselves are not less earnest in this matter. They have carefully avoided anything in the shape of uniform for the children. The girls' dresses and hats, and the boys' suits are first neat and orderly, and then varied in colour and pattern. Each of the picturesque cottages is known by a name, the girls' houses bearing the names of flowers, and the boys' those of eminent men. There are flower and vegetable gardens attached to each, and a pleasant rivalry exists among the youthful cottagers to excel their neighbours in beauty and variety of arrangement." 1 1 Quoted from London, 29th June, 1893. Mr - Wyndham Holgate refers to this article as giving an accurate account of the Cottage Homes. 23 L. G. B., p. 153. The "Cottage Homes" System 145 A very useful plan has been carried out in these Homes of fitting up a separate bedroom in each girls' cottage for the exclusive use of the girl next going to service. It contains a chest of drawers, washstandi dressing-table and glass, two chairs, strip of carpet, and suitable bedstead and bedding. Each girl on attaining to this position is provided with working and afternoon dresses, caps, etc., such as a servant would wear, and is expected to make herself tidy and neat for opening the door to visitors and waiting at table. These arrangements tend to give a girl more self-respect and a sense of personal respon- sibility, and to lead her to keep her room and her clothes clean and tidy when she goes to service. Most of the Cottage Homes are arranged on much the same plan, with certain variations in details. We think we shall be serving the most useful purpose if we describe the latest of these Homes, viz., those at Hornchurch to which we have already referred. Description of the Cottage Homes of the Parish of Shoreditch. These Homes are situated in the country at Hornchurch, Essex, about 1 J miles from the Romford Station. After the dissolution of the Brentwood School District on the 25th March, 1885, the Shore- ditch Guardians had to provide for the accommodation of their children. After a full consideration of the different systems they determined to build their new schools on the Cottage Homes principle. A site was secured by the purchase of an estate of about eighty acres at Hornchurch, upon which were already a house, three cottages and farm buildings, for the sum of ^6300. l The plans and drawings for the Homes, etc., 2 were approved by the Local Government Board on the 9th February, 1887, and an expenditure not exceeding ^51,000 on the erection of them authorised. The Homes consist of eleven cottages, each built for thirty children, a probationary ward with fourteen beds, the superintendent's house, which also contains the committee-room, the swimming baths, gymnasium, the stores, the workshop, the schools, a band-room, lavatories, an infirmary, and two separate infirmary cottages. The buildings are ranged on either side of a broad drive. Each cottage has its own washhouse and garden. Probationary Ward. Here all the children who are sent to the schools are kept for a fortnight before being drafted into the cottages. 1 The total area has been increased since 1885 to eighty-five acres. 2 They are certified to accommodate 337 children plus the infirmary accommoda- tion. The average number of children in the Homes during the year ended Lady-day, 1895, was 343 (199 boys and 144 girls). See 25 L. G. B., p. 503. L 146 Children under the Poor Law There is separate accommodation for the boys and the girls. Some of the children who belong to the " ins and outs " class never get beyond the ward, as during the fortnight their parents may be discharged from the workhouse, when they have to join them again. The ward is under the charge of the porter and portress, who are a married couple and live there. The Cottages. Six of these are for boys over seven years of age, and five for girls and for infants under seven. The girls have thus the advantage of being associated with small children, and have, under the general control of the foster mother, to care for them and wait upon them at meals. In each girls' cottage a single-bedded room is set apart for girls who are about to leave for service. This room the girl who is going out to service occupies for as long a time as possible before leaving, so as to accustom her to looking after and tidying up an ordinary servant's room. It is furnished with the usual bedroom furniture. The elder girls help in cooking the meals in each cottage, and with the assistance of a washerwoman, as in many ordinary house- holds, do all the washing. The girls' cottages are superintended by a single woman or a widow, and the boys' cottages by married couples, the husband being engaged as industrial trainer. The boys also do all the washing of their cottages with assistance, as in the case of the girls. The children work in the cottage gardens in simple kinds of garden work. Three washerwomen or charwomen in all are called in to help in the work of the cottages. The Workshops. These consist of a bakehouse and the several shops of the engineers and mechanics, shoemakers, painters, carpenters, and tailors. All the trainers are resident except the tailor. There is also a needle-room for the girls. The Swimming Bath. This is forty feet long by thirty broad, and all the boys and girls in the school have learnt to swim by the time they leave, if they remain long enough in the schools to do so. The Infirmary. This is entirely shut off from the rest of the premises ; and it is so absolutely isolated from the other buildings that children from the workhouse suffering from affections of the scalp, skin, or eyes are sent to it, without the slightest risk of infection to the permanent inmates of the Homes. Serious infectious diseases, such as scarlet fever, diphtheria, and smallpox (should they arise) are not treated here, but are promptly sent off to the Hospitals of the Metro- politan Asylums Board. The Infirmary Cottages. One of these is used for cases of ringworm and skin disease, and the other for ophthalmic cases. The same may be said of these as of the Infirmary. The "Cottage Homes" System 147 No child is kept in the workhouse longer than fourteen days, unless there is any reason to suspect that he may convey infectious disease to the schools. A double precaution is taken, for after a child has been sent from the workhouse to the schools, although certified by the Medical Officer as a healthy child, he is again detained for a further fortnight in the probationary ward. Schoolrooms. There are separate schoolrooms (1) for boys, (2) for girls, and (3) for infants. All the teachers are non-resident. Half-timers. The minimum age at which children are exempted from school for half-time is eleven, if they have passed the 3rd Standard ; but a few children over thirteen and fourteen who have not passed this standard are on account of their age also exempted. The opportunities of boys as half-timers are considerably limited, as they must, in turn, assist in the Homes one and a half or two and a half days per week. The average number of boys in the shops in 1894 was as follows : in the tailor's, twelve j in the shoemaker's, nine ; in the baker's, six ; in the carpenter's, seven ; and in the engineer's, seven. The superintendent of the schools comments on this as follows : "The number of children available for technical instruction in the shops depends chiefly upon the scholars in the school passing their standards successfully and regularly year by year, so that they may be legally and profitably exempted from school attendance. Apart from the question of efficient instruction in ordinary elementary school subjects, it is therefore most desirable that the school should be suffi- ciently and efficiently staffed. This is an important matter in ordinary Board Schools, and more important still in such schools as ours, where the most neglected children are received. I am of opinion that, in order to have more children available for technical instruction, more helpers (scrubbers, etc.) should be hired to do the washing and scrubbing. I think it would be well to place our schools, so far as education is concerned, under the Education Department, thus giving teacher and scholars the same opportunities and advantages as they would have in an ordinary Board School." 1 Ordinary Instruction 0/ girls. Needlework is taught in school and in the Homes, and plain cooking is taught in each home to the elder girls. About fifty out of 1 1 5 girls over seven were being taught cooking at the end of 1894. 2 ' Behaviour of children. This is, on the whole, very good, considering the antecedents of the children. The most troublesome children are those who, when first admitted to the schools, are already big boys or girls, with a long previous training in bad ways. Playground, amusements, games, excursions, mental and physical 1 Evidence before Departmental Committee, vol. iii. p. 14. 3 Ibid, 148 Children under the Poor Lazv improvement, etc. A large field is set apart as a playground, in addition to a gravelled playground with giant's stride, horizontal bars and gymnastic apparatus, and a tar-paved playground behind each cottage, and every freedom is allowed for play in the broad roadway running between the cottages. At least once a week the children are taken out for walking exercise by their foster-parents, and opportunities are afforded them for making little purchases in the neighbouring town lying on one side and in the village on the other side of the Homes. The elder boys are employed as messengers and to fetch and carry parcels to and from the railway station and town, for the conveyance of which a donkey cart is used. The girls are frequently taken by the foster-mothers on shopping expeditions. Cricket and football are extensively played, and matches take place almost weekly with the boys of neighbouring clubs and schools. At varying intervals excursions to the seaside and to London are organized, and to local events of a suitable character the children, or detachments of them, are generally invited. Visits to the children by their relations and friends are allowed fortnightly on the authority of an order obtained at the Guardians' offices. The kindness of many friends provides further means for the children's enjoyment. Thus during 1896 parties of them have been taken to the Indian Exhibition, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, the Tower Bridge, the Parks, Epping Forest, and Southend-on- Sea, in addition to local athletic sports and flower-shows. The boys construct kites, toy windmills, and little box-greenhouses for their gardens, and a few prepare magic lantern slides. The girls occasionally dress dolls, do crochet work, and construct cardboard houses, etc., from cut-out designs. 1 There is a library, which is under the superintendence of the head teachers, the children keeping the books they happen to be reading on book-racks in the dining-room of the cottage, or on the day-room table. Employment. No difficulty has ever been experienced in finding good situations as young servants for the girls who have been any time in the Homes, and satisfactory reports upon almost all of them are received from the M. A. B. Y. S. As to the boys, every effort is made to find them such employment as they have been trained to, and in which they have acquired a certain degree of proficiency. The average number of boys who enter army bands each year is six. According to the evidence given to the Departmental Committee in 1893, of eighteen boys sent out, two went 1 Evidence before Departmental Committee, vol. iii. p. 18, The "Cottage Homes" System 149 out as bakers, six to military bands (enlisted), two as carpenters, two as shoemakers, one to grocery, one to a sugar factory, one to a chemist, one as gardener, and two to Working Boys' Homes ; while in 1894, of thirteen sent out, five went to military bands (enlisted), five to Working Boys' Homes, one to a chemist, one as page, and one to grocery. 1 Both boys and girls do well, and do not come back to the work- house. As regards " after care," those boys who go to Working Boys' Homes are there, of course, under daily supervision. But the general relieving officer employed by the Guardians makes a report to them periodically upon the welfare of all the boys. Cost of the Homes. During the year ended Lady-day, 1896, the cost of the Homes averaged ^30 4s. At\d. per head, and for maintenance alone £\2 ys. yd. per head. This cost is, of course, very great, and has increased since the starting of the Homes. It must, however, be remembered that the workhouse children make use of the infirmaries at the Homes, and this entails a considerable addition to the staff. The two new infirmary cottages are of the most perfect description, and the furnishing of them was included in the year's cost. There does not, however, seem any reason why, after the initial outlay of construction, etc., the cost of Cottage Homes should exceed that of barrack schools. But even if it should, the additional advantage gained might be considered well worth the extra expense. Mr. Wyndham Holgate, who, as we have seen, regarded the experi- ment of Cottage Homes with some mistrust, gives an interesting account of the Elham Union Cottage Homes in Kent in his Report for 1892. He referred to them for the first time in his 1889 Report as follows : 2 "A modified form of Cottage Homes has been opened during the last few weeks for the children belonging to the Elham Union in Kent, about fifty in number, which I sincerely trust may prove successful. The Guardians have bought a plot of ground of two acres in a village some three miles from the workhouse, and have thereon erected one large double cottage for the elder children and one smaller building for the infants. These homes, which are very picturesque, are within easy reach of neighbouring elementary schools, which the children attend ; and they are under the care of a married couple as foster parents, the husband working in the garden, and the wife attending to the domestic duties, with a qualified nurse as assistant, and residing in the infants' cottage. He pointed out, however, a difficulty which might arise in the number of the paid officers, for 'with so small a body of children,' the number of those who by age, strength, and school standing were available for the industrial requirements of the establishment were to be very limited, certainly not more than one in every five. He said 1 Vol. iii. p. 20. 2 18 L. G.B., p. 151. 150 Children tinder the Poor Law that time alone would show whether it was possible to maintain the kitchen, the laundry, the needlework, and the garden, besides all the minor household duties, in proper condition with only two trainers and an assistant." 1 The next year he again reported on the school as follows : 2 " In my Report for 1888 I alluded to the recently opened cottages at Cheriton for the children of the Elham Union in Kent. The result of the first year's working of the place is highly satisfactory. I have rarely seen so marked a change as has taken place in these children. They are now as bright, healthy, and happy as they were formerly depressed both in mind and body. The teachers of the schools which they attend speak well of their good behaviour and improving intelli- gence ; whilst their foster-parents, though very much pressed with the constant and heavy work of the institution, are evidently happy and well content." In his Report for 1892 3 he has convinced himself of the soundness of the system. He says : "In my Report for 1888, and also in that for 1889, I referred to the Cottage Homes of the Elham Union in Kent. Now that they have been at work for more than three years I am able to speak with greater confidence as to their value, for they come nearer to the real home life of the agricultural population than any other form of Poor Law institution. The present buildings, two in number, 4 are built to accommodate fifty children; in construction and appearance they are similar to an ordinary large cottage ; the rooms are small, both upstairs and down, and each bedroom contains only six beds. The surroundings are more in accordance with those of ordinary village life ; the children go to the neighbouring village schools, morning and afternoon, return- ing to their dinner at mid-day. On Sundays they go to Sunday-school, and then attend the parish church for divine worship. All the children, both boys and girls who are old and strong enough, have some domestic duties to do in assisting the foster parents in the work of the household. The elder girls have to look after the infants, and to help in needlework, kitchen, and washing. The elder boys, in addition to housework, which they carry out very creditably, are instructed in cultivating the garden, which extends to nearly two acres, and pro- duces sufficient vegetables for the annual consumption of the Homes. As a proof that the life of the children is a healthy one, it may be stated that no pigs are kept, as the food is well cooked and consumed with such appetite as to leave no waste on which pigs could be main- tained. There has been practically no sickness, the general behaviour of the children is good, the reports from the village schools are satis- factory, and in general bearing and appearance there is a marked improvement in comparison with what they were three years ago. Since the Homes were opened in December, 1888, thirteen children 1 18 Z. G. B. t p. 151. 2 19 L. G. B., p. 157. 3 21 Z. G. B„ p. 185. 4 Since increased to three cottages. Seeflost, p. 151. TJte " Cottage Homes " System 1 5 1 have been sent out to service; and there are more applicants for children than can be supplied. "The cost for provisions, clothing, and necessaries used in the Homes has been under 4s. per head weekly, being actually below the cost of their maintenance when in the workhouse. "The cost of the erection of the existing buildings, including the purchase of the ground of 2 acres and 25 poles, was ^2674 iSs. 2d; a further sum of .£209 10s. $d. was expended in furnishing, the bedsteads being transferred from the old schools at the workhouse." Since the above accounts of the Homes were written, another cottage larger than the other two has been built, with a laundry for all three cottages, at a cost of ^2000, and the staff has been increased by one assistant matron and a needlewoman, at salaries of ^25 and ^20 respectively with rations. This larger cottage is used for boys, the girls being now in a separate cottage, and the infants in the middle of the three cottages. The boys go out to service in various ways, some as apprentices and others as page boys, etc., and the girls to domestic service. None so far have been returned to the Guardians for any cause. 1 The Elham Union is, of course, a comparatively small one. In 1891 the population was 40,928, and on 1st January, 1896, 273 paupers received indoor relief (excluding lunatics and vagrants), of whom ninety -five were children under sixteen. It is evident, therefore, that the condition of things in this Union is very different from that of a large London or provincial Union, but it seems to us that the Guardians have acted wisely in establishing this modified form of Cottage Homes. Industrial Training. We have described what is being done in the way of industrial train- ing at Hornchurch. At the Banstead Cottage Homes the boys select from those trades taught at the school the one they desire to learn, and an en- deavour is made to give them two years' training between the ages of twelve and fourteen years. The practice of the schools is to do all their own work, both new and repairs, as far as possible on the premises. 2 This work includes carpentering, shoemaking, tailoring, smithing, plumbing, painting, glazing, baking, gardening. The girls 1 From information kindly supplied to me by Mr. R. Lonergan, the Clerk to the Guardians. 2 A list of the work thus done will be found in the Fifth Report of the Homes, pp. 42 and 52. It will be a surprise to those who are under the impression that the boys learn nothing in the large Metropolitan schools. *5 2 Children under the Poor Law do the needlework, knitting, and the elder ones do their own wash- ing in the small washhouse attached to each cottage, except some heavy articles which are sent to the general laundry. They also assist in the ironing and cooking; and both boys and girls in the several cottages learn the necessary work of cleaning, bed-making, and the usual domestic duties. Some fruit-trees have been planted in every garden attached to the several cottages, and many of the children have their own little allotments of ground in the cottage garden which they cultivate for their own pleasure. " The painting and graining, etc., includes the whole of the premises, both internal and external, of thirty-six buildings and several workshops. Our bread is all made in our own bakery, and this amounts to about 60,000 fourpenny loaves yearly. The boots and shoes are all made in our shops, and during the period to which this report relates — Equal Yearly In the Boys' Shoe Shop 2052 pairs of boots and shoes Pairs - have been made. 684 In the Boys' Shoe Shop 7087 pairs of boots and shoes have been repaired . . . . . .2362 In the Girls' Shoe Shop 1492 pairs of boots and shoes have been made 497 In the Girls' Shoe Shop 6597 pairs of boots and shoes have been repaired 2199 "In the Tailors' Shops 5387 new articles of clothing have been made of various sorts, and 7690 articles repaired, averaging yearly 1796 articles made and 2563 repaired. " The girls' clothing, and both boys' and girls' underclothing, is also made on the premises, both in the girls' training room for needlework and also in the several cottages. Both girls and boys also knit and repair all their stockings in the several cottages, as will be seen by appended list. As regards garden work, the vegetables for the whole establishment (except part of the potatoes) have been grown in the kitchen garden, and here also some boys are employed, preference being given to those who physically need much fresh air and out- door exercise to strengthen them." 1 But the great advantage of large schools for boys has always been the excellent training which they receive in band music. The demand for boys for the army bands always exceeds the supply. The Banstead Schools are no exception to the rule, and " the demand for lads is so great that it often occurs that lads are selected for enlistment in conse- quence of their efficiency long before they are of sufficient stature, etc., to be enlisted." 2 Very satisfactory accounts are received of all these army boys, several of them having shown such aptitude as to have been sent by the military authorities to Kneller Hall. 1 Fifth Report, p. 26. 2 Ibid. The " Cottage Homes " System 153 As showing the excellent character of the work done, the work of several of the children was entered in the open competition at the Exhibition of the Home Arts and Industries Association, held at Sutton in 1894 and 1895 — seventeen prizes and four certificates being gained in 1894, and twelve prizes and seventeen certificates in 1895 by the children for different kinds of work. 1 The following table shows the variety of trades which the children take up when they leave the schools. It will be observed that at least one-third of the boys enter the army bands. The list gives the number of boys which have been sent to service during the three years ended Michaelmas, 1895. To same trade as taught in the School. Other occupations. Domestic Service Dressmaking Laundry Boys. Bakers Carpenters . Plumbers and Painters Shoemakers Smith Tailors Enlisted in Army Bands Garden Office Hairdressers Hotel and House Pages Fishmonger Domestic and Electrical Engineer Chimney Sweep Grocer Printers Total Boys Girls. Total Girls 2 2 7 7 21 1 1 3 5 1 1 1 2 60 37 2 2 4i The children sent to service are supplied with outfits; and the boxes for these, as well as the clothing, are made on the premises. What we have said as to the industrial training at the Hornchurch and Banstead Schools may be said of the other cottage home schools. Thus, at the Marston Green Schools the trades carried on are baking, tailoring, shoemaking, carpentry, bricklaying, and gardening. "The general repairs shop includes several trades, and is such as was found in country villages a generation ago. Plumbing, pipe-fitting, painting, white-washing, anything that comes handy. A visitor in working hours would find honest work being done by the boys — work that tells on 1 The difference in the number of prizes in 1894 and 1895 I s accounted for by the fact that in the latter year the girls did not compete in needlework (they took nine prizes for this in 1894). 154 Children under the Poor Law their after lives. The records of the homes furnish the proof. Of late years there has been a great improvement in the facility with which our boys find good situations. Some years ago the Local Government Board refused to allow aid to be given to boys during the first year of their employment, even though the wages earned could not keep them, with the result that some were supported by voluntary funds; but the choice of situations was then injuriously limited. Now they are able to command at once a wage sufficient to maintain them, as it is found that the technical training they have received is substantial, and our lads of fifteen are in this respect in advance of ordinary schoolboys of that age." 1 To the girls "sewing is taught as part of the school curriculum. The elder girls pass to industrial training with a seamstress, where they assist in making outfit clothes, and they also assist in making and repairing both their own clothing and that of the younger ones, in addition, of course, taking their part in all household duties. Courses of cooking lessons have been given by a qualified teacher specially engaged for the purpose, and previous to going to service the girls as far as possible receive a further course of training in the superinten- dent's home in general domestic duties." Since 1883 there has been a kindergarten at these schools. "This combination of amusement with instruction enlivens the school hours, and while adding materially to the intelligence of the children has the great advantage of imparting a certain amount of real knowledge to the very little ones, who in an ordinary infant school would be taught scarcely anything but to sit still." 2 Education. The education given in the Cottage Home schools is also much the same as that given in the large schools generally, and it is unneces- sary to say that the religious instruction is well attended to; and after all it is something to find that even the Departmental Committee, speaking generally of the large Metropolitan schools, had no fault to find with this. They say: "There is one subject, indeed, which 1 Sixteenth Annual Report of the Marston Green Homes, p. 15. On p. 16 is given an interesting list of the boys sent out to service, with the trades they were sent to, and the wages which they earned during the first two years, the length of time they had been in the homes, and the standard they had passed being also stated. 2 Per Mr. Byam Davies, 15 L. G. £., p. 51. Reporting on the schools of the Northern District in 1887, Mr. Mozley noted the increase in the number of those which had adopted the kindergarten system. See 17 L. G. B., p. 92. The "Cottage Homes" System 155 receives more than ordinary attention. The syllabus of religious instruction prescribed in some of the schools is much fuller and more exacting than that of the London School Board, or of any elementary schools known to us, and the examination in this subject by Her Majesty's Inspector of Poor Law Schools is said to be very searching, and to demand the most serious preparation for the annual inspection." 1 In fact, the Committee seem to think it too "religious," for they recommend that the number of historical and theological lessons should be reduced, and that the religious instruction should conform more nearly to the standard adopted in the best voluntary and board schools. We will leave this question to be debated by the " education experts." We would only remark that not the least of the advantages to be got by leaving the Poor Law Schools under the supervision of the Poor Law Authority, lies in the fact that they are thereby removed from religious squabbles, without which it seems our national education cannot be carried on. Physical, Mental, and Moral Development. From the Reports on some Cottage Homes which we give below it will be seen that the physical, mental, and moral development of the children is not neglected. We extract the following account of what is done in this repect at the Banstead Schools from the last Report of the Superintendents : 2 "Physical exercises. In addition to the elementary military drill, marching, etc., when the weather permits, physical exercises to the accompaniment of the band are systematically given to the children to their great benefit. " Swimming. The children of eight years and upwards from each cottage by rotation continue to use the swimming bath once a week, between school hours, and since the date of my last Report 126 more children have learnt to swim, and received a certificate to that effect from me; making a total of 465 children certified as having learnt to swim since the opening of the swimming bath, and of these 385 were boys and 80 were girls. "Bathing. The children all have warm baths in their several cottages; the infants five times weekly, those of an intermediate age once or twice weekly, and the elder ones at least once a week. "Penny Bank. In connection with the Post Office, in 1890 a Penny Bank was opened once a week for deposits and withdrawals. Since the last report of this to December, 1891, the following have been the number of depositors, and the amounts of deposits and 1 Report, p. 40. A "Scripture Syllabus" used in one of the schools is set out there. 2 Fifth Triennial Report, pp. 28-30. 156 Children under the Poor Law withdrawals. The head schoolmaster undertakes this work, of which he is joint trustee with myself. "Children's Penny Bank. Year ended December . . 1892 1893 1894 1895 Number of depositors . 387 ... 440 ... 448 ... 270 £ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d. Balance brought forward . 15 o 8^ ... 16 2 9§ ... 27 9 i£ ... 20 16 11 Amount of deposits . . 28 14 74 ... 28 o o ... 18 15 oj ... 5 5 o Total . . . 43 15 34 ... 44 2 9f ... 46 4 2 ... 26 in Amount of withdrawals during year . . . 27 12 5f ... 16 13 8J ... 25 7 3 ... 18 4 8£ Amount remaining at end of year . . . 16 2 9J ... 27 9 i£ ... 20 16 11 ... 7 17 2\ " Band of Hope. The Church of England Temperance Society con- tinues to conduct the Band of Hope meetings once a month, except during some of the summer months. The attendance is perfectly voluntary; but most of the elder children attend the meetings, and to this end every facility is afforted them. "Library. The circulating Library now consists of 656 books; and during the period to which the Report relates the number of books issued has been 7699. "Pictures. All the children's rooms in the cottages are supplied with these cheerful and useful aids, and their number I am glad to say has recently been added to. " Toys, etc. The girls and infants have a good supply of toys and dolls, etc., and the boys have draughts and boards and similar games. At Christmas, in addition to the toys, etc., which the Board provide, the children each year receive a large parcel of toys and upwards of 500 new sixpences from the Truth Fund. The ladies who have so kindly done so in former years continue each Christmas to supply Christmas letters and cards for all the occupants of the homes. These are always a great pleasure to the children. "Recreation and Entertaintnents. The elder boys are taught cricket and football, according to the season, on certain afternoons and evenings by the schoolmasters, who play with them ; and the lads, being supplied with suitable flannel suits and jerseys, play matches and tournaments among the several cottages, and with other schools and clubs. The teachers take the school children out walking once a week, and the cottage parents take the children under their charge out walking at any time which does not prevent their proper school attendance, etc. "To assist the younger children when out walking, every cottage is provided with a 'mail cart.' "Occasionally in summer small special treats are arranged for, in addition to the annual fete and sports for the whole school. During each winter a series of evening entertainments are arranged, viz., about fifteen or sixteen each winter, consisting of magic lantern, magic and The "Isolated Homes'' System 157 ventriloquial, musical and fancy drill, singing and recitations, the latter being by the children themselves, the boys, girls, and infants taking it in turn to give an entertainment." 1 We have so far, then, pointed out the advantages which the Cottage Homes system has over that of the barrack school. For large urban Unions we consider it in every way preferable to the latter. The system of detached and isolated Homes, with which we shall deal next, is merely a new development of it; but the best authorities agree that such a variation might not be suitable for London ; besides which the system is not yet out of the experimental stage. For smaller Unions the method adopted at Elham 2 seems to us admirable and is to be recommended. The advantage of retaining the children under the direct control of the Guardians is very great, and it is almost impossible for any case of cruelty or neglect to occur without its being immediately detected and put a stop to. Had there been any serious defects in the system they would certainly not have escaped the notice of the Departmental Committee, and the only recommendations they have to make is (1) that, where practicable, not more than two cottages be established in close proximity ; (2) that such cottages be placed within reasonable distance of settled habita- tions ; and (3) that in no case should a cottage contain more than fifteen children. As regards the first of these recommendations we can only say that it strikes at the root of the whole system, which is modelled on that of a "village community," with its cottages, church, schools, industrial shops, swimming bath, recreation ground, etc., complete, and implies the adoption of the system which we now proceed to describe. Section II. THE "ISOLATED (OR SCATTERED) HOMES" SYSTEM. To Mr. J. Wycliffe Wilson, the Chairman of the Sheffield Board of Guardians, must be given the credit of originating and engineering this interesting development of the system of Cottage Homes. 3 He has given the following account of how it came into being. 4 1 A list of the various entertainments given at the schools during seven years (1888 to 1895) w iH De f° unc l i n Mr. Harston's evidence before the Departmental Committee, p. 306. 2 See ante, pp. 149- 1 51. 3 Paper read by Mr. P. Ashberry at the Yorkshire Poor Law Conference, 1895. (Knight & Co.) 4 Evidence before Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Schools, p. 443, quoted in the Report at p. 128. 158 Children under the Poor Law " A great many years ago we went very carefully into the question of the association of the children with the adult paupers. We came to the conclusion that it was most important that they should be removed — that was in 1883 — and we made some inquiries into the different systems that existed; we visited the Swinton (Manchester) Barrack Schools, the Marston Green Cottage Homes, and we went to Leeds to see the boarding-out as it was carried out there, and I think we unanimously came to the conclusion that it was desirable that the children should be removed, and our wish was at that time to introduce a double system of boarding-out and a cottage home village. We had not then thought of this plan of isolated homes. Later on we decided to adopt boarding-out, both withiit the Union and without, and we put a number of orphan children out. We came to the conclusion at that time that no system that was in existence was exactly what we wanted, that the boarding-out was not universally applicable — that though it was an excellent system where good homes could be obtained, and where it was applicable, namely, to orphans and deserted, yet that, we thought, it would not be likely to be successful with c ins and outs,' and we began to think whether anything else could be done. Well, then we saw the disadvantages, or some disadvantages, of the cottage homes village, and we said to ourselves, ' Can we not obtain a system which would be a combination of the two, which will have a good many of the best features of boarding-out in family life, mixing with the outside population, and yet where we shall be able to select our own mothers and our own localities, and where we shall be able to deal with children of all sorts ? ' And this idea of isolated homes as a measure of meeting the two difficulties appeared to us the best. But we were in this position, that we had built very good schools ; we had no immediate use for them, and when we made application to the Local Government Board to allow us to carry out this scheme, they said, ' No, you have got good schools ; you must not go on trying new experiments and wasting the money that has been spent on these schools.' Therefore the matter stood over until recently — three years ago — when we were getting so full in the workhouse that we saw that we might advantageously use the old school buildings. We then made a fresh application. A deputation of us came up and saw Sir Walter Foster, and permission was given to us to carry out our scheme." Mr. Wilson therefore had two objects in view in establishing scattered homes : (1) To avoid what he considered to be the defect in the village community, viz., the institutional life, the massing together of one class of children, and the taking them away from contact with the busy world in which they would afterwards have to live and work; and (2) to provide for those children whom it was impossible to board out. " The system is an outgrowth of the Board Schools, the education in which is far superior to any that could be given to a small number The "Cottage Homes" System 159 of children, except at a prohibitive cost ; and unless workhouse or cottage home children have an equal education to other children, they are placed at a disadvantage when they have to make their way in the world. Isolated homes would not be practicable without Board Schools. We plant a home within easy reach of a Board School, and it is our rule not to send over thirty children to one school. This number is comparatively lost in the large number of other children ; owing to the two sexes and the different standards, there are rarely over two of our children in any one class." 1 There were in 1896 nine homes (two with fifteen beds, one with sixteen beds, three with seventeen beds, two with twenty-one beds, and one with twenty-eight beds). The home with twenty-eight beds is for boys alone, and in the others the children are mixed. Seven homes are assigned to Protestant children and two to Roman Catholics. The homes are ordinary dwelling-houses rented by the Guardians, but indistinguishable from other dwellings of respectable artisans. They are scattered about in different healthy suburbs of Sheffield. 2 " Each house is presided over by a foster-mother, 3 who washes, irons, cooks, cleans, and mends for the children, with the help of the elder children, and a charwoman one day per week. The cooking is done in ordinary utensils, and by an ordinary fire, and its preparation affords the children some knowledge of cooking, as well as instruction in methods of economy, cleanliness, and domestic management. The same may be said with regard to house cleaning and the mending and washing of clothes. In the day-rooms are pigeon holes or lockers for the children's possessions and playthings, and in the bedrooms there is a box for each child containing its clothes." 4 " Every effort is made to cultivate the children's individuality, and the personal attention given to them renders it possible for their natural characteristics to be studied and guided aright." 5 As no child above three years of age is allowed under the Sheffield system to enter the workhouse, it may be asked, How do the Guardians get over the difficulty of the necessary probation ? This is effected by the establishment of a receiving house, and of four probationary homes in close proximity to it. This receiving house and the probationary homes, together with the children's hospital, the stores, the offices, the committee room, and the superintendent's and matron's residence, are styled the " headquarters," and the children are drafted from them into the Isolated Homes. These " headquarters " also enable the Guardians 1 Paper read at Yorkshire Conference, 1895, P* 5 or - 2 Report of Departmental Committee, p. 123, and Second Annual Report of the Homes. • Great care is taken to select suitable persons, Ibid,, p. 126. 4 Report of Departmental Committee, p.. 123. 5 J bid. 160 Children under the Poor Law to deal with the difficulty of the "ins and outs." They provide a tem- porary residence for these children outside the workhouse, and even if an "in and out" child be passed on to one of the scattered Homes, the Departmental Committee consider it "less likely to have a con- taminating influence upon the permanent children, because the numbers being so small the foster mother is able to exercise a supervision which is impossible where large numbers are aggregated. It is in the dormitories and play-yards that the evil influence of the 'in and out' child is exercised, and it is evident that in a small bedroom, where but half-a-dozen children sleep, and in the playground of a public elementary school, there is not the opportunity for con- tamination that there is in the unnatural life of a large school." 1 About one-third of the total number of children relieved in Sheffield at the headquarters and in the homes are kept at headquarters. It is a peculiarity of the Sheffield system that boys, girls, and infants are kept in the same home and brought up together there until the boys reach the age of thirteen years, when they are transferred to one of the "boys'" homes. This plan is said to work satisfactorily and beneficially to the children. The boys' homes are presided over by a married couple, the husband, a tradesman, being called " father," and it is not alleged that the boys object to the change of mothers at the age of thirteen. And in these homes, too, the variety of age is maintained, as the boys are of all ages, from four or five to fourteen or fifteen. 2 From the several homes the children go, unattended, to the public elementary schools in the vicinity. The Departmental Committee comment on this as follows : "This plan gives the Poor Law children at Sheffield all the educational advantages which are accessible to other children in the town. It avoids the complete isolation of children chargeable on the rates from the rest of the community. It enables them to enjoy the companionship of others who are not the children of paupers, and provides a freer, healthier, and more varied life than could be possible in an institution, however good. Educationally, too, they are no less favourably placed, for they are able to study the same subjects, and to receive the same intellectual stimulus as the children of respectable artisans, and thus are fitted to enter the world of industry on equal terms. Their course of education is not interrupted and marred by the half-time system, they attend the day schools for the full number of hours, and although they fail to obtain the discipline which, under the name of industrial 1 Report of Departmental Committee, p. 127. Mr. Wilson is referred to as the authority for this statement (Questions 11,633-6), but his answers to these questions do not bear on the point at all ! 2 Ibid., p. 124. The "Isolated Homes" System 161 training, occupies so large a time in the great institutions, they are amply compensated for its absence by the fuller, more intelligent, and more appropriate instruction which is furnished in the public elementary schools. Our own personal inquiries and observations of the children at the various Board Schools which they attended, satisfied us that with regard to regularity and general conduct they were at least equal to other scholars, and that the teachers welcome them, and often find them making more than average progress." * " In the matter of partial or total exemption from school, the children conform to the by-laws of the Sheffield School Board, though in many cases the Guardians allow children to remain at school beyond the time when partial exemption would be allowed." 2 The girls, when of an age for half-time employment, stay at home and assist the foster mother in the work of the house, and when there are three such girls in a " Home " one of them is taken to the superintendent's house to have her education as a servant finished off. 3 The boys on becoming half-timers are "put to gardening or something of that sort," but here, as Mr. Wilson frankly admits, the system cannot compete with that of " Cottage Homes " ; 4 but when they are over school age they are "either in the isolated boys' home where the 'father' is a tailor, or at headquarters, where a carpenter, a shoemaker, and a groom and gardener are kept, so that each is taught the element of some trade." 6 On Sundays the children attend the neighbouring churches, chapels, and Sunday-schools. Some of them also are enrolled in the Bands of Hope, and permitted to share in their treats and entertainments. The clergy and other charitable persons connected with the several churches are thus induced to take the same interest in them as in the other children of the parish or congregation, and not to treat them exceptionally as a separate class. 6 The health of the children is reported upon favourably, and the necessary medical attendance is provided by an arrangement with a local medical practitioner, who is paid a fixed sum for each child under his care, including a quarterly examination and report on its 1 Report of Departmental Committee, p. 124. This is the opinion of the Committee founded on their own observation of the working of the system, but there are many who doubt extremely the wisdom of this subordination of industrial training to an increased smattering of scholastic requirements. 2 Report, p. 126. 8 Poor Law Conference's Reports, 1895, P- 5 I 3- As to the "after care," see post, p. 302. 4 Report of Departmental Committee, p. 126. 5 Ibid., p. 124. 6 Ibid., p. 124. M 1 62 Children under the Poor Law condition. These medical men visit the home at least once a month, and as many times besides as the condition of the children requires. 1 "The City Fever Hospital is utilized for such complaints as small- pox, scarlet fever, or typhoid, while infectious cases of a less serious character are removed to the Poor Law Children's Hospital at head- quarters, where other complaints are dealt with. For trifling ailments, or such as it would be dangerous to remove, the children are nursed in the cottages." 2 A superintendent officer is charged with the duty of supervising the homes, and the matron, who is concerned chiefly with the supervision of domestic details, makes frequent visits to them. These two officers are the head officials of the whole system of "The Children's Homes," and are responsible to the Guardians for every branch of the work. A constant unofficial supervision is also exercised by the school teachers and the clergy and ministers whose churches and schools the children attend, as well as by the neighbours, whose sympathies have been enlisted on behalf of the children. 3 Further than this, each home is in the special charge of two or three Guardians, one of whom undertakes to visit it each week at irregular times, and the Homes Visiting Committee, which includes the lady Guardian, pays an official visit to each home once in every four weeks. 4 The stores for the homes are all supplied from headquarters, except milk and coals, which the tradespeople deliver directly to each home. And as regards the clothes, the whole of the girls' and part of the boys' clothing are made in the homes or at headquarters, and sent to the foster mothers for the children's use. 5 With respect to the cost of the system there has been a good deal of dispute. In a letter to the Poor Law Officers' Journal (14th August, 1896), Mr. Wycliffe Wilson gave the following figures, the table enabling a comparison to be made between the cost of the Sheffield system and that of barrack schools and Cottage Homes : 1 Report of Departmental Committee, p. 125. 2 Ibid., p. 125. 3 An amusing example of this interest was given by Mr. Ashberry before the Departmental Committee. (See Q. 11,553.) 4 Report, p. 125. 5 Ibid., p. 125. The ''Isolated Homes" System 16 Derailed Comparative Return, showin g- Total and Average Weekly Cost per Child. Sheffield Marston Green Forest Gate Children's Homes. Cottage Homes. District School. For 2 2 weeks— Oct. 27, 1894, For 52 weeks — to Mar. 28, 1896. For 52 weeks — to For 52 weeks — to to Mar. 25, 1895. Lady-day, 1895. Lady-day, 1895. Average No. of Children. 239 269 408 694 Total Total Total Total Cost Average Cost Average Cost Average Cost Average Children- £ s. d. £ j. d. £ s. d. £ s. d. Provisions 504 1 11 1339 * X II 1628 1 6& 4292 2 4J Necessaries i59 7i 403 6« 7i 663 7 i 1678 n£ Clothing 221 10$ 437 519 si 1232 8| General Charges 55 2^ 108 to 1} 383 4 1412 9} Officials (all charges) — Superintendent, Matron, ' Medical Officers, Joiner, Handy -man, Groom and • 140 6§ 43i to 7 i 1433 III 4l 1 Gardener, Laundress, and Sewing Mistress V5165 II 2 ioi Laundry and Washerwomen . Foster Parents . 48 O 2f\ 312 §0 si 470 1 9A 1117 1 7 1264 x *i J Repairs 46 O 2$ 126 O 2^ 388 4 1200 7! Furniture and Property Re- newals 44 O 2 7i Ift 366 4 675 4^ 6 5 6 2A 6 3 8 8J Rents Scattered Homes, \ ^318 xos. ; Rates, £47 { x8s. id. ; Taxes, .£10 12J. ; f 385 6f Insurance, £8 8s. . .) Repayment of Loans, with Interest 954 1 4l 2 if 1787 1 8 iA 8 4i 9 8| * Includes cost of medical extras for Children's Hospital. t Includes stable, garden, dispensary, funeral, and establishment charges. X Does not include cost of Nurses. It is difficult to compare cost of our Children's Hospital with other systems, as we treat all the children there; whereas in the case of most Cottage Homes Villages the Chronics and Ins-and-Outs are kept in the Workhouse Hospital. § Large increase due to Children's Hospital and slightly increased help at Homes, owing to small number of elder girls. || Includes school. The Departmental Committee further say : " In comparing the cost of the Sheffield scheme with other systems of Cottage Homes or village communities, it must be borne in mind that at Sheffield the Guardians provide in the homes for the fluctuating class of children known as 'ins and outs.' They find it necessary, therefore, to reserve accommodation in the homes for these children, whilst under nearly all other systems these children are temporarily accommodated in the workhouse, and the school managers are con- sequently able to keep the Cottage Homes constantly full. The average number of children in the homes at Sheffield must therefore be considerably below the total capacity of the homes, and as far as all fixed charges are concerned the average cost per child is pro- portionately increased." 1 No reference, however, is given to any evidence which supports the above statement. It must be borne in mind that at Sheffield the " ins and outs " children are retained at headquarters, just as at Kensington 1 Report, p. 128. 164 Children under the Poor Law this class is retained at the branch school at Hammersmith. The true inference to be drawn from the fact seems to us to be that the Sheffield Guardians are relieved of a difficulty which can only be met in other school systems by establishments such as that at Hammersmith. 1 The advantages of the Sheffield system in the opinion of its supporters were stated by Mr. Ashberry before the Departmental Committee as follows : 2 " 1. It is the nearest approach to family life, next to boarding-out, and boarding-out is only practicable in the case of permanent children, such as orphan and deserted children. 11 2. The education they receive at the Board Schools is far superior to that given to the comparatively small numbers dealt with in work- house or cottage homes' schools. " 3. The supervision is increased by the public life the children lead in going to and from school and mixing with outside children. "4. The isolation in small numbers lessens the dangers from in- fectious diseases. "5. The cost of placing say fifteen children under the care of one 1 mother ' may be greater than with thirty, as in most other cottage homes, and a much larger number in barrack schools, but the smaller number renders the supervision more efficient, and makes it safe to place young boys in the same home with girls. " 6. In no other system is the ' workhouse taint ' so completely removed from all children over three years of age, and in no other system, with the exception of boarding-out, are the children so likely to become self-maintaining and self-respecting members of society." Whatever opinion we have on the first five of these propositions, we cannot admit the last one for a moment. There is really no evidence to support it. Having thus given an account of how the system is worked, and having stated the advantages which it is alleged to possess over other systems, we must refer to some of the defects which led a Committee of the Chorlton Board of Guardians, who were appointed to inquire into the system, and who went into the inquiry with strong prejudices in its favour, to report that while it was almost perfect in theory, the dangers of it were so apparent that they could not recommend their Board to adopt it. These dangers arise — 1. From the difficulty of securing the necessary supervision. It is not so easy to supervise a number of Cottage Homes scattered about a Union as it is where they are all close together on one single area. 2. From the difficulty which one person must have in managing satisfactorily some fifteen or sixteen children of different ages and 1 See post, p. 323. 2 Evidence, Q. 11,922. The " Isolated Homes" System 165 sexes in a cottage home. 1 There are few persons qualified to under- take such a task. Thus at Sheffield the changes of foster-parents have been frequent. 3. From the difficulty of providing adequate and efficient industrial training for the children ; 2 4. From the possibility that the children may have to do too much housework. Indeed, one has only to read the Memorandum of the Local Government Board 3 as to the conditions upon which they will allow the system to be adopted, to see what trouble and care will have to be taken by Boards of Guardians in order to safeguard it against abuses, and we are by no means certain whether many Boards will be led to try it. They will certainly not find the system any cheaper than that of the barrack schools or Cottage Homes, for it must be remembered that it implies entirely separate accommodation with an adequate staff for those children who cannot be sent to the Homes at all. We have already given Mr. Wycliffe Wilson's figures. 4 These figures have been very ably criticised by Dr. J. M. Rhodes in a paper on the Report of the Departmental Committee read at the North- western Poor Law Conference, 1896. 5 In the Report occurs the following paragraph : " It is satisfactory to find that the cost of the children's maintenance under this Sheffield system is less than in village communities and aggregated schools. We are informed that the average cost of each child in the scattered homes is about six shillings per week, or ^15 1 2s. per annum, including provisions, necessaries, and clothing, salaries and board of foster-mothers, and general repairs to the homes, whilst in the Metropolitan schools the average annual cost of maintenance is ^"24 per child." In his paper Dr. Rhodes shows very clearly the unfairness of this comparison. The Committee "must have known that at first-class schools, like the Kensington and Chelsea Schools, the average cost was (exclusive of loans) ^20 4s. $d., and at the Banstead Road Schools, Sutton, ;£i8 10s. 5^., and it must also be taken into account that the Sheffield figures do not include schooling." Then the Com- mittee say that to the above sum of ^15 12.?. must be added 1 This is a difficulty which is not felt in Cottage Homes where the possibility of classification is better. 2 In his evidence before the Departmental Committee, Mr. Wycliffe Wilson frankly admitted that his system could not possibly compete with that of Cottage Homes in this respect, in itself a very serious objection. 3 This memorandum is set out in full in the Appendix N., p. 425. 4 Ante, p. 163. 6 Poor Law Conferences, 1896, pp. 262-4. 1 66 Children under the Poor Law " something over £4 per child for rent." "Let us see what this 1 something over £4 ' means. Mr. Wilson has written a letter, 1 and from Mr. Wilson's own figures it appears that 'something over £4' in the Report means just a fraction over ^5 per head for rent. Of this sum 6$d. per head per week goes for the rent of houses, some of which look decidedly old, not to use a stronger term." Now the average cost in the Metropolitan schools for repayment of loans and interest, which includes schools, etc., and, of course, corresponds to "rent," was ^5 2s. $d.; 2 "but would it not have been more honest on the part of the Committee if they had pointed out that, even in the list of the Metropolitan schools they give, the average cost per child for loan repayments and interests is greater than ^5 in nine and less than ^5 in ten schools ? " " In the comparison which Mr. Wilson makes between the Sheffield scheme and Marston Green, there is the item ' officials : (all charges),' Sheffield 7§^., Marston Green is, ^\d. There is a note, however. The Sheffield item does not include a farthing for nurses, since 'it is difficult to compare the cost of our children's hospital with other systems, as we treat all children there, whereas in the case of most cottage homes villages the chronics and ins and outs are kept in the workhouse hospital.' Why does not Mr. Wilson tell us the cost, and let us know the whole cost of the Sheffield scheme? The Marston Green is. \\d. includes not only the cost of nursing at the hospital (and there was certainly one chronic case in it on one of my visits), but, as Mr. Wilson says, also includes schooling, which are not included in the Sheffield scheme, but for which the public pay in one form or another. I think if Mr. Wilson will compare his system with King's Norton he will find, and the Committee would have found, that the cost is less than it is at Sheffield. The utter absurdity of the comparison is apparent if a comparison is made as to the rent of houses in the neighbourhood of London and Sheffield." So much for the question of cost. But if the system were so infinitely superior to that of the Cottage Homes this particular objection would not weigh with us. We cannot, however, see that it is so. Nor can we forget that the Sheffield experiment is a new one, that special dangers attach to it from which other systems are free, that those who administer it at the present time are enthusiasts for it, and that they do their utmost to prove it a success. Even admitting that it has succeeded at Sheffield, it by no means follows that it would succeed in other Unions. 1 Ante, p. 162. 2 Report of Committee, p. 155. The "Isolated Homes" System 167 On this point the inspectors of the Local Government Board who visited the homes in May, 1896, wrote as follows : " The Local Government Board in sanctioning this experiment have been largely influenced by the assurance of the careful supervision which would be maintained, both by the superintendent and by the Guardians, and it appeared to them that at Sheffield, at any rate, the chairman and those interested in the scheme were so certain to take care that such supervision was adequately carried out, that probable shortcomings in this important particular elsewhere must be taken into consideration in dealing with applications from others to be allowed to adopt a similar scheme. If there has been already appreciable failure in supervision under such very special circum- stances as at Sheffield, what may be looked for elsewhere, when the freshness of the interest has waned both on the part of the Guardians and of the public ? " In London the system would be difficult to carry out satisfactorily, 1 and as to other Unions, the conditions which the Central Authority have attached to its adoption will probably make Boards of Guardians in large towns think twice before they follow Sheffield's lead. None the less, however, would we withhold our admiration for the care with which the originators of the system have worked out the details of it, and the skill which they have shown in carrying their plan into execution. 1 The Whitechapel Union, however, having separated itself from the Forest Gate School District, has adopted this system. Four pairs of semi-detached cottages are to be provided, each for ten children of mixed ages and both sexes, as well as one cottage for twenty boys who, by reason of age, may be inadmissible into a ' ' mixed " cottage. The scheme, which will be found in Appendix O. {post, p. 427), has received the "general assent" of the Local Government Board, but the assent has only been given on account of the "comparatively small number of children to be dealt with." The experiment will be watched with interest; but the conditions of Whitechapel are peculiar, and it by no means follows that, if the scheme be successful, it could be safely imitated by other London Boards of Guardians. CHAPTER VI. THE USE MADE OF PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN country and quasi-country Unions the practice of sending the workhouse children to the neighbouring village schools has become almost universal. We have seen how up to 1874 only 98 Unions had adopted this method, 1 but according to the last Report of the Local Government Board 2 434 Unions out of a total of 648 now take advan- tage of the excellent education given in these schools. Less than thirty years ago the education given in the National Schools was in most instances much inferior to that which could be and was given in the workhouse schools, where the number of children was large enough to secure efficient teaching. Thus Mr. T. B. Browne, in his Report for 1868, illustrates the extraordinary difference in results produced by the different systems of management by the examples of two Unions, both agricultural, and both in the same county, viz., Whitchurch and Atcham, in Shropshire, as follows : 3 " The population of Whitchurch Union at the last census was 1 1,272 ; that of Atcham 19,314. In the Whitchurch Workhouse, on the 7th of March last (1867), I saw four boys and two girls, and was told that three other children were absent. The children went out of the work- house to school. As some excuse for the badness of the spelling, a boy said that spelling was not taught. The arithmetic, however, was no better, as none present could subtract 5 from 7, and one only could read. At Atcham, on the 26th of April last, 24 boys, 22 girls, and 16 infants were present in school, five other children being absent. Twenty-eight children read the Testament well, and ten others easy narratives ; 36 could write their names, and the style of penmanship was decidedly good ; 20 wrote a sentence correctly, and 25 numbers from dictation; in arithmetic n were correct in proportion, 7 correct and 1 incorrect in the compound, 8 correct and 5 incorrect in the simple rules. Several children had also a very fair knowledge of geography and of English history. The industrial training at Atcham as well as the other instruction is very good. The population of Whit- 1 Introductory chapter, p. 38. 2 25 L. G. B., p. lxxxvii. 3 20 P. L. B., p. 147. The Use made of Public Elementary Schools 169 church Union is considerably more than half that of Atcham, yet, for one child whom the Whitchurch Guardians educate nominally, the Atcham Guardians give a real education to ten." And for some years later than 1868 the practice of sending out the children to outside schools does not seem to have worked very well. Thus in 1872 Mr. T. B. Browne reported as follows : 1 " In some Unions the children who go out to school are very fairly instructed, as at Bromyard and Corwen, though I do not remember any instance in which such children had reached the educational standard of a really good workhouse school j but at Llandovery Workhouse in November last I found eleven children who went out to school all very ignorant of Christianity as well as of other subjects. None were in the compound rules of arithmetic, and a boy who had been three years at school could not read an easy book. In fact, one child only out of the eleven could read with any fluency. Where the children are so few as at Llandovery, and in some other Unions, they must depend for education upon a neighbouring school ; but where a good workhouse school with a sufficient attendance of children is broken up, there is much to lose and nothing to gain. I have indeed been often told that the workhouse school was better than the neighbouring village school." But as education in the public elementary schools improved, the advantages of letting the workhouse children have the benefit of it became very apparent; and although the school managers at first objected to their coming to the schools, experience has removed this prejudice. In fact they have now not only to admit that these children are a pattern of cleanliness, order, and punctuality to the rest of the school, 2 but that the schools have been improved by their example. Indeed, while no one would be prepared to deny that it was to their advantage to mix as much as possible with the outside world, it would almost appear that it was the ordinary village child who received the most benefit by associating with the workhouse child. 3 1 2 Z. G. B., p. 107. Mr. Browne adds : "The question whether pauper children should be sent out to school was fully considered as long ago as the year 1848, and I have now before me a letter from Sir James Shuttleworth, who was at that time Secretary to the Committee of Council of Education, discouraging the practice." See further Dr. Clutterbuck's Report of 1876 (5 Z. G. B., pp. 155-160). He described the elementary school of the day as a " mechanical gymnasium where the creation of thinking power is at a discount, and uninformedness of mind and general somnolency of intellect the rule. {Ibid., p. 160.) 2 Mr. Mozley in his Report for 1894 (23 Z. G. B., p. 149) says that "all the teachers whom I questioned agreed that the children from the workhouse were punctual, clean, and that there was perfect friendliness between them and the other children." 3 See 11 Z. G. B. t p. 138 ; and 13 Z. G. B., p. 130. Dr. Clutterbuck thought it an open question whether they really benefited by association with other children. See 16 Z. G. B., p. 103. 170 Children under the Poor Law On this point Mr. Mozley wrote in 1892 as follows :* "Complaints are not unknown of boys contracting rude and in- subordinate habits through their greater freedom and association with other boys ; possibly, too, in part from want of sufficient supervision. It is only in a minority of cases that I hear such complaints, where I have visited Unions in which the children are sent out to school; but still they do occur often enough to show that the fault is not imaginary." The evidence seems to us to show that the main advantage of sending the children from workhouses to public elementary schools lies in their getting a better sclwlastic education there than it is possible to give in small workhouse schools. Mr. Mozley, indeed, has more than once published in his Reports comparative tables of the results of the education given under the two systems, and the children attending the public elementary schools do best in examination j 2 but he says that the fact is not surprising. " The reason is not so much the intrinsic superiority of the teachers in the outside schools (though it cannot be denied that this is an element in the case), but it is far more owing to the fact that where the school is inside the workhouse, school instruction is made to yield to the necessities of industrial work, whereas when the children are sent to a school outside the workhouse they are compelled to attend school with perfect regularity, and it is the industrial training which is apt to go to the wall." 3 The loss of this industrial training must, of course, be set against the gain of a better scholastic education, although it is only fair to state that doubts have been cast on the value of the industrial training which can be given in a workhouse school where the number of children is small. 4 1 22 Z. G. B., p. 102. In his Report of the following year (23 Z. G. B., p. 149) Mr. Mozley somewhat qualifies this statement by saying that these complaints came from masters of workhouses, the chaplain in one case strongly expressing the same opinion, but that the teachers in some schools, whom he had questioned since, had no complaints to make on this score. 2 e.g., 13 Z. G. B., p. 121 ; 14 Z. G. B., p. 45. In an examination at the Whit- church (Hants) National Schools, in 1891, the workhouse children passed 13 per cent, above the average of the school. Village Workhouse Subjects. Children. Children. Passed in Reading .... 94% ••• 93% Writing . . . .51% ••• 8o % Arithmetic . . . 89% ... 100% „ the three subjects . . . 78% ••• 9*% 3 13 Z. G. B., p. 121. 4 See 12 Z. G. B., p. 77 ; 15 Z. G. B., p. 40 ; 16 Z. G. B., pp. 96, 97, 104. The Use made of Public Elementary Schools 1 7 i In his Report for 1892 1 Mr. Mozley directs attention to this defect, and to the remedy for it. He says that "The half-time system, which is theoretically possible with children sent to public elementary schools, is practically much disfavoured by teachers in those schools, who see that a half-time scholar will not do them as much credit as one who attends school full time. Hence, when children are sent from a workhouse to a public elementary school their industrial training is apt to be less than when they attend a workhouse school. The real and proper remedy for this defect is the increased use of technical education in public elementary schools. But technical education is in its infancy at present, and Boards of Guardians do well, I think, who (as is done at Middlesborough) require that the elder children whom they send out to school shall be allowed the advantage of the half-time standard, when they have passed it, with the view of giving them more complete industrial instruction." Another disadvantage to which Mr. Holgate refers in his Report for 1877 is the loss to the children of the good religious education which they received in the workhouse schools. He said : "In many cases the Guardians have sent their children to Board Schools in which either no religious observance is carried out, or it is confined to Bible reading, and my attention has been called to the marked change for the worse in language and behaviour which has resulted in some Unions in my district from the adoption of the plan." 2 A further disadvantage mentioned by Mr. Mozley refers to the lessened acquaintance of Guardians with the state of the children as regards their educational proficiency. 3 "If in a Poor Law school the children are making poor progress, the report of the school inspector of your Board necessarily brings this fact before the notice of the Guardians; but if they are making poor progress when sent to a public elementary school, there is no use to call the attention of the Guardians to this fact; and though it may be said that it is to the interest of the school teachers that the children shall progress, that interest is not always practically sufficient. I have known cases of children from workhouses being kept in the 1 22 L. G. B., p. 102. 2 6 L. G. B., p. 95. 3 22 L. G.B., p. 103. See also 12 L. G. B. p. 78, where Mr. Mozley makes the following useful suggestion : " The best method that I know of securing that this possibility may not become a reality, is one that also serves to increase the interest of the children in their work ; namely, by the Guardians giving cards of merit to those children who are successful in passing any standard in all the three elementary subjects. The cards I refer to are not unfrequently given by the managers of public elementary schools, and are designed to record the children's success (the standard in which each child is examined being noted on them) ; any school stationer will supply them ; they are always inexpensive and often elegant." 1J2 Children under the Poor Law same standard for three years successively without anyone making inquiry into the matter, or asking why the child was not moved up. In one case the child actually had passed the standard in the first year of the three, and yet was retained in it. All these defects can, I doubt not, be remedied ; I only desire that they should not be ignored." Mr. Holgate mentions other minor objections, 1 " such as extra suits of clothing to provide for bad weather, the length of distance travelled to and from school, and the loss of the one or two paid officers who were constantly of great service to the governor and matron in keeping order, or in cases of temporary absence, and which I only allude to in passing; but I am distinctly of opinion that if the system is to be continued the Local Government Board should warn Boards of Guardians of the dangers which I have ventured to point out, and of their duties in providing against them, and that the inspectors of schools should from time to time (if not annually) visit the Unions where the children are so educated, and thoroughly satisfy themselves that the general orders of the Local Government Board in these matters are fully complied with." There is also the difficulty in keeping the children clean, and Mr. Holgate, in his evidence before the Departmental Committee, 2 described them as going out clean, " far cleaner than the children they meet in the schools, and they come back and say to the matron, 'Matron, please, I do not like going to that school; nasty dirty children; and creepy crawly things drop on my slate.' " And he added the following significant words : " The despised pauper child is infinitely superior in obedience, in cleanliness, and in regularity to the class of children it meets in the school it is sent to." Mr. Preston Thomas, who is much in favour of the system, saying that the children thus educated contrast conspicuously, within his experience, with those educated within the walls of a workhouse, also mentions the above drawback. "The children now and then contract various diseases" (in the outside schools), "and also frequently bring back parasites in their hair or on their body. The strict supervision bestowed upon them in the matters of health and cleanliness makes these pauper boys and girls much superior, as a rule, in such respects to a good many of their schoolmates who have careless parents, and, perhaps, live in crowded cottages." 3 Then there is the difficulty of finding trustworthy persons to act as caretakers of the children. Thus Mr. Mozley writes : 4 1 6 Z. G. B., p. 95. 2 Evidence, Q. 15,511. 3 24 Z. G. £., pp. 31, 32. 4 18 Z. G. B., p. 145 (1888). The Use made of Public Elementary Schools 1 73 " When such an officer, being a caretaker, is employed to teach the boys in a trade, or the girls in domestic work, a part of the salary is generally repaid to the Guardians by the Local Government Board. It might be supposed, therefore, that the salary offered would be such as to attract competent officers, but there is great difficulty in finding a man who will remain for any length of time in such a position. A male officer of this kind will not stay, on an average, more than a year in his post, to judge by my district. Female officers, on the other hand, will stay in such a situation nearly four years on an average. I suppose that the task of superintendence, which is congenial to a woman, is too minute in its requirements to be performed very efficiently by a man. On the other hand, it demands but little physical labour, and is thus neither very satisfactory to a really active man, nor highly remunerated." In too many cases the duty of looking after the children out of school hours is left to the master and matron, or some other work- house officer, but as these officers have other duties to perform which take up almost all their time, the children are, in fact, to a considerable extent left to the charge of pauper inmates. 1 Mr. Holgate, in his Report for 1878, mentions with satisfaction that the Local Government Board in sanctioning proposals to send the children to school outside the workhouse, required provision to be made for a paid officer to take charge of the children when in the workhouse on return from school; a proportion of these officers' salaries being repaid to the Guardians out of the Parliamentary grant 2 in all cases where, the half-time system being adopted, it is shown that they are also teachers of some industry. 3 But the conditions laid down in the circular letter issued by the Poor Law Board on the 1 2th March, 1867, 4 have to be observed in order to obtain the grant. One of these conditions is that there must be at least an average number of thirty children in the school. Mr. Byam Davies expresses himself in favour of this rule being relaxed so as to admit of repayment for an industrial trainer, it being so important that there should be proper supervision of children out of school hours. 5 "For if, during the greater part of the day, they are left entirely to their own devices or put under the charge of pauper inmates, it is doubtful whether they do not lose nearly as much from want of looking after in the workhouse as they gain by mixing with other children at school." But, no doubt, the object of the condition being made was to break up the very small workhouse schools, and to induce the Guardians 1 15 X. G. A, p. 34. 2 These grants are now paid by County Councils under the Local Government Act, 1888. 3 8 Z. G. B. t p. 150. 4 See Appendix F., p. 408. 5 13 Z. G. £., p 131. 174 Children under the Poor Law to send their children to schools of other Unions in which there was accommodation for them. And this is the course recommended by Mr. Byam Davies. He writes as follows on the point : 1 "There are a certain number of workhouses where the school accommodation is greatly in excess of the present number of children, and a considerable saving of expense could be brought about if the Guardians of these Unions would take in the children belonging to other small Unions. By doing this one teacher could do the work now done by two, and besides there would be more inducement to a better class of teachers to apply for the place in case of a vacancy, as no one with any ambition would take a school of twenty or fewer children, many of them mere babies of from two to four years old. There are a few Unions in my district where children are taken in in this manner, and I see no reason why it should not be done much more frequently than at present, though, when it is feasible, I should much prefer that the children should be sent out to school or educated in a separate district school; but I imagine that there is no prospect of any extensive carrying out of the latter plan as long as rateable value, and not the number of children sent, is the basis of the contribution to be made by each Union in the District." It may be said that the testimony of the inspectors is unanimously in favour of the system we are describing, provided that proper provision is made for the supervision of the children inside the workhouse. The advantage to them in shaking off, by contact with the children in the school outside, much of that inertness which is apt to characterise them when they spend the whole day in their own company and between four walls, outweighs the many minor disadvantages to which we have drawn attention. 2 Uniform dress is now a thing of the past, and the difference between the workhouse and any other village child would hardly be noticeable to anyone who saw them together, except that the dress of the former might look neater and better kept than that of the latter. The system of sending the children to public elementary schools has been shown by experience to be so much better on the whole than educating them in the workhouse school that the comparative cost of the two systems need not be considered; but we may refer those who are curious in the matter to Dr. Clutterbuck's Report for 1886, where he shows that the workhouse school is the cheaper to the ratepayers. 3 We are no believers in the so-called " pauper taint " ; but supposing such a thing to exist, it must not be thought for a moment that it 1 13 L.G.B., p. 131. 2 Per Mr. Mozley, 12 L. G. B., p. 77. His criticisms of the system are very valuable. 3 16 L. G. £., p. 107. The Use made of Public Elementary Schools 175 disappears directly a child is sent to school outside the workhouse. It is quite impossible to advocate the system on this ground. Thus Dr. Clutterbuck, in one of his many valuable Reports advocating the combination of country Unions for the provision of schools, either by the utilisation of one of the workhouses or by new buildings, by which the children would be entirely separated from adult paupers, said that Guardians who think that the children will lose the taint of pauperism by associating with a better class of children, are apt to overlook the following facts : 1 "First. That the workhouse within whose walls they object to have the children instructed — this workhouse, with all its pauperising influences, remains the children's home — a home in which they have lost the protection and advice of a good teacher, and gain in exchange (too frequently) the sole supervision of some pauper inmate, thus reducing to a minimum the little possible advantage resulting from a wider range of experience with the outer world. Second. That at Board or other Elementary Schools the workhouse children will naturally associate with those most akin to themselves in character and general habits — the children, that is, of the very class from which the ranks of improvidence, pauperism, and crime are so largely recruited. Moreover, a general spirit of insubordination arises, engendered by envy of the freedom from restraint to which they, the workhouse children, are subjected. The workhouse child must possess an unusual amount of moral courage if it can patiently endure the taunt of an outsider." And many persons with a long experience of Poor Law Administra- tion will endorse the remarks of this inspector on the same subject made ten years later. 2 He said: "In a previous Report I have drawn attention to a point which must not be unduly emphasised, viz., that it is useless to expect that the system, apart from any merits it may otherwise possess, can eradicate what is popularly called the ' workhouse taint' so long as the children remain inmates of the workhouse. They may or may not be benefited by association with other school children, and this, in my opinion, is quite an open question, and one on which there is a great conflict of evidence j but it is quite certain that the system cannot get rid of the ordinary associations of the workhouse. The life in the house itself, the necessary intercourse with characters from which they should be most carefully kept apart (especially during the school holidays), the imperfect classification which is common more or less to every workhouse, and prevails especially in small rural Unions j all this must tend to foster the spirit of pauperism if that 1 6Z. G.B., p. 82. 2 16 L. G. £.> p. 103. This Report is an able criticism of the various methods of dealing with the Poor Law children. 176 Children under the Poor Law spirit be indeed, as is popularly supposed, an inseparable i?icident of workhouse life." But while we are entirely in agreement with Dr. Clutterbuck on this point, experience has shown that the system of sending out the children to schools outside is, where proper supervision is provided for them out of school hours in the workhouse, a more satisfactory method than keeping them within the four walls of a workhouse school, and that the improvement in their health and physique which results from the adoption of the system must be considered as more than an equivalent for any loss of industrial instruction which they would otherwise obtain. In consequence of the recommendation of the Departmental Com- mittee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools that "all Poor Law children be educated as far as possible in the ordinary public elementary schools, side by side with other children," 1 some of the large Unions have been led to consider the subject, and to press school managers to receive their children into those schools. The following interesting letter, which appeared in the Times of the 2nd of March, 1897, shows that the main objection of the school managers to receiving the children — viz., that relating to the additional burden which would be put upon the rates — has no real basis. "Workhouse Children at Parish Schools. " To the Editor of the ' Times* "Sir, — The Education Bill of last year contained a provision for enabling Boards of Guardians to pay fees for such of their children as attended either the Board or Voluntary school of the parish in which the workhouse is situated (Clause 24). This was one of the few sections in the Bill that excited but little opposition, and regret has been expressed that the clause was not included in the measure now before Parliament. This being the case, perhaps you will allow me, for the information of your readers and especially of those who are managers of schools receiving workhouse children, to state that the clause is not really required, and that if the consent of the Education Department can be obtained guardians can under the present law pay the fees. " The East Preston Union Workhouse stands in one of my parishes, and ten years ago we accepted the children, for whose education the guardians were responsible, as scholars at our parish school. The board paid extra fees, and the loss to the school was inconsiderable, as the number of the children was then small. " When the Free Education Act came into force the payment of fees ceased, while the number of the workhouse children largely increased, 1 Report, p. 45. The Use made of Public Elementary Schools 177 and we had for their benefit both to enlarge the school at a cost of £300 and engage an additional teacher. As the Union is rated at over .£200,000 a year and the parish at less than £2000, this was a hardship for which I determined, if possible, to find a remedy. "Section 4 (1) of the Free Education Act provides that 'the Education Department, if they are satisfied that sufficient accommoda- tion, without payment of fees, has been provided for a school district, and that the charge of fees will be for the educational benefit of any part of the district, may approve such charge in any particular school,' and I wrote to the Department pointing out that this clause exactly suited our case, and asked them to exercise the discretion it gives in our favour, adding that the Local Government Board, in a circular letter, had strongly advocated sending workhouse children to village schools. " My correspondence with the Department was continued for more than two years. There was no precedent for acceding to the request I made, and the officials were at first unwilling to create one. When, however, the Bill of last year was withdrawn, and with it Clause 24, they relented, and in November last authorised the payment of six- pence per week for each scholar. " The assent of the guardians had then to be obtained, but this was readily given, as the board gains largely by not having to maintain a school of its own, and the payment for the first quarter has just been received. "I may add that on the guardians assenting to pay the fees we at once requested them to nominate a representative on our committee of management, and this also was done. "In the section referred to of the Bill of 1896 it was provided that guardians might also contribute to the building of schools taking their children, but I doubt if this is expedient, though at the present moment we have to raise a further £250 for a separate infants' school. If the guardians made a grant for building they would become part owners of the school, and this would not be a satisfactory arrangement. " I am, Sir, yours faithfully, "A. M. Deane. " Ferring Vicarage, Worthing, "February 2ph." We will conclude this chapter, as we have done in previous ones, with a short account of how the children are actually dealt with in a Union where they have since 1885 been sent out from the workhouse to school. All the children, whether "in and out" or not, go out to school, except that, as a rule, no child under five does so during the winter. They are dressed like other children, and go and return with- out escort like others. They mix with other children freely, and are on good and even affectionate terms with them. Some of them may be seen coming back with the policeman's children, with their arms round each other's necks. There is no reason to believe that they N 1 7 8 Children under the Poor Law associate with the lowest class of children by preference ; they appear to rank and blend with the others in the usual way. They can take good care of themselves. As to their conduct and intelligence while at school, the following Report (dated 9th February, 1897) from the schoolmaster speaks for itself: Report. Compared with other children of the same class of life : — I. Punctuality . . Excellent I Conduct .... Good Cleanliness . . Excellent | Intelligence . . Satisfactory II. (As to Standards). Children remain in same standard for twelve months except the extra intelligent, who may be advanced two standards in one year. III. (Progress of individual children). Satisfactory with the intelligent Union children. Result of last three examinations, 'excellent.' Table of Elder Children. Boys. Girls. Name. Age. Standard. Name. Age. Standard. F. P. . 12 . .. VI. good A. B. . IO ... IV. good W. H. . 13 • jj >> A. W. . 9 -. ,, v. good E. P. . 12 . >> >> M. H. . 12 ... „ good A. S. . II .. iv. „ E. B. . 11 ... III. v. fair F. H. . IO . >» »> A. M. . 9 ... III. good F. B. • 13 • ,, v. fair B. T. . 9 ... III. good Good for their pos >ition. Good on the whole. As to religious instruction and services, the children have the same instruction in school as the others. They attend Sunday-school on the first and third Sundays in each month. They attend service every Sunday morning in the workhouse chapel, and on the second and fourth Sundays in each month at the school. It is hoped shortly to make arrangements for their attending the village church. There is no special religious instruction given in the workhouse, the chaplain having nothing to do with the children. In the workhouse the children do not mix with the other inmates, except that they have their meals in the same room with them, but at separate tables j nor are they allowed to associate with them in any way. While not at school they are under the charge of two paid officers, viz., the "male industrial trainer" (salary ^30), and the " female industrial trainer " (salary .£20), whose business it is to look after them. The accommodation for the children is quite separate from the other inmates. The schoolrooms, with wood-block floors, are to the right and left of the main entrance to the workhouse, and the children's bedrooms have a separate staircase and access. There are separate exercise yards for boys and girls, and they have a capital playground well away from the workhouse, beyond the farm-ground and buildings, where they play at cricket, football, with hoops, etc. The Use made of Public Elementary Schools 1 79 The "time-table" for the industrial training of children over nine years of age is as follows : Monday, ) Tuesday, & > All children 2 hours " domestic training." Thursday. J i«r j j \ Boys (half-timers), -\\ hours, "industrial" and "domestic." Wednesday) } f[ other) f „'« domestic." J^f X Girls (half-timers) 4 ,, "needlework" and "domestic" Fnday * ) „ (other) 2 „ "domestic." Saturday. All children 4 hours, " domestic" (getting ready for Sunday). [Note. — "Domestic training" means: making beds, cleaning up, scrubbing, cleaning boots, washing, ironing, mending, etc. ; and "industrial training" means tailoring. (The tailor's shop, which can be warmed, is in the boys' exercise yard.)] The health of the children is very good. There is no ophthalmia. What there is of skin and scalp disease is brought in by new comers, and is very rarely brought in from school. The children are usually sent out to service at between thirteen and fourteen years of age, when they have passed the proper standard, the Guardians preferring to get their boys and girls out into the world as soon as possible rather than to keep them in the workhouse. They think that the children learn more and better outside the workhouse than they are likely to do inside it. The boys either take up farm-work or service, and sometimes (but not often) are sent to sea. The girls all go to service in families of the farmer or shopkeeper class. The Guardians find no difficulty in obtaining employment for either boys or girls, and they are now considering the question of " after-care." Still, the children have always been urged on going out to write to one or other of the Guardians, and if their service is in the Union they are never lost sight of. On the 1st of January, 1897, there were forty-five children (twenty-four boys and twenty-one girls) in the work- house, of whom thirty-three (twenty-one boys and twelve girls) were over five years of age. Of the whole forty-five, five only could be classed as " ins and outs." Thirty-two children (twenty boys and twelve girls) have left this workhouse for service since 1887, with the following results : Boys. Girls. Sent out 20 Returned to workhouse o Recent touch — (a) Known to be doing well . 10 \b) Living at home with mother, and believed to be doing well 6 {c ) Not very satisfactory . . 1 \d) Lost sight of — Army, 2 ; Canada, I . .3 Such results seem to us to entirely upset the theory of the " pauper taint." The statistics are recent, and bear out the other statistics which we have already given of the depauperising influences of a Poor Law education. Sent out 12 Recent touch — (a) Known to be doing well (two well married). . . .11 (b) Believed to be doing well . 1 CHAPTER VII. THE BOARDING-OUT SYSTEM IN the introductory chapters we have shown how the system of boarding-out Poor Law children originated, and have pointed out how surely but gradually it has grown into favour as a mode of dealing with certain classes of these children. 1 It is now regulated by two Orders issued in 1889 : 2 (1) The Boarding of Children in Unions Order, and (2) The Boarding-out Order. Under the first of these Orders, children can be boarded-out within the Unions to which they are chargeable by the Guardians of all the Unions and separate parishes in England and Wales except those situate in the Metropolis; and under the second of the Orders, children can be boarded out without the limits of the Unions to which they are chargeable by every Board of Guardians in the kingdom. Further, the Guardians of any Union which is authorised to board out children under the first Order may do so either through the medium of a Boarding-out Committee, or not, as they think fit; whereas Guardians can only board out children beyond the limits of their Unions under properly constituted Boarding-out Committees. The above are the main differences between the two methods of boarding-out, although both methods have their own special merits and defects. The advantages of the boarding-out system generally, 3 as compared 1 Ante, pp. 25-29, 31. 2 Both Orders bear date 28th May, 1889. The Boarding-out Order replaced the Order of 1870, and the Boarding of Children in Unions Order that of 1877. 3 Mr. Mozley, in his Report for 1890, refers to another system in use in Lancashire (and to a less degree in Yorkshire), which may be called "boarding-out without payment." "In the more prosperous towns private persons are willing to adopt children from the workhouse without receiving any payment from the Guardians. The names of these children are (except in exceptional cases) entered in the register together with the children sent to service from the workhouse, and they are visited by the relieving officer. Reckoning all the children sent out under ten years old as of ■ jNIVERSITY OF _^\V* The Boarding-Out System 181 with other systems of dealing with Poor Law children, are manifest. It is the nearest approach that can possibly be made to a real home life for the children. They are, as a rule, boarded out in the country ; they grow up with the family in which they are placed ; they can run about freely ; they are not marked out from other children of their class ; and they often, if not generally, become merged in the local population of the place where they have been brought up. Miss Mason mentions the additional advantages that " the children learn to take care of themselves, become acquainted with the everyday details of everyday life, and work in the class to which they belong, and above all make friends or at least acquaintances before they go out into the world, upon whom they can fall back." 1 Then, supposing a child is unable to keep its first or subsequent situations, it has a home to go to while another is being found for it, instead of having to return to the workhouse or the school. 2 Lastly, it has the further apparent advantage that it is the cheapest system; we say apparent because, while it undoubtedly affords the cheapest way of dealing with a child during the time it is boarded out, it remains to be proved whether it is cheapest in the end. But with all these advantages it is quite capable of becoming the very worst system of dealing with Poor Law children, unless it is most carefully administered. So many cases of cruelty to and neglect of these children in the families with which they were placed have been discovered, and it is so easy for such cases to go undetected, that it is possible they are of more frequent occurrence than anyone would imagine. Miss Mason tells us also, that she has found children who have been actually blamed or punished by the committees which are estab- lished for their protection, for complaining of cruelties inflicted upon them ! 3 These dangers were well known to the framers of the original Order of 1870. Mr. Henley, indeed, in his Report of the same year directed attention to them; 4 and in the Memorandum 5 which accompanied the issue of the Order, it was acknowledged that the success of the system would entirely depend upon the exercise of the ' adopted,' some sixty are probably placed out thus every year in the whole of Lancashire. A good many change their homes, and some return to the workhouse ; but real ill-treatment is, I fully believe, rare, though boarding-out with payment is probably safer, as well as juster." (20 L. G. £., p. 259.) The inducement to take the children lies, of course, in the hope of future service from them. 1 23 L. G. B., p. 160 ; see also 19 L. G.B., p. 198. 2 This great advantage, however, can be, and has in fact been secured under other systems. 3 23 L. G. B., p. 160. 4 See ante, pp. 26, 27. ■ 23 P. L. B. t pp. 11- 18. <£filo*->* ., p 169. 184 Children under the Poor Law Boards of Guardians inviting persons to apply for the charge of pauper children. The order of the Board now issued would not permit such a practice. Experience has conclusively proved that unless the homes are carefully selected by persons who have an intimate knowledge of the locality, and who at the same time take a responsible interest in the children to be placed out, great abuses are quite certain to ensue." 1 Those Boarding-out Committees are, as a rule, the best which keep to a limited number of children in a small area, for quality suffers from quantity. 2 (2) Each member of a Boarding-out Committee must sign an engage- ment in writing to observe the regulations prescribed by the Orders? Mr. Bowyer considered it to be a great defect that no penalty was attached to the violation or neglect of the engagement entered into. "In the case of Boarding-out Committees this omission may well be accounted for by the fact that their services are gratuitous as well as voluntary, and such an argument, though implicitly a con- demnation of the employment of such Committees for the protection of the children, must be allowed to possess some degree of force j but in the case of foster-parents (see post, p. 187), whose parental offices have been paid for, the argument does not apply; and there appears to be no reason why they should not further engage to submit to certain fixed pecuniary penalties upon failure to perform the duties which they had undertaken j such penalties to be imposed upon them by the Local Government Board, after a public inquiry by one of their inspectors. Graver delinquencies would, as at present, fall under the cognizance of the law." 4 (3) Every Boarding-out Committee must appoint one of its members as Secretary, who must from time to time inform the Local Government Board of any vacancies on the Committee caused by death, resignation, or otherwise, and of the correct names and addresses of the members, and who must twice a year, in January and July, make a return 5 to the Board as to the number of children boarded out on the first day of each of those months. " It is very difficult to make a voluntary Committee understand that their secretary is merely their officer, appointed by themselves, who, though unpaid, is in much the same position as a Clerk to a Board of Guardians, and bound to carry out their instructions in the same way. As a matter of fact, the secretary is often the autocrat of the Committee, for the reason that it is he or she who started the Com- 1 23 P.L. B., p. 14. 2 23 L. G. B., p. 178. 3 For the Form of Engagement see Appendix G, post, p. 413. 4 1 L. G> B., p. 227. 5 See Appendix G, p. 414. The Boarding-Out System 185 mittee, and who enlisted the other members by promising them that their duties would be merely nominal, or their responsibility limited to the particular cases which they might visit." 1 The form of engagement for Committees 2 now requires that the chair at their meetings should be taken by someone other than the secretary. (4) The Guardians who have boarded out a child with a Committee may at any time withdraw it from their charge, or from the foster-parent on proper notice being given to that effect. (5) Only orphan and deserted children as defined by the Orders can be boarded out. "When applied to a legitimate child, the term 'orphan child' means a child both of whose parents are dead, or one of whose parents is dead, the other being under sentence of penal servitude, or suffering permanently from mental disease, or being permanently bedridden or disabled and an inmate of a workhouse, or being out of England ; and the term ' deserted child ' means a child deserted by both parents, or deserted by one parent, the other being dead, or under sentence of penal servitude, or suffering permanently from mental disease, or being permanently bedridden or disabled and an inmate of a workhouse, or being out of England; or a child one of whose parents is under sentence of penal servitude, or suffering permanently from mental disease, or is permanently bedridden or disabled and an inmate of a workhouse, or is out of England, the other parent being likewise in one of these conditions. "When applied to an illegitimate child the term 'orphan child' means a child whose mother is dead; and the term 'deserted child' means a child deserted by its mother, or whose mother is under sentence of penal servitude, or suffering permanently from mental disease, or is permanently bedridden or disabled and an inmate of a workhouse, or who is out of England." The argument in favour of limiting the boarding-out system to/ orphan or deserted children is as follows : " It is most important on/ all grounds to avoid severing or weakening in any way the ties of] family, even where, owing to the character of the parents, it might) be thought that the children would be benefited by removal from theirl control." 3 ' (6) Not more than two children may be boarded out by the Guardians in the same home at the same time unless all the children are brothers and sisters and do not exceed four in number. 1 23 L. G. B., p. 162. 2 See Appendix G, p. 413. 3 23 P> L. 2?., p. 15. 1 86 Children tinder the Poor Law (7) Not more than one child may be boarded out by the Guardians in a house in which any child is boarded out by persons other than the Guardians, nor may any child be boarded out in a home in which there is more than one such child. (8) No child may be boarded out in a home in which, at the tune when the child would first be placed in it, there would be with such child more than five children resident. (9) No child may be boarded out with any person who is in receipt of poor relief, or who has received poor relief within twelve months pre- ceding the boarding out. The Boarding-out Order of 1870 contained no such provision as this last, although the Poor Law Board recommended that children should not be boarded out with persons in receipt of relief. The present Order prohibits the practice altogether. The attention of the Local Government Board was also drawn to cases in which children had been boarded out with foster parents who had no means of support apart from the allowances made by the Guardians for the benefit of the children, and in their . Circular to Boards of Guardians dated the 29th May, 1889, they took the opportunity to point out how injurious such a practice must be to the best interests of the children, and to express the hope that in future no children will be placed with foster-parents who have not some adequate means of support. 1 That this practice still continues, how- ever, is testified to by Miss Mason. She speaks of numerous cases where the foster-parents have no means of living but the children's payment, and of the discontent which is caused thereby. "Some- times," she says, "when I ask them what they have to live on, they answer quite simply, 'Only the children.' One woman lately added, 1 The parish won't give you anything if you 've got them ! ' Another, a widow, much excited over her grievances, exclaimed to me recently, ' Why should Mrs. Smith have four children and she a husband, and I only two, with nothing but my own hands to keep me? It's not fair!" 2 (10) No child may be boarded out with a foster-parent of a religious creed different to that of the child. (n) No child may be boarded out without a certificate from a Medical Officer of the Union as to its health. (See Appendix G, p. 416, for form.) (12) No child can be boarded out with any foster parent who does not sign the necessary undertaking with regard to it, and an acknowledg- ment of its delivery? 1 See 19 L. G. £., p. 46. 2 22 L. G. B., p. 124. 3 For these forms see Appendix G,post, pp. 415, 416. The Boarding-Out System 187 The Clifton Boarding-out Committee use the following card for foster-parents, so as to remind them of their duties : (1) It is the wish of the Committee that the visitors should from time to time examine the child's whole stock of clothing, take off a shoe and stocking, and see the neck and arms ; also that the bed and bedding of the boarded-out child should be examined and the whole house seen. No foster-parents who are doing their duty will resent such inspection, which can only prove their trustworthiness. These inspections are not made on suspicion, but because the visitors are bound to report to the Committee from their own knowledge at first hand. (2) Lodgers are not allowed. (3) The foster-parents must receive the visitor at any hour of the day she wishes to call. (4) No boarded-out child must be sent to the public-house for any purpose whatever. (5) Boarded-out children must be sent regularly to school, and to church or chapel, and always in a neat and tidy condition. (6) The clothing must be kept up from the time that the children are first boarded out, and must be provided out of the allowance made by the Guardians. It seems to be a defect in the law that no penalty is attached to the breach of the undertaking by the foster parent. 1 (13) No child may be boarded out in any home ivhich is distant more than jive miles by the ?iearest road of access from the residence of some member of the Boarding-out Co77imittee. The limit of distance was fixed in order to facilitate the visiting of the children ; but in the opinion of the Central Authority it is desirable that the homes should be still more accessible. 2 Now that the area of Boarding -out Committees is limited to a certain parish, or particular parishes, with a view to its not being too large for the purposes of the necessary supervision, it is easy to observe the regulation, and at the present time there are few, if any, children so remote from their supervisors as five miles away. (14) Every child boarded out must be visited in his home once in every six weeks by some member of the Boarding-out Committee, who must report in writing upon its condition, etc., to the Committee, and the written reports must be forwarded by the Boarding-out Committee to the Guardians not less often than quarterly. If these reports are not sent for a space 1 l L.G.B., p. 227, and ante, p. 184. 2 The Board suggests three miles as the limit, 19 L. G. B., p. 44. 1 88 Children under the Poor Law of four consecutive months, the Guardians must either cause the child to be visited by one of their officers at intervals of not more than six weeks, or withdraw the child altogether. As the success of the boarding-out system depends entirely on the regularity of the inspection of the homes where the children are placed, it is most important for Boards of Guardians to be particular that this regulation is observed. No report form has been presented by the Local Government Board j but the form recommended by Miss Mason is that used by the Burton-on-Trent Board of Guardians. 1 This report form and other forms used by this Board of Guardians, which has been among the most successful with its boarded-out children, will be found in the Appendix G. 2 " It is very difficult," says Miss Mason, " to make some Committees realise the necessity for the Board's injunction that no child shall be left to the sole visitation of an individual member of the Committee. The 'visitors' often prefer dividing the children among them, each consider- ing those she (or he) visits her special property, who must not be interfered with by the rest of the Committee. No doubt some visitors take more interest in children under their special care, and there is no reason why the children should not thus be divided, only so long as some other member of the Committee also inspects them from time to time, otherwise the Committee are liable to painful surprises with regard to children whom they have entrusted to the care of individuals." 3 (15) The Clerk to the Guardians has to make a return to the Local Government Board twice a year, in April and October, as to the children who are boarded out, on the first day of these months. (16) No child may be boarded out more than two miles from a school, the master of which is willing to send to the Guardians at least once a quarter a written report upon it. An extra fee, not exceeding one penny a week, may be allowed to the schoolmaster by the Guardians, as a remuneration for the trouble of drawing up the reports. (For forms of Report see Appendix G, pp. 415, 417.) If regular reports from a schoolmaster, independent of the Com- mittee, are secured, a very valuable additional guarantee against any ill- treatment of the children remaining undiscovered will be afforded. There is one very important distinction between the two Orders. Under the Boarding-out Order no child can be boarded out at an 1 Published by Messrs. Knight & Co., of 90, Fleet Street, E.C. 2 See post, pp. 409-413. 3 23 L. G. B., p. 164. This does not, of course, mean that visits are to be made by more than one person at a time, a practice which is not considered desirable. See post, p. 203. The Boarding-Out System 189 earlier age than two, nor can any child over ten years of age be boarded out, unless it is placed in the same home with a brother or sister under that age. There are no such limits of age mentioned in the Boarding-out in Unions Order; the reason for the distinction being probably that in the latter case it is more difficult to make regulations where there is a large discretion in the matter of granting out-relief. With regard to these limits of age, the experience gained in Scotland strongly proves the many objections to the Boarding-out of children older than ten, and the great advantage of placing out children at as early an age as possible after infancy." 1 The experience of the West Derby Guardians has led them to resolve to board out no children above eight years of age. "Elder girls are much better dealt with in small schools or training homes." 2 The Braintree Committee have, also, formally expressed their opinion that no child should be boarded out for the first time after the age of six, except in special cases. 3 Miss Mason does not advise the boarding-out of children above ten years of age. She says : 4 "I often find older children drudged, neglected, or ill-treated, and regarded rather as servants than as children of the house. It is not reasonable to expect foster-parents to take to a big child whose habits are already formed, in the same way that they can do a little thing whom, as they say, they can bring up as their own, and who can most likely remember no other father or mother." Again she writes : 5 " Foster-parents are but human, and they cannot be expected to take to an elder child with habits already formed, and perhaps trouble- some, as they can to a younger one. One woman, for instance, speaking of two boys of about nine and eleven or twelve said to me : ' It 's not right to send them out so old; they eat as much as a man, and you can't manage them ; they want their own way.' I hear perpetual complaints of elder children. On the other hand, a young child wins its own way to the hearts, not only of the women but the men, who constantly say, you can't but love it ; it's got such taking ways ! It is rare to find one ill-treated, and they are usually kept in faultless condition, and supplied with clothing, playthings, and comforts of every kind. It is but right to add, however, that I sometimes come across cases where foster-parents have later become tired of children, whom they made pets of and perhaps spoilt when very young." 6 1 23 P. L. £., p. 15. 2 24 L. G. B., p. 87. 3 23 L. G. B. } p. 176. 4 25 L. G.B., p. 233. See also 17 L, G. B., p. 108; 21 L. G.B., p. 202; and 23 L. G. B., p. 176. 5 22 L. G. B. , p. 125. 6 For further remarks on this point see post, p. 395. 190 Children under the Poor Law There is, also, always a difficulty in finding suitable homes where an elder child already boarded out has, for whatever reason it may be, to be removed to a fresh home. 1 Although the Orders are silent as to the following points, 2 it is most important : 1. That children should not be boarded out with relations. 2. That children should not be boarded out in any home where the father is employed in night work ; and that in every case the foster- parents should be, by preference, persons engaged in outdoor and not in sedentary labour. . 3. That, in choosing the home, special attention should be paid to decent accommodation, and the proper separation of the sexes in the sleeping rooms. Children over seven years of age should never be allowed to sleep in the same room with married couples. 4. That no child should be boarded out in a house where sleeping accommodation is afforded to an adult lodger. 5. That particular attention should in all cases be given to the schoolmaster's quarterly report ; and if after two warnings to the foster- parents the report continues unfavourable, the child should be instantly withdrawn, and either transferred to another home, or sent back to the Union from whence it came ; and 6. That great care should always be given to providing the children with good ordinary clothing. No child should be boarded-out by the Guardians without a suitable outfit, for the repair and renewal of which a quarterly allowance, not exceeding ioj-., should be made to the foster- parents by the Guardians. Anything resembling a "workhouse uni- form " should be most carefully avoided. No regulations are laid down as to the size of towns or villages to which the children should be sent, but the Central Authority recom- mend that they should not be sent to homes or places containing more than 15,000 inhabitants. All boarding-out in large towns should be avoided. 3 In order further to protect the children, and also for the better supervision of Boarding -out Committees, the Local Government Board have had, for some years, a special Lady Inspector of children boarded out under the Boarding -out Order, but this lady 1 21 L. G. B., p. 202. 2 19 L. G. £., p. 46. These recommendations, which are made in the circular letter which accompanied the issue of the Orders of 1889, are taken from those made by the Poor Law Board in 1870. (See 23 P. L, B., p. 17.) 3 23 P. L. B., p. 18. The Boai'ding-Out System 191 does not inspect children boarded out under the Boarding-out in Unions Order. Where children are boarded-out within the Unions to which they are chargeable, and no Boarding-out Committee is established, the conditions and regulations (5 to 13 inclusive, and 16) set out above apply. In such cases the Relieving Officer makes the weekly payments to the foster-parents, and must report upon the children to the Guardians at least once a quarter, or oftener if required by them so to do. x The Medical Officers of the district in which the children are resident must also visit and report upon them once in each quarter to the Guardians. 2 It is evident, then, that everything possible has been done to secure the welfare of boarded-out children, at least where they are boarded out beyond the Unions to which they are chargeable. If any cases of cruelty and neglect have occurred, and such cases are by no means infrequent, it has been owing to the neglect or non-observance of the regulations, and to a disregard of the conditions on which the children are boarded out, and still more to a want of thoroughness in inspection, such as women alone can carry out. It is doubtless owing to the occurrence of such cases, and also owing to the difficulties attending the compliance with the regulations, that the boarding-out system, in spite of its manifest merits, 3 cannot be said to have become popular. 4 Thus it is by no means easy to find either suitable homes, suitable foster-parents, or suitable persons who will take the trouble to serve on Boarding-out Committees. Still more difficult is it when a Boarding-out Committee has once been formed to keep it going, by supplying the vacancies which occur in it from time to time. Then, again, Boards of Guardians prefer to have the children under their own observation, and, further, do not like being deprived of those children, the permanent ones, who do most credit to the education and training which they receive in the schools. We will deal with all these difficulties in turn. 1 For the form of the Report see Appendix G, p. 417. 2 Ibid., p. 417. 3 Ante, p. 181. 4 On the 1st January, 1896, no fewer than 33,978 "orphans or other children relieved without their parents" were receiving indoor relief, while only 5,905 were boarded-out at that time, either within or without the Unions to which they were chargeable. (See 25 L. G. B., p. 2.) 192 Children under the Poor Law (1) The difficulties connected with compliance with the Regulations. (a) Boarding-out Committees. The large majority of these Committees have been established under the Boarding-out Orders of 1870 and T889. 1 "On the nth February, 1895," Miss Mason tells us, 2 "there were on the Board's Register, nominally, 155 Committees authorised to board out beyond the Unions ; but of these nineteen were undoubtedly dead or dying. " It must be remembered that the ' boarding-out system ' is a natural system, which cannot be regulated in the same manner as an institution. A succession of matrons or officers can usually be secured for a fixed institution; but the supply of suitable foster-parents, homes, and supervisors, depends on circumstances quite beyond the power of the Local Government Board or any other authority to control. Country villages, which are the most suitable places for boarding- out, are the most liable to these changes, for the number of houses and residents is most limited. When the persons who have taken an interest in the boarding-out die, or leave the neighbourhood, their places are not always filled, or may be filled by persons who are not interested in the children, or who are not suitable for supervisors. Those who demand that the Local Government Board should enforce the continuance of particular Boarding-out Committees do not see that it would mean that they should supply the tenants of the private houses in these places." 3 And Miss Mason recurs to the subject as follows : 4 "Committees must, in the natural course of things, sometimes die out from local changes beyond the power of the Local Government Board or any other body to control, such as the death or removal of the members, with the impossibility of replacing them by others interested in the work or capable ; the cessation of a supply of suitable foster parents ; the fluctuations of trade or agriculture ; or the growth of large towns. In some cases, for instance, committees have been formed in districts then quite rural, and now become too urban to be suitable. In others a once flourishing trade or occupation has disappeared." But, in spite of these things, these Committees have largely increased since 1885, when Miss Mason was appointed Inspector. From her Report for 1894, we gather that since she took up the work of inspec- tion no fewer than 105 new Committees had been formed. 5 But of 1 On the 1st June, 1896, there were 150 Boarding-out Committees for looking after children boarded-out without the Unions to which they are chargeable, and only fifty-eight Committees authorised to supervise children boarded out within the Unions to which they are chargeable. 2 24 Z. G. B. } p. 85. 3 23 Z. G. B., p. 177. 4 24 Z. G.B., p. 84. 5 Ibid. The Boarding-Out System 193 the whole 155 existing in 1895 only 113 were available; again, of these 113 all were practically full, those which had homes to offer being so few that Guardians did not think it worth while to enter into agree- ments with them. Then the Central Authority will not authorise Committees to receive Poor Law children where the areas they cover are too large. On this account the King's Norton Boarding-out Committee has been inhibited since 1888 from taking any more of these children. Then, if the duties of those who are upon Boarding-out Committees are conscientiously performed, they are by no means light or easy. The visiting of the children, too, must necessarily be done by ladies. This visiting requires the inspection of the bodily condition, underneath the clothes of the children, by which means only can it be discovered how they are treated. "It ought to be observed," Miss Mason says, "that women only can properly investigate the condition of girls, yet it often happens that two or three Guardians, gentlemen, will visit the place for the purpose. It could hardly be believed that in one instance during the past year a committee of gentlemen thus visited a place in order to ascertain for themselves whether my report was accurate as to certain girls, though clean outside, being dirty underneath ! " 1 Then the inspection must be thorough, and it is even more important that it should be of the childretz rather than the homes. On this point Miss Mason says : 2 "The inspection of foster-homes is too often regarded in the same manner as the inspection of an institution, and attention is directed chiefly to the situation of the cottage and the manner in which it is kept> whether clean, tidy, and comfortable, or otherwise. This is an entirely wrong view of the boarding-out system, the object of which is to graft each child into a respectable family as one of its members. The treatment of the child rather than the condition of the cottage is the point to be ascertained. I have found children really well cared for in a rough and dirty cottage, and others neglected, starved, ill-treated or beaten in one that was beauti- fully kept and well furnished." The printed rules which have been adopted by the Clifton Boarding- out Committee for its guidance illustrate the responsibilities which people incur by serving upon such committees ; and as they usefully direct attention to the main points which must be observed by 1 21 Z. G. B., p. 201. See also 23 Z. G. B., p. 171. 2 21 Z. G.B., p. 201. 194 Children under the Poor Law committees having a deep sense of those responsibilities, we have inserted them in the Appendix. 1 These rules have been adopted by a large number of the Boarding- out Committees, and if they are observed, cases of cruelty and neglect on the part of the foster-parents will be very infrequent. It is, of course, most important that committees should consist of persons of sufficient social standing to ensure respect and welcome from the foster parents. "In one case," writes Miss Mason, "in North Lancashire, the foster - parents refused to receive the visits of the Committee, because, I was told, they were all too much of a level ; and the same was the case with another Committee in that neighbourhood. In another instance, in Kent, the opposite end of the kingdom, a foster mother told me that she should object to the visits of paltry people, and that there was no real lady in the parish; and she carried out her threatened resistance to the visits of a lady whom she did not think good enough." 2 (b) Good Homes and good Foster Parents. Ardent advocates of boarding-out assert that there is no difficulty in finding good foster-parents and homes for the children. The experience of Miss Mason, the inspector of the without boarding-out children, has led her to the contrary opinion. She asserts that the supply of good homes is by no means equal to the demand. 3 Nor, indeed, can Boarding-out Committees find them. She says: 4 " I continue to receive many applications from Boards of Guardians for names and addresses of Committees whom I can recommend able to receive children, and have always supplied them with a list of those most likely, giving the preference to new committees, who have, as yet, no children, as offering the first choice of homes ; but I have generally found my list quite inadequate. The Guardians also frequently send me the names of Committees to whom they have written on the recommendation of others, and who have replied that they have what are now styled 'Vacancies.' As a rule these Committees are the last I should recommend, either because they have too many children already, or because their work is not satisfactory." And in a later Report she again returns to the point : 5 "The supply of satisfactory Committees and homes continues to be quite unequal to the demand. Schools and workhouses, especially those belonging to the Metropolitan area, are much overcrowded, and 1 See Appendix G, post, pp. 417-419. 2 25 Z. G. /?., p. 232. 3 23 Z. G. B., p. 177. 4 23 Z. G. B., p. 178. 5 24 Z. G.B., p. 85. The Boarding-Out System 195 boarding-out has been increasingly resorted to as a means of disposing of the children. I have received so many letters from Boards of Guardians asking me for the names of Committees whom I can recommend able to receive children, that I have been obliged to draft a general letter in answer, and have it copied. I have also drawn up, and had copied for the use of Guardians thus applying to me, a list of such Committees, giving the preference to the most newly formed as offering the first choice of homes. They have been filled so rapidly that each has, as a rule, applications from at least three or four Boards of Guardians, and the list I have to offer is wholly inadequate." Miss Mason then gives figures to show how all the available Com- mittees are practically full, and " those who have homes to offer have so few that Guardians do not generally think it worth while to enter into an agreement with them." She strengthens the facts she states by extracts from two letters she had received, and says : " I had written to the secretary of one Committee asking him if he could start any fresh Committees in new neighbourhoods, and he answers, ■ Certainly, the supply of good homes, under good Committees, is quite unequal to the demand (we cannot find enough for Poplar's requirements) ; and another difficulty, especially for boys, is getting them employment, when their boarded-out time is over, in the country districts.' A letter from another Committee to the Local Government Board says, 'Sir, — In answer to your letter received yesterday, I regret to have to say that the Committee has had no children boarded out under its care for several years. The place is too remote, and the cost of living too great for the success of the experiment here. The cottagers cannot afford to take children at the rate offered, and that makes them backward and unwilling to accept the charge. Moreover, there are not many cottages large enough to accommodate additional inmates. Considering all these points, we think that our name, as a Boarding-out Committee, had better be taken off the Government books, especially as there is no prospect of matters changing.' ' n Of course, it will be said that the remedy for this is the establish- ment of more Boarding-out Committees. No doubt if more were formed the number of suitable homes would be increased, but it will, of course, be within the knowledge of people who live in the country, and know the poor, how few homes there are in which they would be willing that children should be boarded out. Such people will agree with Miss Mason when she goes on to say : " I can fully understand how those who do not know the cottages and people from within, and intimately, may think that sufficient good homes for children must surely be found among the many charming looking cottages they pass on the roads; but if they really inquired 24 L. G. £., pp. 85, 86. See also 21 L. G. B., p. 194. 196 Children imder the Poor Law they would not find them as numerous as they suppose. Besides, England is not a new country, and many of its available homes are taken up by the nearly 4000 children boarded out within the Unions, and by the many voluntary societies and persons who board out, such as Dr. Barnardo, Dr. Stephenson, 'Waifs and Strays,' 'Invalid Children,' ' Country Holidays '* (of which last there are any number of agencies), * Children's Aid,' and so on, ad infinitum. In some places, owing to these many sources of supply, boarding-out is a regular industry. Good homes are to be found here and there, but seldom in con- siderable numbers in one place, nor where they are is it desirable to congregate too many boarded-out children together. There are still districts untouched where some may yet be found, but the limit must be reached at some time, and boarding-out must always, of necessity, be supplemented by other systems, both on account of the impossibility of finding enough satisfactory homes for all the pauper children of this country, and because all those pauper children are not fit for boarding-out, and satisfactory foster-parents and Committees will not receive them." 2 (c) Stringent Supervision. If boarding-out is to be successful, the regulations and conditions imposed by the Orders must be absolutely complied with. One of the causes of its slow progress is undoubtedly connected with the labour and trouble which the necessary supervision involves. 3 It is an excellent system of dealing with Poor Law children, if great care be taken in choosing the homes, and if the supervision be adequate and thorough, but the very worst, irrespective of the choice of home, if the supervision be superficial. For the system will not work of itself. Miss Mason has over and over again shown in her Annual Reports how frequent and even daily visiting may be useless if superficial. " Indeed," as she says, " it is worse than useless, as it sanctions the proceedings of such foster-parents as, under a fair outside show, are not doing their duty. A good working man's wife, with children of her own, will give a better opinion than any theorists upon the right methods of inspection. "The object of the boarding-out system is to place children with trustworthy persons, who will bring them up as their own. It is the foster-parents, not the committees, who have the actual care of the children; and the object of the supervision by the committees is, therefore, not so much to look after the children themselves, as to see that the foster-parents are doing so and that they are trustworthy. No amount of supervision can secure affection for the children from 1 One of the "Country Holidays" Societies alone boarded out in that particular year 28,000 children. 2 24 Z. G. B., p. 86 ; 25 L. G. B., p. 232. 3 See ante, p. 193. The Boar ding- Otit System 197 their foster-parents, and bodily care which is bestowed upon them only from fear of censure, or under threat of their removal, is worth little. It is only by a thorough examination from time to time that it can be ascertained with certainty whether the foster-parents are conscientious and really fond of the children." 1 In a later Report 2 Miss Mason says she cannot too often nor too strongly repeat what she had already said in former Reports. " Persons living on the spot and seeing the children every day, may yet have no idea of the treatment if they do not by partly undressing them from time to time, and by surprise visits, ascertain their bodily condition. I do not myself completely undress each child as does the lady who inspects for Dr. Barnardo, although I think her precautions are on the safe side, because dirt and neglect do not so much show where the body is well protected by the clothing. The feet are a better guide than anything else to the treatment of a child, for it is in the hollows of the ankles that strata of dirt accumulate most visibly, and having now seen some thousands of children's feet, I am generally able, by taking off one stocking, to tell the date of the last bath to a week, if it is only weeks since. There is very little visible difference between dirt of some months and a year's standing. The human skin cannot retain strata of more than a certain thickness. The removal of a stocking also often reveals broken chilblains, blisters, and sores, nails uncut, and broken below the quick, or growing into the foot. The neck, shoulders, and upper part of the arms also show dirt, bites and marks of vermin, skin complaints and blows. Beating is generally begun on the upper part of the arms. I sometimes find bruises there, evidently made by sticks, and where this is the case I undress the child as much further as necessary. I have thus now and then found a child covered with bruises. "An examination underneath also shows whether the underclothing is sufficient, and the linen and stockings clean, and in good repair. All tidy labouring people change and mend their children's linen weekly, but many of them disregard the washing of their bodies after they are quite young. Taking this into consideration, if I find a child clean I always report the fact to the foster-parents' credit, whereas I do not report dirt of months' standing if the case is otherwise satisfactory, and there is no other trace of neglect and ill-treatment, and if I can get the matter set straight by pointing it out to the committee. When- ever my reports are silent on this point, it is not because I have not investigated and do not know the facts, or that I do not consider them of importance, but because I draw a distinction between the dirt of mere ignorant custom and that of wilful neglect. It cannot therefore be said that I am unduly severe towards the foster-parents, or that I do not make allowance for the habits of labouring people. " The choice of a home is no doubt a matter of the highest import- ance. An improper selection is inexcusable, as showing either a want of care or of judgment. But selection is not the only thing necessary; supervision should come afterwards, and it is neither safe nor right to 1 19 L. G. B., p. 198. ■ 21 L. G. B., p. 195. 198 Children under the Poor Law trust to even the best selected foster-parents. As I have pointed out, continual or daily visiting may reveal nothing of the true condition of things. The Denmead Committee were living unsuspectedly among a number of children covered with itch and body lice, seeing them daily at the school, and one of the Committee was walking hand-in-hand with one of the worst cases on the day before my visit and its revela- tions. There may even be too much supervision and visiting ; continual interference in detail only tends to shift the responsibility from the foster-parents who have the actual care of the children to the com- mittee, whose duty it is to see and ascertain that the foster-parents are treating them properly. A thorough examination from time to time of the children's bodily condition is the only way to know this for certain. Quality, not quantity, is to be desired in supervision. " Some children whom I inspected during the past year were visited and reported upon quarterly by a doctor, who had only looked at their faces. I found some of them neglected and affected with purpura, and I showed them to the doctor, who declared that he would never hence- forward report upon a boarded-out child without undressing it from head to foot." Probably no Boarding-out Committee has done better work than that established by Miss Preusser. After the lamented death of this lady, to whose efforts boarding-out without Unions is attributable, the Windermere Committee did their best to carry on the work in the same way as before, so as to make her loss felt as little as possible. " But here," writes Miss Mason, " was one of the worst possible instances that could be given of what I am so constantly insisting on, that no amount of care, activity, and devotion, or the most careful selection of homes, can enable a Committee safely to dispense with that personal inspection of the children which alone can prove their treatment. On my first inspection here I had taken one of the ladies with me to show her my methods of inspection of the children, and I believed that they would have been followed, but it was not so; and, therefore, in spite of the vigilance of the Committee in other respects, I found here at least two cases where the foster-parents had grossly deceived them, one of these cases being that of one of the best known and longest trusted foster-parents — a woman who had brought up a succession of foster-children — and those I found with her formerly having been well cared for." 1 It is quite impossible to mention here all the cases of cruelty and neglect which have been brought to the public notice, and which are mainly owing to the want of thorough supervision and inspection, but we will give a few typical instances. 2 1 24 L. G. B., p. 81. 2 We will refer those who are anxious to see what boarding out may come to in a single Union, if not properly supervised, to Mr. Andrew Doyle's Report upon it The Boarding-Out System 199 1. Four children who had left the Thame Union Workhouse in perfect health were found to have been sleeping in one bed, which was spotted with blood from their sores, as they were suffering from a well-known cutaneous disease. 1 2. A girl of twelve years old was found to have been in the habit of sleeping in her foster-mother's cottage in the same room with three men. 9 3. Two men were found to be lodging in one house containing only two small bedrooms, and where both a girl and boy were boarded out with a widow and daughter; and, in addition to this, a son and his wife and three children were staying there on a visit. The foster-mother told Miss Mason an untruth about the sleeping arrange- ments ; it was difficult to say how many persons altogether slept in the house. But the boarded-out children slept on "make-ups" in the foster-parent's room, the boys being on the floor. 3 4. A girl of about four years old had been placed with a small farmer and his wife, who applied for her, apparently not for the sake of profit, but as a companion to their only child, a girl of about the same age. Not only was the home clean and comfortable, and quite superior to an ordinary cottage, but the foster-parents were regarded as the models of the parish. The foster-father was in the church choir, a regular church-goer and communicant, and the clergyman himself said to Miss Mason, " I regarded him as a brother.' Nothing had ever been said against the foster-parents by anyone, nor, beyond the ill-treatment of the boarded-out child, has anything been said against them since. No one could have apparently been more worthy of trust, and no home could have been better selected. Yet these persons beat and knocked this child about till her screams one day attracted the notice of the neighbours, and she was found a mass of bruises, tied to the bedposts by her thumbs, which had been cut through by her struggles. The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children heard of the case, took it up, and both the foster-parents were convicted and imprisoned. The surprise of the Boarding-out Committee who had trusted to the good reputation of the foster-parents can be imagined, and Miss Mason quotes it and as carried out in the Swansea Union during the years preceding 1875 (see 4 L. G. B. t p. 171). Mr. Doyle said that he had never heard a single objection to the system of boarding out which he did not find illustrated in that Union {ibid., p. 172). 1 1 L.G.B., p. 226. 2 3 L. G. B. , p. 282. In one case mentioned by Mr. Wodehouse as having occurred in the Caistor Union, the lodger was convicted and sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment for an attempt to rape a boarded-out child. 22 P. L. B., p. 133. 3 24 Z. G.B.,p. 79. 200 Children under the Poor Law many other similar cases as showing how necessary it is for visitors to undress the children. In this case the body of the child under her clothes was found to be "covered with weals and marks of ill- usage of various dates, which gave evidence that she must have been ill-treated not once but continuously. 1 5. A boy, L , was boarded with a " cowkeeper " and his wife, with three boys and two girls of their own, all under eleven. Two boys from Dr. Barnardo's Homes were also placed there. The house was large, but the foster-parents had only recently moved into it, and had furnished only two bedrooms ; the five boys were sleeping in one room, large and airy, but three of them (one of them was L ) slept in one bed. On Miss Mason examining their bodies at the request of the Committee, they were found to be covered with itch and body-lice in various degrees. One of Dr. Barnardo's boys had the complaint slightly, the other was a mass of sores. The foster-mother had evidently more children under her care than she could attend to properly ; and while having her own children attended by the doctor, she had concealed the complaints of her foster-children. 2 If the Clifton Rules 3 are complied with, it would be almost im- possible for cases of ill-treatment to escape detection. It is useless, of course, to question the children themselves on the subject, taking their opinion of their homes and treatment, and consulting them as to whether they wish to be removed or not. " If a child is treated with affection and as a member of the family, it is a great pity to disturb this state of things by questions suggesting mistrust of those who have taken the place of its parents, or by re- minding it of the workhouse, much better forgotten ; and if the child is ill-treated, it is almost always afraid to say so." 4 Men are not suitable visitors. In 1885 Miss Mason found that "some Committees were formed wholly or chiefly of gentlemen, who cannot properly make the thorough investigations into matters of health, 1 21 L. G. B., pp. 197, 198. For similar instances see 23 L. G. B., pp. 171-173. The well-known Hockley case (22 L. G. B., pp. 1 17-120) affords a striking instance of the necessity of examining the bodies of the children. A short account of it will be found on pp. 367, 368, post. 2 This was one of the well-known "Denmead" cases. For Miss Mason's Report upon this and other similar cases under the supervision of the Denmead Committee, see 17 L. G. B. % pp. 104-107. 3 See ante, p. 193, and Appendix G, pp. 417-419. 4 19 L. G. B., p. 202. Instances of the uselessness of trying to get at facts by questioning the children themselves are given in this Report and in 17 L. G. B., p. 112. The Boar ding- Out System 201 cleanliness, and clothing, which only a woman can." 1 Some years later she reverts to this subject as follows : 2 " I must again draw attention to the uselessness of visits made by men. During the past year the children from certain Unions have been visited by men Guardians with, I am sure, the very best and kindest inten- tions, but the result has been only productive of harm, because, to speak quite plainly, men cannot turn up girls' petticoats, take off their stockings, and look at their shoulders, etc., and without this kind of inspection it is, as I have said, impossible to ascertain the real facts as to the children's treatment, and it is only guess-work. The guess may be right, but there is no means of proving that it is so. Where these gentlemen have merely paid a friendly visit, without reporting, the effect has been only good, and I am glad that the children should have the feeling that they are not forgotten, and that their friends take the trouble of a journey on purpose to see them. But when the visit is intended as an inspection, and the Guardians have reported to their Board on what is impression, not fact, and guess without proof, the result has been most mischievous. I have come upon cases of ill- treatment which Guardians had previously reported as satisfactory, and the Committee have answered me that if the Guardians were satisfied they did not see what more was required, and that they did not feel bound to make any more investigations than w r ere necessary thus to satisfy them. " In one such case I found a child grossly ill-treated and neglected. The Guardians had visited him among the rest not very long ago, and reported that they could not sufficiently express their admiration of the boarding-out by this Committee. The Committee urged this in justi- fication of the abuses which I found. "I know how difficult it must be for those living on the spot to believe that cottagers whom they have long known, and whom they trust, may deceive them. Those who are the most trusted and left to themselves, are thereby exposed to the greatest temptations ; and for this reason my experience has been that those foster-parents who have been in the domestic service of the members of the Committee are often among the least satisfactory. I also know how difficult it must be for Guardians, who have never seen the condition of a neglected or ill-treated child, to realise that these facts may exist under a clean, tidy frock or suit, a rosy smiling face, and in a clean comfortable cottage, when they are cheerfully received by a pleasant mannered and respect- able woman. " On one occasion, after I had reported two children as not clean, a Guardian, a gentleman, went down to the country to inquire. He reported ' that the children (one of whom was a girl) now have a bath every Saturday, and were quite clean when I saw them.' Now may I ask upon what was this statement founded? It must either have been upon the evidence of his own eyes, or upon someone else's authority. If upon the evidence of his own eyes he must have un- dressed the girl as I did, in order to discover the facts of which the 1 15 L. G. B. t p. 60. 2 23 L. G. B., p. 166. 202 Children under the Poor Law Committee, seeing her constantly, were ignorant ; and I cannot believe that he did this : or he must have received his information from the Committee, the foster-parents, or the children. As I have so often urged, it is worse than useless to question children, and if he ques- tioned the Committee and foster-parents, he might as well have done so by post, and saved himself the trouble of the journey. I can scarcely think that the Local Government Board or the Guardians would be satisfied with my own reports if my information were gained in this manner. Indeed, this method of inspection adds nothing to the periodical reports already received from the Committees. Yet this gentleman's report was well written, and bore every mark of sincerity, interest, and painstaking ; and he had evidently no idea that he had not seen everything there was to see. Only 'seeing is be- lieving,' and nothing else ever opens the eyes of those who in all good faith imagine they are inspecting." Miss Mason tells us that she has sometimes been told by Com- mittees that it is difficult for persons living on the spot to make the examinations which she insists upon as necessary if abuses are to be prevented, without offending the foster-parents. But she says : 1 " I find that the foster-parents understand the responsibility of the Committee, when explained to them, too thoroughly to take offence, and even expect such examinations. They frequently offer to undress the children altogether. There is no difficulty where the foster-parents are made to understand that these are the conditions on which the children are sent to them. They need not take them if they do not wish it." Miss Mason then goes on to show how almost invariable is the welcome given by foster-parents to inspection when there is nothing to conceal. 2 Visits should in no case be notified to the foster-parents beforehand. They should always be surprise visits. Miss Mason lays great stress on the necessity of this. " In some instances where Guardians have visited the children and homes, they have given previous notice to the Boarding-out Com- mittees, and these committees have in their turn given previous notice to the foster-parents. I have heard it assigned as a reason for so doing that it was to ensure the Guardians finding the foster-parents at home. But this can be scarcely necessary, for I find the foster- parents out comparatively seldom ; and even if it were otherwise, previous notice entirely destroys the value of a visit of inspection. In one place, for instance, where a party of Guardians had thus visited by notice, the foster-mothers gave me an amusingly naive account of it. Some of them said that the gentlemen were so pleased with the appearance of the children at school that they had not thought it 1 19 L. G. £., p. 201. 2 Ibid. See also 24 Z. G. B., p 87. The Boar ding- Out System 203 necessary to visit the home; 'and I was sorry, for I had made the house so nice — not like you see it now." One woman said that only two of the gentlemen had got out of the carriage containing the party which stopped at her door, and that they were so pleased with the room downstairs that they did not want to see the bedrooms ; ' but I made them come up, for I did not want the trouble of having made the beds, and all for nothing.' Others, who lived at some distance from the village, expressed their disappointment that 'the gentlemen did not come so far as this, for I waited in all day for them, and had everything ready, and the children's clothes laid out so nice on the bed.'" 1 We ask, with Miss Mason, what possible information can be gained from inspection such as this ? Visits of inspection by committees or deputations, instead of by one person alone, are considered by Miss Mason objectionable for three reasons : 1. They advertise the pauperism of the children ; 2. They destroy the possibility of surprise visits ; and 3. An intimate knowledge of the foster-parents cannot be gained. " 1. The sentimentalism which sometimes describes boarded-out children as so severed from pauper associations that the neighbours do not know them to be boarded-out is, no doubt, a ridiculous exaggeration. In a country place everyone knows the facts, and no one thinks the worse of the children because they are boarded-out from the Union. But the Local Government Board are certainly right in pointing out, as they do, that these visits of a committee of Guardians must tend to perpetuate the connection of the children with their pauper associations. Indeed, it is an actual advertisement of the children's pauperism. The arrival of a party of strangers — especially of gentlemen, usually in a carriage — causes quite a commo- tion in a quiet place. " 2. This commotion defeats the object of inspection, for the news spreads so quickly that in a very short time every house is prepared and set right, and the children made neat for the occasion. "3. It is not easy, if possible, for a party, especially if accompanied by the members of the local Boarding-out Committee, to get to know the foster-parents and gain their confidence in the way which an individual visiting them alone can. For these reasons, I make my own inspection in the quietest manner possible, walking whenever the place is within walking distance. If not, I either send my conveyance back before I enter the village, or if I have to keep it there, put it up at once outside the place wherever possible, and make my inspections on foot. If my driver knows my name or occupation, I give him strict orders not to mention them. My conveyance is usually a dog-cart, or a humble pony-cart driven by a boy. 1 21 Z. G. B., p. 201. 204 Children under the Poor Law " I do not invite the members of the committee to visit the homes and foster-parents with me, for I find that the foster-parents are reserved in their presence, and I cannot get to know them well. The same objection does not apply to my taking the members of the committee with me to see the children, who are usually away from their foster-parents at school j for real inspection of the children consists in seeing their bodily condition, not in asking them questions — a practice which is not only useless, but highly objectionable, as a rule. And although (as I have said) I am only too glad, whenever it can be conveniently arranged, to take one of the Guardians with me on an inspection, neither I myself or the foster-parents are fully at ease in the presence of a third person, and I should always decline to take more than one at a time with me. I have on one or two occasions been accompanied both by a Guardian and one of the Boarding-out Committee, and have found that the three objections I have pointed out to inspection by a party, applied to these visits by as many as three persons together." 1 The entire value of a visit of inspection depends upon whether it is really one of surprise. Miss Mason's experience is that a few minutes are enough " to enable the foster-mothers to put good blankets and clean sheets on the children's beds. A little longer notice will allow them (according to what they themselves have told me) to borrow clothing belonging to their neighbours' children to show j and when the number of children in one place has been too great for my inspection to be finished in one day, and my presence has then become known, I have sometimes on the next day found the rest of the children newly washed and dressed in good clothes, and the houses scrubbed and set in order for me. Foster-parents who have themselves received a surprise visit are jealously and justly anxious that their neighbours should also be surprised. In one case I found two boys evidently neglected and literally covered with flea-bites, their linen being marked all over. Their foster-parents cleaned them in consequence of the discovery, and when I re-examined them a week afterwards there was not a trace of the fleas left. In some instances the Guardians, after receiving the copies of my reports, have visited the spot in order to make further inquiries. This seems to me the right course, and, personally, I should be glad if it were always adopted. Yet it should be observed that such visits cannot be of real surprise, for the effect of the previous visit of the inspector, even if some time ago, is always to set things to rights to some degree if not altogether. In other cases the Guardians have sent for the foster- parents and children for examination. I am surprised that any value should be attached to such a method of inspection when the house 1 21 L. G. B., p. 202. The Boarding-Out System 205 is not only not seen, but the foster-parents are able to wash and dress the children beforehand, and prime them as to what to say, and, if sufficient time is allowed, to feed them up." 1 (2) The Objections of Guardians. Boards of Guardians being responsible for the care and control of the children who come into their hands are naturally very jealous of divesting themselves of their duties and responsibilities in the matter ; and again, inasmuch as only the pick of the children can be boarded out, and as, if these are removed, the Guardians are left with the most difficult children to manage, they are by no means eager to hand over the children to the care of Boarding-out Committees. Besides which, if they are inclined to boarding-out, they prefer to do it in their own way under the Boarding-out in Unions Order and without the intervention of Committees. But in adopting this latter course they are, in our opinion, not acting wisely, for the reasons which we will give hereafter. 2 (a) The Loss of the Direct Control of the Children. Where the Guardians have the direct control of the children in their own schools, and they find out that they are being badly treated or neglected, they can put a stop to the mischief at once. They can, however, never be certain that their boarded-out children are being properly cared for. Every now and then cases of neglect or cruelty are brought to their notice, and sometimes the children have to be returned to them, and we therefore cannot be surprised that they should not be very keen on parting with their children. They are aware, too, how successful the education and training which the children receive in their schools has been, and how few of those who have been sent out into the world come back to the workhouse. They are, therefore, naturally very loth to abandon systems which they know to work well. (b) The taking away of the Best Children, and so Affecting the Efficiency of the Schools. It cannot be too often impressed upon the minds of those who take an interest in the subject that only orphan and deserted children can be boarded out. 3 Still, as a very large number of indoor pauper children 1 17 L. G. B., p. 112. » Set post, p. 229 et seq. 3 For the definitions of "orphan" and "deserted" see ante, p. 185. 206 Children under the Poor Law permanently under the care and control of Boards of Guardians belong to this class, it will at once be seen how greatly their removal from the schools may affect the efficiency of these institutions. This objection to boarding-out was raised at a very early period. Thus Mr. Bowyer, in 1870, wrote as follows : " The universal opinion of those best acquainted with the subject is, that orphan and deserted children are those who encounter least moral deterioration from their stay in the workhouse, and who turn out best when they leave it, and the reason for their superiority is precisely that they are orphans and deserted." 1 Mr. Carleton Tufnell took the same view. He said : 2 "The boarding-out plan takes all these children out of the school, and leaves those only whom it is most difficult to teach and train. The pupils who would do most credit to a school, whose superior conduct, intelligence, and consequent ready response to the efforts made to instruct them is the chief delight to a conscientious teacher in the arduous and monotonous work of his office, are all removed, and he is left with a caput morluum of the most dull, the most irregular, and the most impracticable of his pupils. What good teacher could endure to live in a school in which the rule was that every promising child was to be instantly taken away. Would he not throw up his office in despair ? "There are some Unions in my district in which the boarding-out plan has been introduced, and I find on visiting the workhouse schools, whence the boarded-out children have been removed, which usually contains two-thirds of al] the pauper children, that all the results which might have been anticipated have occurred. The schools are so bad that in some cases the instruction really amounts to nothing. All the best children, who formerly gave a tone to the school, set an example to the rest, and as monitors or otherwise were of the greatest assistance to the teacher, are gone." 3 Mr. T. B. Browne also testified to the fact of boarding-out affecting workhouse schools materially. "Good schools in the Clutton Workhouse have been broken up in consequence of the adoption of this arrangement; the Northwich school and the girls' school at Taunton have suffered greatly, and the Exeter school has also suffered to some extent. Orphans and deserted children, as the most regular long timers, are the backbone of a school, and its character must inevitably decline if they are withdrawn." 4 Mrs. Nassau Senior was able to answer these objections so far as they regarded large schools. But then she did not advocate the boarding- 1 22 P.L.B., p. 126. Mr. Wodehouse was of the same opinion. (See 22 P. L. B., pp. 133, 134.) 2 23 P. L. B., pp. 207, 208. 3 See further 2 L. G. B., pp. 82, 83. 4 23 P. L. B. f p. 236. The Boarding-Out System 207 out of deserted children, as the following extract from her well-known Report of 1874 shows: 1 "Another and, I think, the chief reason why boarding- out meets with opposition is that the superior officers of the schools are opposed to it, and their opinion has, and ought to have to a certain extent, weight with the Guardians. As the schools are at present constituted this opposition has some plausible ground. The officials reckon on the permanent children to keep the casuals in order, and they believe that their already difficult task would become impossible if these children were removed from the schools, and boarding-out were more generally adopted. They know that the only class of children whom it would be possible thus to place are those now reckoned as ' permanents,' and they very naturally feel that it would be hard on them to take away the only children who can show a fair result of their labour. "The inspectors feel the same. They say that the principle of boarding-out, by withdrawing the best element from the schools, necessarily consigns to ruin and pauperism one half of the children. If this was really the case I should be of their opinion, and would oppose the principle as heartily as I now further it. But even with the present classification of the schools, the withdrawal of the orphans would not take away the permanent element. The deserted children would be continuously in the schools; 2 so would the children who now appear in returns as 'casual,' but who cannot fairly be so classed because, though neither orphans nor deserted, they yet are liable to no absences with vagrant parents, being children whose mothers are permitted to leave the workhouse and earn their living (though unable to support their children), and those children, also, whose parent or parents are incurably ill in infirmary or asylum. And if, as I really desire, the real casual class were taken out of all the schools and educated in schools expressly set apart for them, I think that the objections of both school officers and inspectors to boarding-out the orphans would cease. There would be none but permanent children in the ordinary schools, and I believe there would be but little opposition to the orphans being placed in families." We have pointed out that Mrs. Nassau Senior's arguments were only an answer to the objections raised by the inspectors so far as regarded large schools, 3 and further, that she only advocated the boarding-out of orphan children. Her answer does not touch the question as to how far the boarding-out of orphan and deserted children might affect the ordinary workhouse schools. That it must have injuriously affected 1 3 L. G. B., pp. 344, 345. 2 The italics are our own. 3 It must always be remembered that the Report of Mrs. Nassau Senior was limited to the question as to how far the Metropolitan schools were successful in the education and training of girls ; and Mr. Wyndham Holgate gives an instance where one of these schools ( Anerley) was very injuriously affected by the withdrawal of their permanent children. See n L. G. £., p. 132. 208 Children under the Poor Law them is quite clear. But since these early Reports of the inspectors the difficulty has solved itself to some extent by the Guardians of country Unions adopting almost universally the practice of sending the workhouse children to the public elementary schools. By this means they not only preserve the direct control of the children, but they are able to surmount the difficulty of finding suitable teachers when the " permanent " children are removed from the workhouse. 1 Still, there is always the risk that less interest may be taken in the children who remain in the workhouse, and that they may be left to the care of paupers there; which should, of course, never be allowed. 1 As showing how real a difficulty this was, see 22 P. L. B., pp. 126, 127, 134. CHAPTER VIII. THE BOARDING-OUT SYSTEM {Continued.) (i) THE SUCCESS OF THE SYSTEM. WE have in the last chapter pointed out the special advantages which the boarding-out system offers. 1 Where the regulations and conditions of the Local Government Board are complied with, and where the inspection is thoroughly carried out by ladies, cases of cruelty or neglect are very unlikely to happen. In 1886, after the appointment of Miss Mason as Inspector of boarded -out {beyond Unions) children, the Board reported that although there had been some instances in which her reports were unfavourable as regards the children and their homes, the evidence that had been collected with respect to the children generally, the interest taken in their welfare by the members of the Boarding-out Committees, and the warm feeling entertained by the foster-parents for them, appeared to furnish satis- factory proof of the successful working of the system. 2 Finally, Miss Mason, whose experience on boarding-out is unique, considers the system as incomparably the best of all systems, no other offering the same advantages. At the same time she remarks that no other is open to the same abuse in the form of patronage, favouritism, and local influence and interests. 3 The success of any system must, however, in the end, be judged by results, and it is remarkable that, if boarding-out is to be measured by this standard, it does not seem to produce any better results than other systems. This is the more remarkable, because it gets the pick of the Poor Law children. They are all selected cases. " Not only must they be practically orphans, or deserted, and there- fore under the complete control of the Guardians and Boarding-out Committees, but the agreement between the Guardians and Committees expressly provides for the return to the Guardians of any child found by the Committee to be of incorrigible and confirmed bad habits, or suffering from any incurable disease, or from lunacy, at any time after 1 Ante, p. 181. 2 15 L. G. B., p. xxxvi. 3 25 L. G. £., p. 232. P 2IO Children under the Poor Law being boarded out. A considerable number of children are actually thus returned upon the Guardians' hands. The workhouse or schools are thus not only compelled to take charge without any selection of every kind of case, some of them hopeless from the first, but also to undertake the failures of the boarding-out system." 1 11 Boarded-out children belong to the class which among pauper children is usually considered the most easy to deal with. It would be difficult to exaggerate the amount of pains and kindness bestowed upon their former proteges by members of the Boarding-out Committee. Places are sought for them again and again ; charitable agencies of every kind, training schools, hospitals, homes, etc., etc., are made use of in their favour ; money is not grudged, and their lot, as compared with the prospects of the workhouse-bred child, should be fortunate indeed. Yet the latter has stood the severe test of investiga- tion better than the more favoured class." 2 The instance of Scotland is always adduced in favour of boarding- out, but the decrease of pauperism in that country is no more remarkable than the decrease in England and Wales. 3 In the following statistics lunatics and vagrants are excluded, and the Scotch term " ordinary poor " is used to describe the other classes of paupers; and it will be seen that since 187 1 the pauperism of the northern counties of England has decreased to a larger extent than in Scotland. England and Wales. Counties north of the Humber, Northumberland, Durham, York, Cumberland, Lancashire, Westmoreland. Scotland. Year. Mean number of "Ordinary Poor" relieved during years ended Lady Day. Ratio per 1000 of popu- lation. Mean number of " Ordinary Poor " relieved during years ended Lady Day. Ratio per 1000 of popu- lation. Number of "Ordinary Poor" relieved on 14th May. Ratio per 1000 of popu- lation. 1868 1871 1876 l88l 1886 1891 1895 934,452 983,922 691,355 721,612 706,447 678,830 705,967 43'i 437 28-8 28-1 26*0 23-6 23'5 * 195,276 + 248,321 f 168,686 X 172,919 X 178,851 150,014 162,588 35 37 25 21 22 16 17 130,441 122,909 95,682 93,958 88,070 80,454 84,317 40 37 27 25 23 20 20 Census of 1861. t Census of 1871. \ Census of iS 1 22 L. G.B., p. 123. 2 11 L.G.B., p. 145. See also 25, L.G. £., p. 239. 3 When it is remembered that Scotland has the advantage of having had no real Poor Law till 1845, and of recognizing no right of State relief to the able-bodied, the figures tell in favour of the English system, especially when the pauperism of Scotland is compared with that of England north of the Humber, the characteristics of the two peoples becoming the more similar the nearer the Border is approached. The Boarding-Out System 211 We believe that it is still the fact that no accurate inquiry has yet been made into the after lives of the children boarded-out in Scotland. Mr. Murray Browne, writing in 1887, says: 1 " None such is mentioned in Mr. Skelton's Boarding-out in Scotland (Blackwood, 1876). The solitary exception (and it is an important one) is given in a pamphlet entitled Reports on the Boarding-out of Orphan and Deserted Children belonging to the City Parish, Glasgow (Anderson, Glasgow, 1872). It therein appears that out of 900 boarded-out children belonging to the parish in question, who had been sent to service, etc., ten per cent, (approximately) had died or been lost sight of, about live per cent, had failed, and the remaining eighty-five per cent, were known to be doing well, their several occupations being stated. This is no doubt satisfactory, but it is to be observed that the percentage of success is almost exactly the same as shown among the workhouse-bred children mentioned in this Report" {i.e., Mr. Murray Browne's Report). 2 "The Glasgow figures are based upon information given by the official employed by the parish authorities to superintend boarded-out children." As to the results of boarding-out in England, Mr. Hagger, the Clerk to the Select Vestry of Liverpool, made an interesting return of children boarded-out from the Parish of Liverpool from the 20th April, 1871, to October nth, 1883. Number of children boarded-out ( for misconduct Returned to Industrial Schools | through ill-health ( other causes . I satisfactorily . fairly satisfactorily unsatisfactorily Removed by or given up to friends . Married ........ Died Adopted by foster-parents and known to be going on factorily ....... Remaining in Homes ..... satis Girls. Boys. — 188 ... — 27 2 | I j 7 10 ... ~" 3 1 * 2 J 42 ) 6 ' 6 1 46 ... *3 ) .- — 23 ... — 3 « } 4 - — 12 ... _ t — 93 ••• — 14 Totals ... 188 ... 27 * One of these girls was then in the school, one in the Royal Infirmary, and one in the Home for Servants. According, then, to this Return, thirteen out of ninety-five girls, and three out of thirteen boys, must be put down as failures. 3 Mr. Hagger gave still more interesting Returns in 1887. They showed what had happened (as far as could be ascertained) to the children sent out from the Kirkdale Schools during the three years pre- 1 6 L. G. B., p. 40. 2 Mr. Murray Browne's statistics showed that out of thirty-eight children educated in four workhouses, 5*26 only had turned out badly, while out of 177 children educated in thirteen workhouses, only 5*65 per cent, had turned out badly. (6 L, G.B., pp. 38, 39.) 3 13 L. G.B., p. xlvii. 212 Children tinder the Poor Law Boys. - 109 ceding September 1st, 1886 (it being of course understood that this was a very much smaller number than those who had left the schools during the same period), and also what had happened to the children boarded- out by the Select Vestry from the 29th April, 187 1 (when the Guardians first adopted the system), down to the end of August, 1886. 1 Return relating to children sent f?-o?n the Kirkdale Industrial Schools to service betweeti the 1st September, 1883, and the list August, 1886. Girls. Number of children sent to service — 96 (28 of the girls and 19 of the boys returned to the school for various causes, and were provided with other situations.) There are now in situations to which they were sent from the schools : Whose conduct is satisfactory ,, fairly satisfactory ,, unsatisfactory Procured other situations for themselves and Known to be doing satisfactorily . Present address unknown .... Removed by or returned to friends .... Left situations without notice, address unknown Returned to workhouse for Alleged misconduct Physical causes ...... Returned to Industrial Schools As simply unsuitable 8 For physical causes Died Employers left the address, child lost sight of . Totals . 60 63 1 II v 7 -20 .. 14 9 1 — 1 — 8 .. 16 1 - 10 2 2 1 j 3 64 \ 2 3 21 . . 96 Return relating to children boarded out from the Parish of Liverpool fro?n the 2gth April, 187 1, to 31st August, 1886. Girls. Number of children boarded-out .... ( For misconduct . 249 17 109 Boys. - 51 . 6 Returned to Industrial Schools J Through ill-health . 3 ( Other causes . . 8 ! Satisfactorily . . 46 J Fairly satisfactorily . 4 ( 5 2 Unsatisfactorily . . 2 ) ( Removed by friends . 33 \ \ ,, under order to other Unions . 2 > 39 Lost sight of Emigrated 4 29 25 25 Married . Died .3 Adopted by foster-parents and known to be going on satis- factorily .... 21 Non-resident relief; permanent disability . . .1 Placed in a ' ' Training Home " 1 , Turned out badly* 2 j 112 Remaining in Homes no S Totals ... 249 ... 51 * One girl formerly classed under this head has now been in a situation for twelve months, and is giving every satisfaction, so she is now classified amongst those who are in service and doing satisfactorily. 1 These Returns are quoted by Mr. Mozley in his Report for 1887. See 16 L.G.B.^. 99. The Boarding-Out System 213 The above figures may be twisted and turned in any number of ways, but the broad fact remains that out of 205 children educated in the schools only 28 children (10 girls and 18 boys) had returned to the workhouse or schools for the causes specified in the Return after being sent out, while out of 165 children (139 girls and 26 boys) who had been boarded-out, 29 children (21 girls and 8 boys) had been returned to the schools for various causes, or were doing unsatisfactorily or badly. The figures do not, therefore, show favourably for boarding- out, as against the system of education given in Poor Law Schools, now so much decried. In 1882 Mr. Murray Browne gave figures to show how, out of 44 children (16 boys and 28 girls) boarded-out, into whose after lives he had inquired, 5 were failures (1 boy and 4 girls), or 14*2 per cent., while out of 167 children (91 boys and 76 girls) educated in work- house schools, only 10 were failures (2 boys and 8 girls), or 11*3 per cent. 1 And he says : "I am unable to perceive any reason which should invalidate the substantial fairness of this comparison between the boarded-out and the workhouse-bred children. Both sets of children are somewhere about the same general age; both were fairly selected, and in both cases the inquiries were carefully made upon the same general principles. I do not think that I have been hard upon the boarded- out children. Such was not certainly my intention, and it does not appear to me that it is the fact. In the course of my inquiry I have come in contact with not a few mistresses of households who have complained bitterly of the boarded-out girls, then or lately in their service. Had I thought it worth while to collect their complaints I might easily have compiled a series of charges as formidable in appearance as those which others have accumulated against children from pauper schools. But I have disregarded all their statements as compared with definite facts, and have entered on the favourable side of the account all children against whom no certain and serious misconduct could be alleged, and who were self-supporting. Un- doubtedly many of the boarded-out children are doing extremely well, and appear to conduct themselves in a manner which is highly satis- factory ; but I am bound to say that, as a rule, they did not impress me in any respect more favourably than the workhouse-bred children whose histories I investigated some years ago. This, however, is a matter of general impression upon which I am not disposed to lay much stress. I prefer to rest upon the facts, which speak for themselves." 2 Mr. Murray Browne, however, does not attach much importance to the comparatively small difference of percentage by which the workhouse children have the advantage over those boarded-out. He continues : 1 11 L. G. B. f p. 144. 2 Ibid. 214 Children under the Poor Law " It is sufficient to say that the results of the workhouse education have been proved, on the most important point of all, to be at least equal to those which the boarding-out system in England has hitherto produced. Both modes of education show good results. But that which is unpopular and decried stands the better trial of the two. That such should be the case may seem to some persons very strange. It will not seem strange to those who believe with me that workhouse education when fairly administered is thoroughly sound and good, and is therefore likely to be as successful as any other." 1 But probably the most complete statistics as to " results " have been given by Miss Mason. Having obtained from the clerk to every Board of Guardians, which had at any time boarded-out beyond the Union, as complete returns as possible of the whole number of children who had been boarded-out from the beginning, and the number of children who had returned to the workhouse or schools both before and after ceasing to be chargeable, with the causes of returning, she summarised the information in the evidence she gave before the Poor Law Schools Committee. She states it to be "the most complete, and, indeed, the only existing general history of the actual facts as to the results of the boarding-out from each and every Union from the first." 2 In these statistics 3 the causes why the children are returned to their Union are stated. We cannot, however, do more here than give the number of the children boarded-out, and the numbers returned to the Unions, with the names of the various Unions. Union. London : — Bethnal Green Camberwell Chelsea St. George's Hackney . Hampstead Holborn . Islington . Kensington 4 Lambeth . City of London St. Marylebone Paddington 5 Year of commencing Boarding-out. 1871 1893 1890 I870 1894 1877 1884 1889 No answer. 1882 1889 1885 1881 Total number of Children Boarded-out. Returned to Union. ? 27 7 16 I 273 62 9 — 35 141 3 ? in 13 127 38 23 6 37 138 9 5 1 11 L. G. B., p. 145- 2 2 4 L. G. B., p. S3. 3 See Volume of Evidence, pp. 581-586. 4 Kensington has for some years ceased to board out. 5 The success of boarding-out in Paddington is to be attributed entirely to the extra care which is taken that the regulations and conditions of boarding-out are The Boarding-Out System 215 Year of Total number Union. commencing of Children Boarding-out. Boarded-out. London {continued) : — St. Pancras . 1882 334 Poplar . I87I 117 St. Saviour's . 1891 84 Shoreditch . . 1883 40 Wandsworth . 1876 239 Whitechapel . 1876 122 Woolwich . . 189O 19 Provinces : — Aston ? ? Barton Regis . 1890 45 Birmingham This Board ceased to Board- out some Bristol . 1871 135 Burton-upon-Trent . 1890 70 Cambridge . . Since 1888 24 Carlisle . 1885 8 Chorlton . About 1870 62 Coventry . . 1892 13 Cricklade . .1889 9 Croydon . 1886 82 Eastbourne . No answer. Epsom . 1888 57 Great Yarmouth . 1888 26 Hastings . . 1887 21 Horsham . ? 2 Kidderminster . . 1883 6 King's Lynn . 1892 7 Kingston-upon-Hull . 1884 40 Leeds . 1879 11 Lewes . 1890 1 Liverpool . . 1871 352 Medway . 1894 7 Northampton 1 . . 1888 4 or 5 Nottingham . 1876 108 Plymouth . ? ? Reading . 1893 18 Richmond (Surrey) . . 1894 19 Salford . 1888 86 Sheffield . . 1889 13 South Shields . . 1886 4 or 5 (one family) Toxteth Park . . 1893 11 Watford . ? ? West Ham . . 1888 141 West Derby . 1871 84 Weymouth ? 1 Returned to Union. 50 27 II 12 36 27 ? 5 17 years ago. 14 4 2 35 2 3 4 2 2 5 54 2 11 ? 2 5 1 32 strictly observed and the Z. G. B., p. 83. 1 The clerk reports the (Evidence, p. 585.) recommendations of the Inspector carried out. Cf. 24 boarding-out of this Union to have been an utter failure. 216 Children under the Poor Law Summing up these figures in all cases where the returns are com- plete, we find that out of 3215 children boarded out by forty-eight different Unions, 481 had been returned to the workhouse or schools for one cause or another. Of the 481 children about 30 were again boarded-out, but, with all deductions made, the result is unsatisfactory. Mr. Mozley, who confesses to a leaning in favour of boarding-out, wishing to have as little machinery as possible in the training of Poor Law children, but who cannot show that, as regards results, it has any better record than other systems, admits "it is a system liable to some unseen dangers ; it takes a child into a freer and more natural life than that of a Poor Law School, but into one in which ill-treatment is more possible. If this be guarded against, the Poor Law School, under its various modifications, has the advantage of the boarding- out system as far as the physical cleanliness of the children is con- cerned, and it can hardly be entirely superseded, unless the gradual improvement of the community does away with all necessity for Poor Law education altogether." 1 (2) THE NECESSARY CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESS. In addition to the absolute necessity of the observance of the regulations and conditions of the Central Authority, the success which will attend the boarding-out system depends also upon the inspection of the work of Boarding-out Committees themselves ; and its success is also endangered (1) by wholesale and indiscriminate advocacy, and (2) by superficial inspection or supervision. We have already dealt with this last point, 2 and we will now proceed to deal with the other two. (a) The Necessity of Official Inspection. 8 In 1885 a special official inspector for boarded-out (beyond Unions) children was appointed. This was rendered necessary by the increase in the number of Boarding-out Committees, and it was felt that only a lady could properly fill such an office. Miss Mason was asked to undertake the post, and she has continued to fill it from that time to the present. Her annual Reports afford ample evidence, not only of how admirably, fearlessly, and conscientiously she performs her 1 20 L. G. B., p. 273. a Ante, p. 196 et seq. 3 The expediency of having official inspectors of the Local Government Board at all for boarded-out children has been doubted. These critics consider that it would be much better if the Boarding-out Committees were to form an associa- tion of their own, and employ their own inspectors. It is unnecessary to argue upon the suggestion, as there is not the least chance of its being adopted. The Boarding-Out System 217 duties, but also of the absolute necessity of the inspection of the work of the Boarding-out Committees themselves. It is occasionally urged that such inspection is quite unnecessary ; but this objection is generally raised by some member of a Boarding-out Committee who does not like to be interfered with in any way, and seldom by the foster-parents. Indeed, Miss Mason gives plenty of evidence to show that it is only foster-parents who have something to conceal who object to her visits and personal inspection of the children. But Miss Mason has often expressed her opinion that supervision can only be carried out effectually by persons living on the spot, and exercising continual watchfulness. " The inspector cannot supervise, but can only ascertain, by the condition of the children and their homes, whether the Committees are exercising proper supervision. Official supervision cannot take the place of defective local supervision, especially if the inspector is a man. No man can make such an inspection of girls as foster- mothers themselves maintain to be necessary, while the Committees are composed chiefly of ladies who can always make it. The Committees are authorised for the purpose of looking after the children, and if one Committee fails in carrying out this duty, another may be found who will do it better." 1 The duties of the inspector of boarded-out children are limited to ascertaining, by the inspection of the children and homes, as well as by other methods, how the Committees discharge their responsibilities, and does not in any way relieve the Committees of the burden of theirs. 2 Miss Mason's Reports show that she has not limited herself to the discovery of abuses, but that she has in every way been the friend and the helper of Committees. She says that "the work of an inspector consists not merely in detecting abuses, but in encouraging good work"; 3 and in the same Report she devotes a long paragraph to praise of the work of the Committees. 4 "There are numbers of ladies and gentlemen quietly devoting themselves to the care of the children, unknown to the public, and without any advantage to them- selves." 3 " My work has been far more one of organization than of criticism." 6 And we have good reason to believe that this friendly work and help is thoroughly appreciated by the large majority of the Committees; though it is quite natural for unsatisfactory Committees to dislike their work being overlooked, and to take umbrage when abuses, which have taken place under their responsibility, are dis- covered. Sometimes when the official inspector has reported abuses, 1 19 Z. G. B., p. 199. See also 21 Z. G. B., p. 190. 2 25 Z. G. B., p. 88. 3 Ibid., p. 240. 4 Ibid., p. 239. 5 24 Z. G. B. t p. 94. 6 Ibid. 218 Children under the Poor Law an outcry is apt to be raised by out-and-out advocates of this boarding- system that it cannot be true, that the facts are exaggerated, and so forth. Miss Mason has herself been attacked in this way ; but her answer to such attacks will be satisfactory to most people. She says : "If the inspection is to be followed up only by the hushing up of abuses, I fail to see the use of it. I have always understood that the object of inspection was to discover abuses, and that it was useless to discover them without reporting and doing away with them. Some persons appear to think that the system is attacked when a particular home or foster-parent is unfavourably reported upon. But it is a cruel thing to leave a child in a bad home for fear of damaging the boarding-out system generally, by making known the facts. And such a method defeats its own object. I would have no faith in a system which overlooked abuses in detail and the treat- ment of individual children, for the sake of the general effect. The particular home or foster-parent is to blame, not the boarding-out system generally ; and it would be far wiser, as well as more humane, to remove the child at once to a better home with as much speed and as little commotion as possible. "As I have always contended, 'Honesty is the best policy. It is inconsistent to advocate careful supervision and inspection without the reporting of unsatisfactory facts. For this reporting is the safe- guard of the system." 1 Miss Mason has often expressed her opinion that there is no system of boarding-out equal to the English, where the children are boarded out beyond the Unions, and are under the supervision of Committees of women under the inspection of a woman. With regard to Miss Mason's standard of homes and treatment of children, it cannot be considered at all too high. She describes it herself as follows : " I do not think children should be placed with anyone who has been convicted, nor with foster-parents who drink, or who have illegiti- mate children, because, however satisfactory the home may be in other respects, children can scarcely be expected to turn out well if brought up to regard such things as normal. " I do not report the condition of the house at all, unless its con- dition and smell are likely to be actually injurious to health, because I regard the treatment of the child, not the manner in which the house is kept, as the material point of the boarding-out system. I do not, except in extreme cases, pay any attention to cubic space. I think, however, that there ought to be a sufficient number of separate bed- 1 25 L. G.B., p. 239. See also 24 L. G.B., p. 90. In an article on the "Legal Poor of London," published in the 26th December, 1896, issue of the Times, the writer says that the greatest service which Miss Mason has clone for the system, is to state very forcibly its weak points and failures. The Boarding-Out System 219 rooms, however small, to divide the sexes properly. I always take a measuring tape with me, but do not generally use it twice a year. " I have seldom, if ever, objected to three children sleeping in one bed, if it is of a fair size, and the children of the same sex ; and I have not been shocked when I have found four. " I have not reported bedding as dirty unless almost black, and not always even then. I consider it enough if there is a mattress of any kind, if it is long enough for the full length of the child ; and I do not care what it is made of. Nor do I care what the covering is composed of; patched or ragged sheets or blankets, helped out with old coats or petticoats, satisfy me, if sufficient to protect the child from the extreme cold of winter. (It should be remembered that cottagers seldom have a fire in a bedroom.) " I do not, except in cases when other reasons combine to make the state of the head an aggravating circumstance, report "nits" in the hair, unless it is nearly matted with them ; nor live lice, unless they are very distinctly in the plural, and in such cases my usual phrase is " The head needed some attention." I have recently heard from an ex- perienced lady guardian, that one girl, brought back to the school on a report of mine, came with a head in a condition such as neither she nor the matron had ever seen. I had seen many such. Another head was so eaten by lice that I could not have put my finger on a spot that was not sore. " I report a child as ' clean,' or ■ fairly clean,' if its skin underneath gives evidence of a bath within the last four or five weeks. I only report it as ' dirty ' when it cannot have been washed for a very much longer period. One woman whose house was undeniably rough and dirty, but who was certainly kind and fond of the children, smutty outside but very fairly clean underneath, took me to her back yard where they played, and showed me the heaps of dirt and litter which adorned it, saying, with a humorous smile, ' Dust we are, and to dust we shall return ; we may as well live in it meanwhile without troubling.' As I sympathised with this woman, and agreed with her that the making of mud pies was not only an innocent but a healthy amusement, I ought not to be considered severe. "The children are now always first boarded-out with an excellent outfit, and an allowance of £2 a year is usually given for each child for its repair and renewal. Few labouring people have as much as this of their own, and, for the first year especially, the children, particularly if very young, want very little new, and the foster-parents must often pocket much of the £2. But I do not report the clothing as unsatis- factory so long as it is just sufficient and holds together. " As to food, I think the child must share with the family according to their means, and so long as it appears to do so I make no objection, unless indeed the foster-parent is so poor that the child's health or growth appears to be affected by want. I would rather see a child with poor but kind and conscientious people, than with richer persons who cared for it less. " I do not object to whipping children, if other means of controlling them fail, and it is done in a proper manner ; but I do not think they should be kicked nor bruised with hard sticks, especially if this is done 220 Children under the Poor Law in temper; and I find that it has a hardening effect upon them morally." 1 Miss Mason concludes by leaving it to be judged whether her standard is too high. We think everyone will answer, " No." It must be observed that the official Inspector of Boarding-out is on quite a different footing, with regard to the Guardians, from that of the other Inspectors. The latter supervise the whole work of the Guardians, while Miss Mason inspects for the Guardians. Indeed, the Guardians are not allowed their travelling expenses for the inspection of the children boarded-out by them beyond the limits of their Unions ; for this inspection is to be discouraged on two grounds : (i) That it would tend to perpetuate the connection of the children with pauperism, which it is the object of the boarding-out system to sever; and (2) that as the same Boarding-out Committee often receives children from several Unions, the Guardians or officials of each Union would be visiting the same place, and thus throw needless and multiplied expense upon the rates, as well as draw too much attention to the pauperism of the children by visits from so many persons. Guardians have, as a matter of fact, the great advantage of the services of an expert inspector, such as they could not secure for them- selves, and that they fully appreciate it is shown by their now usually writing to Miss Mason when any doubt or difficulty occurs, and she has always shown herself ready to go to the spot and make the desired investigations. She has also frequently taken with her in her in- spections one of the Guardians (usually a lady) of the Union to which the particular children are chargeable. The system of inspection is thus carried out under the most friendly relations between Guardians and the inspector. We must again draw special attention to the fact that there is no Local Government Board Inspector for children boarded-out within Unions. {b) Wholesale and Indiscriminate Advocacy Endangering the Success of the System. From the way in which some people write and talk about boarding- out, it might be imagined that it was the one and only system by which children could be rescued from pauperism. There is not a tittle of evidence to support such an assumption. The system, just like any other, shows good or bad results according as it is administered. In this wholesale and indiscriminating advocacy lies 1 24 L. G. B., p. 90. The Boarding-Out System 221 one of its principal dangers, superficial inspection and supervision being the other principal one. Miss Mason, referring to the former danger, reminds us that : l "The boarding-out system has within the last few years been taken up as a popular subject by many persons who are not themselves practically engaged in it, and whose knowledge of it is at second-hand. It is urged by such persons upon Guardians as a panacea and remedy against pauperism on two assumptions, (a) that children, by merely being boarded-out, are, as a matter of course, 'rescued' from the workhouse and from pauper influences, and introduced to the affections and advantages of home and family life; and (b) that there is an unlimited supply of good homes for children. " These assumptions are, however, entirely unwarranted, (a) Board- ing-out is, according to my experience, if well carried out, the best of systems, and if badly, the worst. It is not that it may be bad, but that it sometimes is so ; and I sometimes find scandalous cases of ill-treatment, neglect, and cruelty. A confidence which is inspired by ignorance of, or blindness to, such cases is liable to be rudely shaken by some unexpected exposure. The guarantee for the system lies, not in the absence of such cases, but in the fact that they will be discovered and reported. There is seldom any need to return the children affected to the workhouse, and never any for therefore giving up the boarding-out system ; the children can be removed to other and better homes, and perhaps to other and better Committees. "The boarding-out system has increased largely since my appoint- ment in 1885, and I am constantly told that it is owing to the assur- ance of the Guardians that they will receive full and impartial information through the independent official reports." (b) That there is not an unlimited supply of good homes we have already tried to show. 2 It cannot, indeed, be too often impressed on the public mind that boarding-out is impossible of universal application. The Inspectors have frequently drawn attention to this point. 3 Thus Mr. Mozley writes: 4 " I conceive that sufficient distinction is not generally drawn between the adoption of the system in individual cases and its wholesale adoption. I should imagine that there are few Unions in which some children might not be beneficially boarded-out; but on the other hand, a resolution on the part of the Guardians to board out, en masse, all their children who are capable of being boarded out, is not without risk. It is of the highest importance for the success of the boarding-out system that there should be not merely a probability, but a certainty, that the persons with whom the children are boarded-out 1 21 Z. G. B., p. 193. 2 Ante, p. 194 et seq. 3 e.g., 22 P. Z. B., pp., 126, 132; 1 Z. G. B., p. 236; 3 Z. G. B., pp. 225, 271 j 4 Z. G. B., p. 196; 11 Z. G. B., p. 139; 22 Z. G. B., p. 116. 4 4 Z. G.B., p. 204, 222 Children under the Poor Law are those in whom confidence may be placed, and to whom the money offered by the Guardians is not quite the sole inducement for their taking the children. I should conceive it to be very doubtful whether this certainty is attainable where a large number of children are suddenly boarded-out within a limited area; and I have heard (and though I do not vouch for it, it is not perhaps improbable) of cases of this kind of abuse, that labouring men have been partially compelled by their employers, who have happened to be either Guardians or the friends of Guardians, to receive into their houses the children whom it has been resolved to board out." Mr. Murray Browne, after referring to the abuses which had arisen and must arise from time to time in connection with boarding-out, writes as follows i 1 "The task of those who practise the system must be to reduce these abuses to a minimum. And for this purpose it is essential, to my mind, that the number of children boarded out within any given area should be small. So long as the children to be provided with homes are few, it is possible to select only homes of the very best description, with foster-parents of high characters and exceptional fitness for the task. The number of such persons who are willing to act as foster- parents within any given district is very small. And if it is sought to place out more children than these can take, recourse must be had to homes and to foster-parents of a less eligible nature. I am satisfied that to all attempts to board out under pressure, so to speak, a certain and considerable number of children within a fixed time, or the like, would be full of dangers. If this be so, it follows that any attempt to provide, by means of boarding-out, for the masses of children who are thrown upon the rates in great towns must be abandoned. Board- ing-out, if retained, must be retained more or less as a plaything, as an auxiliary, not as a principal engine, wherewith to do the work of the Poor Law in this country. It may provide for a few children here and there, but for the main work of pauper education we must look elsewhere." But the advocates of the universal application of boarding-out always point to Scotland as exemplifying the possibility of its being so carried out. They neglect, however, to take into account two important facts, (i) the different histories of the Poor Laws in the two countries, and (2) the difference in the social condition of the two peoples. Mr. Henley, in his impartial Report upon the system of boarding-out as practised in Scotland, drew attention to these differences. He said : 2 "Those who are not well acquainted with the different habits and modes of life in the working classes of both countries must be careful 1 11 L.G.B., p. 143. 2 Report on the Boarding-out of Children in Scotland, p. 36. This Report forms a portion of a Return to the House of Commons dated 12th April, 1870, The Boarding-Out System 223 not to draw a too hasty conclusion that what is good in one country must necessarily be so in the other. The nations, though happily united, retain their distinctive characteristics. Scotland, as I before mentioned, possesses a class of crofters, or small occupiers ; they are undoubtedly the best foster-parents, but they are almost unknown in England, excepting, perhaps, in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham. The food of the people in the two countries is very different, oatmeal being commonly kept in the house in Scotland, and used with milk ; baker's bread, purchased weekly, or oftener, is the staple food in many parts of England. 11 The frugal and provident habits of the northern parts are a house- hold word. Education has also made the northerner, if not a better man, at least a more intelligent being. Himself educated, he would feel the necessity of forcing his foster-charge to school. Would this generally be the case in the several districts of England ? And again, Scotland, with its large and densely-populated cities, has drawn largely upon the population sparsely scattered over its pastoral and rural districts, thus leaving an easier opening to the young at the commence- ment of life than would be found in the more fully-peopled Unions of England. " I warn those who may attempt to introduce this plan of relief that it can only be successful under the following conditions : " 1. Careful selection of nurses. 1 '•2. Liberal payments. " 3. Supervision of paid officers. " Neglect on any one of these points will ensure failure." Mr. Wodehouse wrote to the same effect in 1870 : 2 " Having regard to the great differences which exist between the social condition of England and Scotland, it appears to me very unsafe to infer that what may be a successful system in one country will prove equally efficacious in the other, and until a larger trial has been given to the system in this country, I should be unwilling to express any very decided opinion upon its merits. If happy homes, and foster- parents of kindly disposition, and honest, sober, industrious habits, could be provided for all the pauper children whom the death and desertion of their parents has rendered orphans, no one, I presume, would doubt that the condition of such children would be ameliorable to an extent immeasurably greater than could be attained by any system of workhouse, separate, or district schools. There are probably few orphan children whose lot would not be the happier if such a position could be made for them. I confess, however, that until experience proves it to be the case, 3 I am not sanguine enough to believe that homes and parents of this character will be forthcoming in sufficient numbers. On the other hand, if orphan children are entrusted to persons who are induced to take them merely on account of the 1 Either this name, or that of "guardians," is given to foster-parents in Scotland. 2 22P.L.B., p. 132. 5 Experience has not yet proved this. See ante, p. 194 et seq. 224 Children under the Poor Law weekly payments which the Guardians make for their maintenance, and who regard them chiefly, if not altogether, as a means whereby their weekly earnings may be increased, their lot will be far more unhappy in itself, and far more disastrous in its results to the community, than if they had been left in the worst of the workhouses from which they have been taken. Of this latter class of foster-parents I do not doubt that there will be a superabundant supply." Mr. Bowyer wrote in 1874 on this subject as follows i 1 "The example of Scotland is frequently cited as a proof that boarding-out might be extensively carried out in England, and with equal benefit to the children. I believe, however, that in the former country its adoption has been a necessity, owing to the inferior organization of the workhouses; but assuming the benefits of the system in Scotland to be as great as stated, I cannot accept the fact as an argument for introducing it as extensively in this country. The social condition of the two is not the same. The fact that in Scotland bribery at elections is almost unknown, and that it is not uncommon for poor persons to stint themselves in order to send a promising son to the University, indicates such a superiority in culture and moral tone in that country as to render any argument from analogy with corresponding classes here inapplicable. When similar phenomena can be recorded in England, extensive boarding- out may perhaps be safe, but not till then." It must not be forgotten, too, that boarding-out in Scotland is supervised by paid Inspectors — men — and without the machinery of voluntary agency which is such an admirable portion of the English system. Miss Mason has over and over again shown the superiority of the English system in this respect. Her evidence before the Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools should be read, 2 and even the Committee themselves were obliged to acknowledge the defects and inferiority of the Scotch system to the other. 3 But, even if sufficient good homes and foster-parents should ever be forthcoming, there must always be a great number of children, for whom the Guardians would be responsible, who cannot be boarded out. Miss Mason, for instance, has over and over again protested against the boarding-out of feeble-minded children, to mention only one class. She has found that such children, whether boys or girls, are not kindly treated by foster-parents as a rule. The latter are not able to look after them, and they are liable to be bullied by the other children. 4 Feeble-minded children can be best dealt with in small Institutions. 1 4 L. G. B., p. 196. 8 Evidence, Qs. 14,334-14,338. 3 Report, p. 94, par. 383. 4 23 Z. G. B., p. 176 ; 24 Z. G. B., p. 87 ; 25 Z. G. B., p. 233. The Boarding- Out System 225 It is also very necessary to remind those who are anxious to see the boarding-out system extended, that the cause can only be injured by running down other systems in order to show up its advantages in a stronger light. As to its freeing the children from the so-called "pauper taint," we deal with this question later on. 1 (3) THE DEFECTS IN THE SYSTEM. " The principal weakness of the boarding-out system," wrote Mr. Bowyer in 1874, "lies in the fact that it is founded on two opposite principles. The first is, confidence in the benevolence and honesty of human nature. The second, distrust of its selfishness and dishonesty. The former is expressed in the affectionate title of foster-parent, and the latter in the elaborate supervision by which his conduct is watched and reported on to the Guardians. I am aware that all human transactions are more or less governed by the principles of trust and distrust; but I confess that I do not know of any in which they are more strongly and more antagonistically appealed to than in the boarding-out of pauper children." 2 It may be said at once that in very few cases do the foster-parents take the children from mere love of them. In nearly every case they are undoubtedly taken for the sake of profit and their services; but it does not of course follow from this that they may not be well treated. Indeed, in many cases, and almost always when the children are boarded out young, real affection for them springs up. Miss Mason, in 1886, analysed as follows the different classes of homes to which the children are sent, with the motives for which they are taken. 3 (1) Where persons who never had children of their own, or whose children had died, or grown up and perhaps gone away, had taken a foster-child from pure love of children, not being able to afford to adopt it gratis, but glad to do so if its costs were paid. (2) Where the foster-parents had, on the representations of the Committee members, apparently taken the children from real charity and pity for an orphan. (3) Where persons, having children of their own, have received foster-children avowedly for the sake of the help of their pay- ments towards the housekeeping. (4) Where the children were taken for mixed motives, perhaps for company, and for errands, profit, or use. (5) Where the children were intended to be trained as future servants in the house. (6) Where the children were apparently used in the place of servants. (7) Where, for whatever reason the children might have been originally taken, they appeared to be neglected. 1 See post, pp. 329-334. 2 4 L. G. B., p. 195. 3 15 L. G. B. t p. 51. Q 226 Children under the Poor Law This Report was written upon Miss Mason's first three months of inspections, and from the experiences related in her subsequent reports it would appear that an eighth class should be added — where the children are actually ill-treated. Again, whatever may be said against Poor Law schools, it cannot be alleged that the cleanliness of the children is neglected, as is so often the case in regard to boarded-out children. Miss Mason tells us that she has found many of the dirtiest children in the cleanest and best-kept cottages. 1 To give only two instances. She says : " I asked one of the cleanest of a batch of girls how often her feet were washed. She answered, 'Mother says the time's not yet come.' 'When will the time come?' I asked. 'In the summer,' she said. It was then the middle of March. The house here was very clean and in good order. In another case elsewhere, a woman explained to me that her foster-daughter was now too old to wash more than her face and neck, and that the skin complaint which I had discovered ' came below the water-mark.' Such cases are so common that I have not reported them unless there was further evidence of neglect, or unless it was an aggravating circumstance in an otherwise satisfactory home, or unless the school teachers had specially reported the children as clean, having only seen their hands and faces." Of course the same standard of comfort, care, and cleanliness is not to be expected in boarding-out that would be required in an institution, but in weighing the advantages of this system and others, the fact must not be forgotten that it is quite impossible for the children in Poor Law schools to be neglected in this respect. Ophthalmia is generally considered to be limited to children in large schools. It may surprise some people to hear that boarded-out children are also liable to be attacked by it. "Not long ago the Croydon Guardians applied to the Local Government Board for permission to subscribe both to the Bath Eye Infirmary and to the Addenbrook Hospital at Cambridge for children boarded-out as far apart as Somerset and Suffolk, certain of whom had been treated from time to time in both hospitals for eye disease." Miss Mason gives particulars of the cases 2 which came under her own observation, but she tells us that they are by no means the only ones. " I found two cases quite recently of a boy and girl not related, and in different homes in the same village, suffering from very bad eyes, who had no appearance of it when first boarded-out or for some time afterwards." And she says that she considers it only right to 1 17 Z. G. #., p. in. 2 25 Z. G. B., p. 233. The Boarding-Out System 227 state these facts, " as any hope of altogether getting rid of ophthalmia by wholesale boarding-out will be sure to meet with disappointment." But, as we have said, the extreme advocates of the system somehow or other overlook these defects, although they are only too keen to discover them in other systems. Miss Mason takes a very fair view of the whole matter, and most usefully exposes the unfairness of this mode of reasoning. 1 "It is urged," she writes, "by some extreme advocates of the boarding-out system, that if a boarded-out child should be ill-treated it is only a single case, whereas a number may be ill-treated in large schools. But 100 children may be ill-treated separately as well as together, and, as I have shown, suffer all the more. The same line of argument would prove that 100 well-treated children together would show a large sum of happiness, while one happy child alone would be not worth considering. This argument is altogether beside the matter, and only damages the boarding-out system, by showing that those who employ it do not consider the ill-treatment of children singly worth considering. " I do not think the same standard of comfort, care, and cleanliness can be generally expected in boarding-out that should be required in an institution. The advantages of ordinary family life are, in my opinion, quite sufficient to counterbalance a great amount of roughness; yet I think that there should be some proportion in estimating the treatment of children under the two systems. " There is an outcry if children in a Poor Law school are whipped, and we are told that it is ' cruelty ' to cane them ; whereas foster-parents may beat boarded-out children with large sticks till they are black with bruises, and we are told that the children are bad and deserve it, and that all working people thus punish their own. "If children from Poor Law schools turn out badly it is said to be the fault of the system, but if boarded-out children are unsatisfactory we are told that it is their own fault, their own bad dispositions and behaviour, and that the foster-parents have been too kind and indulgent towards them. " Half-time schooling is considered an abuse in a Poor Law school, but we are told that boarded-out children are thus employed beneficially for their training, and that the working classes thus employ their own. " Two children may not be washed in the same water in a Poor Law school, but we are told that boarded-out children need never be washed at all, because it is not the custom of working people to wash their own. " Children in a Poor Law school must have the best of diet, and no scraps of meat allowed, but we are told that boarded-out children do not want meat at all because working people cannot afford it, and do not give it to their own. "Children in a Poor Law school must be perfectly clothed, and their garments without a rent; but though the Local Government Board's form of agreement between Guardians and Boarding-out 1 24 L. G. B. f p. 92. 228 Children under the Poor Law Committees expressly provides that the committee shall duly ascertain whether the money allowance provided for the clothing of the boarded- out children is spent for the purpose for which it is given, we are told that in their case we need only look at the neighbours' children, and though they may be scantily clothed and ragged, we are to be satisfied if the outward appearance of the boarded-out children is no worse. " Two children of the same sex may not sleep in the same bed in a Poor Law school, but we are told that boarded-out children may sleep boys and girls together, or with grown persons of different sexes in the same room, because this is the custom of working people, and they have not generally a sufficiency of bedrooms. Last year I found that a girl of fourteen had been sleeping with her foster-father upstairs, while her sister, twelve, slept downstairs with her foster-mother, a bulky and helpless invalid, upon whom they waited like nurses. The elder girl, being beyond control, was removed to another home, and then the younger girl slept with the man. What would be said if such a case occurred in a district school? " Chilblains are counted among the abuses of district schools, but among boarded-out children we are told that they are of no con- sequence, and are not due to neglect, but are common to the children of the working classes. Every winter I find the feet of boarded-out children affected with them, and sometimes their hands, ears, and faces also. I often find chilblains broken and ulcerated, and become large raw sores. One girl last winter had large green gatherings on every joint of both hands, from chilblains. Another pulled off her stocking to show me a broken and untended chilblain, and in doing so the blood poured upon the floor (fortunately covered with an oilcloth) of the schoolmaster's parlour. His wife kindly gave me some clean rag, with which I bandaged the child's foot, and water for the very necessary washing of my hands afterwards. " I have heard it urged as an objection to some Poor Law schools that the children have no house slippers, and have to wear hard boots all day. But it is quite the exception to find boarded-out children provided with slippers, and many of them have not even a second pair of boots for change if they get their feet wet. Last year I found a boy whose feet were deformed from wearing boots he had grown out of. I put my pencil through the soles, and a nail inside had worn a deep hole in his toe. It was urged in defence that it could not have hurt him or he would not have been able to walk three or four miles a day to school and back in these boots. What would be said of such a defence if the case had occurred in a district school ? " A case has often been quoted in support of boarding-out, of a child who, when first boarded-out, did not know how to kiss. Miss Mason matches it with another, of a boarded-out child who had never known, since he was quite small, any other home. " At the age of seventeen he was sent off to Canada, and he asked the housekeeper of a member of the Boarding-out Committee to kiss him before he left, because he said he had never known a mother's kiss ; he had never been kissed by The Boar ding- Out System 229 a woman, and would like to have been kissed once by one before he left England." 1 It is scarcely a matter for wonder, then, that mothers should dislike their children being boarded-out. But such is the case. Miss Mason tells us that she has often asked the question of mothers, 2 and has so far only had one answer in the affirmative, and this mother, a widow, qualified her answer by saying that she would only have her children boarded-out if she was personally acquainted with the foster-parents, and knew them to be trustworthy. (4) BOARDING-OUT WITHIN UNIONS. The practice of boarding-out children within the limits of the Union to which they are chargeable is a very old one. As Miss Mason reminds us, 3 "Oliver Twist" was a farmed-out child. " It is quite a mistake to suppose that he was brought up in a work- house. On the contrary he was brought up in an isolated home, some three miles away from the workhouse, containing only twenty or thirty children, under the 'parental superintendence of an elderly female.' who professed much affection for the 'dear children,' and whom Mr. Bumble called a 'humane' woman. And the description of Oliver's tears on leaving this 'wretched home' for the unknown, deserves careful reading. Boarding-out and small homes are no new things; what is new is the system of safeguards which now surround them, and without which, carefully applied, they will revert to the conditions described by Dickens." In 1869 the Poor Law Inspectors were instructed to report fully upon the system of boarding-out in different Unions in England, and their Reports were published in 1870 in a Parliamentary Return. 4 It seems that in some of the Unions it was a common practice to allow orphan children to remain in the care of a friend or relative, to whom small sums were paid weekly as the children's out-relief; while in others orphan children were occasionally boarded-out with strangers on account of special circumstances, such as the want of proper arrangements for bringing them up in the workhouse. But this practice was not recognized by the clerks as an adoption of the boarding-out system, but as a form of outdoor relief. 5 Mrs. Nassau Senior was strongly against this system of boarding-out, surrounded, as it was, by no proper safeguards, and expressed her 1 23 Z. G.B., p. 174. 2 18 L. G. B., p. 158. Miss Mason gives instances. 3 25 L. G. B. } p. 231. 4 Sessional Paper of 12th April, 1870 (No. 176) pp. 121 to end. 5 See 3 L. G. B., p. xxxii. ; 4 L. G. B. } p. 172. 230 Children under the Poor Law opinion that she would rather have no children boarded-out than that the system generally should be brought into disrepute by the abuses which would be sure to arise if this irregular system of boarding-out was allowed to be practised. 1 And Mr. Mozley in 1876 expressed similar views. He said that the system of boarding-out children "had been carried out in a way that was not intended by those who originally brought it in. It was by them intended to be administered by special Boarding-out Committees, having no other official duty under the Poor Laws besides this, and, therefore, being at liberty to give a considerable portion of their time to the supervision of the children, and being exclusively responsible if anything went wrong. Now, practically, in nine cases out of ten the bcarding-out system has been carried out as a simple branch of outdoor relief, under the almost sole supervision of the Guardians and Relieving Officer." 2 We have already referred to the reasons which actuate Guardians in preferring to board out children within their own Unions. 3 Although since 1877 they have been bound down by strict regulations and conditions when they do so, we think there can be no doubt that the general objections to boarding-out within Unions are very strong. Public opinion is, we think, gradually veering round to regard out- door relief in itself as a very great evil, and to require that very careful inquiries should be made into all applications for relief before it is granted in that form. Boarding-out within Unions is merely a form of outdoor relief. The practice may lead to favouritism. The causes which have made the orphan or deserted child dependent on the rates are well known to all the neighbours. They will not understand why a particular child, for whom its parents might have provided, or of whom relations might take charge, should be so favoured as to be paid for by the ratepayers. They will expect outdoor relief for their 1 ZL.G.B., V . 342. 2 5Z. G.B.,p. 149. 3 Ante, p. 205. Mr. Andrew Doyle, in his Report on boarding-out in the Swansea Union of the 9th April, 1875, considers "boarding-out" in Unions as simply another name for outdoor relief. "Sometimes, like other forms of outdoor relief, it is adopted upon mistaken grounds of economy, the immediate cost of outdoor relief being less than the cost of maintenance in the workhouse ; more frequently it is the substitute for proper school accommodation. Guardians, when pressed to improve the classification of their workhouse, will become suddenly alive to all the assumed advantages of boarding-out. Then, for the first time, it is found that orphans and deserted children could be placed in good 'homes' at 2s. 6d. a week, would be removed from the atmosphere of 'pauperism,' and be 'brought up under domestic influence,' and finally 'absorbed into the working population."' (See 4 L. G. B., P- 172.) The Boarding-Out System 231 own children in times of difficulty, whether it is given for their benefit directly or indirectly ; and how are their arguments to be answered ? It is only fair, however, to state the arguments on the other side. They were well put by Mrs. Nassau Senior in her Report of 1874, although, as we have seen, she used them in support of boarding-out beyond Unions. 1 Still they apply generally to both kinds of boarding- out. She said: 2 " Another reason has been alleged against the boarding-out system, that it is bad for a labourer, struggling hard to support his family, to see in the next cottage a pauper child, for whose maintenance a sum is paid far exceeding what it is in his power to spend on his own child, and that the knowledge that in case of his death his children would be equally well done by will prevent his trying to lay by during his lifetime for their maintenance, in the event of his death before they can be self-supporting. " I think there are two errors in these statements. In the first place, every man, even an uneducated labourer, if he gives the subject a thought, knows what the Poor Rate means, and is aware that pauper children are supported by the Poor Rate at more or less cost. "It is very generally known, even among country people, that a labourer's child, living at home, does not cost him what a pauper child, even in the most economical workhouse, costs the rates. "The labourer knows that pauper children would be supported and educated, and the most limited intelligence can understand that 35. 6d. to board out a child is less out of the rates, and more than the child would cost in the workhouse. 3 " With regard to any jealousy or ill feeling that might arise in the minds of the peasants, who could not spend on their children what was paid for the child boarded out, I do not think that such unworthy feelings, if they exist, should be taken into consideration, and I do not believe that, as a rule, they would be found to exist. The poor are remarkably kind to each other, and full of pity for children deprived of their natural protectors, as anyone who knows them well can testify. If they were asked whether a dead neighbour's child should be sent to the workhouse, or boarded-out at more expense than they can afford for their own children, I well know what their answer would be. " Nor do I believe that a thrifty man would be discouraged in his career of honourable independence by the knowledge that his children would be provided for out of the workhouse rather than in it, if he left them unprovided for. A worthy man is not thus influenced by unworthy motives, and it is not the sight of a few children boarded- out that would induce the pauper spirit where it did not already exist." 1 Ante, p. 229. 2 3 L. G. B., p. 342. 8 This particular statement, of course, involves the old fallacy that outdoor relief is cheaper than indoor relief, which has been so often exposed since Mrs. Nassau Senior's time. 232 Children under the Poor Law Mr. Bowyer answered these arguments as follows. 1 After referring to the fact that the scheme of boarding-out was founded on the two opposite principles of a confidence in the benevolence and honesty of human nature, and in a distrust of its selfishness and dishonesty, 2 he continued : "It is the first of these principles that actuated the promoters of the scheme, and it is the one on which they must mainly rely for its general adoption, since it is founded on the assumption that there exist some thousands of persons belonging to the labouring classes who are desirous of undertaking the duties and responsibilities of a parent towards pauper children, without any interested motives, or, at least, with a very slight admixture of them. How many thousands of such persons would be requisite for the ample disposal of all, or nearly all, the orphans in our workhouses there is no means of estimating, as the number of such children is not stated in the returns of the Local Government Board. 3 But it cannot be doubted that it would be more than a few. Perhaps 10,000 would not be an over-estimate. As, therefore, these persons must be all volunteers, the success of the scheme would imply (unless a profit can be made out of the children) the existence of a spirit of philanthropy far more general than has been hitherto expected. I do not question that if a profit can be made out of the weekly stipend of 3s. 6d. or 4s. with outfit, a sufficient number of applicants for children may come forward, and I have no doubt that a profit is actually made, especially when more than one child is taken by the same family. On this subject the Report says : 1 It is very generally known among country people that a labourer's child living at home does not cost him what a pauper child, even in the most economical workhouse, costs the rates.' I believe that the cost of maintenance of the children alone in workhouses is con- siderably under the allowance, in money and outfit, made to foster- parents. Self-interest must, therefore, enter to some extent into the motives of even the best of them, and will be the ruling motive of the mass. Then the principle of distrust is called forth, and in order to show that there are grounds for it I will mention that the master of a workhouse told me that on the first advertisements being issued, applications were received even from distant places, and the schools were crowded with applicants, who examined the children, as he expressed it, ' as in a slave market,' avowedly selecting those who they thought would eat less." Mr. Bowyer then remarks that clothing and feeding the child is not the least of the duties which are required of the foster-parents, the 1 See 4 L. G.B., p. 195. We would also refer our readers to Mr. Carleton Tufnell's criticism of Mrs. Senior's Report. Sessional paper, February 8th, 1875, No. 10. 3 The full passage is quoted ante, p. 225. 8 On January 1st, 1896, 33,978 orphans or other children relieved without their parents were receiving indoor relief. The Boarding-Out System 233 others being such as to imply the possession by them of virtues, which cannot often be secured by any payment. Miss Mason answers the argument against boarding-out, "that it must be discouraging to the labouring classes to see the children of paupers, thriftless or deserting parents, boarded out at more cost and under better conditions than they can provide'for their own children by their work, and that it must tend both to create jealousy and to indis- pose them to make provision for their own families," as follows : 1 " The answer is that the labouring classes know better than ladies and gentlemen how the Guardians' allowance is spent by their neighbours, and they do not always see it expended upon the children. They do not trust boarding-out as a system. They regard it, as a whole, as a means of gain to foster-parents. The children are a species of lodgers. I find jealousy in abundance, but it is not jealousy of the children, but of the foster-parents who have been lucky enough to obtain the children's payments." But if Guardians do practise the system it should be certainly carried out by means of Boarding-out Committees, which, for the reason set out earlier in this chapter, should consist of ladies. It is, however, to be preferred that these ladies should not be Guardians. Rather should lady Guardians act as critics and judges of the work of the Com- mittees. At present, in far the greater number of Unions the children boarded-out within their limits are visited by the Guardians or the Relieving Officers alone. 2 As we have before stated, there is no official Inspector of Boarding- out within Unions, even when the children are under the supervision of duly certified Committees. It is argued, on the one hand, that the help and training of an expert inspector would be quite as valuable to a within Unions Committee as to a beyond Unions Committee. This may be admitted. On the other hand it may fairly be argued that, as boarding-out withifi Unions should not be encouraged, it would be unwise for the Central Authority to recognize it in the way suggested. Rather, we think, should the Local Government Board encourage boarding-out beyond Unions by providing the present inspector with one or more assistant inspectors. 3 This would not only enable her to perform her general duties of supervision with more satisfaction to herself, but would be a means of training others in the work, so that when the time might come for her to retire, her place might be easily filled. 1 18 L. G.B.,p. 158. 2 See ante, p. 201, as to the uselessness of homes being visited by men. 3 Assuming that official inspection is desirable. See ante, p. 216 (note 3). 234 Children under the Poor Law Besides, this additional help would free her for paying any visits to Boarding-out within Unions Committees which the Local Govern- ment Board might think desirable. Another reason which probably leads Boards of Guardians to prefer boarding-out children in their own Unions is that they have them under their own eyes, and think that if any case of cruelty occurred they would know of it at once themselves, or through the neighbours. But as Miss Mason reminds us : 1 "In the first place many cottages are isolated, and without any neighbours. In the second a great deal may go on inside the walls which even a next-door neighbour does not know; and in the third, neighbours, as a rule, do not like to draw quarrels and annoyances upon themselves by telling what they do not know. Of how difficult it is to find out facts in a private house I had a striking instance last year. A girl, withdrawn by relatives from boarding-out, wrote a letter to the Guardians charging her foster-father with the most shocking immorality. The facts were communicated to me privately ; and, at the Guardians' request, I immediately went to the place, and made as full an investigation as possible. I had inspected the home before and found it very satisfactory, and I found it still apparently so. Questions would have been both useless and mis- chievous. I told no one, not even the Committee, what I had heard, lest I should injure an innocent man, but by carefully directed conver- sation ascertained that he still bore an excellent character, and evidently no one had the least suspicion of anything wrong. The girl has since been placed under the care of a lady long and thoroughly experienced in rescue and preventive work. This lady, from her knowledge and observation of the girl, seems inclined to believe her story to be true ; yet I can say no more than that it is possible, and that if it is true no one could have found it out, and the Committee are in no way to blame." 2 It is quite possible indeed for the neighbours to wink at what may go on in a foster home, and Miss Mason shows how they may help to deceive visitors with regard to the children. 3 We have already referred to the tears which poor " Oliver Twist " shed on being removed from the home of his " humane " foster-parent. Such tears are no proof that the home is a good one. "I have often pointed out," writes Miss Mason, 4 "that the tears of children are caused by fright, and by a dread of the workhouse. The more a child is ill-treated the greater is the fear of what else may be in store for it, and the more abundant its tears. Foster-parents who are really attached to the children try to comfort them, if for some 1 24 L. G.B., p. 91. 2 Miss Mason gives another instance in this same Report as showing what may go on in a house unknown to the neighbours. Ibid. 3 e.g., see ante, p. 204. 4 25 L. G. £., p. 234. The Boarding-Out System 235 reason they have to give them up, and the parting is therefore usually effected without tears ; but those who have ill-treated them terrify them by threats of the treatment and punishments which await them else- where. I have already referred to Dickens' excellent description of the tears of Oliver Twist on leaving the baby-farm. In one case during the past year the parting between two boys and a very unsatisfactory foster-mother was described to me as 'heart-breaking.' In another instance the secretary of a certain Committee and I proceeded together to a home in order ourselves to remove two little girls of five and eight, whom I had found covered with bruises. The woman had neglected to provide them with clothes, though she had received the full allowance. She had deceived the Committee in the matter of the sleeping arrange- ments, and had received any number of lodgers. In a storm of anger she now refused to let the children go, the chief reason being that she did not wish any other woman to see their lack of clothing. The children were brought in, and she set them off screaming herself, by saying, ' Do not cry, my darlings, you are not going to be taken away from me, no one shall do you any harm.' Helped by a girl of her own, the two children roared and screamed so loudly and persistently that the secretary of the Committee and myself were actually obliged to give up the attempt to move them that day, and we left them for a week, the foster-mother promising that she would provide them with an outfit of clothing which we specified in detail. At the end of the week the outfit was provided, and the foster-mother allowed them to go quietly, and there were no more tears. There was no question as to the gross ill-treatment and neglect in this case, and yet it was one where the tears and cries of the children made it actually impossible for myself to remove them at the time." The above extracts from Miss Mason's Reports show how little neighbours care for what may be going on under their very noses, and how easy it is for the Guardians or Relieving Officer to be deceived. It is well known how liable they are to be imposed upon by the apparently destitute ; but the danger of imposition is much greater in the case of boarded-out children. It is perhaps hardly necessary to remind Guardians who board out children within Unions of the obligation they are under to see that these children receive proper education. 1 (5) CONCLUDING REMARKS. While we are fully alive to all the advantages of boarding-out which are painted in such brilliant colours by its ardent advocates, we have thought we should be doing the best service by directing attention to the dangers to which the system is exposed, unless it is most carefully supervised. Some of its advocates would like to see the regulations of 1 See remarks of Mr. Mozley on this subject, 9 L. G. B., p. 207. 236 Children under the Poor Law the Central Authority relaxed. In our opinion, for the safety and welfare of the children, these regulations should be made even more stringent, and boarding-out tvithin Unions absolutely forbidden, unless proper Boarding-out Committees are formed. " Boarding-out is becoming so popular a hobby, and there is so much disposition to overlook unsatisfactory facts, that a strong warning is necessary for the protection of the children." So writes Miss Mason, 1 a warm supporter of the system, but whom experience has taught the great abuses to which it is exposed, unless most carefully safeguarded. As for the system being able to deal with all classes of Poor Law children, it seems to us scarcely necessary to argue the point. If any attempt is made to board-out wholesale or on a large scale, the result is likely to be disastrous. "Boarding-out, to be really, not superficially, satisfactory, should be limited to carefully selected cases of children, sent to carefully selected Committees, placed in carefully selected homes, and thoroughly supervised." 2 These conditions are complied with in many Boarding-out Com- mittees, and the success the Committees meet with is directly proportional to the closeness with which the conditions are observed. 1 18 Z. G. B., p. 157. 2 23 Z. G. B., p. 178. CHAPTER IX. OTHER SYSTEMS OF BRINGING UP POOR LAW CHILDREN (i) Schools Certified under 25 & 26 Vict. Ch. 43. (2) Institutions not Specially Certified. (3) Training Ships. (4) Sending Children to Schools of Other Unions. WE have in the preceding chapters referred to the principal methods in vogue for educating and training Poor Law children. But there are certain classes which may be more satisfactorily dealt with in other ways, and although the number of children belong- ing to these classes is at the present time quite small in proportion to the total number of children in Poor Law Institutions or boarded-out, 1 the probability that in the future much more use may be made of the institutions described in this chapter would render our work incomplete without some reference to them. We shall deal first with institutions certified to receive Poor Law children; secondly, with those not so certified; thirdly, with the system of Training Ships for boys; and, fourthly, with the system of sending the children to the schools of other Unions. Section I. CERTIFIED SCHOOLS. Under the Poor Law (Certified Schools) Act, 1862, 2 and the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1882, 3 Boards of Guardians may send any poor child 4 to any school which has been certified by the Local Government Board to be fit for its reception, provided the managers of 1 On the 1st January, 1896, 59,595 children were in establishments under the control of the Guardians or boarded-out, while only 5251 were in certified schools. In addition 2013 persons are set down as being in "hospitals or other institutions," but the statistics do not show what proportion of these were children. See 25 L.G.B., V . 398. 2 25 & 26 Vict. ch. 43. 3 45 & 46 Vict. ch. 58. s. 13. 4 See as to Blind and Deaf Children, post, p. 246. By section six of the Act of 1862 "no child may be sent to such schools unless he or she be an orphan, or deserted by his or her surviving parent, or be one whose parents or surviving parent shall consent to the sending such child to the said school." 238 Children under the Poor Law the school are willing to receive it; and, with regard to the expense connected with its maintenance, clothing and education during the time that it remains in the school, this is only limited in amount to what may be sanctioned by the Local Government Board. Guardians may also, under the Act of 1862, pay the expenses of taking the children to and from the schools, and (in case of death there) of their burial. On the 1 st January, 1896, the number of schools so certified was 215 ; J of this number 180 were Industrial and Training Homes, 17 were Institutions for the Blind, 1 7 were Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb, and one was an Institution for Idiots. In these Institutions the rates of payment sanctioned by the Local Government Board vary from 3/- to 7/- per week in the ordinary ones, and from about 6/- to 12/- per week in those for the Blind, Deaf and Dumb, Con- valescents, Cripples, and Idiots. 2 It is not the practice of the Local Government Board to place a too strict interpretation upon the term "school" used in the Act of 1862. " They are generally willing to certify institutions which, being otherwise eligible, provide for only a small amount of mental, together with some industrial instruction, and which offer advantages of skilled industrial instruction." 3 By the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1868, 4 illegitimate as well as legitimate children can be sent to certified schools, and in the former case the consent of the mother is sufficient "if she has the care, custody, or possession of the child." By Section 7 of the Act of 1862 Guardians may not keep children at certified schools against their will after the age of 14, nor against the wish of their parents or surviving parent whatever be their age. An Act passed in 1866 5 ensures the children being sent to schools of the denominations to which they are proved to belong. 1 In 1863, immediately after the passing of the Act, six schools were certified under it. Of these six only three are still certified. No year passes without the cancelling of some certificates. The schools largely depend for their support upon the payments received from Boards of Guardians. A list of the number of new schools certified, and of those whose certificates have been cancelled, is printed in the Appendix of each Annual Report of the Poor Law Board, and of the Local Government Board. 2 In about half the total number of Institutions the payments are 4/- per week, while in about forty cases they are 6/- per week ; in only seven cases among the ordinary Institutions do the payments exceed 6/- per week ; and in only two cases do the payments come up to io/-, viz., 10/- per week in the Crippled Boys' Home, Kensington, and 12/- per week in the Academy of Music for the Blind. 3 Evidence of Mr. W. E. Knollys before the Departmental Committee. Q. 16,128. 4 31 & 32 Vict. ch. 122, s. 23. 5 29 & 30 Vict. ch. 113, s. 14. Other Systems 239 Advantage is taken of these schools by Guardians, more especially for the education and training of Roman Catholic children, but as to other children, unless they have some physical defects necessitating special treatment, Boards of Guardians very naturally think that they can be looked after just as well in Poor Law establishments as in schools managed by voluntary committees of benevolent persons generally interested in the welfare of children. In the Report of the Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools, the certified Roman Catholic schools and the certified schools of other denominations are dealt with in separate chapters. 1 While the former class of schools 2 are somewhat severely criticised, little is said about the latter class. Probably had the Committee taken the trouble to obtain fuller information with regard to this class of schools or homes, they might have found much to criticise in the management of them; while the dislike of Boards of Guardians to entrust the children to them might have been found to be based on very good reasons. The success of these homes depends entirely upon their manage- ment, and Miss Lidgett has told us what happened in a home in which the committee of management had ceased to take an active interest. 3 She had referred to a small home with nine children at Haslemere as one of the most cheerful homes she had seen, the success of which was attributed to constant visiting by the ladies who started it, "not by way of spying out the matron, but of keeping the air stirring and of supporting her in all her good work, and keeping her alive," but then went on to describe another home with thirty children, which was discovered to be in a bad state by the Guardians who had a girl there who was not doing well. " It was found that the matron had let the girls get very unruly, and she punished them by putting mustard on the tips of their fingers. I think it was in that home also that she touched up their lips with stinging nettles. 4 I have heard of it in other certified homes, and that sort of thing will happen in a small home, where a woman is shut in to a monotonous round of duty with these children, and the committee ceases to take an active interest." It must be borne in mind that a matron of such a home has, perhaps, some difficult girls to deal with, whom she cannot send away. It is easy to realise how she might get aggravated beyond measure, and 1 Chapters xvi. and xvii. 2 For a description of some of these schools, see 21 L. G. £., pp. 180-185. 3 Evidence before Departmental Committee. Q. 1245. 4 Miss Lidgett is not quite certain whether it was in that particular home that the ' ' stinging nettles " incident occurred. 240 Children under the Poor Law have recourse to punishments which she would not find it convenient to mention to the committee. Such things are, of course, much more likely to happen in a small home than in a large one, and render it most necessary for Boards of Guardians freely to use their power under the Act of 1862 1 of visiting homes in which they have any children boarded-out; for while these homes are subject to inspection by the Poor Law Inspectors under the same Act, it is not to be expected that visits at long intervals will be of any use in discovering defects. And the homes are so necessary an adjunct to the Poor Law that every effort should be made to keep them up to the mark. They are of the greatest use for many varieties of elder girls. If they are found to be badly managed, their certificates can and should be cancelled until the management has been reformed. The special institutions which are established for the care of children suffering from physical or mental defects, and for the proper treatment of whom Boards of Guardians have no appliances, are, we believe, utilised very extensively. These institutions might be with advantage largely increased. For instance, for feeble-minded children only six homes are at present certified, and these are for girls only. 2 This class of children cannot be safely boarded out. One of the homes referred to is at Hitchin, and is known as " Scott House." It was established by, and is under the management of, the London M. A. B. Y. S. From the annual Report of that Society for 1895 we learn that "the girls are in good order and are improving in intelligence, in industry, and in manners. Several of the girls are being trained in the laundry and are acquiring some skill in their work, in which they take much interest. It will be noticed that £124 45-. 2>d. has been earned by laundry work during the year. Lessons are given in singing and drilling twice a week, which are much enjoyed, and the younger girls have daily lessons in the schoolroom, besides attending some classes kindly held there by ladies. The health of the household has been good." The girls in this home average twenty, and are between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. 3 Then we agree with Miss Lidgett that homes are required for the "morally depraved," and she shows how difficult it is at the present time to provide for such cases. Ordinary certified homes will not 1 25 & 26 Vict. ch. 43, s. 4. 2 Five other homes are "approved," and we understand that three others will shortly be ready to receive girls. In Appendix H will be found a list of the existing homes. The National Association for Promoting the Welfare of the Feeble-minded hope shortly to be in a position to open a home for boys. 3 See also 22 L. G. £., p. 112. Other Systems 241 receive such children, while their presence in the Poor Law school has a contaminating influence on the other children. 1 There is no provision at all for cases combining mental feebleness with depraved habits. It may be well to point out that the "feeble- minded" and " morally -depraved " children, and those children who combine both these defects, all require separate special treatment under the control of specially-qualified persons. The Departmental Committee made the general suggestion that certified homes should not contain more than fifteen children. 2 We agree with this, so far as it relates to homes which train girls to domestic service, but such special institutions as cripples' homes for boys could not be so limited in numbers. The Committee's recom- mendation seems to us too general; but we suppose they would not, on principle, recommend a "barrack" institution such as the very successful and well-managed Home for Crippled Boys at Kensington. An interesting account of the certified schools in Mr. Jenner Fust's district will be found in his Report for 1894. 3 There were sixteen of them — two in Cumberland, two in Westmoreland, and twelve in Lancashire ; nine were for boys, four for girls, and three for both boys and girls. Four of them were Roman Catholic Institutions. We quote from the Report in full, and we would specially direct attention to the fact that the great success met with in the schools arises from the children staying in them for several years. These facts of course make it impossible to compare " results " with any fairness to the Poor Law schools, which are so much troubled by the numbers of children who are always coming and going. " Certified Schools. — Reference was made in the last Report to the increase that was taking place in the number of schools certified under 25 & 26 Vict. ch. 43, as fitted for the reception of pauper children, and these schools are assuming such importance that a few words relating to them may not be uninteresting. The following is a brief description of those at present at work in the district. They are sixteen in number, viz., two in Cumberland, two in Westmoreland, and twelve in Lancashire; of these nine receive girls only, with occasionally an infant boy, and four receive boys only. "Those for girls consist of: 1. The Wigton Roman Catholic Orphanage, for 51 girls, in connection with the convent at Wigton. 2. The Orphan Girls' Home, for 14, at Whitehaven. 1 Miss Lidgett's evidence before the Departmental Committee, Qs. 1228- 1230. 2 Report of Departmental Committee, p. 118. 3 24 L. G. B., pp. 49-53. Mr. Moorsom, the Assistant Inspector for the district, obtained the information about the schools which is published in this Report. R 242 Children under the Poor Law 3. The West Derby Orphanage, for 24 girls, at West Derby, Liverpool. 4. The Emigration Training Home, for 40 girls, at "Rosen Hallas," Cheetham Hall, Manchester. 5. The Hollymount School, for 120 Roman Catholic girls, at Hollymount, Tottington. 6. The Rossendale Cottage Home, for 18 girls, at Newchurch, in the Haslingden Union. 7. The Training Home, for four girls, at 207, Park Road, Bolton. 8. The Roman Catholic Girls' Mutual Aid Home, for 25, at 85, Rumford Street, Chorlton-upon-Medlock. 9. The Howard Orphan Home for the Training of Domestic Servants, at Kendal, certified for 42. " Those for boys consist of : 1. The Central Refuge, for 109 boys; and 2. The Emigration Training Home, for 50 boys, both in Strange- ways, Manchester. 3. The Buckley Hall School, for 244 Roman Catholic boys over seven years of age, at Buckley Hall, Rochdale. 4. St. Mark's Home, for 24 boys, at Natland, Westmoreland. " The remaining three schools are : 1. The Manchester Deaf and Dumb Schools, for 125 boys and 75 girls, at Old TrafTord, Manchester. 2. The Roman Catholic Blind Schools, for 122 of both sexes above ten years of age, at Brunswick Road, Liverpool. 3. The Leyfield Schools, for 192 Roman Catholic girls and boys under seven, at Leyfield, West Derby. " Mr. Moorsom, who takes a lively interest in these institutions, and on whom the work connected with their inspection chiefly falls, has supplied me with the following observations upon them : " * Excluding the schools for deaf and dumb, and for blind, and also the Leyfield Schools, which were only certified towards the close of the year, the thirteen remaining institutions provide accommodation for 338 girls and 427 boys, a total of 765. " ■ According to the last information received, these thirteen institu- tions contained a total of 698 children (288 girls and 410 boys), of whom 330 children (151 girls and 179 boys) had been transferred from various workhouses to the homes, and were each being paid for by some Board of Guardians, the usual rate of payment being 55-. per week. These children were mixing in the homes with the others, many of them "waifs and strays," some few paid for by private friends or charitable persons. "'In addition to the above the large Roman Catholic schools at Leyfield, near Liverpool, which are primarily intended for the reception of Roman Catholic girls from various workhouses, will provide accom- modation for 192 children, and another large building is in process of construction near Preston, intended for the reception of Roman Catholic Other Systems 243 boys. Assuming that the Board may, on application, see fit to issue a certificate to the latter school, there will, in a few months' time, be accommodation in the "certified schools" of the district for between 1 100 and 1200 children, exclusive of the blind and of the deaf and dumb. Of this large number the Roman Catholic schools will have provided for more than 70 per cent., of whom the great majority will be lodged in four large buildings. " ■ It is evident that the character of the training the children receive in these various homes, and the provision made, not only for their school instruction, but also for their moral education and healthy physical development, is becoming a matter of great importance. I venture to submit that the amount of medical attendance, examination, and super- vision required in the larger homes is a subject which should receive the consideration of those interested in these schools. Experience has shown that it is possible, under the present system, for a condition of the eyes requiring isolation and treatment to prevail to a serious extent among the inmates of a large home without attracting the attention of those in charge. " ■ Apart from this, the management of the home in question is, in many respects, deserving of high praise ; indeed, the kindly care bestowed upon the children in all these homes is most satisfactory, while, in some, the industrial training is of a high order. In this respect I may mention more especially the Church Home for Boys in Strangeways, Manchester, under the management of the Manchester and Salford Children's Aid Society, and the Roman Catholic Boys' Home at Buckley Hall, Rochdale. The spirit of application and self- help which is fostered in the workshops of these institutions has a marked effect upon the tone of the whole body of children. " ' Replies have been obtained from five of the smaller girls' homes, which train more particularly for domestic service, to a set of queries which were addressed to the managers. From these returns it appears that the Howard Home, near Kendal, was started thirty years ago ; the present matron has been in charge for eight and a half years. Two hundred and nine girls have passed through the home. With regard to forty-one girls who have left the home since the present matron's arrival, thirty-two are now in domestic service, five in factories, two are dressmakers, and one has been adopted; one has failed so far, but as she is still only twenty, there is hope for a decided improvement. The others have all started well, and their conduct has continued satisfac- tory up to the last accounts. There are thirty-three girls left in the home, so that the average time a girl remains in the home works out at nearly seven years. " * The West Derby Orphanage has been in existence nearly twenty- nine years, and 124 girls have passed through the home. The present matron has been in charge for nineteen years, during which time eighty- four girls have been admitted and sixty have left, twenty-four being still in the home. Thus the average time a girl remains works out at seven and a half years. Of these sixty, twenty-four are now doing well in service, and one pretty well ; six did well in service, and married ; one did pretty well, and married ; two were returned to the workhouse as unsuited to the home, one being deficient, and the other not being an 244 Children under the Poor Law orphan ; four have been lost sight of, two of whom were doing well when last heard of, the remaining two have been adopted; one has done well as a nurse ; six are now in other homes ; one is in an industrial school ; twelve were taken away by relations, and two have died. Thus, deducting the twelve taken away by their relations, the two returned to the workhouse, and the two who died, thirty-five are known to have done well out of forty-four, and seven may be presumed to have given more or less trouble, as they are now in other institutions ; the remaining two were adopted, and about them there is no informa- tion. " - The above two homes are under the management of local com- mittees. " ' The Emigration Training Home for Girls at Cheetham Hill was opened by the Manchester and Salford Children's Aid Society in 1886. At first, little boys were received as well as girls; but, for some six years past, only two infant boys have been admitted. The present matron has been in charge five and a half years. In this period, 313 girls have been admitted; 132, of ages from five to twenty-four, have been emigrated to Canada, of whom 118 are doing well (four being comfortably married) ; nine have been lost sight of ; two returned to England through bad health, and are now doing well; two failed, and had to return to England ; and one died. The matron visited a large number of them last year, and reports have been received about the remainder from the society's officials in Canada. Of those not emigrated, forty- eight girls are doing well in service; sixty-nine have been returned to relatives able to support them ; eleven are now in other institutions ; nine have been lost sight of; eight absconded, and one died; and thirty-five, of ages ranging from fifteen to twenty- five, were in the home in January, 1895. A large number of the children pass only a few weeks in the home in preparation for emigration, but several, on the other hand, remain one or two years. It appears that, if we deduct the cases of death, 120 out of 131 emigrated children are known to have been doing well last year; and, out of 145 not emigrated, forty- eight are doing well in service, and sixty-nine have been sent to friends able to support them. I have seen several letters written to the matron by girls in Canada, all exhibiting an appearance of happiness in their present surroundings, and of strong affection for those who have rescued them from miserable circumstances. " ' The Rossendale Girls' Home was opened by a local committee of ladies in 1890. It has had five matrons and one temporary caretaker. The present matron has been in charge for nearly one year. Seventeen girls have been received into the home, fourteen of whom are still there; one has died ; one has been adopted, and is doing very well ; another is in service, and is doing well. This last girl had been at two places from the workhouse, and had been returned. She was sent to the home as a troublesome case, and remained there nine months ; she is now em- ployed in the house of one of the ladies of the committee. " ' The Training Home in Bolton was opened by a local committee of ladies in 1892, for four girls. There have been three matrons; the present one has been in charge nearly two years. Sixteen girls have been admitted, of whom four are now in the home ; nine are in service, Other Systems 245 one is in another home, one has returned to her relations, and one is now in the workhouse. Of those in service, six are doing well, and three moderately ; the one in another home is doing well ; the girl who returned to her relations, and the one now in the workhouse, have done "poorly." This tiny home is noticeable for the large proportionate number of girls that have passed through it in the short time it has been open, the average time each girl has stayed being less than one year. " * These results are on the whole fairly satisfactory. The conditions are so different that it is impossible to compare them with the returns given in Mr. Mozley's late reports upon some large separate schools under the management of Boards of Guardians in Lancashire. But one or two points call for notice. In every one of the five homes the matron has an assistant, and in the emigration home there is a laundry matron in addition; thus, in respect of staff, these homes compare favourably with the ordinary Poor Law cottage home for girls, which is usually left to the unassisted labour of the foster-mother. The children remain in the certified homes without interruption from their parents (when they have any) in many cases for several years. It is instructive to compare with this the statement of Mr. Birkby, the superintendent of the Swinton Schools belonging to the Manchester Guardians, in a paper lately read before the North- Western Poor Law Officers' Association. Mr. Birkby instances a Poor Law school where the year began with 611 children ; there were admitted during the year 640, and discharged during the year 551. Of the 700 remaining at the end of the year — 441 had been in the schools 1 year or less. 94 » » 2 years „ 53 >» » 3 » » and only twenty-two had been in the schools over six years. Only ninety-nine out of the whole number were orphans, and, therefore, regular scholars. " ' Mr. Collingwood, master of the Salford Workhouse School, also refers to the continually taking in and out of children by their parents, by which any good work done was undone in a few weeks. His atten- tion had been drawn to one case by the inquiries of an inspector, and he found on investigation that the boy had been in and out of the school no less than seventeen times in less than four years. The longest period he had had him in charge was between three and four months, while some periods extended over only a few days. In addition the boy had been at least another seventeen times in the probationary wards without reaching the schools. In this case the mother was the bane of the boy's existence. " ' This boy had found his way into an excellent certified home, and was there brought to my notice as an instance of the bad results produced by a workhouse school ; my inquiries resulted in the above discovery. No doubt there are many girls in our Poor Law schools whose training has been similarly interrupted. " ' One of the most valuable features of the girls' homes is the care and trouble which is taken by the ladies of the committees, and in many cases by the matrons also, to choose a suitable place for each 246 Children under the Poor Law girl who is sent out to service. This is a point in which Boards of Guardians, with the best intentions, frequently fail, and the result is that the poor child is returned by her new mistress with a long list of complaints, and too often with a spirit of sullen disobedience, the cure of which needs much skill, patience, and personal tenderness. It is for these unfortunate girls, who through some slight eccentricity or peculiarity have made a bad start in service, that in my opinion small certified homes are most needed; the normally endowed child as a rule does well in one of the Poor Law schools under average management. I confess to having felt a sense of inequity when on visiting a Poor Law school I have found that the best elder girls have been sent to certified homes, while the "ins and outs," the infants, the weak-minded, and the more difficult cases of every kind have remained, much to the discouragement of the teachers and care- takers.' " It must be noted that in the Act of 1862 the word "school" has been construed to extend to any institution established for the instruc- tion of blind, deaf and dumb, lame, deformed, or idiotic persons, 1 but a later Act of 1868 gave Boards of Guardians further powers with regard to idiots, the deaf and dumb, or the blind. We refer to this Act in the next section. Section II. INSTITUTIONS NOT SPECIALLY CERTIFIED, Under an Act of 1868 2 Guardians might with the consent of the Local Government Board send pauper idiots to asylums or establish- ments for the reception and relief of idiots maintained at the charge of the county rates or by public subscriptions, and also any poor deaf and dumb or blind 3 children to schools 4 fitted for their reception, whether certified or not. In a circular letter to the Inspectors of the Local Government Board, dated the 23rd March, 189T, the Board drew attention to the recommendations of the Royal Commission of 1889 on the Blind, Deaf and Dumb, etc., with reference to their treatment in connection with Poor Law relief. The Inspectors were directed to continue to give special attention to the removal of children of these classes from the workhouses to separate institutions when such a course should seem to them to be desirable. 6 In 1893 the Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act, 1 15 P. L. £., p. 21. a 31 & 32 Vict. ch. 122, ss. 13 and 42. 3 See as to deaf and blind children post, p. 247. 4 Under 14 & 15 Vict. ch. 105, s. 4, and 42 & 43 Vict. ch. 54, s. 10, Boards of Guardians may subscribe towards the support and maintenance of an asylum or institution for blind or deaf and dumb persons or for any persons suffering from natural or permanent infirmity. 5 21 L. G. B., p. 73. Other Systems 247 which came into force on 1st January, 1894, was passed. 1 It was intended to secure better provision being made for the elementary education of blind and deaf children. For this purpose the Act makes it the duty of school authorities 2 either to establish or acquire and to maintain a school certified by the Education Department, or to contribute on such terms and to such extent as may be approved by that Department towards the establishment or enlargement, alteration, and maintenance of schools so certified. The "school authorities" as defined by the Act are either (1) School Boards or (2), where there are no School Boards, the District Councils. The Act repeals those of 1862 and 1868 3 so far as they have to do with blind and deaf and dumb children who are not (a) idiots and imbeciles, or {b) resident in a workhouse or in any institution to which they have been sent by a Board of Guardians from a workhouse, or (c) boarded-out by Guardians. The effect of the Act is, therefore, to limit the powers and duties of Boards of Guardians to blind and deaf children who are under their care, or to those who are idiots or imbeciles. Previous to this Act their powers and duties extended to any poor children. The Metropolis is well provided with the special institution at Darenth for the treatment of imbecile children. This asylum is under the management of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, and to it the London Boards of Guardians send all their imbecile children. The separate treatment of this class and also that of the feeble-minded is one to which the attention of Guardians has for some time been turned, so that the children who require special training and education may be brought up in other institutions than workhouses or county lunatic asylums. 4 Thus Mr. Holgate says, writing in 1877 : 5 "Of the good service that will be effected by this training and educating pauper imbecile children there can be no doubt, for it has been clearly shown that they should be treated distinctly from other classes ; that they suffer if associated with lunatics ; that they ought not, unless in exceptional cases, to be associated with paupers in Union workhouses ; that they materially interfere with the progress and general well-being of ordinary schools with other pauper children ; and lastly, that with the special appliances and training that will now 1 56 & 57 Vict. ch. 42. 2 Section 4. 3 See ante, pp. 237 and 246. 4 The necessity for the provision of separate accommodation is very well stated in the Report of a deputation of the Birmingham Board of Guardians appointed to inquire into the subject of the proper treatment of idiot, imbecile, and epileptic children (1897). 5 6 L. G. B., p. 97. 248 Children under the Poor Law be provided for them, many will ultimately be fit to go out into the world and earn their own livelihood, whilst in all habits of cleanliness and order can be inculcated and their unfortunate condition materially improved." Section III. TRAINING-SHIPS. The Metropolitan Poor Amendment Act, 1869, 1 enables the Guardians of any Union or parish and the managers of any school or asylum district, with the consent of the Local Government Board, to " purchase, hire, or otherwise acquire, and fit up and furnish one or more ships to be used for the training of boys for the sea-service, and every such ship shall be deemed to be a school or asylum, as the case may be, within the meaning of the Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867, and the several Acts therein referred to as ' The Poor Law Acts ' respectively." 2 There is, however, at the present time only one such training- ship. This is the Exmouth, which is moored in the Thames off Grays, Essex. It is now managed by the Metropolitan Asylums Board at the cost of London generally. 3 Although the ship was originally intended solely for the training for the sea-service of boys chargeable to Metropolitan Unions or parishes, boys chargeable to other Unions and parishes have since 1892 been received on board. 4 It does not appear, however, that the extra Metropolitan Unions have availed themselves very much of the power to send boys to the ship. She is certified for 600 boys, but the average number of them on board during the year ended Lady-day, 1895, was not more than 52 2. 5 Boys are admitted to the ship subject to the regulations laid down in the Orders of the 24th August, 1876, and of the 15th June, 1892. 6 1 32 & 33 Vict. ch. 63, s. 11. 2 It will be observed that the Act only applies to Unions or parishes within the Metropolitan District. 3 We have seen in the introductory chapter how the Goliath came to be established for the training of Poor Law boys to the sea-service, and how this ship was originally the property of the Forest Gate School managers, but received boys from all parts of the Metropolis. When she was burnt in December, 1875, and was replaced by the Exmoutk, the opportunity was taken to place the new ship under the management of the Metropolitan Asylums Board. (See 5 L. G. B., p. 5.) 4 See 22 L. G.B., p. lxxxi. The Order, which is dated the 15th June, 1892, fixes a sum of gs. a week to be paid by other than Metropolitan Boards of Guardians for each boy sent to the ship. 5 25 Z. G. B. y p. 514. Of the 522 boys only twenty-eight came from provincial Unions. 6 The Order of 1892 rescinds entirely Articles 2 and 3 of the Order of 1876, and also an Order (as to forms of consent) of the 13th August, 1886, while Articles IX, 12, 13, and 57 (4) of the Order of 1876 are amended in such a way that that portion Other Systems 249 The most important conditions regulating their admission are as follows : 1. Each boy must, before admission, be pronounced by medical examination to be " free from disease and fit as regards his bodily and mental condition for training for the sea-service." 1 2. He must conform to certain standards of height and chest measurements. 2 3. Unless the boy be an orphan or deserted by his parents, the written consent of the parents or parent is required. They have to consent to " his being sent for the sea-service to the above-mentioned Metropolitan district training-ship, and upon the completion of his training to his entering the Royal Navy and en- gaging to serve until he shall have completed twelve years' continuous service from the age of eighteen, or to his entering the Mercantile Marine service." 3 4. If the boy be sent by an extra Metropolitan Board of Guardians they must enter into a contract or agreement with the Board of Management in the form set out in the Order (or in one to a like effect) before he can be received on the ship ; 4 but if the boy be sent by a Metropolitan Board of Guardians, only the written consent of the Guardians is necessary. 5 Boys are admitted to the Exmouth from Metropolitan Unions between the ages of 12 and 15 J, and from extra Metropolitan Unions between the ages of 13 and 15. As a rule they have left the ship by the time they are sixteen, though the managers do not insist rigidly on a limit of age for discharge, as they regard the education of the boys on the ship as an apprenticeship, fitting them for useful work in after life. 6 The statistics of health are remarkably good. 6 Owing to the age at which the boys enter the ship, school work forms a comparatively small part of their duties, almost all their working time being taken up by definite training in seamanship. After passing the fourth Standard they have practically no school at all. This was the only matter for which the Metropolitan Poor Law Schools Committee had a word of criticism. The Committee were inclined to think that having regard of the Order of 1876 and the new Order of 1892 may apply both to Metropolitan and extra Metropolitan Unions and parishes. The present forms of contract or agreement, of admission orders, and of the necessary consents will be found in Schedules A. B. and C. of the Order of 1892. > Order of 1892, Art. I. 2 The admission order contains these particulars. See Schedules B. and C. of the Order of 1892. 3 Order of 1892, Art. I., and Schedules B. and C. 4 Ibid., Schedule A. 5 Ibid., Schedule B. 6 Report of Departmental Committee, p. 119. f*& OFTHi, "r 250 Children under the Poor Law to the higher educational qualifications now required of skilled seamen, both in the Navy and in the Merchant Service, more attention might with advantage be given to general intellectual exercise in addition to technical seamanship. 1 The reports of experts on the training-ship are uniformly good. 2 Mr. Wyndham Holgate says : 3 " I am glad to say that the Exmouth training-ship continues to show highly creditable results, and to receive from the authorities at the Admiralty very favourable recognition of the excellence of its work. In 1894, out of an average of 590 on the books, 133 lads were dis-" charged to the Royal Navy; 87 to the Mercantile Marine, of whom several were enrolled in the Royal Naval Reserve; 26 to the Army as musicians, one to a private situation, 54 to their respective Unions for various reasons by order of the Boards of Guardians, and two died. There were 307 admissions against the above 303 discharges. "On the 12th June, 1894, the following entries were made in the visitors' book on board : " ' I visited the Exmouth with much pleasure, and found this training-ship for boys in most excellent order. The ship is very clean below and on deck; the boys very clean, well-kept, and well-dressed. The drills and instructions are exceedingly well taught, and the com- fort and well-being of the boys are sedulously attended to. A model training-ship. M , (signed) D. H. Bosanquet, "'Inspecting Captain of Royal Navy Training- ships' " * It has been a privilege and a pleasure to accompany Captain Bosanquet on this visit, and to see what has been so deservedly com- mended by him. Captain Bourchier's arrangements are admirable. "'(Signed) Ughtred K. Shuttleworth, " '■Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty.'' "The ship was shortly afterwards inspected by Commander Somerset, R.N., of the Impregnable, Naval Training-ship. His entry in the visitors' book was : " ' Having heard from Captain D. H. Bosanquet of the high state of efficiency of the Exmouth, I have to-day had the pleasure of visiting the ship, and can fully endorse his statement. The ship is in excellent order, very clean, and well-kept ; the boys very clean, well-dressed, and drill with great precision. The drills and instructions are exceedingly well taught. The boys appear to be very comfortable. " ' (Signed) W. H. Somerset, Commander "Impregnable" Royal Naval Training- ship.'' it ( , 3 11 1 Report of Departmental Committee, p. 120. 2 See 8 L.G.B., p. 151; 11 L. G. B., pp. 132, 134; 13 L.G.B., p. 128; 14 L. G. B. t p. 58 ; and 16 L. G. B., p. 113. 3 24 L. G.B., pp. 71, 72. In his Report for 1891 Mr. Holgate prints a most interesting letter, illustrating the beneficial effects of the sound instruction given to the lads on board the ship. See 21 L. G. B. } p. 187. Other Systems 251 The Departmental Committee say : " Our own personal observations left on us a strong impression of the value of the training received in the ship. The discipline, though strict, is not severe. There is an air of cheerfulness and yet of serious devotion to duty pervading the whole ship. Reasonable recreation and opportunities for going ashore are attainable by all well-conducted boys, and, on the whole, we cannot doubt that the ship, as at present conducted under the skilful manage- ment of Captain Bourchier, affords an appropriate preparation, both morally and industrially, for the laborious but manly and honourable profession of a sailor." 1 The success of the ship is shown by the statistics. About 300 boys are passed out annually on an average. One third of these go into the Royal Navy and another third into the Merchant Service. About 60 join the Army bands, and of the 30 or 40 only who are returned to their Unions for various reasons, the large majority have been found to be physically unfit for sea-service. 2 In 1894, 133 boys entered the Royal Navy from the Exmouth, while the aggregate number of boys who did the same from all other mercan- tile training-ships in the United Kingdom was only 103. "This success is partly due to the fact that a brigantine is attached to the ship, which the boys are trained to manage themselves, under the superintendence of a master-mariner and two mates." 3 In connection with the ship there is a small home on shore. " This home answers the purpose of a receiving house, and an infirmary for the isolation of any suspicious case of sickness arising on the ship." 4 It seems remarkable that, considering the success which has attended the establishment of a " Poor Law " training-ship in the Thames, there has been no legislation by which provincial Boards of Guardians could combine together to start and manage other similar ships. The cost which the maintenance of such ships entails is probably the principal reason why no action has been taken in the matter, for the technical training which has to be provided is very expensive. Thus the average cost per boy on the Exmouth during the year ended Lady-day, 1894, Was as follows : Average cost per Items of Expenditure. head per annum. Maintenance of the boys, including necessaries, clothing, and £ s. d. provisions . . . . . 17 4 3 Salaries and maintenance of officers . . . 10 1 6 Repairs to the ship, furniture and bedding, rates and taxes, printing and other expenses . . ..548 Total average cost per head per annum . ^"32 10 5 1 Report, p. 120. We have italicised the word "laborious," for the use of it here in antithesis to the epithets "manly and honourable," throws light on the ideas- entertained by the Departmental Committee on the subject of labour. 2 Ibid., p. 120. 3 Ibid., p. 121. 4 Ibid., p. 121. 252 Children under the Poor Law A movement has, however, been started both in the North-Western and Yorkshire Poor Law Divisions for the establishment of training- ships in the Mersey and in the Humber. Still there are a few other training-ships managed by private enterprise which will receive boys from Boards of Guardians. Such are the Arethusa and Chichester at Greenhithe, the Warspite at Woolwich, and the Indefatigable at Birkenhead. 1. Arethusa and Chichester (Greenhithe). These training-ships are under the control of a separate committee of the "National Refuges for Homeless and Destitute Children." Early in 1895 the secretary of this society sent a circular letter to all Boards of Guardians stating the willingness of the society to receive boys from them. As to the conditions on which boys are received there is no strict rule, but they must be well -grown and healthy, have good eyesight and hearing, and be of good character. 1 As to age, they are generally received from thirteen and a half to sixteen. The Navy paper must be signed by the boy and by his parent or guardian, as well as a form used by the society, which expresses their desire that the boy should join the Navy, if possible, or failing that, enter the Merchant Service. No fixed charge is made to Boards of Guardians for the maintenance and training of pauper boys, but the society being merely a charity, several Unions sending boys subscribe to its funds in return for their being received. The present superintendent of the ships is Captain Moore, R.N., and he has kindly supplied us with the above information. He adds : " I wish to state in conclusion that the workhouse boys have proved the most satisfactory I have had to deal with. There is not one really bad case among the whole number, and they are bright, willing, intelligent, and well-mannered. ... I am exceedingly fond of my workhouse boys, and would like some more of them." The total number of boys received in the training-ships from Boards of Guardians during 1895 and 1896 was forty-three. These are accounted for as follows : Entered Royal Navy, eleven ; entered Merchant Service, twelve ; entered training-ship Worcester as a steward, one ; sent back to Unions as unfit, six ; still on board, thirteen. The boys come from Unions in every part of the country. 1 Convicted cases, or those who have been in a Reformatory or Industrial School (except truant schools), are not accepted. Other Systems 253 2. Warspite (Woolwich). This training-ship belongs to the "Marine Society" (Bishopsgate Street Within, E.C.). Boys are received from Boards of Guardians on payment of a fee of £7 7*. between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Their height must be four feet ten inches without shoes. They are sent, after being trained on board, to serve in the Royal Navy or in the Merchant Service. 3. Indefatigable (Birkenhead). This training-ship has a large number of boys on board sent by Boards of Guardians (mostly in Lancashire and Cheshire). Boys are admitted between the ages of twelve and fifteen, and must be four feet six inches in height at thirteen. They have to be medically examined and certified as physically fit for sea life, perfect in sight and limb particularly. They are generally medically examined by the medical officer of the ship before being passed on board the ship, but the committee, for the sake of convenience, often accept the report of the Guardians' medical officers as sufficient. The charge to Boards of Guardians for each boy is 5s. per week, and £fi for outfit when the boys go to sea. The boys are apprenticed to the commander of the ship for a term of three years, and if they are in a high Standard, such as the fifth or over, they are seldom kept longer than two and a half years. 1 It is an excellently-managed institution. There are several other training - ships for boys, but they are most of them established for boys committed by magistrates' order under the Industrial Schools Act or the Elementary Education Act, 1876. Some few, however, receive boys who are not so committed upon a payment of ^20 per annum in advance, such as the Formidable (Bristol), the Clio (Bangor), and the We lies ley (Newcastle-on-Tyne). Mr. Baldwyn Fleming refers in his Report for 1894 to the Mercury training-ship, on the river Hamble, as having been certified by the Local Government Board for the reception of pauper boys. He says : 2 "For many years I have been anxious that there should be a training-ship in the district. Long ago I endeavoured to obtain one by arrangement between the great sea-coast Unions, but technical 1 From information kindly supplied to me by Captain Bremner. In a letter dated the 2 1 st December, 1896, he says : " We have now vacancies for twenty boys, and it is a splendid opportunity of disposing of them, as ships are found for them when ready for sea." 2 24 Z. G. £., p. 38. 254 Children under the Poor Law objections stood in the way. 1 There are many pauper boys, difficult to dispose of satisfactorily otherwise, for whom a sea life opens an excellent and happy future, and nowhere could such boys be better found or trained than on the Mercury. This ship is a beautiful one, and is supplemented by a separate floating hospital, and by every kind of appliance on shore, both for instruction and amusement. No healthy boy who can tell the truth, or learn to tell the truth, need look for a better life and training than he would find on board the Mercury. The Poor Law Authorities do not yet seem to realise the value of the institution thus placed at their disposal, and less than twenty of the Mercury boys are at present paid for by Guardians. Some apprehen- sion may exist on the score of expense, as the Board have authorised a payment up to ^20 per annum, which, by the by, does not even cover the costs. "The usual course of training takes three years, and costs ^60. Guardians think that they can keep a boy for about ^12 a year. The difference, therefore, amounts to ^24 in three years, and for the ^24 the boy's future is practically assured, as Captain Superintendent Hoare rarely fails to place his boys so advantageously that they need trouble the rates no more." There can, we think, be no doubt that Boards of Guardians might advantageously pay more attention than they do at present to the training of pauper boys to the sea-service in the way we have been considering. There are many healthy lads who come under the control of the Guardians who are just suited for a sea life, and by getting them trained for it Guardians will not only be serving their country by acting as recruiting sergeants for a noble service, but they will be adding to the amount of its skilled labour, for which a demand always exists. They will also ensure the boys being completely depauperised. Section IV. SENDING CHILDREN TO SCHOOLS OF OTHER UNIONS. The power of sending children chargeable to one Union to the schools of another Union is not nearly so much exercised by Boards of Guardians as it might be. Boards of Guardians are very averse as a rule to parting with their children. We have already noticed how this feeling is exhibited in the boarding -out of children. Guardians prefer to board them out in their own Unions rather than to entrust them to Boarding-out Committees under the Boarding-out Order. 2 Still the power is utilised in a few cases, and with beneficial 1 We have seen {ante, p. 248) that legislation is required to enable Boards of Guardians outside the Metropolis to establish training-ships. 2 Ante, p. 205, Other Systems 255 results to each Union concerned. The section of the Act authorising the practice is as follows : l " Where in any union or parish there shall be a workhouse or building having adequate provision for the reception, maintenance, and education of poor children, and there shall be more accommodation therein at any time than the guardians of such union or parish shall require for the poor children of their own union or parish, such guardians may, with the consent of the Poor Law Board, 2 contract with the guardians of any other union or parish . . . for the reception, maintenance, and instruction therein of any poor children under the age of sixteen years chargeable to such other union or parish, or to any parish in such other union, being orphans or deserted by their parents, or whose parents or surviving parent shall consent ; and such last-mentioned children while at such workhouse or other building shall be maintained and instructed in the same manner in all respects as the children of the union or parish to which such workhouse or other building shall belong, and shall be subject to the control and manage- ment of the guardians of such union or parish, or their officers, in like manner as if such children were chargeable to such union or parish, provided always that the abiding of any such child in any such workhouse or building shall in all other respects be attended with the same legal consequences as if such workhouse or building had been situated within the union or parish from which such child shall have been sent." 3 1 14 & 15 Vict. ch. 105, s. 6, as extended by 29 & 30 Vict. ch. 113, s. 16. 2 Now the Local Government Board. 3 See remarks of Mr. Byam Davies as to the practice, ante, p. 1 74. CHAPTER X. EMPLOYMENT THE object of the education and training given in Poor Law institutions, as in other schools, is to put the children in a position to support themselves in after life. In spite of the severe criticisms which have been made of late years on the education and training which children receive under the Poor Law, and notably in Metropolitan schools, by the Departmental Committee, there cannot be the least doubt that the very large majority of those children who have been long enough in the schools to get the full benefit of the education and training given there have been converted from paupers into self-supporting, honest, and hardworking men and women. In support of this statement it is unnecessary to give more statistics than we have already done in previous chapters. 1 The argument used by Mr. J. S. Davy on this point is to our mind conclusive : " It is frequently alleged with much assurance, and in spite of clouds of witnesses to the contrary, that children who are educated at a workhouse school generally return to the workhouse and make it their home, and past experience makes it probable that the allegation will continue to be made and to be believed. Misrepresentations of this kind must be endured, however mischievous they may be ; but it is curious that it has never struck the people who make them that if their statements were true the workhouses would be full of able-bodied inmates. As a matter of fact, the number of able-bodied paupers is extremely small, either in or out of the workhouse, and they are for the most part either widows with children or deserted wives." 2 The fact is that Boards of Guardians and school managers have little difficulty in finding situations and occupations for both boys and girls on their leaving school. As to girls, the demand for them exceeds the supply, as they are found to possess qualities such as honesty and habits of cleanliness, which are often absent from children of the same class who have been brought up in the ordinary home. It is much more a question, indeed, whether the advantages which 1 See ante, pp. 61-70, and pp. 125-131. 2 24 L. G. B., p. 25. Employment 257 Poor Law children have, do not unfairly compete with the education which an ordinary poor child can get; but this objection will not hold water. What is everywhere wanted is more skilled labour. This the Poor Law schools ought to be able to supply. As a matter of fact, where children have been long enough in the schools to receive the full benefit of a good industrial training, they do supply it. Of unskilled labour there is already too much, and it is recruited to a very large extent from the country villages, where the children have not the same opportunities of getting an industrial training as the perma?ient children in a Poor Law school have. We shall first deal with the question of employment for girls only ; secondly, with that of emigration, which is suitable for both boys and girls; and thirdly, with methods of disposing of boys by apprenticeship and otherwise. Section I. MODES OF DISPOSING OF GIRLS. The vast majority of Poor Law girls go into domestic service after leaving the schools, 1 but in the manufacturing districts a great many of them go to the mills. There is never any difficulty in finding them places. They generally go out between the ages of fourteen and fifteen. 2 There are four main points which Guardians should attend to in sending out the girls into service : 8 1. That they have received the necessary preparatory training; 2. That the situations they go to are suitable ones ; 3. That they get proper wages ; and 4. That they are visited and looked after in their situations, until they are old enough to fight their own battles. It is the practice now in the best schools to give the girls who are about to leave for service special industrial training to fit them for it, and to let them for a few months before they leave have a room to themselves apart from the other girls. Mr. Mozley in his Report for 1883 tells us that at Lincoln the girls during the interval between their workhouse life and their entering on domestic service, were specially instructed in household industry in a certified home and in connection with the Girls' Friendly Society. 4 Guardians might, indeed, make much more use of such training homes as this. Mrs. Nassau Senior very sensibly remarked that "a girl is not 1 Thus out of 464 girls belonging to Metropolitan Unions, who were placed out during the year 1895 f rom tne P° or Law or certified schools, no fewer than 459 went into domestic service, the other five going out as dressmakers or needlewomen. (See 25 L. G. B., p. 316.) 2 See post, p. 286. 3 See also the Order of the 10th July, 1897, set out in Appendix I, fost, p. 421. 4 13 L. G. £., p. 122. S 258 Children tinder the Poor Law necessarily a better woman because she knows the height of all the mountains in Europe, and can work out a fraction in her head, but she is decidedly better fitted for the duties she will be called upon to perform in life if she knows how to wash and tend a child, cook simple food well, and thoroughly clean a house. To do these duties really well needs not only intelligence but special training." 1 There is no reason why any girl should leave a Poor Law school ignorant of any of these matters. We have shown, for instance, how all these points are attended to at the Hornchurch Cottage Homes. 2 Even in "barrack" schools the girls from the body of the school assist in the care of the small children. 3 Miss M. Clifford, in her evidence before the Departmental Committee, 4 describes how the girls are trained for domestic service in the detached school at Barton Regis. " We have a small kitchen," she says, " such as they have in those small houses to which they go, and our little girls learn to cook the dinner — a few of them, that is. Those who are old enough are taught to be cooks as far as girls of thirteen and fourteen years of age can be cooks. They also wait on the mistress and other school officers. They learn to clean a room, and so on. Also we have a little laundry — a small place, with no machinery — and they learn simple washing in that way. Both half-timers and whole-timers are all doing something, and we consider that that makes up to a certain extent for the industrial training they get in a good boarded-out home. You see a good mother would teach her child these things. We try to make up in that way." If Guardians will only take a little trouble in this matter of training, they will find that their girls would " make a better success as servants that ten out of twelve educated at the public elementary schools in the kingdom." 5 Indeed, the inquiries instituted by the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants show that the "school" girls are preferred to the "local" girls by their employers. 6 1 3 L. G. B., p. 319. 2 Ante, p. 146. 3 Mrs. Nassau Senior suggested (3 L. G. £., pp. 318, 319) that some of the Metropolitan schools should be set apart as infant establishments, by which two things would be gained: (1) they would be excellent training-places for girls for a year or two before going into service ; and (2) they would allow of the physical needs of the infants being well attended to. She tells how at one of the large schools a separate block of new buildings had recently been set apart as an infant department, where children up to five years of age were placed under the care of nurses, assisted by girls from the body of the school. From the nursery they passed to the infant school (still in a separate block), where girls remained till seven years old, and boys till ten. 4 Evidence, Q. 11,056. 5 See evidence of Mr. Wyndham Holgate before the Departmental Committee, Q. t 5,608. u See post, p. 361. We cannot wonder at the eagerness of mistresses to obtain their servants from a well-managed Poor Law school in preference to the ordinary girls. Employ men t 259 If the girls were to have this special training previously to leaving the schools, the complaints of their being dull, mechanical, and of sullen temper would not be so often heard. The next point to be attended to in order to ensure the success of the girls is that they should be sent to suitable situations. In London the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants sees to this, and takes charge of the children on their leaving the school, and the Girls' Friendly Society does the same work, but to a less extent, in the provinces. But there is reason to believe that many Boards of Guardians are apt to accede to the first application for a girl for service. The applicant "visits the school, inspects the children of eligible age, and makes a selection. The fact is reported to the Board of Guardians, who send their relieving officer to visit the proposed master and mistress, and inspect the house. The relieving officer has probably never seen the child since it was sent to the schools some years previously, if even then, and he is therefore scarcely able to form an opinion as to the suitability of the child for the situation proposed. Yet upon his report the Guardians base their decision, whilst those in whose care the child has been brought up have no voice in the matter. There is also the disadvantage that the visit of the relieving officer reveals to the other servants the girl's pauper origin." 1 Such a practice is likely soon to become a thing of the past, now that so many ladies have seats upon Boards of Guardians and on School Committees. They naturally understand the difficulties and trials of a young girl when placed in her first situation. The necessity for care in the choice of a situation must be apparent to anyone who gives a moment's thought to the subject, and the amount of it should be at least as much as would be taken by respectable parents of the working class. It must also be remembered that a girl may fail in her first situation quite as much owing to the fault of the mistress as on the score of her own shortcomings. As Mr. Birkby says in his interesting paper : 2 " It would be a good thing if we could have a gauge to test the temperature, condition of the liver, and the general fitness of some mistresses before they are entrusted with girls as servants. A girl of Considering the extraordinary ignorance which prevails generally among the working- classes as to cooking and laundry work, there woutd not probably be one woman in fifty who could teach her child to do these things really well, even if she attempted to do so. 1 Report of Departmental Committee, p. 61. 2 Paper read before the North- Western Poor Law Officers' Association at Manchester, 1896. 260 Children under the Poor Law fourteen years is but a child, and I am afraid she is expected to do what an older servant cannot do and wouldn't do. Girls at this age require training ; given fair play, and treated as human beings, our girls will and do make excellent servants." Then Boards of Guardians should never allow a girl to go into anybody's service unless she receives adequate wages. What these wages should be must, of course, depend upon the particular district. Mr. Mozley, in impressing this point on Guardians, referred to a Yorkshire Union as a satisfactory instance : x " I was pleased the other day to hear from the matron of the Mallow Union that the Guardians never send out a girl to service there without bargaining that she shall receive at least ^3 per annum wages, and that they try to get ^4 per annum for her. The conse- quence is that the girls often have money in the Post Office Savings Bank, a very desirable thing for their future welfare." The wages which the managers of the London Poor Law Schools insist on their children getting when they first go into service range from £5 to ^8, in addition to board, lodging, washing, and medical attendance. From the North Surrey District Schools at Anerley no girl is allowed to take any situation where less than two servants are kept. This fact speaks volumes for the efficient training which they receive in these schools. The conditions under which a girl is sent out to service from the Swinton Schools will be found in the next chapter, 2 where we also deal with the fourth point which Guardians should consider, namely, the visiting of the girls in their situations until they arrive at an age when they can protect themselves. The Departmental Committee draw attention to the fact that domestic service, though undoubtedly the most appropriate form of employment for the majority of Poor Law girls, is not the only kind of useful industry now accessible to them in the markets of the world. " Of late years many new ways have been opened whereby young women who have had a fair elementary education may earn an honourable living. Type-writing, the use of the sewing-machine, telegraphy, book-keeping, the cutting out of articles of clothing, various forms of art and decorative work requiring a knowledge of drawing, all these and many more employments of the kind, offer opportunities of useful and remunerative industry; and we cannot doubt that some of these, if systematically taught, would increase the 21 L.G.B., p. 179. 2 Post, p. 293. Employment 261 value of the schools and the number of chances open to the girls when the period of chargeability to the Guardians expires." 1 Thus, according to the last Report of the Banstead Schools, of forty- one girls sent out to employment during the three years ended Michaelmas, 1895, only four were sent to other than domestic service, viz., two as dressmakers and two to a laundry. If the suggestion of the Committee is followed, Guardians, of course, must be prepared to keep girls longer in the schools than they do now, in order to teach them something of the trades enumerated. This would necessarily imply a considerable increase of expenditure, and so long as Guardians find no difficulty in finding situations in domestic service for girls, they will naturally, as representatives of ratepayers, not feel themselves justified in incurring the extra expense. Section II. EMIGRATION. There is another mode of disposing of girls as well as of boys, and that is by means of emigration. Boards of Guardians do not, however, seem to use their powers to emigrate children to any large extent. During the year 1895, 246 orphan and deserted children were sent out to Canada at a total cost to the poor rates of ^2917.2 As on every other question, there have always been two different views with regard to emigration. In his Report for 1878 Mr. Holgate wrote as follows : 3 "My own view has always been that a system which only under- takes to provide for the picked few, those who, being physically and mentally the best specimens of the class, are equally certain of a prosperous future in their own country, cannot be heartily supported by those who have to deal with the question as a whole, and who have to consider how to provide for all classes of children, whatever their bodily and intellectual capacities may be." And then Mr. Holgate goes on to show what a check the system had received at the time by the complaints of the impossibility of finding 1 Report, p. 61. But if the girls are to succeed in such employments, these industries must not only be systematically taught, but really well taught. We are by no means certain that the market is not already overstocked with girls who have acquired some knowledge of these accomplishments. Surely it is better that the Poor Law Schools should direct their special attention to turning out well-trained, useful domestic servants, for whom there is a never ceasing demand at good wages. 3 25 L. G. B., p. lxxxviii. During the year 1894, 299 children were emigrated at a cost of ^3578. (See 24 L. G. B., p. 103.) Under 13 & 14 Vict. ch. 101, s. 4, only orphan and deserted children can be emigrated. The power to emigrate poor families was given by 4 & 5 Will. IV. ch. 76, s. 62, and was extended by 11 & 12 Vict. ch. no, s. 5, and 12 & 13 Vict. ch. 103, s. 20. (See 3 P.L.B., p. 15.) 3 8Z. G.B., p. 152. 262 Children under the Poor Law places for the children sent. Canada was then, as it is now, the great field for emigration, but as showing how necessary it is that it should be very strictly regulated, as it is now under the Regulations of 1888, Mr. Holgate prints in his Report the following letter which had been addressed to the Chairman of the Board of Guardians of St. George's (Hanover Square) : l "Office of St. George's Society, 11 7, Louisa Street, Toronto. "%th August, 1878. " Sir, — The enclosed item of a printed statement that twenty young girls were to be offered by the Board to Miss Rye 2 to take out to Canada at the end of this month I have cut out from the Toronto Globe of this date. I fill the position (and have done so for many years) of honorary executive officer of the above society, and am well known to Miss Rye and other kindred ladies. I beg leave most respectfully to offer to you my most solemn protest against the continuance of Miss Rye's work, which is keeping this country overflowing with pauperism. Our boys' and girls' homes are filled to repletion, because situations cannot be found for the children. There are families upon families in our cities — men, women, boys, and girls — in destitution and want for lack of employment, and there are hundreds longing to get back to England. Yesterday I had applications from five families for assist- ance to return, and I assisted three of them, viz., a man, woman, and six children ; a man, woman, and three children j and a man and two girls. As to Government inspection or attention to cases of want, it is the veriest nonsense to talk of it, for even at the present time immigrants (few as they are) are just kept at the Government sheds forty-eight hours, and then turned adrift. If Miss Rye is sincere in her work as a philanthropist, and Canada is the country she wishes to serve, let her assist us first in disposing of our superabundant boys and girls ; and then, should the need arise to import some from England, I will (d.v.) be ready again to assist her. In the meantime I must respectfully beg of you not to encourage her in the matter. " I have the honour to be your very obedient servant, "(Signed) J. E. Pell, "To the Chairman of the Board." Hon. Secretary. Although the statement made in this letter may be somewhat over- coloured, it explains why Guardians should not be over-anxious to emigrate the children, especially as they find they have so little difficulty in disposing of them in other ways. But since the Regula- tions of 1888 came into force the reports upon the children emigrated 1 8Z. G.B., p. 152. 2 Miss Maria S. Rye was one of the first in the field to organize the emigration of children. Employment 263 have been very favourable. 1 In 1892 we find that the Local Govern- ment Board commented on these reports as follows : 2 " The children are reported to be generally contented and well cared for, and the greater number of their homes to be free from objection. Though in many cases reference is made to the faults in the character, disposition, or habits of the children, there appear to be comparatively few instances where the foster-parents have expressed an intention to part with them in consequence. The reports show that in some of the cases the children and their foster-parents have become greatly attached to each other; and that in others the foster-parents take an unselfish and parental interest in the present and future welfare of the children committed to their keeping. There are somewhat fewer cases than formerly in which children are said to have been adopted, but it is apparent, both from the present and former reports, that the system of adoption does not in Canada necessarily imply that the foster-parent accepts once for all the care of a child as his own. With regard to five homes only the reports are not favourable, and in two of these the children are stated to have been ■ not well used ' and ' not well treated or sufficiently fed.' The Immigration Officers have reported unfavour- ably upon the bodily or mental condition of eight of the children, and one of these children has been returned to England as insane. These reports show that for the most part children are placed out on the understanding that they will be boarded, clothed, and educated until they attain the age of fifteen years, after which time they are paid wages at the rate of three or four dollars per month. They also show that the homes in Canada connected with the various emigration societies are of great assistance in connection with the welfare and supervision of the children. Children who are dissatisfied, ill, or in unsatisfactory homes, appear to be frequently received back into these homes, whence they are again placed out after having received further training or medical treatment, as may be necessary." But how necessary it is that greater precautions should be taken to secure that the Poor Law children get into good homes is shown by the evidence of Major Gretton, the Hon. Secretary of the East End Emigration Fund, before the Departmental Committee. 3 Thus : "At one place in Montreal, which he describes as a 'charity doss- house,' he found two forlorn little boys — one from Sutton Schools and the other from Yarmouth. These children had been taken to Canada by an agent, and left in Montreal absolutely unprovided for. Major Gretton describes the outfit which had been supplied to the children — an outfit quite unsuitable, he says, for a Canadian winter. "At the Protestant Orphan Asylum he found two boys who had been taken out the year before by the same agent from the Cottage Homes at Wednesfield. The lady superintendent of the Asylum informed him that these children had been found by the police to be straying 1 See 18 L. G. B., pp. xcvii., 175-202; 21 L. G. B., p. lxxxiv. ; 22 L. G. B., p. Ixxxviii. 2 21 L. G. B., p. lxxxiv. 3 Quoted on p. 132 of the Report. 264 Children under the Poor Law about the streets. He also found the sister of one of these boys at a drinking-shop in Montreal. "The agent who took out these children professed to have places ready for them, but Major Gretton was informed by the manager of the lodging-house in which he found the boys, that before their arrival the agent inserted advertisements in the newspapers begging anyone to come and take the children out of charity." The object of the agent was, no doubt, to make money out of the transaction. Such breakdowns occur sometimes, and possibly afford another reason why Boards of Guardians are not very keen to let the children go beyond their control, for once the children are emigrated this control is lost. Mr. Samuel Smith, M.P., stated before the Departmental Committee that the Canadian farmers were quite willing to receive emigrated children. " A great many Canadian farmers," he said, " have no children in their own homes j they marry early, the children grow up, they settle in life very early, they go away from home. You very often find a couple living alone, their children having left them, and they feel very dull, not having anyone in the house, and they are very glad to have children for company." 1 The Departmental Committee add: "There is also a scarcity of labour in Canada. Food is cheap, house-room available, and the children can perform such light domestic duties and farm operations as will abundantly compensate for the cost of their maintenance." 2 But although the reports on emigrated children are generally favour- able at the present time, Mr. Holgate's objection seems to us to have great force. " Why," he says in effect, " should we send away our best children when they are just those who are wanted and do well at home?" And Mr. Birkby says : "There is an idea in the minds of some people that Boards of Guardians by paying, say ;£io, could ship off the children to Canada, a colony, they say, which is continually asking for such children. As a matter of fact, very few of our children fulfil all the conditions required. The child must be strong and healthy in every respect. The fittest children only can go, and these are just the children that have in them the promise to make healthy men and women. If such are emigrated we are simply making the country doubly the worse off. The weakly child stays, grows up weakly, possibly unable to earn his own living, and his fellow, fit and well, is producing for another country- If we could 1 Evidence before Departmental Committee, Q. 16,234. It must be mentioned that Mr. Smith said emphatically that the children must be properly trained before being sent out. Ibid. 2 Report, p. 131. Employment 265 send some of the weakly ones it might be the making of them, and no Board would stand in the way on the ground of expense." 1 This is of course the argument that emigration robs England of its best citizens. But we must not be temptedL, into a discussion on the point. Orphan and deserted children can be emigrated by Boards of Guardians up to the age of sixteen years, but the Local Government Board do not recommend girls to be emigrated above the age of ten years, " and in no case, except under very special circumstances, above the age of twelve years." 2 They cannot be emigrated without their consent, which has to be given before two Justices, under 13 & 14 Vict. ch. 10 1, s. 4, who have to sign a certificate that such consent has been given, which certificate must be transmitted to the Local Government Board. The sanction of the Board must also be obtained. This will not be given unless the conditions laid down by the Board are observed. The present mode of procedure has been shortly stated by the Depart- mental Committee as follows : 3 " Boards of Guardians desiring to secure the emigration of orphan or deserted children under their care, place themselves in communication with an agent willing to undertake the duty of making the necessary arrangements. The Guardians are required by the Local Government Board to satisfy themselves that the agent selected has a reasonable prospect of finding suitable homes for the children, and the agent must give an assurance that he will furnish the Guardians with the names and addresses of the persons to whom the children are to be entrusted, who must be of the same religious denomination as that of the children's parents. The children are examined before starting by the Guardians' medical officer, and if they are certified to be in good bodily health and of fair average intelligence, they are consigned to the agent, who is responsible for all arrangements as to the voyage, the reception of the children on arrival, and their subsequent settlement. It is customary for the Guardians to pay the agent a sum per child for the emigration expenses, which sum includes the fare to the port of embarkation, the ocean passage money, the kit and bedding, the railway fare from the landing place to the receiving home, the cost of maintenance therein, and the necessary outfit for clothing. These expenses averaged in 1894 the sum of £1 1 19^. $d. per child. 4 The one weak point of the present system of emigrating Poor Law children seems to be that the reporting on them is inadequate. The Regulations should make some better provision for this defect. 1 Paper by Mr. Birkby, read before the North- Western Poor Law Officers' Associa- tion at Manchester, 1896. 2 Regulations of 1888. See Appendix C, p. 403. 3 Report, p. 131. For the Regulations of which this statement is a summary, see post, Appendix C, p. 403. 4 And in 1895, £\\ its. 2d. per child. 266 Children under the Poor Law " The immigration officers are supposed to make an annual report, but as a matter of fact we (i.e., the Local Government Board) do not receive more than one report on each child. They report on a child a year after its arrival in Canada, and after it has been placed in a situation ; but we have not hitherto received second reports on the same child." 1 The suggestion of the Departmental Committee 2 that each Poor Law child intended to be emigrated should be sent to a certified training home for at least six months previously to its being emigrated, seems to us a good one. It is impossible to deny that there is a prejudice in Canada against children who have come direct from the hands of the Guardians, and although at the present day such a prejudice has no foundation, it must be taken into account. 3 By placing these children before their emigration in such homes, the distinction made between them and other children — an entirely imaginary one — would not be thought of. Before concluding this section there is one point which we must not neglect to mention, and which might be an inducement to Guardians to emigrate more children, or at any rate to advertise their intention to emigrate them. The effect of such advertisements has been to cause parents or relations who had been keeping in modest retirement to suddenly put in an appearance and remove the children altogether from the schools. Thus Mr. Kennedy tells us that : "Among some of the more popular Yorkshire Unions, proposals to largely exercise the existing powers of the emigration of pauper children to Canada was taken up seriously during 1888; but it turned out, when steps were actually begun to carry out this scheme, that the idea of sending the orphans away to a foreign land is most distasteful to the labouring classes, and the project has in consequence been abandoned. In a few cases ' orphans ' of long standing, when on the eve of departure, turned out to possess parents in the ' aunt ' or ' uncle ' who had left the children chargeable to the rates for years, but whom the triumph of parental instinct constrained to claim their offspring when emigration to Canada was proposed. 4 After a time, no doubt, the Guardians might be asked to take the children, or some of them, back into the schools, but at least the removal of the children would be strong evidence that their parents or relations were quite able to maintain them." Another way of disposing of boys is by apprenticeship. 1 Evidence of Mr. Knollys before the Departmental Committee, Q. 16,170. 2 Report, p. 138. 3 The Regulations of the Canadian Government draw a marked distinction between children taken out from charitable homes in England, and those from English work- houses. See Appendix C, p. 403, for these Regulations, etc. 4 18 L. G. £., p. 141. Employ men t 267 Section III. APPRENTICESHIP. Both boys and girls can be apprenticed to ordinary trades under an Act of 1844 1 and the General Consolidated Ordt of 1847 ; and boys can be apprenticed into the merchant or fishing service under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1 894,2 or be entered into the Royal Navy under the Admiralty Regulations of March, 1889. (a) Apprenticeship to Ordinary Trades. The Act under which children are apprenticed to ordinary trades was passed in 1844. It empowered the Poor Law Commissioners to prescribe the terms and conditions of the apprenticeship. These were laid down in the General Consolidated Order of the 24th July, 1847, Articles 52-74, under the following heads : Parties. (1) No child under the age of nine years, and no child (other than a deaf and dumb child) who cannot read and write his own name may be bound apprentice. (Art. 52.) (2) A child can only be apprenticed to persons over twenty-one years of age, and who are housekeepers, or assessed to the poor rates in their own names. It cannot be apprenticed to journeymen, nor to any persons not carrying on trade or business on their own account, nor to married women. (Art. 53.) The Premium. (1) No premium, except in clothing, may be given upon the binding of any apprentice over sixteen years of age, unless he or she be certified by a medical practitioner to be maimed, deformed, or suffering from some permanent bodily infirmity, and so unfit for certain trades or sorts of work. The Guardians must cause a copy of the certificate to be entered on their minutes before proceeding to execute the indenture. (Arts. 54 and 63.) (2) The premium given on the apprenticing of anyone under sixteen years of age must be partly in clothes and partly in money. As to the clothes, they must be supplied to the apprentice at the commencement of the binding ; and as to the money, half must be paid to the master at the binding and the other half at the end of the first year of the binding. (Art. 55.) The Term. No apprentice can be bound by the Guardians for longer than eight years (Art. 56), and in all cases the binding ceases to 1 7 & 8 Vict ch. 101. See sections 12 and 13. 3 57 & 58 Vict. ch. 60, ss. 105-109, and ss. 392-398. This Act repeals 17 & 18 Vict. ch. 104, and 46 & 47 Vict. ch. 41. 268 Children under the Poor Law be valid after he or she has attained the age of twenty-one years. (18 Geo. III. ch. 47.) 1 The Consent. The consent of the child to its apprenticeship is only necessary when it is over fourteen years of age ; but, until the child is sixteen years old, the consent of the father (if alive) or of the mother (if the father be dead or disqualified as mentioned in the Order, 2 or if the child be a bastard) must always be obtained. Place of Service. This must not be more than thirty miles distant from the place the child came from at the time of its being housed or sent on trial as an apprentice; unless the Local Govern- ment Board allow it to be placed out at a greater distance away. (Art. 58.) Preliminaries to the binding. Whether the child be apprenticed from the workhouse or not, it must, if it is under the age of fourteen years, be certified by medical examination to be of such bodily health and strength as will fit it for the trade or business to which it is to be apprenticed. (Arts. 59-62.) When this certificate has been given both child and master (or some person on behalf of the master), and, if the child be under sixteen, the parent or person in whose custody it is, must attend before the Board of Guardians for the purpose of being questioned, and for the execution of the indenture. If the master cannot be present the indenture is sent to him for execution before being executed by the Guardians and signed by the child. (Arts. 64 and 65.) 3 The Indenture. This must be executed in duplicate by the Guardians and the master, and signed by the apprentice with his name or (if deaf and dumb) with his mark, and the consent of the parent when required must be testified by his signing with his name or mark at the foot of the indenture. One part of the indenture is to be kept by the Guardians and the other by the master. (Arts. 67-69.) The duties of the master. The master enters into the following covenants under the indenture. He engages to teach the apprentice his trade ; to house, feed, and clothe him ; to procure him medical or surgical attendance when necessary; to see that he attends divine service at least once every Sunday, and according to the religious persuasion to which he belongs ; to allow him to attend a Sunday or other school within the parish, or in case there is no such school 1 The Poor Law Board gave it as their opinion that this Act had not been repealed either expressly or by implication by 7 & 8 Vict. ch. 101, s. 12 (9 Off. Cir. 1. 18). 2 See Macmorran's and Lushington's Poor Law Orders, 1st edit., p. 79 and p. 80 (note a). 3 As to when the master resides in another Union to that of the child, see Art. 66. Employment 269 accessible {i.e. when it is outside the parish and more than two miles from his residence) to allow any minister of the same religious per- suasion as the apprentice to give him religious instruction on Sundays; to pay the apprentice after the age of seventeen the proper remuneration for his services ; to produce the apprentice to the Guardians from time to time ; x and not to let him work without the leave of the Guardians more than ten miles from the place or places mentioned in the indenture. (Art. 70.) Such are, stated as shortly as possible, the main provisions of the Order which apply both to girl and boy apprentices, and to male or female "masters." The indentures of apprenticeship must be drawn in accordance with these provisions. Before commenting on them we may mention that any master wilfully refusing to perform the terms and conditions of an indenture of apprenticeship is liable to forfeit any sum under ,£20 ; 2 that he is liable to penalties or imprisonment for ill-using or neglecting his apprentice ; 3 and that the sections of the Employers and Workmen Act, 1875, relating to disputes between apprentices and their masters apply to pauper apprentices. 4 It will be evident to anyone who knows anything about the con- dition of various trades at the present time, that the terms of the Order make it very difficult to apprentice children. The Order seems, therefore, to require careful revision. "The principal obstacle is the stipulation that the master shall maintain the child with proper food and nourishment, and shall provide a proper lodging for him." 5 The Departmental Committee refer to a correspondence which passed between the Local Government Board and the City of London Board of Guardians relating to a boy whom the Guardians wished to apprentice to a respectable firm of printers, and who were prevented from doing so by the provisions of the Order, which did not allow the boy to live at home with his mother. 6 It is, of course, not a sufficient answer to say that what was the loss to this boy was the gain to another one. The Guardians were disappointed in the failure of their endeavours to get their boys into skilled trades. In a case known to us, which was that of a crippled boy over sixteen, a Guardian had found a respectable working tailor who was willing to take him as an apprentice, but who was not able to receive him into his house, as there was no room for him. Nor could he afford to pay for his lodging and maintenance elsewhere. 1 See Art. 70, No. 9. 2 7 & 8 Vict. ch. 101, s. 12. 3 24 & 25 Vict. ch. 100, s. 26, and 38 & 39 Vict. ch. 86, s. 6. 4 38 & 39 Vict. ch. 90, ss. 5-7, 12. 5 Report of Departmental Committee, p. 58. 6 Ibid., p. 59. 270 Children under the Poor Law He was, therefore, not in a position to execute the indenture. The Guardians, too, were naturally unwilling to pay the necessary \os. a week which was required for the premium, and for the boy's board and lodging. Eventually the Guardians got over the difficulty (whether they acted legally or not is another question) by granting outdoor relief to the boy, various charitable persons consenting to make up the balance of the total amount required. This relief was paid by the relieving officer to the rector of the parish, who received the voluntary contributions, and who also undertook the responsibility of making the necessary weekly payments for board and lodging. The boy, who had up to then made a precarious living by selling nuts, etc., in the village, was thus set in the way of earning his own living, is giving great satisfaction to the tailor, and has nearly £1 of his own in the Savings Bank. He bids fair to earn his j£i 1 os. or jQi 1 5 j. a week when his apprenticeship is over. The difficulty was, of course, partly caused by the Guardians not taking him in hand sooner, and getting him, when young, into a training home for crippled boys; but still, as the case stood, had not an unusual amount of charitable help been forthcoming, and had not the Guardians been ready to strain the law, the boy would still be selling his nuts, with no future before him but the workhouse. We are not so much in agreement, however, with the Departmental Committee in their recommendation that the form of indenture should " be revised so as to omit all reference to the fact that the child has been a pauper." 1 This recommendation, like so many others which are made in the Report, betrays the "pauper taint" prejudice, and there was, so far as we can perceive, no evidence given to the Committee to show that the Poor Law indenture was at all against an apprentice in the pursuit of the trade which had been taught him. If a lad is a good workman he gets on, and if he is not he does not, whether his indenture bears the Poor Law imprint or not. We are, however, entirely in agreement with the Committee when they suggest that that part of the Order of 1847 which forbids the apprenticeship of a child to a married woman should be rescinded. It has happened that in cases where Guardians have considered it advantageous to apprentice a girl to a married woman with a view to instruction in dressmaking, they have been compelled to bind the girl to the woman's husband, and to pay the premium to him. 2 We deal with the question of the care and control of children after they have been apprenticed in the next chapter. 1 Report, p. 63. ■ Ibid., p. 60. Employment Another method of disposing of pauper boys is by 271 (b) Apprenticeship to the Royal Navy. There are no special regulations in regard to boys entered into the Royal Navy by Boards of Guardians, no distinction being made between them and other boys. It is only necessary to set out here that portion of the regulations which is concerned with the " conditions of entry." These conditions are as follows : l " The boy must be of good character, able to read and write, 2 and have the written consent of his parent or guardian to his entry. "A lad who has been in a reformatory cannot be entered, but a boy of very good character, who has been in an industrial school, may be accepted with the special permission of the Admiralty. M Boys must come up to the standard of height and chest measure- ment, and undergo a medical examination. "The standard is altered frequently, and the nearest recruiting officer should be communicated with as to the current standard before incurring travelling or other expenses. " At present it is : Height Age. (without shoes). Round Chest. 15J to 15J ... 5 ft. 1 in. ... 31 inches. 15I „ 16J ... 5 ft. 2 in. ... 31J „ x to i 5 | 16J „ 16J ft. 3 m- 32 " Information as regards the standard in force, the necessary forms to be filled up, 3 and other points, can be obtained by reference to the officers who are charged with recruiting duties. Boys desirous of entering the Navy, and persons wishing to assist in the entry of boys, should apply, in writing in the first instance, to one of these officers, who are : " The Captains of Her Majesty's ships — ' Impregnable ... at . Devonport. (The ship of the Inspecting Captain of Training-ships.) be a c '8 H St. Vincent Ganges . Boscawen lion Caledonia Black Prince General Depo Port-guard Ship Port-guard Ship Ship at n Portsmouth. Falmouth. Portland. Devonport. Queensferry, N.B. Queenstown. Chatham. Queenstown. Pembroke. 1 Admiralty Regulations, July, 1896. 2 The lowest test is ability to read a passage from a Standard II. Reading Book (New Code), to write a passage dictated from the same book, and to sign his name. 3 The forms for the parents' consent, and for the declaration of birth, can be obtained from the recruiting officer. 272 Children tender the Poor Law "The Captains of the Coast-guard Ships at Bantry. Kingstown. Greenock Portland. Harwich. Queensferry. Holyheac \ Southampton. Hull. " The Commanders of the Drill Ships : Briton . at Inverness. Medusa . j> N. Shields. Clyde j> • Aberdeen. Dcedalus 11 Bristol. Durham j) • Leith. Eagle • • J? Liverpool. [London President ,, West India Docks, Medea . • • • j> Southampton. Unicorn • • )j Dundee. " And the officers at all Coast-guard Stations. "Also the Royal Marine Recruiting Officers at the following Central Marine Recruiting Stations : Birmingham. Bristol. Cambridge. Derby Edinburgh. Exeter. Glasgow. Hull. Liverpool. London, 22, Spring Gdns., Trafalgar Square, S.W. Salisbury. "There are also non-commissioned officers, serving under the marine recruiting officers, employed at out-stations in different parts of the country. The address of the nearest out-station can be obtained on reference to any marine recruiting officer by letter. "When a boy, in other respects suitable for the naval service, is slightly under the standard of height or chest measurement, the recruiting officer can, at his discretion, refer to the Admiralty for permission to enter such boy specially. " This permission applies also to cases in which a candidate is found on medical examination to be suffering from some minor defect or disability, or a few days over age, but otherwise eligible. "Candidates are in general expected to pay their own travelling expenses to the place of examination, but candidates accepted at the Central Marine Recruiting Stations or on board a training-ship (if the boy's home is nearer to a training-ship than to a Central Marine Recruiting Station) are allowed id. a. mile for travelling expenses if they have come over twelve miles, and non-commissioned officers of the Royal Marines at the out-stations are authorised to send eligible boys to central stations, any such boy afterwards rejected being sent home free of expense. " Any boy who is accepted by a recruiting officer at a central station is forwarded as soon as possible, free of charge, to a training-ship; Employment 273 whilst he is waiting to be forwarded, he can, under certain circum- stances, be fed and lodged at the Admiralty expense. "Every boy entering the Navy signs an engagement to serve for a term of years from the age of eighteen; this term is stated in the hand-bills, published from time to time : at present it is twelve years. " Discharge by purchase can, to a limited extent, be obtained with the sanction of the commanding officer and the Admiralty before the expiration of this term, should valid reasons for the indulgence be given. " It must be understood that the number of entries is limited." It is quite unnecessary, we think, to dilate on the advantages to any boy of entering the Royal Navy, and we will merely mention that under the Divided Parishes and Poor Law Amendment Act, 1896, 1 " if any boy, not already an apprentice in the Merchant Service, who, or whose parent or parents shall be receiving relief in any Union or parish, be desirous of serving in the Naval Service of Her Majesty, and be forwarded for approval by competent authority for such Service, the Guardians of the poor of such Union or parish may enable any such boy to be so forwarded, and may pay out of their funds such sum, if any, as may be required by the regulations of such Service for providing outfit or otherwise, and also such expenses as may be necessary to be incurred for the conveyance of such boy in charge of a proper person, to and from the port or place in the United Kingdom at which he may be required to attend for examination, and, if accepted, for entry into such Service." (c) Apprenticeship to the Merchant Service. This kind of apprenticeship is now regulated by the Merchant Shipping Act, 1 894.2 At all ports where there is a local Marine Board, and at such other ports as the Board of Trade may determine, there must be maintained a Mercantile Marine office, 3 and it is one of the duties of the superintendent of this office "to facilitate the making of apprenticeships to the sea-service," and "to perform such other duties relating to apprentices" as the Act or any other Act relating to merchant shipping requires him to perform. 4 By section 105 of the Act "all superintendents shall give to persons desirous of apprenticing boys to, or requiring apprentices for the sea- service such assistance as may be in their power, and may receive from these persons such fees as the Board of Trade fix, with the concurrence, so far as relates to pauper apprentices in England, of the Local Govern- ment Board." 1 39 ft 40 Vict. ch. 61. 2 57 & 58 Vict. ch. 60. 8 Ibid., s. 246. 4 Ibid., s. 247. T 274 Children under the Poor Law The apprenticeship is made in the same manner, and subject to the same laws and regulations as in the case of ordinary apprenticeships, 1 but with the following additional precaution : "The indenture must be executed by the boy and the person to whom he is bound in the presence of, and shall be attested by, two Justices of the Peace, and these Justices shall ascertain that the boy has consented to be bound, and has attained the age of twelve years, and is of sufficient health and strength, and that the person to whom the boy is bound is a proper person for the purpose." 2 The forms of indenture are issued by the Board of Trade. For other details we must refer our readers to the Act itself (ss. 105-109). (d) Apprenticeship to the Sea-Fishing Service. This kind of apprenticeship is also regulated by the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894. 3 No boy under thirteen years of age may be apprenticed under the Act, and the fishing boats on which he is to serve must be over 25 tons tonnage. 4 Every apprenticeship must be made in accordance with the provisions of the Act. 5 By section 394 of the Act all superintendents of Mercantile Marine offices must "give to persons desirous of making indentures of apprenticeship to the sea-fishing service or agreements under this part of the Act, or of causing the same to be made, such assistance as may be in their power in reference thereto, and shall supply forms of indentures or agreements at such reasonable rates (if any) as the Board of Trade may fix, and may receive such fees in respect of those indentures or agreements as the Board of Trade may fix." All indentures of apprenticeship and agreements must be made before a superintendent, and be in accordance with the Act; and the superintendent, before allowing them to be completed, must satisfy himself (a) that they comply with the requirements of the Act ; (b) that the master is a fit person to have charge of the boy ; (c) that the boy is not under thirteen years of age, and is of sufficient health and strength ; and (d) "that the nearest relations of the apprentice or boy or his guardians assent, in the case of an apprentice, to the apprenticeship and to the stipulations in the indenture of apprenticeship, and in the case of a boy to the stipulations of the agreement," and he must further "make and sign an endorsement that he is so satisfied on the indenture or agreement." 6 " Where there are no nearest relatives or guardians, or when they cannot readily be found or are not known, the 1 57 & 58 Vict. ch. 60, s. 106, and see ante, pp. 267, etc. 2 Ibid., s. 107. 3 57 & 58 Vict. ch. 60. 4 Ibid., s. 392. 5 Ibid., s. 393. 6 Ibid., s. 395. Employment 275 superintendent shall act as guardian for the occasion, and state on his endorsement that he has so acted." 1 The effect of the provisions of the Act seems to us to be to make the superintendent the responsible party for seeing that the boy is properly treated, and that the conditions of the indenture or agreement are complied with by the master and boy; but Boards of Guardians are still bound to carry out the provisions of 14 & 15 Vict. ch. n, s. 5, which enacts that in cases in which a young person was hired or taken as a servant, or bound apprentice to a master residing more than five miles from the Union, a written notice of such hiring or binding, stating the full particulars of the same, should be sent to the Guardians of the Union or parish in which the master might reside, and that such Guardians should provide for the due visiting of such person. " These provisions of the statute should be carefully observed by the Guardians of any Union or parish who may send boys to the fishing trade at Great Grimsby or elsewhere." 2 The forms of the apprenticeship indenture and of the agreement under the Act of 1894 are issued by the Board of Trade. The very large majority of boys who are sent by Boards of Guardians into the sea-fishing service go to Great Grimsby. The Reports of the inspectors on these boys are generally satisfactory, and most of them do well. Thus in 1889 Mr. Byam Davies writes : 3 " When I was last at Chipping Norton, the master gave me a very satisfactory account of the boys who have been sent from that Union to serve on board fishing smacks at Grimsby. The first boys were sent in May, 1883, and since that date eighteen have been sent in all; of these only one has turned out a failure from laziness, one has been returned on account of being short-sighted, and two from not being able to get over sea-sickness. One of these latter boys, however, some time afterwards took service on board the ' Glen Line ' of steamers trading to China and Japan, as captain's boy, and has risen to be third steward, receiving something like £$° a year, and the usual allowances. One boy was unfortunately washed overboard and drowned in a storm. The remaining thirteen, when last heard of, were all doing well, and two of them have become mates." Mr. Knollys in his Report for 1890 remarks on the number of boys who have been apprenticed to Grimsby smack-owners. 4 He says: "I believe there are few better openings for workhouse boys than this. I wish that more Boards of Guardians followed the example set by the Middlesborough and Stockton Boards in this matter. The 1 57 & 58 Vict. ch. 60, s. 395. 3 3 L.G.B., p. xxxv. 8 19 L. G. B., p. 160. 4 20 Z. G. B., p. 247. 276 Children under the Poor Law following extracts from Reports made by Mr. Bray, the Master of the Middlesborough Workhouse, after visits to Grimsby, are so in- teresting, and the information is so clearly calculated to dissipate mistaken notions that I find prevailing as to the ill-treatment the boys may have to endure, that I do not hesitate to quote them at some length : ' On arriving at Grimsby Dock station we went to the house of the smack-owner; he then took us to the boys' lodgings, where we found two Middlesborough lads who sail in the same boat that the three boys were for. I saw the rooms the boys would occupy when on shore ; they were very clean and comfortable. The landlady seemed to me a very homely woman, and, from what the other lads told me, she is very kind and looks well after them. She keeps their clothes in repair, and treats them, as one of the lads told me, better than their own mother. She is paid by the smack-owner 1 2 s. 6d. a week for each lad, and 1 $s. a quarter each for their washing. I went to four other houses where Middlesborough lads were; the bedrooms were all very clean, and the lads appeared to be made very comfortable. The boat the boys sailed in on Monday morning had been newly fitted-out : there is a separate cabin for the apprentices, who are not allowed to go into the men's cabin, which is at the other end of the boat ; there are now six Middlesborough lads on this boat with two men and the master. I questioned the boys as to their treatment, food, clothing, etc., when at sea, and their answers were very satisfactory indeed; they all expressed themselves as liking the work, and thanked the Guardians for sending them to Grimsby. The boys told me if anything was wrong they had only to go to Mr. Wood, the Board of Trade Superintendent, and tell him, and he inquired into the matter and it was soon put straight. " ' I saw Mr. Wood; he told me that the boys were well treated, in some cases better than others; but the masters the Middlesborough boys are with are reliable men. When a boy has been one ordinary, or two short voyages, he is taken by his master to Mr. Wood, who satisfies himself that the lad likes the work and is suitable for it; if he is not he is sent for another voyage, and if not then satisfactory he is sent home. If he likes the work the indentures are signed, after that the boy goes for two months longer; he is then taken to Mr. Wood again, who, after questioning him as to his clothing, treatment, etc., and fully satisfying himself that he will do, confirms the indentures; after that time, unless the master or apprentice have any complaint to make, the boy is taken to Mr. Wood every six months, and a report as to his conduct is entered in the apprentice register. All money due to the lads during their term of apprenticeship is kept by the Board of Trade until their term has expired. Then they can either take it out or still add to it. The apprentices have a share in salvage, liver cask and roe money; also twopence per score of cod taken. There is a Fisher Lads' Institute to which they can go free of charge, and where amusements of all sorts are provided for them; swimming-baths, gymnasium, reading-room, and library. The institute is supported by voluntary contributions. u ' I am sure it will be gratifying to the Guardians to know that out of the twenty-three boys bound during the last five years, eighteen are Employment 277 reported as " very good," there is one bad report, three have absconded, and one has been drowned. The Guardians are strongly recom- mended to continue the system of sending lads only to the "cod- fishing," as being much more suitable to the boys than trawling, and also to send boys to masters who go to sea themselves. I saw nine boys; they were all well and warmly clad, and from their appearance must be well fed and looked after; they all said they were happy and satisfied. In the "cod-fishing" the boats carry a sufficient number of men to man them in a storm, independently of the boys, who are always below, and not allowed on deck during very rough weather.' " Mr. Wyndham Holgate gives an example to show how successful a position and honourable a character may be secured by apprentice- ship to the sea-fishing service. He quotes from a letter written to the master of the Milton Union (Kent) Workhouse by the skipper and owner of a Ramsgate fishing-smack, who had as a boy been apprenticed by the Guardians to this service, as follows : 1 " I expect that you will be surprised, after so long a time, to hear from me, especially after the many severe gales that we have had in the North Sea this last few weeks. Thank God, through my being a fisherman, I have had the honour of saving life, of which I am very proud; and I feel sure that you, now you know, will feel proud of 1 Radical Tom.' I dare say that you have seen the account of the shipwreck on the Galloper Sands, in the North Sea, nearly thirty miles from any land. 2 The skipper's name is Thomas James Watson, and he and 'Radical Tom' are one and the same person. As I said before, I know that you will be proud to know that it was me, but I need not go through the tale, as the papers will give you the best account. I wish that you would mention it before the Board to-day, just to let the Guardians see what sort of men their boys turn out to be. I hope that you won't think this self-praise, for, as the old proverb says, ' Self-praise is no recommendation.' I only did my duty as an Englishman." Mr. Holgate adds that the Guardians determined to mark their appreciation of Watson's gallantry by presenting him with a gold chronometer. In 1894 a most important Report on the Fishing Apprenticeship System was made by Mr. A. D. Berrington (Board of Trade) and Mr. J. S. Davy (Local Government Board), and was published as a 1 21 L. G. B., p. 186. 2 The ship Enterkin was wrecked on the Galloper Sands on the night of Saturday, December 12th, 1891. Captain Watson, in spite of his "pauper taint," stood by the wreck in his smack from three a.m. till daylight, and then saved the apprentice C. J. Lewis, the only member of the crew remaining on board. Two other members of the crew were picked up floating on the keel of a boat by the steamship Ashton on the following day. 278 Children under the Poor Law Parliamentary paper. 1 While the value of this system of dealing with certain classes of pauper boys is fully recognized in this Report, and the opinion is expressed that "every effort should be made to ensure the continuance of this system," 2 certain abuses and defects to which it is liable are brought to light. To begin with the advantages of the apprenticeship system; these are acknowledged by the smack-owners themselves. "To learn to be a skilful fisherman or a good sailor a boy must begin young, and young boys cannot safely be sent to sea except under the protection which the regulations as to apprenticeship afford. Where there are no apprentices the owners and skippers of fishing boats are obliged to depend on weekly hands, who in many cases are not sailors at all, but men who are driven by poverty to go to sea. We are informed in some parts that men are often snipped to cook, and do the work of boys. Frequently they stay on shore till they are forced to sea by hunger, and then they ship with an insufficient kit. The masters or skippers have to make advances to them for clothing and sea-boots, so that at the end of the trip they are landed with little or nothing due to them, to begin the same round again. In fact, as it was put to us by a master of many years' experience, the weekly hands are generally bound by their necessities and their debts, just as apprentices are by their indentures. Apprenticeship is essential for the protection of the boys, and is safer and more convenient for the owners, who ought to be able by means of it to rely on crews of steady seamen, properly trained to the fishing trade." 3 Another of the many advantages of the system is that it enables Boards of Guardians to dispose of boys who cannot easily be dealt with in any other way. Boards of Guardians find the greatest trouble in obtaining suitable employment for boys who come into the workhouse at the age of fourteen or fifteen, and who from having been brought up among vicious surroundings, or from some defect of character, are not fit for domestic service. They are too young for the Army, and not well grown enough to pass the high physical standard required for the Navy. Apprenticed to the fishing trade, with due care and under proper conditions, they serve a term of disciplined work which may train them to be industrious and useful men. The fact is that for certain boys an apprenticeship to the fishing trade is their last chance. 4 Generally speaking the masters are kind, and " liberal with the boys in money matters." The boys are well and sufficiently clothed, their food both " on shore and afloat is good and abundant," and they have 1 (C 7576). Price z\d. 2 Ibid., p. 10. 3 Ibid., p. 4. 4 Ibid. Employment 279 little to complain of on the score of bad treatment. After the period of apprenticeship is over the trade is a most lucrative one to men who are sufficiently steady and skilful to enable them to pass the examina- tions necessary for skippers' certificates. "Many of the most prosperous smack-owners started as Union apprentices." "We know of no trade where so much money can be earned by men of average skill without capital." The abuses of the system seem to have arisen mainly from in- sufficient supervision of the boys on shore, and from the custom of "perquisites." The Superintendent does not, as a rule, exercise any jurisdiction over the conduct and discipline of the boys when they are on shore, yet Boards of Guardians are apt to think that their duties to the boys end with the formal act of apprenticeship. Great discredit has been brought on the whole system by the numerous cases of "absconding" which have occurred. Thus from Grimsby, fully one-third of the boys apprenticed between the years 1881 and 1893 are returned as having absconded. 1 "It is frequently said at Grimsby that the absconding apprentices man the Hull fishing- boats." 2 Absconding does not show that the boy has been in any way ill-treated, or is unfit for sea, or even that he is dissatisfied with his occupation, but it does show a want of thoroughly good relations between him and his master. The boy probably tires of the length of his apprenticeship. " He sees weekly hands who may be inferior in every way to himself receiving amounts many times larger than his scanty spending-money. He forgets that his master has provided him with clothes, food, and medical attendance during the years when his services were of little value, and is still bound to do so until he is out of his indentures. That he should abscond and seek independent employment in another port may be short-sighted and unreasonable, but it is not unnatural." 3 Then an apprentice sometimes commits the offence of "stopping the ship," that is by neglecting to join his boat just as she is about to sail, or by going ashore and running away as she is leaving the dock. " The vessel then has to wait until he is caught and brought on board again, or until a weekly hand is found to go to sea in his place." 4 The inconvenience to which the master is put by this action on the part of his apprentice is, of course, very great, and it often means a serious loss of money to him. The motives which actuate the boy may vary, 5 but experience shows that "the principal difficulties occur 1 Report, p. 14. Of 3559 boys apprenticed 1122 absconded. 2 Ibid., p. 6. 3 Report, p. 5. 4 Ibid. 5 They are stated in the Report. 280 Children tinder the Poor Law about half-way through the period of apprenticeship, !.«., when the boy is about 16 or 17 years old. At that age he has learnt something of his trade, and begins to envy the wages and freedom of the weekly hand. His animal spirits are high, and unless he has an exceptionally high sense of duty, or is bound to his employer by a loyalty which can only come from intimate and friendly relations, he can only be restrained by the fear of punishment. As he gets older he becomes more sensible, and realises that his permanent interest is to keep on good terms with his employer, and to qualify himself for his certificate." 1 It must be quite evident that a better supervision over the youths when on shore is the cure for these evils. What can be done in this way has been shown at Ramsgate. In 1878 no less than 10 per cent, of the apprentices were committed by the magistrates for various terms for breach of their indentures. Since then " earnest and successful endeavours have been made to improve the condition of the boys by keeping them under supervision when they are on shore, by carrying out the provisions of the Act of 1883 2 in a sympathetic spirit, and by the establishment of a well-equipped and kindly-managed fisher boys' home, 8 with the result that in 1893 out of over 150 apprentices only one was sent to prison. The conduct of apprentices generally is stated to have improved in recent years, 4 and how much the trouble of absconding and stopping the ship depends on the master, and upon the way the boys are looked after when on shore, is shown by the instances given in the Report. Thus "a large owner at Grimsby, whose apprentices are all Union boys, said he had never had an unmanageable boy or one whom it was necessary to punish by imprisonment. Nearly all his skippers are his old apprentices." 5 We have already referred to the evidence given by Mr. Bray, the master of the Middlesborough Workhouse, as to the success of his Union boys. The Board of this Union, together with some other Boards, are specially mentioned in the Report for the care they take to select suitable homes for their boys, and to find out what they are doing after they are apprenticed. Thus "an officer of the Guardians accompanies the boy to Grimsby, sees him indentured, attends again before the superintendent after the trial trip, and periodically visits him afterwards." At Wisbeach this duty is discharged by the Chair- man of the Guardians. 6 The Report goes on to say that " there seems to be a general agree- 1 Report, p. 6. 2 Now replaced by the Act of 1894. 3 Report, p. 6. 4 The returns appended to the Report show this most clearly. 5 Report, p. 9. 6 Ibid., p. 10. Employment 281 ment among the Guardians, who have given most attention to the matter, that the boys who are placed with private owners have the better chance. The committee of the Middlesborough Guardians, who have always exercised a constant and kindly supervision over their apprentices, write : ' We are of opinion that it is preferable to send them to private owners, rather than to the companies who have a large number of apprentices living in homes specially built for the purpose, as in these homes the boys, though well taken care of, do not get the benefit of home-life as they do in private houses.' They add that the boys should not be sent before they are fifteen years of age. The superintendent of the Edmonton Schools mentions the fact that one of the boys apprenticed from the schools is now a smack-owner and takes apprentices from them, and says : ' It should be borne in mind that it is only the strong, rougher lads that are sent to sea from these schools — boys that it would be very difficult to do anything else with. In sending our boys to sea I never place them with the large smack- owners, but with those who go to sea in their own vessels, and who have the boys to live with them at their own homes when ashore.'" 1 At Hull, where the system is practically becoming extinct, one of the reasons given is that the owners of the smacks, living more comfortably than they used to do, are unwilling to board the apprentices in their own homes. " The boys have to live in lodgings, and the domestic control which formerly existed, and which bound the boy to his master by other ties than those which are set out in the indentures, is lost." 2 And again, at Hull there is no difficulty in getting weekly hands, and "if there had been at Grimsby the same supply of weekly hands as there is at Hull and Lowestoft it is probable that the apprentice system would have died out as it has done in other ports. As it is, it is worth the while of the companies and the larger smack-owners to take the boys and even to make special efforts to get them. For instance, the manag- ing director of the Grimsby Ice Company, to which no less than 222 apprentices are bound, visits Unions all over the country for the purpose of recruiting boys from the workhouse schools." 3 The Inspectors, being convinced of the necessity of continuing the system, have naturally suggestions to make how its decay can be arrested and its abuses prevented. They consider that the remedy lies (1) in the improvement of the training and discipline of the apprentices, and (2) in the readjustment of several details connected with the regulations and supervision. 4 On the first of these two points the remedy rests with the masters 1 Report, p. 10. 2 Ibid.y p. 6. 3 Ibid., pp. 6 and 7. 4 Ibid., p. 10. 282 Children tinder the Poor Law and the Guardians. The masters, who are the gainers when their vessels are worked by fishermen who have undergone the training of apprenticeship, should take care that the boys are "under a steady though kindly discipline when they are afloat, and should enjoy a certain amount of home life, with the domestic supervision and interests which home life implies, when they are ashore. And the Guardians, whom the system relieves of their most troublesome class of boys, must recognize what a salutary effect their subsequent super- vision has upon both master and apprentice." The Local Government Board fully endorse the opinion of the two inspectors on this point as follows : l "Before a boy is apprenticed he should be passed as fit for the service by a medical officer, whose certificate should accompany the application to the superintendent for the indentures, and should be retained by him. He should be accompanied to the port by a responsible officer, who should satisfy himself that the arrangements made for the boy's reception are suitable, and should visit him occasionally after the indentures have been confirmed. Provision should be made to ensure that absconding or other grave misconduct and any serious accident should be at once reported. Many masters make it a practice to give their apprentices an annual holiday for the purpose of enabling them to visit their friends. This appears to have a very good effect on the boys, and it might well be made a condition in the indentures 2 when practicable and subject to the approval of the superintendent, which approval should be withheld as a punishment for serious misconduct. As the first employment of an apprentice is as cook, it would be of much use in helping him over his early troubles if he received some instruction and practice in cookery before he is sent to the port." With regard to the second point, much of the bad conduct of the boys at Grimsby arises from the fact that they have too much money, owing to the articles of the indentures not being carried out. The boys become entitled at the end of each voyage to the perquisites of stockerbait, liver money, and score money, which are paid to them in lump sums. The amount is often considerable, ranging from a minimum of 10s. $d. to a maximum of £2 15/., and in several cases it exceeds £2. Unless the boys are restrained by strong moral influences they are certain to be tempted to waste this money in demoralising surroundings. 3 In order to remove this temptation, and on the recommendation of the inspectors, the form of apprentice- 1 Report, p. 11, and 25 L. G. B., p. 119. 2 This has now been done, for clause nine of the revised form of indenture provides that the master shall allow a boy a reasonable holiday in each year. 3 Report, pp. 8 and 1 1. Employment 283 ship indenture and endorsements has been revised by the Board of Trade, and its sixth clause now provides that the master shall pay to the superintendent any balance of spending money, share of salvage, and other perquisites due to each apprentice that may remain after the payment of the daily or weekly allowance fixed by the endorsement, and that the superintendent shall apply these sums for the benefit of the boy in accordance with the terms of the indenture and the endorsements. At the present time, therefore, " the apprentice, instead of receiving his perquisites, which are occasionally of considerable amount, at irregular intervals, will receive a regular weekly payment according to his age and standing in the fishing service, and in addition to the spending money he used to receive. And the fund will also be available for the expenses of holidays and the payment of fines. This last provision is of great importance, for it will enable a magistrate in many cases to punish a boy for breaches of discipline without commit- ting him to prison." s Another recommendation of the inspectors which the Board of Trade has accepted, related to the amplification of the annual Returns by the superintendents on apprenticeships, so that they might show in a concise form the action taken, and any important occurrences in each individual case. 2 Further, in accordance with another recommendation of the in- spectors, no apprenticeship for a longer period than six years will, unless under exceptional circumstances, be sanctioned by the Board of Trade. 3 The age at which boys should be apprenticed to the sea- fishing service is still left optional so long as they are over thirteen years, although the inspectors' recommendation was that they should not be apprenticed to the service at much less an age than fifteen. 4 It seems that at some ports the outdoor officers of the Board of Trade are sworn in as constables for the purpose of assisting in stopping or bringing back deserters under the Act, 5 and the inspectors recommend the general adoption of this practice. 6 The importance of not losing this valuable mode of disposing of the rougher classes of pauper boys has induced us to enter at considerable length into an account of the system, and we shall be satisfied if what 1 See 25 L. G. £., p. 118. a Ibid., and Report, p. II. 3 25 L. G. B. y p. 119. "Some Boards of Guardians think that four years is the term which is fairest to the boys, but it does not pay a smack-owner to take a young apprentice for so short a period, and it is doubtful whether the four years' training would be enough to thoroughly teach the trade of a fisherman." Report, pp. 11, 12. 4 Report, p. 12. ■ 57 & 58 Vict. ch. 60, s. 380. ,J Ibid. 284 Children under the Poor Law we have said on the subject should be the means of inducing Boards of Guardians to give more attention to the supervision of the boys whom they send forth to encounter the dangers and hardships of the fine life of a fisherman. Section IV. ENTRY INTO THE ARMY AND NAVY BANDS. A large number of boys from Poor Law Schools are disposed of in this way, and do excellently. Thus, no fewer than 174 boys, or rather less than one quarter of the whole number (773) who were discharged from Metropolitan Poor Law Schools during the year 1895, joined the Army or Navy bands : 94 from the Exmouth, and 80 from other schools. Of course the Departmental Committee, while obliged to admit the success of large schools in this respect at least, could not resist the usual sneer at them, suggesting, without a tittle of evidence to support the idea, that these musicians eventually come back to the workhouse and casual wards. 1 The Poor Law Schools are in fact the favourite hunting-grounds for the bandmasters of regiments, because no boy is allowed to enter the school band until he has shown a natural capacity for music by the possession of a good ear for time and tune. They can thus be depended upon as likely to form efficient members of military bands. There is no difficulty, therefore, in finding places for such boys. As they cannot be enlisted until they are fourteen years of age, they have the further advantage that they have had industrial training. The consent of the managers of schools or of the Guardians is considered sufficient authority for the enlistment, even where the boys have parents. With regard to the suggestion of the Departmental Committee that these boys may come back to the workhouses and casual wards, it must not be forgotten how slight is the risk of this, and how unjust to compare the enlistment of a band boy with that of the ordinary soldier, for these boys are not only well looked after, but their youth enables their education to be carried on in the Army. Section V. EMPLOYMENT OF BOYS GENERALLY. In the appendix to the latest Report of the Local Government Board 2 will be found a list showing the nature of the employments in which boys chargeable to Unions and parishes in the Metropolis were placed during the year 1895, after education in a Poor Law School or in a certified school. The headings are as follows : 1 Report, p. 48. 2 25 L. G. B., p. 515. Employment 285 Bakers 41 I Navy (excluding Bands) Bands (Naval and Military) . .174 Mercantile Marine Domestic Service ... 32 Hairdressers . . . 1 3 Building Trade . . .18 Sent to Working Boys' Homes . 173 Shoemakers Tailors Errand Boys Other employments 1 101 91 38 27 16 49 The large number of boys who were placed in the Working Boys' Homes 2 will be noted. According to the Report of the committee of the Homes, there does not seem to have been much difficulty in finding employment for them. It is satisfactory to find that two Poor Law boys are selected for special and favourable mention in the Report, thus : " E. C came from the North Surrey District Schools. Although he is only seventeen years of age he is earning 20/- per week. He has kept the same situation which was found for him when he entered the home, beginning with 6/- per week. He found a respectable lodging nearer his work, and withdrew over £2 from the Boys' Bank. "W. entered one of the Homes from the Union schools at Horn- church. On attaining eighteen years of age, being quite able to keep himself, he went to live with a former resident. He had over ^3 in the Boys' Bank." A recent Order, dated the 10th July, 1897, empowers Boards of Guardians to provide outfits for any child chargeable to any Poor Law Union when sent to service by the Guardians ; and the Order applies to boarded-out children. This Order, and the circular letter which accompanied it, are set out in full in Appendix I. (page 421). To conclude, in judging the results of the education and training given in Poor Law Schools, which is, of course, intended to fit the child for getting on in after life, we must never forget the extraordinary difficulties with which school managers and Guardians have to contend in dealing with the varying classes of children which come under their control. That these results are so favourable as they are shown to be, should make us hesitate to condemn Poor Law Schools outright. If there is a kindly helping hand to assist the child, whether a boy or girl, during the early years of service or employment, and if these children (and girls especially) can only be protected from designing relations and friends who wish to get hold of them for their own selfish and often wicked ends, the large majority of them will do well. It is, therefore, to the consideration of this "after-care" that we shall devote the next chapter. 1 Including a laundry boy, printer, fishing apprentice, railway and carriage works apprentice, lapidary, ironmonger, window-blind maker, watchmaker, photographer, telegraph boy, post office messenger, two grocers, two butchers, two sweeps and two greengrocers, four office boys, six clerks, seven emigrated, and seven garden or farm boys. 2 As to these Homes see post, pp. 309-312. CHAPTER XI. AFTER-CARE THE age at which boys and girls are sent by Boards of Guardians to service or employment varies in different Unions, but generally they are supposed to be able to earn their living at thirteen years of age. In the Metropolitan schools they are, however, kept up to the age of fourteen or fifteen, and the tendency undoubtedly is, at the present time, not to let them go into service until they have attained, whether boys or girls, at least the age of fourteen. 1 As to the age at which girls should be sent out, Mrs. Nassau Senior found a great divergence of opinion among the officials and Guardians. " It is said, on the one hand, that little girls of the humblest class are able to earn something at a much earlier age than fourteen, and that a pauper girl ought to be taught that it is her duty to earn her livelihood on attaining that age ; to this it is replied that it is useless to send a girl into the world unless she has a fair chance of doing well ; that girls sent out too soon get disheartened by constant failures, never become self-supporting, and are likely to be ultimately a burden to the rates. I do not think that any exact rule can be laid down as to age; so much must depend on the circumstances of each particular case. In practice this appears to be understood, and I have no occasion to suggest any change in the regulation of age for going to service." 2 At that time (1874), as at present, girls were, speaking generally, sent to service from fourteen to fifteen years. Mr. Mozley (Northern District and Wales) expresses a wish that Guardians were not in such a hurry to send children out to service. 3 1 In country districts thirteen or fourteen seems to be the general age at which boys are sent out to employment. But there are a considerable number of manufacturing and mining districts, partaking something of a country character, in which both boys and girls are sent out for " adoption," or for very early service, from nine years of age (or even younger) upwards. These children are, however, generally, and certainly ought to be, sent to school in their places of "adoption." Under this latter head would come boys sent to the coalpits. 2 3 L. G. B., p. 334. 3 25 L. G. B., p. 224. After -Care 287 "A boy or girl of twelve or thirteen can generally do much more useful work inside the workhouse or Poor Law School than outside it ; and when the school is in large measure denuded of children, the work of those which remain is multiplied. It is quite true that the advantage of the institution ought not to be pleaded against the clear right of each child to be sent out into the world when he or she is fitted for independent work; but it is no gain to the child, but, on the contrary, a danger and a hardship, to be sent into the world pre- maturely." But whatever opinion may be held upon the question at what age children should be sent out into the world to earn their own living, there can be no division of opinion upon the necessity of care in the choice of situations, and of securing to them adequate protection during their early years of service or employment. As regards the choice of a home, we are afraid that some Boards of Guardians are only too glad to get any kind of situations for their children, whether boys or girls, and are apt to take the first which offers. Speaking of the Poor Law girl, Mrs. Nassau Senior pointed out the special reason for care in the choice of a situation for her. 1 11 Her disadvantages, to begin with, are greater than those of girls of the humblest sort brought up at home ; and the dangers which follow failure are, in her case, incalculably increased by rarely having any home but the workhouse to retreat upon. If a girl is placed out in unfavourable conditions, it can hardly be expected that she will keep her place and continue to be self-supporting; she will be constantly returning to the school from place after place, or, if such returns are not permitted by the rules, will provide herself with a situation often as bad as the one she is leaving, and in which she will not remain ; or she will go to relations (often the most undesirable friends she can have), or return to the workhouse." Then we are reminded how much more trying to a girl brought up in artificial surroundings must be the entrance into life than to one who has had natural training in a family, and the experience of every-day life ; and how important it is that the choice of the home should not be committed to men, such as the relieving officers, although use should be made of the information which they can give as to general respectability and solvency. If there were any difficulty in finding situations for these children, there might be something to be said for taking any places that were offered, without a very rigid inquiry as to their merits. But as there is not, Boards of Guardians cannot be too particular on the point. As regards girls, there is not the least doubt that matters have much 1 3L.G.B., p. 337. 288 Children under the Poor Law improved since 1873, when Mrs. Nassau Senior's Report was written. In London the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants finds suitable homes for girls, while in many provincial Unions the Girls' Friendly Society and other similar societies will undertake the same task. In some Unions the matrons of workhouses are very particular on the point of choosing good homes for the girls, and of visiting them regularly. The great increase in the number of lady Guardians of late years will undoubtedly cause even more attention than at present to be paid to the subject. We are afraid that the case of boys has not received so much attention. They are, of course, able to fight their way in the world better than girls, but still the importance of getting them into good homes must not be overlooked. Having found good homes for the children, the Guardians must provide for securing their adequate protection. This can only be done by the constant supervision and visiting of them in their situations, a duty indeed which Parliament in 185 1 imposed upon Guardians, but only so long as a child retained its first situation, or was under sixteen years of age. The two sections of the Act referred to 1 are as follows : " Section 4. — Where any young person under the age of sixteen shall have been or shall be hired or taken as a servant from the workhouse of any union or parish, or shall have been or shall be bound out as an apprentice by the guardians of any union, or the guardians or overseers of any parish, it shall be lawful for such guardians or overseers respectively, and they are hereby required, so long as such young person shall be under the age of sixteen, and shall be known to them to reside as servant or apprentice in the same service into which such young person shall have so gone as a servant from such workhouse or as such apprentice within such union or parish respectively, or within five miles of any part of such union or parish, to cause the relieving officer, or where there is no relieving officer, then some other officer duly authorized for the purpose, to visit such young person at least twice in every year, and to report to them in writing whether he has found reason to believe that such young person is not supplied with necessary food, or is subjected to cruel or illegal treatment in any respect. "Section 5. — Where any young person under the age of sixteen shall hereafter be hired or taken as a servant from the workhouse of any union or parish, or shall be bound out as an apprentice by the guardians of any union, or by the guardians or overseers of any parish, and the residence of the master or mistress shall be more than five miles from any part of such union or parish, then a written notice of such hiring, taking, or binding, specifying the name and age of such apprentice or servant, and the name, description, and residence 1 14 Vict. ch. 11. After-Care 289 of such master or mistress, shall be forthwith sent from such guardians or overseers to the guardians or overseers of the union or parish in which such master or mistress shall reside ; and thereupon it shall become the duty of such last-mentioned guardians or overseers to cause the particulars contained in such notice to be registered in some book or books to be provided by them for the purpose, together with the name of the union or parish from which such notice shall have been received; and such last-mentioned guardians or overseers shall cause such young person to be visited as frequently and in the same manner in all respects as if such young person had been hired or taken from their own workhouse, or had been bound out as an apprentice by themselves." 1 It will be noted that written reports on the child have to be made from time to time to the Guardians by their officers. We are afraid, however, that this regulation is not always observed, especially in country Unions, or where they are made that they are not entered upon a register in such a way as to be available as a permanent record, and useful for reference at any subsequent time. It is, of course, most important that the children should be visited and reported upon, and the register kept. In 1874 Mr. Murray Browne laid stress on this. 2 He said : "The register is often neglected, but this should never be allowed. It would also be a great advantage if masters of workhouses were instructed to keep some regular record of any information which reaches them as to the subsequent history of children sent out of the workhouse. At present, if a master moves from one Union to another, this information is generally no longer available. The register referred to might be used for this purpose if a column were added to it for 'Remarks.'" In 1880 the Local Government Board drew up a form of register, which contains the "Remarks" column suggested by Mr. Murray Browne, and recommended that where it was used a separate page 1 Boards of Guardians seem only to be relieved from the duty of "after-care" when children are emigrated by them. Canada is now the only field for emigration, but unfortunately the regulations of the Canadian Government draw a distinction between children emigrated under the Poor Law and those emigrated by philanthropic societies. It is also alleged that the former class are frequently assigned to lower- class families than the latter. This unreasoning prejudice must be taken into consideration. It has to a great extent been created by those who are so fond of talking about the "pauper taint." To us the distinction made between a "waif and stray " and a " Poor Law child " seems to be rather of a fine character, but it is made, and therefore there is a great deal to be said in favour of children whom it is intended to emigrate being placed in training homes for a few months before being sent out, so that this curious distinction drawn between them and other children may be lost. This few months' probation is thought sufficient to cleanse the child from the taint. 2 4 L. G. B., p. 186. U 290 Children under the Poor Law should be set apart for each child, so that the reports made from time to time by the visiting officers on each child might be readily seen and referred to consecutively. 1 This register is as follows : Union. Register of Visits to Boys and Girls sent out as Apprentices or Servants from the la V 'So .5 £ h O >> | I 3 O C 4) 4> la Q ■ 4) U "I O t) I O 4> § § 'is •c S O 4J c V 3 Q O b O M O V bo < 1 e 1 h i bfl .S > O E Q s E t a c to In his Report for 1888, Mr. Mozley points out the best way of keeping the register so that it may be of most use. He says : 2 11 If Guardians were to see that the Act of Parliament were carried out in the spirit as well as in the letter j if they were to see that the register, embodying the reports of the children, were always in con- venient form, duly filled in, the name of each child being entered once and once only, so that all the information respecting any child should be gathered together on one page, or on two consecutive pages, and not be scattered over different parts of the register; if, lastly, they were to issue periodical summaries of the information thus gained, a very large knowledge of the results of the different systems of Poor Law education would be obtained. But in the reports and registers now existing there are frequent defects, and summaries of the informa- tion are very rare indeed. The principal defects in the reports are these : first, that where (as is usual) the relieving officers are the visiting officers, the report books are in the custody of the relieving officers, and not in the custody of the clerk. This (unless the Union 1 10 Z. G. B., pp. in, 112. 18 L G.B., p. 145. After-Care 291 has only one relieving officer) necessitates the use of several report books instead of one ; and if the child who is being visited moves from one district to another, the name will be repeated in different books, perhaps several times — a very cumbrous method. And whereas the masters and matrons of workhouses are often the persons who know most about the children who have been sent out, none of their knowledge can filter to the books kept by the relieving officer. Whereas, if the book were in the custody of the clerk, not only would one book be adequate for all the reports (and without any incon- venience to the relieving officers), but it might be periodically submitted to the master and matron in order that they might enter in it anything which they might know about the children. But, even within the limits of the report book (or register) of a single relieving officer, there is often great waste of space and cumbrous repetitions of names. "I do not doubt that all defects, such as those to which I have referred, would be speedily removed if Boards of Guardians were ever to care to produce summaries of the results of the Poor Law educa- tion in their Unions, as shown by the after careers of the children. I can only recall at this moment one such summary, that, namely, which is issued every three years by the Liverpool Select Vestry. There is, however, one issued by the Windermere Boarding-out Committee, and it might very well be taken as a model ; in two pages the main facts about all the 102 children whom the Committee have received during eighteen years are recorded." As to the operation of the Act generally, Mr. Mozley, in 1893, 1 made some inquiries in his district as to the manner in which its provisions were being carried out. He found that in the larger Unions it was being administered, if not faultlessly, at all events with a good deal of care. He thinks, however, that the duty is one which would be better carried out by societies of a semi-private character: "I cannot say entirely private, because the duty is an official one. I wish there could be more approximation in the country to such a work as is done by the Metropolitan Society for Befriending Young Servants in London. The Girls' Friendly Society, valuable as its work is, is not in a position to take upon itself the whole of such a duty. But it would form an important factor in any general scheme for this end." Probably in no Union outside London (where the M. A. B. Y. S. takes such good care of the girls) are the children who leave the schools for service or employment kept longer under supervision than in Manchester. They are not lost sight of for three or four years. In an interesting report on the condition of the children sent out to service from the Swinton Schools, Manchester, in 1 876,2 Mr. J. S. Davy and Mr. Mozley describe the system of visiting which had been carried out by the Guardians since 1871. 1 23 L. G. £., p. 150. See also 20 L. G. B., p. 270. 2 6 L.G.B., p. 47. 292 Children under the Poor Law "In that year a special officer was appointed to visit the children and report the results j and about four years ago the system was further improved by the appointment of separate visiting officers for the girls. The boys are visited by one of the assistant relieving officers of the Guardians, . . and the girls by two industrial trainers . . The children are visited every six months, the boys until the end of their apprentice- ship, and the girls until they are eighteen years old, and longer if they desire it. 1 We are told that the boys liked being visited and looked upon it as a protection. In confirmation of this, we may mention that a few days ago a letter was received from one of the boys, complaining that his master had struck him, and asking that one of his Guardians should be sent to inquire into the matter. Two of the girls were said to be anxious to elude the visitors, but in the great majority of cases it is evident that the visiting officers are welcomed as friends and helpers both by the employers and the children. The visitors are instructed to see the children and their employers, to make inquiries as to the attendance of the former at Sunday-school and at places of worship, and generally to investigate the condition of the children, and report the result to the School Committee. All the girls are receiving wages, and the visitors see that the ' wage book ' is kept by them. This book shows the amount of wages paid to the girls, and the amount expended on their behalf by their employers. The visitors are careful to ask the employers to see that this book is kept regularly by the girls, in order that they may be trained to orderly habits with regard to money. " Occasionally the visitors suggest that the wages of a girl should be raised, often with the desired effect. " Every person who takes a child from the schools is obliged to sign forms promising to give immediate notice to the Guardians in case the child should leave her place for any reason. Girls out of employment are sent to the Servants' Home, and remain there until the Committee of that institution can find another place for them." 2 The above system is still in force in the Manchester Union, except that recently an arrangement has been made to bring the girls under the influence of the associates of the Girls' Friendly Society, which does not, however, in any way lessen the supervision of the Guardians. The forms referred to are as follows : 1 The boys are apprenticed to various trades, to colliers, and to farmers. Most of the girls are placed in domestic service, but some are apprenticed to trades or factories. 2 Mr. George Macdonald, the Clerk to the Manchester Board of Guardians, who has kindly supplied me with valuable information as to the system practised at Swinton, writes as follows in regard to this Home : " It was established and is managed by a committee of ladies. The object of the Home is to provide a temporary lodging for respectable girls when out of place, and to find suitable situations for them. By arrangement it is used as a Home for the purposes of the Girls' Friendly Society. I may mention, also, that within the last few years a similar Home has been established for Roman Catholic girls. There is no corresponding institution for boys, and, so far as I know, there is no need of one." After -Care 293 " Conditions under which an Apprentice is sent out from Swinton Schools. " 1. The Master will be required to attend, along with the boy, at the Poor Law Offices, New Bridge Street, Manchester, on Wednesday, the , at 2.30 p.m., in order that, should the boy suit him, the preliminary arrangements may be made for having him bound apprentice, or, should he be deemed unsuitable, for having him returned to the care of the Guardians. " 2. A full outfit of Sunday and working clothes will be supplied by the Guardians to each boy bound apprentice, or the Master may him- self purchase the clothes, and if, upon inspection, they are found satisfactory, the Guardians will allow the Master fifty shillings for the same. "3. The Master will pay the boy such weekly wages as may be agreed upon. "4. The Master will at once inform the Clerk to the Guardians of any change in his address, and of any circumstances which may cause the boy to leave his service without the previous knowledge and consent of the Guardians, and in the event of the boy being attacked with any serious illness, will immediately give notice thereof to the Clerk. " 189 . " Conditions under which a Boy is sent out to Service from Swinton Schools. " 1. The Master will be required to attend, along with the boy, at the at 2.30 p.m., in order that, should the boy suit him, arrangements may be made for having him engaged, or, should he be deemed unsuitable, for having him returned to the care of the Guardians. " 2. A full outfit of Sunday and working clothes will be supplied by the Guardians to each boy when engaged ; or the Master may him- self purchase the clothes, and if, upon inspection, they are found satisfactory, the Guardians will allow the Master fifty shillings for the same. "3. The Master will pay the boy such weekly wages as may be agreed upon. "4. The Master will at once inform the Clerk to the Guardians of any change in his address, and of any circumstances which may cause the boy to leave his service without the previous knowledge and consent of the Guardians, and in the event of the boy being attacked with any serious illness, will immediately give notice thereof to the Clerk. " 189 . 294 Children under the Poor Law " Conditions under which a Girl is sent out to Service from Swinton Schools. 1 " i. The Master or Mistress is required to attend, along with the girl, at the Poor Law Offices, New Bridge Street, Manchester, on Wednesday, the , at 3.30 p.m., in order that, should the girl be found suitable, arrangements may be made for having her engaged; or, should she be deemed unsuitable, for having her returned to the care of the Guardians. "2. A full outfit of clothing will be supplied by the Guardians to each girl when engaged. " 3. The wages to be paid to the girl will be at the rate of is. 6d. a week, to be increased to 2s. at the expiration of three months. "4. The Master or Mistress will at once inform the Clerk to the Guardians of any change in his or her address, and of any circum- stances which may cause the girl to leave her situation without the previous knowledge and consent of the Guardians ; and in the event of the girl being attacked with any serious illness, will immediately give notice thereof to the Clerk. " 189 . The conditions under which children enter service or employment from the Anerley Schools are as follows : "North Surrey School District. " / apply for the services of , and agree to take into my service as with the following understanding: " 1. That is provided with a suitable outfit by and at the discretion of the School Managers. " 2. That I pay wages at the rate of at least £6 per annum, and agree to raise the same^ by yearly increments of at least £1, in addition to board, lodging, washing, and medical attendance. " 3. That comes to me for one month's trial, and during that time the service may be deter- mined either by myself or the Managers of the District School. In the event of my desiring to determine the service during the first or trial month, I undertake to communicate with the Superintendent of the District School, in order that the necessary arrangements for re-admission may be made at the next regular admission day. " 4. After the expiration of the trial month, in the event of my desiring to determine the service, I will give the usual month's notice, and communicate the same to the Superintendent of the District School. 1 Owing to the great demand for the girls trained in the schools, the Guardians have been able to get an increase in the rate of wages. After-Care 295 "5. I undertake that I will not, under any circumstances, bring or send back to the District School without first consulting with the Superintendent. " 6. I undertake that shall duly observe the Sunday, and shall have proper opportunities of attending religious worship and for self-improvement. "7. I undertake that suitable sleeping accommodation shall be pro- vided, and in the case of a Boy that he shall occupy a separate bed. "8. I undertake to superintend the expenditure of his or her wages, keeping an account of the payments and disbursements in a book to be provided by the Managers, and to use my best endeavours to inculcate habits of honesty, sobriety, and thrift. " 9. That I will permit the visits of the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants' Chaplain, or any other accredited person sent by the Managers, and afford accurate information respecting the conduct and character of " 10. Finally, I accept the service of recognising the fact that he or she is of tender years, and not to be expected to perform the duties of a fully-qualified servant. Name . Address Date " Applications for the Services of Boys or Girls must be made personally to the Committee of the Boards which meets at the School at Anerley every Monday at 2 o'clock." But Boards of Guardians are not now bound to employ their relieving officers in the duty of visiting under the Act of 185 1, for by an Act which was passed in 1876 1 they "or the managers of any district school may appoint and pay any officer or other competent person to visit and report upon the condition, treatment, and conduct " of the children they have sent to service until the latter attain sixteen years of age; and by a still later Act of 1879 2 they may, with the consent of the Local Government Board, subscribe towards any associa- tion or society for aiding boys and girls in service. Both these Acts have worked very beneficially in enabling Boards of Guardians and School Managers to utilise volunteer work. Thus, if they have ladies on their Boards they can depute them to visit and report upon the children sent to service by them, or they can transfer the duty to societies like the M. A. B. Y. S. or G. F. S. Indeed, as 1 39 & 40 Vict. ch. 61, s. 33. 2 42 & 43 Vict. ch. 54, s. 10. 296 Children under the Poor Law regards girls the Metropolitan Boards of Guardians have for some years entrusted the work of "after-care" entirely to the former Association. Mr. Mozley testifies to the satisfactory change in this respect as follows: 1 "The help of unofficial or semi-official workers is more and more largely called into play, and indeed the operation of the Poor Law naturally connects itself with the operation of charitable bodies of all sorts. Such a connection is possible mainly in two ways ; first, by entrusting children afflicted by some special delicacy or infirmity to certified homes (and even in some cases to non-certified homes) ; secondly, by calling in the aid of private persons or societies to visit the children after they are sent out by Guardians to places of employ- ment. For instance, some ladies at Dewsbury have within the past year undertaken to do this for the Guardians in respect of the girls sent out to service from their new cottage homes there ; and I have before mentioned in these reports the Sheffield House of Help, which does the same for the girls sent out by the Guardians of that Union. In both these instances the visits paid to the girls are officially reported j but the Girls' Friendly Society never, I think, reports officially, 2 though the ladies connected with it often visit girls sent out from Poor Law schools. I have often wished that the visits paid by the ladies of this latter Society could be officially reported to the Guardians, 3 and I am not sure that the difficulties which really exist might not be overcome." 4 We are thus led naturally to consider what work is actually being done at the present time by voluntary societies and other agencies in this matter of " after-care." (1) The M.A.B. Y.S. The Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants merits our first attention. It was founded in 1875 upon lines suggested by Mrs. Nassau Senior, 5 to whose valuable Report we have made such frequent reference in these pages. Mrs. Nassau Senior pointed out how useful such an association might be, inasmuch as, while the legal guardianship of children did not cease till they were sixteen, practically it might be brought to an end much sooner if they left their first place before that age. At this time Boards of Guardians could only employ their own officers in the duty of supervision, having no power to depute it to other persons or bodies. But since this power was given, 6 the Metropolitan Boards have 1 24 Z. G. B., p. 67 ; see also 4 Z. G. B., p. 204. 3 This is not now correct. The Society makes periodical reports. 3 See last note. 4 See also 25 Z. G. B., p. 226. 5 See 3 Z. G. B., p. 392 ; and 4 Z. G. B., p. 181. 6 Ante, p. 37. But Boards of Guardians can only depute to other persons or bodies powers which they possess themselves under the Act of 185 1. Therefore voluntary societies have no power over girls after they have left their first situations. After-Care 297 entrusted the whole duty of the supervision of their girls who go out to service or employment to this Association, whose "primary work is the care, protection, and guidance of the young girls who are entering life on leaving the London Poor Law Schools, in which they have been brought up." The importance of the work of the Association may be gauged from the fact that over 450 girls leave these schools every year for service. 1 On the 31st December, 1896, the Association had 7474 girls under its care; and during 1896 2846 girls from district and separate Poor Law schools were being looked after by it. The girls are visited in their situations by ladies ; they are provided with safe lodgings while out of place; they are trained and taught their duties; and they are cared for in sickness, and provided with clothes when necessary. In 1896, 107 1 ladies were carrying on this good work. The Association has in and about London fourteen lodging-homes for girls at the critical periods when they are out of place, and five training-homes where they are taught laundry work and the other duties of domestic servants. It has thirty district committees in the Metropolitan area. Reports as to how the children are getting on, etc., are sent regularly from the central office to the Boards of Guardians to whose Unions the children are chargeable. 2 It is, of course, quite impossible to describe here fully the work of the Association; but all information with regard to it can be obtained from the central office of the Association at 18, Buckingham Street, Strand, w.c. (Secretary, Miss Poole). 8 It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to mention that it is an undenominational Association. We have already shown how successful it has been in training the Poor Law school girls to be steady and good servants. Its work has naturally met with warm praise from the Poor Law inspectors. 4 Mr. Brooke Lambert, the present Chairman of the Nor can they get girls removed against their will from unsatisfactory situations. See post, p. 341. 1 In 1895, 464 girls left the schools, of whom 459 went into domestic service. (25 Z. G.B.,p. 516). 2 Some Boards of Guardians publish these Reports each year for circulation among the Guardians. One published by the St. Pancras Board of Guardians for the year ended 31st March, 1896, now lies before us. From it we gather that out of 116 girls from the Leavesden Schools who were under the care of the M. A. B. Y. S., four were classed as unsatisfactory, and only one as bad. Ten had been lost sight of, and six were with relations. 3 In Appendix K, post, p. 422, will be found the forms now in use. (1) The form sent by the Guardians to the M. A. B. Y. S. when a girl has been placed out. (2) The form (now adopted at the request of the M. A. B. Y. S. by almost all the schools) on which application is made by any mistress desirous of engaging girls from the schools. 4 e.g., 8 L. G. B. t p. 153 ; " £ G. B„ p. 130 ; 15 L. G. B., p. 49. 298 Children under the Poor Law Association, and one of the members of the Departmental Com- mittee, speaking at the South-Eastern District Poor Law Conference, 1896, expressed his disagreement with the Report of the Committee in its suggestion that the children failed after coming out from the Poor Law Schools, 1 and in proof of this statement he drew attention to the following fact, which was not in his possession at the time (i.e., when the Report was drawn up), and said that it showed on very independent evidence that these children could hold their own against the same class living outside : "On the coming of age of the Association in 1895, medals were distributed by H.R.H. Princess Christian to all girls who were at that time in places where they had been for one year and upwards with a good character. The award was made solely on the inde- pendent report of the mistresses, who signed a certificate in each case. The proportion under care has been, roughly, two locals to one central girl. J Nevertheless the one-third, or rather less, central girls took 804 medals to the 749 obtained by the local girls. This shows that over a range of years the centrals more than hold their own with the locals — girls of their own class in life. Tested, however, by the length of service, the success is even more striking. The awards were as follows : Centrals. Locals. For girls one year in the same service 312 426 ,, two years 11 189 197 ,, three ,, j » 112 45 four „ j> 69 .. 32 ,, five ,, jj 36 - 17 ,, six ,, j> 31 16 , , over six up to sixteen years 55 16 804 749 The only two girls who got medals for sixteen years' service were central girls. It has often been remarked that ' centrals ' may be less sharp and handy than ' locals ' ; but, judged by the test of character, they seem to be superior, for, falling behind in the first year, and scarcely keeping pace in the second year, they win all along the line as the length of service increases. The judgment of mistresses might have erred on the side of kindness, but there is no gainsaying the test of length of place-keeping." 3 (2) The G.F.S. The Girls' Friendly Society, which was also established in 1875, differs in two important particulars from the M. A. B. Y. S. It is 1 Report of the Conference, p. 502. 2 In explanation of these terms it must be mentioned that of the two classes of girls with which the M. A. B. Y. S. deals, those sent from Poor Law schools and other institutions are called Centrals, and those voluntarily coming under the care of the Association from ordinary but very poor houses are called Locals. 3 Report of the M. A. B. Y. S. for 1896, pp. 7, 8. After-Care 299 (1) under denominational management, 1 and (2) the care and super- vision of Poor Law girls is not the main branch of its work. 2 Both the societies, however, work in close co-operation, the M. A. B. Y. S. looking after the girls from country workhouses who are to be found in service in London, and the G. F. S. undertaking to mother, watch over, and report upon girls from Metropolitan Poor Law schools who have been placed in service in the country beyond the reach of their own committees of workers. The Society has a special department for Poor Law work, 3 and that it has gained the confidence of Boards of Guardians is shown by the fact that, while in 1880 it was only co-operating with ten Boards of Guardians, in 1896 the number had risen to 450. The work of the Society, which seeks to encourage purity of life, dutifulness to parents, faithfulness to employers, temperance, and thrift, is generally so well known that we shall not stop to go into detail with regard to it. But from some statistics kindly supplied to us by Miss Grafton as to an important branch of the Society's work in their certified training-homes, it appears that out of 793 girls who have passed through those training-homes during the last ten to eleven years only forty-two have returned to the workhouse as unfit for service or through ill-health. Mr. Mozley speaks very highly of the work of the Society. Writing in 1886, he said: 4 "Among the many ladies who take part in the Society it would be too much to expect that all should act judiciously, and ill-advised interference on their part with Poor Law officials has not been unknown. But I have met with an increasing number of cases of late in which ladies belonging to this Society have worked in a manner which is at once unobtrusive, and (I believe) much for the good of the girls whom they visit. I was much pleased lately when a workhouse master of some standing, and in an important Union, said to me of one of these ladies, ' She comes in when she likes, and she 1 There is, however, no denominational restriction as to membership, and ladies who do not belong to the Church of England can join it and take part in its work as members, although they cannot become associates. s There is, of course, the same level of aim in all the departments of the Society, and it is fully recognized that in many respects its Poor Law work is the most important. 3 This department of the Society is known as the C. W. O. (Department for Candidates from Workhouses and Orphanages). The real organization of the department dates from 1877, although the idea of helping Poor Law girls was a part of the general scheme of the Society at its beginning in 1875. The department is now being newly organized so to make its Poor Law work more efficient. The scheme for carrying out this object is printed in Appendix M, p. 425. 4 15Z. G.£.,p. 41. 300 Children under the Poor Law goes where she likes; I do not interfere with her.' From the nature of the case such confidence can hardly be abused without the evidence of the abuse coming to light immediately; and therefore I think it may be assumed that, in this instance, it had not been abused." The central office of the Society is at 39, Victoria Street, Westminster, s.w. (Secretary, Miss Bowlby), and the present head of the work- houses and orphanages department is Miss Grafton, Heysham Hall, Lancaster. The above are the two principal societies which are able to take charge of Poor Law girls when they go into service; but there are, of course, many other local societies which do similar work for Boards of Guardians. We have, however, only space to refer to a few of them. (3) The Bristol Preventive Mission} At Bristol there is a Preventive Mission — a branch of the Bristol Female Mission Society — to which the Barton Regis Board of Guardians hands over the entire charge of their girls in service. When they are placed in service, their names and addresses are forwarded to the Free Registry Office of the Mission, which becomes responsible for them until they are sixteen, and sends a quarterly report upon them to the Guardians. If the girls leave their places they come to the office, which is presided over by a lady super- intendent and has lodgings attached to it, and a fresh place is found for them ; they are encouraged to look on the office as a home, and on its inmates as their friends. If out of place they can be lodged there free of charge, paying only sixpence a day for their board. If the girl has no money she is not refused on that account, but has to pay what she owes out of her first wages. An experienced schoolmistress writes as follows to Miss Clifford, one of the Guardians, as to the benefits derived from the Preventive Mission : "No one knows better than myself the benefit our young people have received from this arrangement. When I look back a few years and remember how little girls of thirteen years of age were cast on the world, and left almost entirely to the tender mercies of the master or mistress chosen for them, I wonder they turned out as well as they did; but under the existing rule they are so watched over and cared for, that they have done exceedingly well, in fact the care and pains bestowed upon them have made it almost impossible for them to go wrong." 1 The Secretary is Miss Sproule, 24, Aberdeen Terrace, Clifton. After-Care 301 (4) The Bolton Society for Befriending Young Servants. This Society, which is established on the model of the London M. A. B. Y. S., and works on the same lines, first undertook the task of looking after the girls who left the Bolton Workhouse School 1 for service, in 1889. Since that time its work has been mainly con- nected with that class of girls and other girls of the M. A. B. Y. S. type. The difficulties with which the Committee have to contend, and a description of the work of the Society, are well set out in the following extract from a letter which we received from the Hon. Secretary in August, 1896 : "I will write as fully as I can, in order that you may understand as far as possible the condition of life here. As I dare say you know, there is little difficulty in getting work in the factories for half-timers, and children should, generally speaking, be able to work half-time when they reach eleven or twelve years of age. Moreover, there is such a strong prejudice on the part of the working-class girls in favour of work in mills as against service, that the number of girls we have to consider is comparatively small. "Our Union is a large and scattered district, with a population of about a quarter of a million — nearly 200,000 being urban and the rest rural — and all to some extent manufacturing. It is, therefore, greatly to the advantage of the relatives of any pauper children to get possession of them when they reach a wage-earning age — even only half-time — and we have certainly few children over the age of ten in the cottages belonging to the workhouse. Those who are sent into situations from the workhouse are in many cases only nominally in domestic service, their work being generally to go to the mill and help in the house after factory hours. " Of the sixty-two children we have had oversight of since we began our work in looking after the workhouse children seven years ago, I can give you particulars of a considerable number. Three quite young children have been regularly adopted by the people they are with. Of the others, nine are in a Roman Catholic factory girls' home, and work at the mill, giving the evenings to the sisters and being kept in return. Twelve other children are placed out either with relatives or others, and are going to the mill. Sixteen are in service of a more or less domestic character — placed out directly by the Guardians. In addition to these sixteen, however, there are nineteen others either in service or preparing for service, sent out from our certified training-home. The remaining child we cannot trace, but she appears to have been taken by relatives. "We have two homes in connection with the Society; a training- home for service, certified by the Local Government Board, and a servants' home, to which the training-home children can go when 1 This school ("Cottage Homes") is detached from the workhouse, and has an average of about ioo children. (25 L. G. B.> p. 510.) The Union is a large one, with a population (1 891) of 266,799. 302 Children under the Poor Law they are out of situations. We try as far as possible to carry out our visitation of the girls on the same lines as those so successfully initiated by the M. A. B. Y. S., but we find it a great difficulty to get the same attention to details that a business man would give to his own business. " Lately an effort has been made to get the Guardians to give to our Society the same status as regards the girls from our Union as that which the M. A. B. Y. S. has as regards the London District Schools, but our Board of Guardians is very jealous of what it considers its rights, and prefers that the girls should be visited by the relieving officers. " Of course, Boards of Guardians cannot be too careful about deputing philanthropic agencies to perform duties which the law casts in the first place upon their shoulders ; but, where there is a recognized voluntary agency working on the right lines by following the admirable example of the M. A. B. Y. S., they might with advantage, not only to themselves but also to the children, utilise it. The connection between the Board and the Society would, of course, be kept up by the regular reports which the former would receive from the latter on the children ; and with ladies both on the Board and on the Committee of the Society a still closer touch between the two would be preserved. The Honorary Secretary of the Bolton Society is Miss Barlow, Greenthorne, Edgworth, near Bolton. (5) The Sheffield House of Help} It may safely be said that much of the success which has been attributed to the Sheffield system of Isolated Homes is owing to the care and supervision which the managers of this Home of Help exercise over the girls when they leave the Homes. The following account of the kind of work the House of Help does in Sheffield with regard to Poor Law girls has been given to us by the Hon. Secretary (Mrs. Flather) : 2 "For seven years we have been working on the same lines as at present, but with many disadvantages. Still the result has been very good. On the formation of the Cottage Homes our plans were re- arranged in only a very small degree, and are as follow : "The girls are now kept until they are fifteen years of age, and the home training in the cottages is of the greatest possible advantage. The last three months of the time is spent in the house of the superin- tendent, whose wife carefully watches over the girls. Her advice, therefore, with regard to the sort of situation a girl is suitable for is very valuable to us. 1 1, Paradise Square, Sheffield. 2 See also 22 L. G. B., p. 104. After- Care 303 " When a girl is ready for service we now find the first situation and make her outfit, the greater part of which is paid for by the Guardians (£iZ)i tne remaining portion being a means of keeping us in touch with the girl, as she joins our Clothing Club and brings her wages to us monthly until the debt is paid. We return to her a fair amount for spending-money, and advise and guide her with regard to any new clothes she may want, and as soon as possible get her to open an account in the Post Office Savings Bank. A small committee of ladies undertake to act as mothers to these girls, each lady knowing her own girls and the girls their lady. A visit is paid at least once a quarter (if the girl is tiresome these visits are paid more frequently). It is our endeavour to make the girl feel and realise that she has only friends at the House of Help, and we find after they once understand the value of this that they are only too glad to come to us in their difficulties as well as their pleasures. If a girl is to leave her situation we try to find her another one to go straight to, and if she were to make the applica- tion to be admitted to the workhouse we should be communicated with at once, and should take the girl under our immediate care. The reward of a Bible is given for one year's service in a situation, not necessarily the first, and 5s. in money for their bank account for two years' service in one situation." Mr. Mozley bears independent testimony to the valuable work of this institution. He says : 1 "The Sheffield Guardians (following Section 33 of the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1 876)2 entrust to this Society the supervision of the girls who are sent to service from the workhouse schools " (now, of course, replaced by the Isolated Homes) "The work of supervision is, from all I could learn, very carefully done, and the girls (except when they are reclaimed by relations) are kept in sight for a considerable number of years. They do in many cases well ; still there are girls among them who give a great deal of trouble. It is, I think, not every girl who is naturally suited to domestic service." So far we have merely referred to societies established for assisting the girls after leaving the workhouse or schools. Before going on to refer to what has been and is being done in the same way for the boys, we must emphasise how necessary it is that some society should be established to look after all these girls, to do similar work in the provinces to that which is done by the M. A. B. Y. S. in London. Such a society should be, like the M. A. B. Y. S., under undenominational management. It must be remembered that the Poor Law is un- denominational, and if voluntary societies are to work in thorough harmony and co-operation with it, they must be undenominational too. There can be no doubt that the confidence which is reposed by London Boards of Guardians in the M. A. B. Y. S. is largely owing to the fact 1 22 L. G. B., p. 104. 2 See ante, p. 295. 304 Children under the Poor Law that it was founded and is worked on a broad basis. The society suggested would be a valuable auxiliary to the Girls' Friendly Society, and, seeing that so few agencies have been established for the after- care and supervision of Poor Law boys, it might take up this work also in London as well as for the provinces. " Boys certainly fight their way in the world better than girls, but they need help nevertheless, even after the age of sixteen, which is the limit of time during which the Act of Parliament prescribes that they should be visited." 1 Such is Mr. Mozley's opinion, and Mr. Holgate's is the same. The latter, referring to the provision which had been made in his district for the voluntary visiting of girls, a system which he considered as "un- doubtedly more acceptable to the employers and more advantageous to the girls than the formal and less welcome visit of the relieving or other officer specially appointed under Act of Parliament," expressed his regret that it had not been the good fortune of the boys to be so well cared for. " And though they in some respects may be able to hold their own on being placed out in the world, it is very desirable that they too should feel that they have some individual friend to apply to in any difficulty they may meet with." 2 We will now proceed to describe some of the institutions which have been established for the benefit of boys after they have left the work- house or school for service or employment. (1) The Young Men's Friendly Society. The object of the Poor Law Department of this Society is to find visitors for boys leaving the workhouse or schools, and to do generally for them what the Girls' Friendly Society does for girls. The Society has, however, had such difficulties in finding helpers in this field that its Poor Law work is almost nil. 3 In Kensington one of its branches has been replaced by the Kensington Lads' Union. This Union is an illustration of what the Society could do if workers were only forthcoming. (2) The Kensington Lads' Union. Up to 1894 this Union was a branch of the Young Men's Friendly Society, and it is still affiliated to it. The Union was formed for the 1 23 L. G. B., p. 150. 2 22 L. G. B. } p. 11: 3 See the Annual Report of the Society for 1896, p. 13. After-Care 305 benefit of the boys discharged from the Kensington and Chelsea District Schools at Banstead. When a boy leaves the schools the superintendent sends the following notice to Mrs. Lascelles : KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA DISTRICT SCHOOL, Banstead, Surrey. 18 The Superintendent begs to acquaint you that the undermentioned went from or were re-admitted to the school on the dates and in the manner stated. SENT FROM SCHOOL TO SERVICE. Name of Child. Age. Parish to which chargeable. Date sent out. Name, Address, etc., of Employer, and Observations. RE-ADMITTED FROM SERVICE TO SCHOOL.* I * This does not imply that when a child fails in service he is sent back to the school, refers to children sent back during the trial month. It only Mrs. Lascelles then takes the boy in hand. At the end of every year she sends to the superintendent an annual report for the informa- tion of the Guardians of each parish upon all the boys she has under her care, with a special mark against each. The superintendent makes what remarks he likes upon her report, and passes it on to the Guardians. From the last Annual Report of this Lads' Union, it appears that no less than 217 boys are on its books. They are scattered over the United Kingdom, India, and America, and with few exceptions are kept in sight, a Christmas letter being sent to each, and those at a distance being commended to clergymen and others. Of the 217, 98 have joined the Union, and receive special attention. 306 Children under the Poor Law Those who are curious to learn more about this Lads' Union may refer to the evidence of Mrs. Lascelles l and Mr. Harston before the Departmental Committee. The following interesting account of the work done by Mrs. Lascelles, Hon. Secretary, and her helpers is taken from Mr. Wyndham Holgate's Report for 1894. 2 " The honorary secretary and her helpers visit and correspond with the lad and his master, or with the officers and chaplain of his regi- ment if enlisted as a band-boy. Every Sunday afternoon the house of the honorary secretary is open to any of these lads, and here they not only meet each other, but the ladies are enabled to gain their confidence and give advice. Once a year there is an old scholars' tea- meeting and entertainment which is largely attended. There is a card of membership to the Lads' Union, under which they promise to abstain from certain evils, and endeavour to act up to certain good habits, all of which points are printed on the card in short, simple, and practical terms. If a lad falls ill he is, if necessary, helped to a hospital or convalescent home, or sent to some friend for a change of air, and there is an idea of setting on foot a house of their own at the seaside for such purpose. If a lad should get out of employ- ment he is helped as opportunity arises to another situation ; and in all matters affecting the lads there is frequent correspondence between the honorary secretary and the superintendent at Banstead, so that useful information coming to the one is sent to the other. Annual Reports are issued giving details of each case under the following heads : — Name, date of birth, date of leaving school, address of employer, character, general remarks." The Guardians, who take a kindly interest ±n the work, report that the boys do not return to the workhouse so often as they used to do before Mrs. Lascelles undertook the work of supervision. A spirit of manly independence is noted in them, which says much for their training in the District School. It is also interesting to know that the expense connected with the work is very trifling, as it entails little more than writing and correspondence. 3 (3) The South Metropolitan School District Visiting Association. In the report of the Departmental Committee no District Schools come in for severer criticism than the South Metropolitan, so much so that one of the Committee, the Rev. Brooke Lambert, was obliged to protest in a separate memorandum against the way in which they were treated. 4 It gives us, therefore, the more pleasure to refer to a system 1 Mrs. Lascelles' address is 31, Argyll Road, Kensington, W. 2 24 L. G.B., p. 72. a Evidence before the Departmental Committee, Qs. 7127-28. 4 Report, p. 174. After-Care 507 of visiting boys after they have left school for employment, which was adopted by the school managers about five years ago. It was formu- lated in September, 1892, the object being to keep in touch with these boys. In March, 1895, at the time when Mr. Steer, the secretary of the scheme, gave evidence before the Departmental Committee, 1 203 boys were under supervision. The object of the scheme is to find a visitor for each boy sent out from the school to employment. There were 109 of such visitors in 1895. These visitors are found by individual school managers or officers who know the boys, and they undertake to visit the boys at regular intervals, and to report upon them quarterly to the Rev. Brooke Lambert. The scheme has been carried out under Section 33 of the Act of 1876, to which we have already referred. 2 A full account of its method of working will be found in Mr. Steer's evidence. 3 It has already effected a very good work, 4 the number of boys reported on increasing year by year, as the following statistics show (it will be observed that the classification is now very detailed) : — Classification. 5 Number of Boys under Care. Percentage of Boys in the different classes. 1893 1894 1895 1896 1893 1894 1895 1896 Good Fairly Good Gone to relations ; doing well Gone to relations ; no further record Dead Not traced Not reported on In Union Infirmary In Workhouse . Unsatisfactory . Visit refused by master 47 7 13 3 123 12 27 6 }"• 8 1 211 19 20 3i 9 2 4 4 8 294 19 55 5o 3 5 11 2 4 9 60 -9 9-1 1 '3 17 3 : 9 687 67 3 '4 I" 4*5 68-3 6'3 6-4 10 -o •3 2-9 •6 i*3 I "3 26 65 4-2 122 11*1 7 1*1 2-4 •4 •9 2'0 Totals 77 179 309 452 IOO'O 100 IOO'O IOO'O 1 Evidence, pp. 729-731. 2 Ante, p. 295. 3 Evidence, pp. 729-731. 4 See 23 L. G. £., p. 155. 5 The following explanation of the classification has been kindly sent to us by Mr. Steer. It also gives interesting details of the boys reported upon in 1896. "'Good' refers to boys who have remained in their situations, and whose employers give them good characters. Boys who are reported as doing well in the army, and some young men who are now reported as being able to provide for them- selves, are also included. u * Fairly Good.' These boys have kept their situations, but are only doing fairly well. " 'Gone to relations; doing well.' These are the boys who for various reasons have left their situations, and are living with their relations. They are all in 308 Children under the Poor Law To the third Annual Memorandum on the boys sent out from the South Metropolitan District Schools (1894-95) are appended a few specimen cases which illustrate the value of keeping up the connection with the boys after they leave the schools, and Mr. Brooke Lambert comments on them as follows : " In 1 I think the boy's health would have suffered " In 2 the boy would certainly have drifted into the ranks of the unemployed. " In 3 the aid given by an old boy is to be noted as a satisfactory but not uncommon circumstance. " ILLUSTRATIVE CASES. " i. John was sent away to a situation, which after a time he left to live with his sister. For some time he worked at a lithographer's, but he was not happy ; he had been used to horses, and was anxious to get among them ; upon the recommendation of his master, who gave him an excellent character, he was, by the help of the Rev. Brooke Lambert, placed in another situation, where he will have entire charge of four horses. He is doing well. "2. Frederick was lost sight of, through his master giving up his business. He was entered as ' not traced ' in last year's report. In November last he called on Rev. Brooke Lambert, who, after inquiry, obtained him a situation. He was apprenticed as a waterman, and is going on well. employment, and many of them are earning good wages. In appearance and manners they are among the best of the old boys who visit the school. " 'Gone to relations; no further record.' These boys have left their situations, and the only information we have is that they are living with their relations. There our record ceases, but as the boys are absorbed into the general population it is only fair to assume that a goodly proportion of them may be classed as satisfactory. "'Dead.' This is a low rate of mortality which speaks highly of the general health of the boys when they leave the school. Of these three deaths, which are spread over a period of four years, one was the result of a cart accident. "'Not traced.' The only reports to hand respecting these boys are that 'The master has removed,' or that 'The shop is closed.' " 'Not reported on.' These are a few boys who have been recently sent out, and about whom reports are not yet to hand. " ' In Union Infirmary.' One case is that of an epileptic, and the other a boy with chronic ophthalmia. Both lads bear good characters. " ' In workhouse.' This is a very unsatisfactory entry. The four cases are as follows : — (a) " Went to infirmary with bad hands, and drifted into the workhouse. (5) " Was returned to workhouse owing to dirty habits. (c) ** Was returned to workhouse as a confirmed thief. (d) "The visitor reports: 'I am trying to keep out of the workhouse, but I do not know with what success.' " ' Unsatisfactory.' Of these nine boys seven absconded from their situations, one was dishonest, and one was dismissed from the Boys' Home as being violent and saucy." After-Care 309 "3. Joseph was discharged from the home to which he was sent, and wandered about homeless for two days. He found a friend in the person of an old Sutton School boy, who took him home, found him lodgings and a situation. He is now doing well. " As examples of the difficulties sometimes met with in carrying out a scheme of this kind, we may mention the following two cases : — "4. Charles was sent to a situation. He ran away to his brother, who was unable to help him, and the lad was obliged to go to the workhouse. Miss Thompson, with the help of other managers, endeavoured to give the boy another start in life, and he was placed in a boys' home. Here he stayed some months, but the latest news we have of him was that he had absconded. Nothing further is known of him at present. "5. Albert was enticed away from his situation by his mother. After a time he was placed in a boys' home, where he gained a good character. His bad mother enticed him home, where he lived in want for some time. Another situation was, by the kindness of the visitor, found for him, but, as his mother pawned his clothes and used his money, it was necessary to remove him once more. He is now in another boys' home, where he is well spoken of, and, up to the present, his mother has left him alone." In the Appendix we have printed the fourth Annual Memorandum on the boys sent out from the schools of the South Metropolitan District, which incidentally illustrates the value of the training and education which they receive. 1 , Another way of helping boys during their first year of employment is by providing homes for them. In London there are the Working Boys' Homes, but which take other boys in addition to those coming from the Poor Law Schools. (1) The Homes for Working Boys in London. There are now seven of these Homes distributed in different parts of the Metropolis. They will accommodate 340 boys. The boys are not employed in the Homes but are engaged in situations outside, as shop- boys, errand-boys, printers, outdoor apprentices, etc. The boys pay for their lodging according to the amount of their earnings. The objects and rules of the Homes are as follows : "These Homes afford accommodation to 340 homeless boys between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, who are able to work and earn wages, but have no homes to save them from the temptations of common lodging-houses. " These may be divided into three classes : 1. London boys who have no homes. 1 Appendix L, p. 423. 310 Children under the Poor Law 2. Country boys who, having lost their parents, or under other circumstances, have come to London seeking employment. 3. Boys who have been inmates of industrial schools, refuges, or workhouse schools, and who have been placed in situations in London. "The lads are not employed in the Homes, but are engaged in situations outside, as shop-boys, errand-boys, printers, outdoor ap- prentices, etc. "Boys of respectable character are admitted at once on their personal application at the Homes, or on the recommendation of employers of labour, or friends. " Most of the boys earn sufficient wages to board and clothe them- selves ; but in a few cases help has at first to be obtained from friends to enable them to do this. " Many of those admitted already have situations ; while, in other cases, temporary assistance is given to enable the boy to maintain him- self until he has found employment. " The Superintendent supplies food to the boys at the rate of 4s. 6d. per week (which covers the cost); while those who can afford it are able to obtain additional food at reasonable prices. " The charges for lodging are as follows : Boys earning 6s. pay . . . is. od. per week. IS. „ . IS. 2d. „ 8s. „ . is. 4d. „ 9*. „ . is. 6d. IOS. „ . . . 2S. od. „ IIS. „ . . . 2S. $d. 12s. to 1 5*. . 2s. 6d. „ " Each boy is required to be home by 9.30 in the evening, to attend public worship on Sunday, and, during the winter, on certain nights in the week, classes for instruction. " A library, reading-room, and, in some of the Homes, a gymnasium, are provided free of charge, and every effort is made to improve the moral and physical condition of the boys, to make them good work- men, and, what is far more important, by telling them of the Saviour's love, and, by Christian training, to fit them for the Eternal Home in the world to come. " The Committee's endeavour is ' to help those who help themselves,' by providing Homes in various districts of the Metropolis for homeless working boys who are anxious to gain an honest living; at the same time to afford them healthy recreation, and, above all, to surround them with Christian influences and friendly guidance at the most critical period of their lives. RULES FOR THE RESIDENTS. "Admission. — 1. No boy will be admitted from any other Home without a letter of recommendation from the superintendent of such Home. "Leaving Home. — 2. Any boy wishing to leave the Home is expected to give a week's notice. After-Care 3 1 1 "Food. — 3. Every boy is boarded by the Superintendent on the payment of 4s. 6d. per week, in accordance with a dietary scale, which has been approved by the Committee. 4. Boys (whose earnings enable them to do so) may obtain extras from the Superintendent at a regulated price. " Washing. — 5. Every boy pays for his personal washing except those earning 6s. per week, who are allowed $d. weekly from the Committee. 11 Clothes. — 6. Each boy must provide his own clothing. Any (who can afford it) not keeping themselves decently clothed will not be permitted to remain in the Home. "Bank. — 7. Every boy is expected to put into the Savings Bank net less than half the amount left of his wages after paying for board, lodging, and washing, in order to provide for clothes. A. — Money left in the Savings Bank of the Home will have interest allowed on it at the following rate : id. per month on 5*. \\d. per month on 10s. 2d. ,, „ iss. 3d. „ „ 20*. B. — No interest will be allowed except on round sums of 5*., ioj., 15J., and^i, the interest to commence the first of each month after date of deposit, up to £$, when the interest will be at the Post Office Savings Bank rate. "Employment. — 8. No boy is to leave his situation without the consent of the Superintendent; any boy so doing will be liable to be dismissed from the Home. 9. If a boy out of work does not obtain employment within a fortnight he must leave the Home. "Daily Routine. — 10. Every boy must be washed and ready to attend family worship by 9.30 p.m., unless permission be given to the contrary; and, except under special circumstances, no boy will be admitted after 10 o'clock p.m. n. Every boy must make his bed and wash before breakfast, and take a bath once a week in the bath-room of the Home. 12. No boy will be allowed to have his boots on in the bedroom. 13. Those who can leave work in time must attend one of the classes for instruction during the week. "Sundays. — 14. On Sunday morning every boy must attend such place of worship as may be appointed. 15. No tea will be provided on Sundays after the usual time. 16. On Sunday evening the boys must attend a Bible Class in the Home, but arrangements may from time to time be made by the Superintendent for taking them out to an evening service. 17. Leave of absence can be granted on Sundays at the dis- cretion of the Superintendent. "Smoking. — 18. No boy will be allowed to smoke in or in the neighbourhood of the Home. "Behaviour. — 19. Any boy wilfully damaging the goods or property of the Home will be fined or made to pay the cost, or, if the offender cannot be traced, the whole of the boys shall pay their share of the same. 20. Any boy throwing food about, guilty of dirty habits, or using bad language will be fined or dismissed. 21. Every boy must obey the orders of the Superintendent and Matron. Any rudeness or disobedience will subject him to dismissal." 312 Children under the Poor Law Nine of the thirty London Unions subscribe to the Homes, and the larger portion of their inmates come either from Industrial or the Poor Law Schools. We refer to the reports of the superintendents of these Homes upon the latter class of boys in Appendix A. 1 These reports vary considerably, but from the annual report of the Committee of the Homes for 1895 we find it stated that the boys "do not always show the same vigour and intelligence as we find in those who come to us from other sources," although the boys received from Industrial Schools compared very unfavourably as regards " results " with them. It must, however, not be forgotten that it is not the best class of " Poor Law " boys who take advantage of the Homes. There are Homes for working boys in other cities and towns besides London. We need only give one instance. (2) The Lincoln Working Boys' Aid Society. This Society was established in 1891, with the object of helping boys who had been in the workhouse school by providing a home for them, and by aiding them with grants towards maintenance and clothing until they could earn sufficient to maintain themselves entirely. The Home thus established 2 seems to have been very successful. It has accommo- dation for eight lodgers. Six workhouse boys were there in 1895, and another workhouse boy who was in the Royal Navy twice took up his abode there during the holidays. All the boys were in constant work and doing well. Mr. Mozley refers in his 1895 Report to this Home as illustrating how the difficulty of continuing a boy's training after he has left the workhouse or school may be surmounted. 3 And in this connection his account of the Buckley Hall (Roman Catholic) certified school will be found interesting. 4 " Over and above the 200 boys (I speak in round numbers) who are being taught scholastically, there are some fifty boys who have passed the school age, and who stay in the institution learning some trade till they reach the age of eighteen. They are then qualified to work as 'improvers,' as it is called; and this practically means that they can maintain themselves at the trade. The chief trades taught here are tailoring, shoemaking, wood-carving, and printing. The plan is, I think, a very good one, but it must be observed that between the ages of fourteen and eighteen these boys are supported out of those private funds which went to the original founding of the institution. Not all the boys at Buckley Hall are sent there by Boards of Guardians, but the greater number are so, and for these, up to the 1 Post, p. 362. 2 Witham House, St. Swithin's (Hon. Sec, Miss A. Mitchinson). 3 25 L. G. £., pp. 225, 226. 4 Ibid. ^LiFOH ^^ After- Care 3 1 3 age of fourteen, $s. a week is paid by the Boards who respectively send them. In an ordinary Poor Law School this plan could not be imitated, but if a ' home ' were provided for the boys by private persons after they left the school the difficulty would be met." The experience of such Homes shows how much they are wanted both for boys and girls, and especially for girls. But they are also most useful as providing places other than the school or the workhouse to which girls and boys can go, and be certain of finding friendly help and advice when out of employment or situation. The scarcity of such Homes is keenly felt by Guardians and by the officers of work- houses and schools. In a recent interesting report on the St. John's Home at Ipswich, the committee of management refer to this point. They say : "There is one improvement that might easily be effected in St. John's Home if only the consent of the Local Government Board could be obtained to it. The majority of the children who leave St. John's Home are necessarily without home ties, and often with no relations but such as would drag them down. It is hard for a girl, and, though to a less extent, for a boy, to be so situated. There should be some place other than the workhouse where in case of need they could go. The superintendent and matron of St. John's Home have felt this so strongly that they have received young people sent out from St. John's Home in the intervals between their situations and in their holidays, as their own guests at their own cost, rather than see them sent adrift into the world. It is not right, however, that this expense should be cast upon them, and it would be well that the Local Govern- ment Board should be again asked to consent to the Guardians receiving those who have been sent out from St. John's Home in that institution, at any rate till they are twenty years old, when temporarily out of situation, and in holidays, or from any reason incapacitated from work." We have quoted from this report to show how strongly Guardians feel on the point, but we are doubtful as to the wisdom of this particular proposal. Surely it would be better for Boards of Guardians to support Homes established for the reception of their boys and girls who may be temporarily out of situation or employment, such as those at Bristol and Lincoln, to which we have referred. There can be no doubt that the "after-care" of boys and girls for the first few years after going out to work for their own living opens up a promising field of public usefulness for other persons than Guardians only. It is true that many Guardians and masters and matrons of workhouses and schools have devoted, and are at the present time devoting, much attention to the subject, but they require the sympathy and help of others. Boards of Guardians and School Managers are 314 Children under the Poor Law not asked to surrender any of their powers and responsibilities to irresponsible authorities, nor can they do so even in the case of so admirably administered a society as the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants. This Association is bound to report regularly to the various Poor Law authorities upon the girls of whom it undertakes the supervision. While the Guardians are never released from their responsibility for the children, they know very well that the Association can do the work much more efficiently than they could do it through their own officers. Undoubtedly the hands of the Guardians require to be strengthened in regard to the care and control of the children after they have left the workhouse or school. How this can be done we hope to show in another chapter. 1 But even as the law stands at present, we are firmly of opinion than in no branch of Poor Law work is the hearty co-operation of compulsory and voluntary effort more necessary than in that which is concerned with the question of "after-care." 1 StZpOSt, p. 34I. CHAPTER XII. "INS AND OUTS" BOARDS of Guardians are bound by law to relieve "destitute" children. They have nothing to do with the cause of their destitu- tion. This is a point which many of those who criticise the education and training of children under the Poor Law are apt to forget. It raises special difficulties which scarcely trouble the ordinary educational authorities at all. For instance, children may be thrown on the hands of Guardians who are found, even at the age of twelve or thirteen, to have received no education at all. But undoubtedly the main difficulty arises from the Guardians having to deal with that class of children who from constantly coming in and going out of the workhouse or the school are known as "ins and outs " or " revolvers." These children are naturally a disturbing element in the life of a Poor Law School. They may not only influence the "permanent" children for evil, but if at any time after- wards they come upon the rates for support, their " failure " is ascribed to the education (it may have lasted for only a month) which they have received at the hands of the Guardians. As an illustration of this difficulty we may refer to the statistics given by Mr. Birkby, the Superintendent of the Swinton Schools, which we have already quoted in a previous chapter, 1 and which showed that out of 700 children at Swinton only four had been in the schools for the generally accepted term of school life (i.e., nine years). As regards the Metropolitan schools we have only to look at the figures given in Chapter xi. of the Report of the Departmental Committee to realise how great this difficulty is. To give other instances. At Forest Gate Schools, containing 700 children, the number of discharges was 525 in one year and 540 in another, while the number of children sent into employment during the same year from these schools was only seventy. Dr. Bridges has given the following interesting figures in his Report 1 Ante, p. 129. 3i6 Children under the Poor Law "On the Health of Metropolitan Pauper Schools for seven years, 1883-89." 1 "Admissions and Discharges into and from Metropolitan Pauper Schools. "District Schools, 1889. Admissions. Discharges. South Metropolitan Schools . . . 1397 1373 Central London ,, 355 513 North Surrey ,, 322 397 West London ,, 557 516 Forest Gate ,, 395 457 Kensington and Chelsea Schools 172 241 3198 3497 " Separate Schools. Admissions. Discharges. Bethnal Green . ... 563 554 St. George's in the East 244 212 Hackney . 204 23I Islington . 419 439 Holborn . 342 339 Lambeth . 478 . 43i St. Marylebone 300 299 Mile End 407 396 St. Pancras 380 387 Shoreditch 257 29 Strand 105 225 Westminster 69 • 50 3768 3592 " In all, then, there were 6966 admissions and 7089 discharges j as the average population of these schools may be taken at 11,190, it appears that the annual admissions amount to 63 per cent., and the discharges to 64 per cent, of the total population. In other words, the population is in the highest degree fluctuating. "It is of course obvious that the difficulty of excluding diseases, especially of a contagious or infectious sort, must be much greater than in ordinary orphanages, where the vast majority of the population is stationary." During the year 1893-4, 8102 children were admitted and 7604 were discharged from the District and Separate Schools, while the number of individual children admitted was 7149. 2 No fewer than 697 children were admitted more than once during the same year, and 176 were admitted more than twice. 3 Mrs. Nassau Senior in her celebrated Report of 1874 classified the children in schools as follows: (1) orphans; (2) deserted, and those whose parents are in the wards for the sick and infirm ; and (3) casuals. 4 The first class are the " permanent " children, and are those 1 19 L.G.B., p. 161. See also his Report for 1874, where similar tables are given. 2 Report of Departmental Committee, vol. iii. pp. 5 and 12. :5 Ibid. 4 3L. G.B., p. 314. "Ins and Outs" 317 who do Boards of Guardians the most credit. The very large majority of the second class are also " permanent." This class includes (a) those children who have been abandoned by their parents, who may, however, turn up and claim them, or be discovered and forced to provide for them, or be compelled to go into the workhouse them- selves ; and (b) those children whose parents may be incapacitated, or whose mother may be a widow. These children are not so frequently taken away by their parents as to justify their being put with the third class. The children who belong to this latter class, the casuals, are now more generally known as the " ins and outs." " These are the children whose parents are constantly in and out of the workhouse, bringing their families in with them for a few days or weeks, and then taking them out, perhaps to be dragged about the country from vagrant ward to vagrant ward, perhaps to be placed for a brief period in some dingy lodging; in either case, owing to the parents' migratory habits, attending no school for any length of time, and receiving no training likely to remove them from the ranks of pauperism. For these, education has to be provided at the workhouse during their brief visits. It can be in the nature of things only a broken education, carried on under difficulties rendered all the greater by the removal to the separate schools of the children most likely to influence for good their fellow scholars. There is slight opportunity for any industrial training, and usually frequent intercourse with adult paupers." l Mrs. Nassau Senior seems to have been the first to have suggested increased power of detention being given to Boards of Guardians in regard to these "ins and outs" in cases where they were constantly being received into and removed from the schools. Nor would she have stopped here. She was very strongly of opinion that the parents themselves who were in the habit of going in and out of the workhouse with their children should be deprived of their liberty and made to work. As practically nothing has been done to carry out her recommendations, it will be well to quote what she says, especially as public opinion has for some years been tending in that direction. 2 "Existing regulations require that the child shall, in all cases, accompany the parent, as often as the latter takes his discharge from the workhouse. It thus happens that the children whom I have called casuals are sometimes taken away from school as many as six times in the course of a year; 3 during these absences there is frequently a 1 Per Mr. Jenner Fust, 23 L. G. £., p. 132. 2 3L.G.B., pp. 335, 336. 3 This is a very rare occurrence now. During the year 1893-94 only two children were admitted to the schools more than six times. (See Appendix to the Report of the Departmental Committee, vol. iii. pp. 5-12.) The real difficulty with " ins and outs " children is now not so much connected with the management of the schools as 318 Children under the Poor Law relapse into bad habits, and in many cases the children are exposed to the most corrupting influences. "lam aware that it is not thought expedient to allow a parent to go free and leave his child a burden on the rates, and that this considera- tion, combined with that of the sacredness of the tie between parent and child, has caused the present regulation to be kept in force. 1 " It can, however, be no economy of public money to insist on the children of a reckless and vagrant parent following in his steps ; on the contrary, such a course must entail a far heavier burden on the nation in the time to come. "I should like to see the provisions of the Industrial Schools Act, 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. ch. 118), extended, so that the magistrates or proper authority might have power to order the detention of pauper children at school. " Many of the pauper children (who are sent from school to join their vagrant parents) would come under the following description of children who may be dealt with under Clause 14 of the Industrial Schools Act, v viz. : ' Any child apparently under the age of fourteen years that is found begging or receiving alms (whether actually or under pretext of selling or offering for sale anything), or being in any street or public place for the purpose of so begging or receiving alms, that is found wandering and not having any home or settled place of abode, or proper guardianship, or visible means of subsistence, that is with that of the workhouse. Very interesting evidence on this point was given to the Departmental Committee. (See Report, p. 72.) Thus the master of the Marylebone Workhouse made a return showing the number of admissions and discharges of certain families during the year 1893-4. "The return contains particulars of eleven families representing the more prominent 'ins and outs' for Marylebone Workhouse. One family of three children between the 3rd of October, 1893, and the 19th November, 1894, were in and out of the workhouse, admitted and discharged sixty-two times. Another family of four were in and out forty-three times in that period, and another has been in and out of the workhouse between July 25th and November 21st, 1894, sixteen times." In the probationary ward of the Holborn Schools at Mitcham were found several "in and out" children who scarcely ever got into the school, or if they did, only for short periods. " Three girls named W had been constantly in and out of the workhouse and of the quarantine wards, their mother being in the habit of taking them away in order to discharge herself. She was unable to maintain the children, and would probably drag them about the streets until she thought fit to seek readmission to the workhouse." Mr. Clay, the Clerk to the Shoreditch Board of Guardians, said that during the year 1894, fifty-two children had passed through the Hornchurch Cottage Homes "who might be regarded as belonging to 'ins and outs,' that is to say, who have been admitted and readmitted during that time with varying periods of residence at the homes, and a further reference to the admission and discharge book of the workhouse will show that during the same period there have been 166 children of three years of age and upwards, who, following their admission, were discharged before time or opportunity availed for their transfer to the Cottage Homes." 1 Notwithstanding the regulation that a child must accompany its parent upon the latter's discharge, Boards of Guardians do in practice not infrequently allow the parent alone to leave temporarily to seek work, and in proper cases it is very unlikely that the Local Government Board would not endorse this departure from the rule. "Ins and Outs" 319 found destitute, either being an orphan or having a surviving parent who is undergoing penal servitude or imprisonment, that frequents the company of reputed thieves.' 11 The definition ' found wandering without any home or settled place of abode,' or ■ without proper guardianship,' refers to moral habits and character, as I believe it is taken to do by the magistrates who order children to be sent to industrial schools. " To carry out my views a clause would have to be added to the Act, authorising the magistrates, on the representation of the matron or superintendent, or of one or more of the Guardians, to order the detention of a child at school, on the parents taking their discharge. "And here I venture to make a suggestion which, knowing the tenderness of the English law with regard to the liberty of the subject (a tenderness with which I fully sympathize), I put forward with some hesitation. "The tendency of such a plan as I have just proposed would be, it will be alleged, to offer a premium to parents whose habits make them least sensible of their responsibility towards their children, to divest themselves of an unpleasant burden. To meet such an objection I venture to propose that the principle of the law (34 & 35 Vict. ch. 108) by which vagrants are, under certain circumstances, detainable in Unions, be extended, and its provisions made applicable to all vagrant parents, *>., to those who have entered and discharged themselves (say) three times in one year. We must face the fact that there is a class of persons in existence who are determined to make a livelihood out of that which was intended to be a provision only in cases of unavoidable destitution. Those persons ought, I think, not only to be detained for a short time, like the casual paupers mentioned in the Act, but set to work in separate workhouses, at least till they had repaid their maintenance. "There are acres of half-cultivated and unreclaimed land where these paupers, segregated from the influences which have created in them a vicious temperament, might learn the blessing of work, and be returned to society as useful members. Let such an institution be set on foot in the Yorkshire moors, where the agricultural produce would find a ready market in the neighbouring manufacturing towns, and the first outlay would soon be repaid, and the annual expenditure provided for; and let the children of paupers detained in such an institution be kept at school close by, to develop in a purer atmo- sphere some of the physical strength without which they are too likely to tread in their parents' footsteps. "Such a suggestion needs more elaboration than I can, in the space at present left to me, give it; but I make it, not only in the interests of the children, who are under present circumstances sacrificed to the misconduct of the parents, who might by it be reformed. "Notwithstanding the difficulty of legislating on such a question as this, I cannot help expressing the opinion that something ought to be done in this matter, and that some plans should be formed under which the pauper children would find the protection they so much require." 320 Children under the Poor Law The arguments in favour of giving Boards of Guardians further powers to detain the children we are now speaking of have never been stated more fully and clearly; but, unless we may accept the Poor Law Act of 1889 1 and the Custody of Children Act, 1891, 2 as steps in that direction, nothing has been done by Parliament in the matter since Mrs. Nassau Senior wrote her Report. The Act of 1889 enables Guardians to detain children who have come under their care, as having been deserted by their parents, up to the age of sixteen (if boys) and of eighteen (if girls), and the Act of 1 89 1 enacted that — "Where a parent has (a) abandoned or deserted his child; or (b) allowed his child to be brought up by another person at that person's expense, or by the Guardians of a Poor Law Union for such a length of time, and under such circumstances as to satisfy the Court that the parent was unmindful of his parental duties ; the Court shall not make an order for the delivery of the child to the parent, unless the parent has satisfied the Court that, having regard to the welfare of the child, he is a fit person to have the custody of the child." It will be seen that these Acts leave the real question very much as it was before. Mrs. Nassau Senior appreciated the difficulty in the way of going any further, for it must be evident that if Guardians are to be given further powers of detention with regard to all "ins and outs" children, there must be some contemporaneous legislation for dealing with their parents. This has been the one difficulty. A very great authority, Mr. W. Vallance, the Clerk to the Whitechapel Board of Guardians, who has had a long experience of the evil, has suggested that legislation in the matter might take the following form : That (1) where an able-bodied pauper of the ordinary class (i.e., not a vagrant) has been the inmate of a workhouse at intervals ranging over a period of twelve months, and has during a period of one m onth been admitted to the workhouse on more than three occasions, he shall be deemed an habitual pauper, and liable to be taken before a Justice. (2) When brought before a Justice he shall be liable, at the discretion of the Justice, having regard to all the circumstances, to be convicted and sent to a workhouse or farm colony to be specified, there to be detained and trained to a useful life during a period of not less than three months ; and (3) where a man or woman becomes an habitual pauper and convicted of such an offence, the Guardians should have power to assume the control of the children, 1 5 2 & 53 vict - ch - 5 6 « 2 54 & 55 Vict. ch. 3, s. 3. "Ins and Outs" 321 and the Act of 1889 De extended to the children of "habitual" paupers. Mr. Vallance, therefore, practically adopts Mrs. Nassau Senior's views. 1 Indeed, how much reason there is for some legislation in this direction is illustrated by the evidence which was given to the Departmental Committee. For example, the following are some of the cases given by Mr. Carter, the Master of the Greenwich Work- house, and which will be found in the Report of the Committee, p. 72 : "T. N. is a travelling tinker by trade. He has four boys, and for three months at a stretch he has prevented us from sending these children to the school, by taking them off just before the Sutton day, and coming back directly after it. " D. is a general labourer, who has three boys and a girl, and he has been in and out, on an average, once a week. " E. is a woman with a girl six years old, and that means that for two years the girl has been eligible for school, and she has never been yet. When the day comes round for sending the girl to school the mother discharges herself and takes the child out. "Then there is a family named W. At present they are out, but the husband is very drunken, and I believe has been at an asylum at one time. The wife separated from him, as she could not live with him at all. He was continually taking his two boys out in the same way. He would take them out of the workhouse and leave them somewhere out in the district from the early morning, and then meet them again at night, and bring them back to the workhouse, so that when the children came back they had had practically nothing to eat at all, and had wandered about in the cold until they came back at night." 1 The following resolutions were passed at a Conference of London Guardians on the 8th October, 1896 : 1. "That where an able-bodied pauper of the ordinary class has been an inmate of a workhouse at intervals ranging over a period of twelve months, and who during a period of one month has been admitted to the workhouse on more than one occasion, he may be deemed an habitual pauper, and thereupon liable to be taken before a Justice, and when brought before a Justice shall be liable, at the discretion of the Justice, having regard to all the circumstances, to be convicted and sent to a workhouse or farm colony, to be specified, and there to be detained and trained to a useful life during a period of not less than three months. "That the Act of 1889 be so extended as to give the Guardians power to assume control of the children. " That, in addition, the Local Government Board be requested to take measures to amend section 4 of the Pauper Inmates Discharge and Regulation Act, 187 1, by extending the several periods of detention named therein from 24 hours to 48 hours in the first case ; 48 hours to 96 hours in the second case ; and 72 hours to 144 hours in the third case. 2. "That a copy of the above resolution be forwarded to the Local Government Board, and that a deputation consisting of one member from each Board represented at this meeting, be appointed to wait on the Local Government Board in support thereof." 322 Children under the Poor Law We shall all agree with Mr. Carter when he says that such people are more fit for punishment than the workhouse. Nor do we disagree with the opinion of the Departmental Committee that such a state of things is cruel and disastrous in every respect ; that the children, who are so frequently admitted and discharged, suffer in health and are deprived of the advantages of education ; that the administration of the school is impaired ; and that the permanent children in the school are often liable to be contaminated physically and morally by the "ins and outs." 1 Then, " it should also be borne in mind that to allow parents to find good food, clothes, and lodging for their children whenever it may suit their convenience, tends to deaden the sense of parental responsibility. That such parents care little for the best interests of their children is proved by the reckless way in which they remove them from the schools for their own purposes, though lacking the means of supporting or educating them." 2 Thus Mr. Aslett, the superintendent of the Hammersmith branch schools, says : 3 "I have actually met children, who were in my school one day, begging outside the school next day with the parent. I remember a case, perhaps I may not give the name, but the man I remember distinctly; he had a hand-organ, and the very boy who was in my school the day before was standing by his side begging, and I have also had other cases. I had a case of a family of five children who were taken out by their parents one bitter cold winter day, and they ran away from the parents and came back and rang the school bell, asking me if I would take them in, which, of course, unfortunately I could not do." There cannot, we think, be the least doubt that the only remedy for the evil is to detain the parents of these children as well as the children themselves; for it would be in the highest degree unwise to detain only the children and let the parents go free. The latter belong to a class from which it would be almost impossible to get any contribution towards the cost of maintaining the children, and to punish them in the way suggested would be the only efficient deterrent. Mr. Jenner Fust can see no other remedy for a patent and acknowledged evil. "Until public opinion," he says, "will sanction the detention of worthless parents pending their children's education, or the removal of the latter from parents who are bringing them up in idle and 1 Report, p. 72. 2 Ibid., p. 73. 3 Evidence before the Departmental Committee, Q. 7723. u lns and Outs" 323 often vicious habits, it is to be feared little can be done" to pre- vent it. 1 It is clearly this detention of the so-called "free" man which has frightened our legislators from attempting to deal with the evil, for Mr. Knollys acknowledged to the Departmental Committee that "the evils arising from dealing with ' in and out ' cases have constantly been considered by the Local Government Board, who have not yet seen their way to suggest a remedy." 2 The Departmental Committee also shrunk from making any recom- mendation on the subject, although they were in favour of " additional powers being vested in the authorities to enable them to retain in their custody the children who were habitually to be found" in the class of "ins and outs," 3 and also of extending the powers of control already possessed by Boards of Guardians to " the children of habitual tramps and the 'in and out' classes." 4 Having, then, drawn attention to the arguments in favour of further legislation to protect these children, we will show how some Boards have dealt with the matter under the existing law so as to prevent, as much as possible, the "permanent" children from being con- taminated by the "casuals." The managers of the Kensington and Chelsea School District have met the difficulty by establishing a branch or intermediate school to which children are sent before being drafted on to the main schools at Banstead. A full account of this school, 5 which is at Hammersmith, is given in the Report of the Departmental Committee. 6 It was opened in 1883, and is certified for 135 inmates. According to the last Triennial Report of the Managers, the number of children in the schools during 1895 averaged 104. 7 When any child becomes chargeable to the parish it is first of all sent to the workhouse for the purpose of being bathed and its clothing changed, and after this has been done it is sent to the branch school. There it is kept until the fortnightly day arrives for the admission of children to the Banstead Schools. If the child belongs to the permanent class and is pronounced "healthy," it is then drafted on to Banstead; but if its parents are known to be "ins and outs" or to have entered the workhouse infirmary merely on account of some temporary inability or misfortune, it is retained at Hammersmith. No " ins and outs " children, therefore, ever enter the Banstead Schools. In addition, also, to the branch school being a temporary home for children before their admission to the main schools, it also 1 23 L. G. B. t p. 132. 2 Report, p. 73. 3 Ibid., p. 77- 4 Ibid., p. 89. 5 Marlesford Lodge. 6 pp. 74, 75. 7 Fifth Report, p. 61. 324 Children under the Poor Law forms a home for a fairly permanent class of infirmary children, who, owing to the stringency of the medical certificate at Banstead, would be rejected there. These children may be suffering from ailments taking from three to twelve months to cure, and yet may be quite capable of receiving an educational training. The more acute cases of illness are retained at the parish infirmary, and if a child develops disease in the school it is returned to the infirmary. The Report of the superintendent of the Hammersmith School (Mr. H. D. Aslett), dated the nth November, 1895, reminds us that there is no system of probation there. "Every child is at once admitted into the body of the school, and if only a day is spent here, it is spent in school. We are admitting children daily, and, as may be expected, the introduction of infection is very frequent, on an average about once a week." But owing to the great attention bestowed on the children, Mr. Aslett is able to report that "although every risk is run, yet there has been nothing approaching an epidemic, and, as far as my memory serves, the admission of children from the parishes has not been stopped for the past seven years, and possibly longer." The following figures of admissions to and discharges from the Hammersmith School for the three years ended Michaelmas, 1895, further illustrate the difficulties caused by the existence of the " in and out " class of pauper children. During that period the admissions were 1858. Of this number 644 had been transferred to Banstead, 1 105 returned to the parishes, care of parents, etc., and 109 were still in the school. Taking the daily average at 104, Mr. Aslett analyses the children as follows : Children medically unfit for Banstead . . . 50 Migratory children— the "ins and outs" . . . 30 Children under 4 years of age . . . . 15 Children awaiting transfer . . . 9 These figures are interesting as showing how large is the proportion of "ins and outs" (nearly 30 per cent.) to the total number of children who become chargeable to the rates. These children are admitted again and again. In his evidence before the Departmental Committee, Mr. Aslett spoke of children taken out by their father or mother, as the case may be, on an average once a month, while one-third of the children received are re-admissions. 1 The following particulars of the number of children admitted and re-admitted into the branch school during the year ended Lady Day, 1894, are taken from the Report of the Departmental Committee. 1 Evidence, Qs. 7717, 7718. "Ins and Outs" 3 2 5 108 - 467 children admitted once . = 467 admissions r n >. » twice . = 154 H 20 „ N 3 times . = 60 5 » II 4 times . - 20 „ 3 M II 5 times . = 15 I child ii 6 times . — 6 * 11 j> 9 times . = 9 L 1 „ »> 11 times . = II n 575 children who made . • 742 f children adr nitted mo re than once 108 As we have already said, persons who attack Boards of Guardians on account of the defective education alleged to be given in Poor Law Schools are apt to forget the numbers of children who enter them at all ages and who have received no education at all. The statistics of the branch school at Hammersmith should lead them to be more charitable. Mr. Aslett tells the school managers that the number of these children — some of them at 12 to 14 years of age ignorant of even the alphabet — does not decrease. "In explanation of this unsatisfactory state of things, he says that the parents have 'been dodging the attendance officers from district to district,' a matter of no difficulty to them, owing to the slow processes for obtaining a conviction, because the school attendance officer has first to give a warning notice, then to bring the parents before the School Attendance Committee, and not until the Committee shall have decided whether or not the case be one for prosecution can a summons be issued. In the meantime the parents remove." 1 In comparing the results of Board Schools and Poor Law Schools, these facts must be taken into consideration. It is impossible to deny the success of the experiment made by the school managers of the Kensington and Chelsea Unions. They have shown that a school of fluctuating inmates can be worked, and they deserve all the encomiums poured upon them by the Departmental Committee. "They have proved conclusively that a receiving school can be efficiently worked, and we are satisfied that very creditable educational work has been done, even under discouraging conditions." 2 While at the Forest Gate, Sutton, and Ashford schools the number of children admitted to them more than once was during the year 1893-94, 45, 59, and 75 respectively, the number of re-admissions to the Banstead Schools was only two. 8 1 Report of the Departmental Committee, p. 74. 2 See Report, p. 74. 3 For the complete figures see Report, pp. 73, 74. 326 Children under the Poor Law The advantages of receiving schools such as the one at Hammer- smith are summed up by the Departmental Committee as follows : 1. No child would remain more than a few hours in the workhouse. 2. Attention would be paid to the dietary and health of the fresh- comers. 3. The education of the children would be continued without a break. 4. Children of vicious tendencies would have less opportunity of contaminating those of the permanent class. 5. The organization and discipline of the main schools would not be disturbed. 6. The costly and ineffective system of school probationary wards might then be abandoned. But while the plan prevents the disorganization of Poor Law Schools, and the evils connected with the mixing of "permanents" and " casuals," it of course fails to mitigate the greater mischiefs. We are not aware that any other Boards of Guardians have adopted the system of a separate probationary school. 1 As a rule each school has a probationary ward attached to it, where all children who come there from the workhouse are kept for about a fortnight before they are allowed to enter the school. But this plan necessitates detention in the workhouse before the children can enter the probationary ward, whereas, as we have seen, under the Kensington and Chelsea plan children are only detained at the workhouse during the short time that is necessary to have them washed and dressed in proper clothing. It is no wonder that the Departmental Committee recom- mended the extension of the system. The official witnesses spoke in favour of it, Mr. Knollys saying that it seemed to him "the only solution of the difficulty of dealing with children of this class " (i.e., " ins and outs "). 2 But while the system can be easily applied in big Urban Unions, it is clearly not applicable to the large majority of Unions where the numbers of "indoor" children are small, unless they should agree to combine together for the purpose of establishing schools for the " ins and outs." But such schools could certainly not be made effective unless the Guardians were given increased powers of detention, and also were enabled in some way or other to deal with the parents. The danger of relieving " unworthy " parents of the burden of their 1 Mr. Craighill, the Clerk to the Gateshead-on-Tyne Board of Guardians, informs us that that Board is providing a separate home for " ins and outs" not far from the new "Cottage Homes" of the Union. 2 Evidence, Q. 16,906. See also evidence of Dr. Downes, Qs. 8709-871 1. "Ins and Outs" 327 children without punishing them in any way for throwing the responsi- bility of the maintenance and education of their children on to the ratepayers must be apparent to every one who gives the least thought to the question. The "liberty of the subject" in such cases merely means the liberty to divest themselves of all those irksome responsi- bilities which it is the duty and pleasure of the true " free citizen " to bear. CHAPTER XIII. SUGGESTED REFORMS CONCLUSION HAVING in the preceding chapters described the various systems in use at the present time for dealing with pauper children, and explained the existing powers possessed by Boards of Guardians over children when they have left the workhouse or school for service or employment, we will proceed to draw attention to certain reforms which have been advocated in various quarters in recent years. The " Reformers " may be divided into two classes, those who wish to remove pauper children entirely from the control and supervision of the Poor Law Authorities to that of the Educational Authorities, and those who consider that, while no good cause has yet been shown for such a drastic measure, certain reforms in details of administration and treatment are urgently needed. We need not waste much space in dealing with the first class of reformers. Although a brand new Association 1 has been formed to advance their views, it is not likely that they will see them carried out, at any rate in the immediate future. It is doubtful whether the country is prepared for such an upheaval of the English Poor Law System as is involved in their proposals j and it is certain that a much wider inquiry will be required than was made by the Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools. It cannot be too frequently pointed out that these reformers have only one real argu- ment in favour of the " root change " advocated by them. It is that children brought up under the care and control of Boards of Guardians are thereby branded with the "pauper taint," which would not be the case if they were maintained and educated by other non-Poor Law Authorities. It is true that they advance other arguments in favour of the change, but they cannot show that it is impossible to carry out the reforms they want — supposing them to be all desirable — under the existing system. For example, it is quite possible to place the educational inspection of all pauper children 1 The State Children's Aid Association. Suggested Reforms 329 under the Education Department, and, as a matter of fact, the vast majority of them are at the present time educated under the inspection of that Department. 1 The " pauper taint " argument being then the only one which might be supposed to have some force, we must examine it somewhat carefully. In the first place it is well to state that the expression is one which has been invented by the upper classes of society, and is, we believe, absolutely unknown among the poorer classes, who judge men and women from the concrete and not from the abstract point of view, *>., by their capability for work and by their conduct. It has not yet been proved that the mere fact of children having received their education and training under Poor Law Authorities is against their getting on in the world so well as other children, when they have the same protection during their early years of service as children brought up in the ordinary schools, and we have already shown how much is being done to give them an equally good start in the race of life with other children of their own class. We know that the demand for children from the Poor Law Schools is greater than the supply. We know that they very seldom come back to the workhouse at any time during their lives. The statistics which we have already given in previous chapters show this most clearly. If the fact were not so, we should expect to find our workhouses full of adult able-bodied paupers, but we know that the very large majority of inmates of workhouses are the aged and infirm. The children have in fact been depauperised, and many of them have mounted high in the social scale. Instances of their success in life are too numerous to set out here. Mr. Layton Lowndes, who was for so many years connected with the South-East Shropshire District School, tells us : "I heard yesterday" (9th June, 1896) "from one boy who was for many years in the school, who is now head-master of a large Board School in Bristol, and I have heard from another one who is sub-librarian at the Birmingham School of Art, and from another who holds a very important position ; he went into domestic service, and is now a scout at All Souls' College, Oxford. Those who know what Oxford life is must know what a very important part in Oxford life — in University life — a college scout occupies, and a man who is able, fairly and honestly, to take such a position as that, is able to take his place even at this Conference." 2 1 Probably not more than 20,000 children out of the 240,000 who receive relief from the rates are being educated at the present time under the inspection of the educational inspectors of the Local Government Board. 2 Poor Law Conference Reports, 1896, p. 10 1. 32,0 Children under the Poor Law How grateful the children are for all that is done for them will be witnessed to by Guardians, school managers, masters, matrons, and Poor Law officials of every grade. They do not during their school life know anything of the " pauper taint " with which chattering philanthropists (to use the term for which we have to thank the Spectator) have labelled them, nor do they find when they go out to earn their own living that they are shunned and despised by others of their own class. When they have succeeded in getting on in the world — and we know that the very large majority of them do so — they feel rather proud of their old school than otherwise, they keep up an affectionate correspondence with their old masters and mistresses, they re-visit the schools on festal days and other occasions, and in many other ways show their gratitude to those who have cared for them so well during their years of helplessness. We will give a striking instance of the affection they feel for their old school. On the occasion of the distribution of prizes at the Strand Union Schools, Edmonton, on the 24th July, 1896, a deputation of six soldiers presented to the Board of Guardians, on behalf of themselves and some of their old schoolfellows, a large photographic group of all of them, together with the following address, which was read by a troop sergeant-major of the Royal Engineers. " To the Board of Guardians, Strand Schools, Edmonton. " The following, as boys of the school, now serving in various regiments of Her Majesty's forces at present stationed in the Aldershot command, are desirous of forwarding for your acceptance a photo- graphic group of themselves. They desire, at the same time, to state that they cherish, and will ever continue to do, the memories of the happy days when they were receiving that tuition that has been the true cause of any little success that may have attended them in their chosen career. With deepest gratitude we are, etc." Here follow the names of one company quartermaster-sergeant, one troop sergeant-major, two sergeants, two second corporals, two lance- corporals, ten trumpeters, four drivers, two sappers, and one bugler. The Chairman, in accepting the picture and address on behalf of the Board, thanked the deputation, and assured them that their spontaneous action would be highly appreciated ; adding that it spoke volumes for the good management of their schools when old scholars like those before him, who had made their way in life, and served Her Majesty with credit, as evinced by the medals on their breasts, were not afraid to come forward and say a good word on behalf of their old school. Suggested Reforms 331 It is also material to state that of the twenty-five soldiers who signed the above address, no fewer than twenty-one were Royal Engineers, a fact significant of the excellent training and education which those men must have received when boys in the Strand Union Schools. Those persons, indeed, who are so fond of the expression " pauper taint" are acting most cruelly to the children who cannot defend themselves. That there is such a thing as a "pauper taint" we are free to admit, but it cannot be limited to any one class. It is found quite as frequently in the very highest circles of society as in the lowest. Let any one of our readers look round the circle of his relations and acquaintances and count up how many of them may be considered " failures " in that they are, either from incapacity or unwillingness to earn their own living, dependent on others for support ; or, even if they may be independent, are unprofitable or vicious members of society. He will at once see that social failures are by no means confined to one class ; every family has at least one black sheep — and, in judging our poorer neighbours, we should never forget that the failures among them are conspicuous because it falls upon the public to support them, while the burden of the others is usually borne by their relations. But these others are none the less morally paupers, and affected with the "pauper taint." As to the "hereditary pauper taint," it is very rare to discover cases of it nowadays. In his Report for 1884 Mr. Mozley quotes from a paper read by Mr. Alexander Macdougall on the 29th January, 1894, before the General Purposes Committee of the Manchester Board of Guardians, and entitled, "An inquiry into the causes of pauperism in the township of Manchester," and comments on it as follows: 1 " The conclusion of this interesting paper bears on the results of the education of pauper children, and it may be of advantage to quote it. The question, whether the adult inmates of workhouses or the adult recipients of outdoor relief were to any large extent paupers from birth, and brought up either in the workhouse or Poor Law School, is clearly all important for the decision of the question whether the workhouse children of ten, twenty, or thirty years ago have remained in pauperism or not (pp. 10-12) : — "'I had always present in my mind the desire to form a reliable estimate of the proportion of hereditary paupers in the township, to those who become chargeable from misfortune or misconduct. I had for a long time supposed that there were on the books a large number who had been pauperised from birth, and who were almost continuously in receipt of relief — paupers born with what is called the "pauper taint," and who, unless strong measures were taken to force them into habits of industry, would not make any continued efforts to support 1 14 L. G. B., pp. 48, 49. 332 Children under the Poor Law themselves. To my great surprise I found that such cases are very few ; in the whole of the 254 cases reported upon, only one of this description appears — that of a woman born at the Knutsford Work- house, and who has from time to time had relief in various Unions since. This led me to imagine that the cases taken in the order as they stood in the books had failed to contain the fair average of persons of this description. To get at the actual facts I have made further inquiry, and asked the relieving officers to examine their books and point out any cases of persons who, in their opinion, had begun life as paupers. They have taken considerable pains to do so, with the result that of the entire number of out-relief cases there are not more than nine of this description. Mr. Roberts has again assisted me by going with me to the workhouse and hospital for the special purpose of searching for these cases, and the conclusion that we have arrived at is that not more than fifteen of the whole of the inmates can be recognized as born paupers. Of course there are numbers of children in outdoor cases, and in the workhouse, and in the Swinton Schools, who were born at the time that their parents were in receipt of relief; but of persons over sixteen years of age born paupers, applying on their own account for relief, the highest estimate cannot reach one per cent, of the total number of paupers. I have done my utmost to ascertain the true state of things in this matter, and have asked that for some months to come my attention may be called to any future application from persons whom the relieving officer may suspect to be of this description, and I will endeavour to obtain the history of each one. " ' In one respect this fact is very satisfactory. It proves that in the township we are not fostering paupers, that the methods of administra- tion are such that pauperism is not perpetuated in families more than to a very slight extent. Also that the training of children in the Swinton Schools is successful in preparing them to be self-supporting, for though cases do occur where boys and girls return to the workhouse after situations are found for them (and from the fact that — when it happens we hear of it in the board-room — the numbers, from the prominence given to them, may appear to be numerous), they are, in fact, very few, and bear a very small proportion to those children who become self-supporting, and whose cases, in consequence, do not attract attention.' "It will be agreed," continues Mr. Mozley, "that the result ascer- tained by Mr. Macdougall is very satisfactory, and it will be observed that it is drawn not merely from the 254 cases originally selected for inquiry, and which were, as it appears, taken at random, but from the whole number of paupers in the township of Manchester, amounting to thousands, that is, to all who were over sixteen years of age. There is, I may remark, a possible misapprehension of Mr. Macdougall's meaning, which, if it were entertained, would reduce the significance of his conclusion very much, and which it may, therefore, be expedient to guard against. If, when he speaks of 'born paupers,' he merely meant persons actually born in the workhouse, or born while their parents were in receipt of relief, it might appear that a great many were omitted who had become paupers at a very early age, though not Suggested Reforms 333 actually born under the conditions indicated. But Mr. Macdougall informs me that by the phrase ' a born pauper ' he means any person who was supported out of the rates during some part of the period of infancy, that is, up to three years of age. I think this a very fair definition of the term 'hereditary pauper,' and when it is found that such persons form but one per cent, of the total number of paupers, it must be conceded that hereditary pauperism is for practical purposes almost non-existent. It may be remembered that Mrs. Nassau Senior in the year 1873 found that out of 1490 pauper women who, during four months, entered forty-seven Metropolitan workhouses, ninety-eight had been for upwards of five years educated in workhouse schools. (See Third Annual Report of the Local Government Board, p. 349.) Though this calculation does not enter into direct comparison with that of Mr. Macdougall, it is not by any means so satisfactory a return. But Mrs. Senior also found that out of the above-mentioned 1490 pauper women those who had been educated in workhouse schools for a less period than five years did not amount to more than eighty-four, and, considering the number of children who pass through Poor Law Schools, this number is small. 1 " Mr. Culley, formerly one of the General Inspectors of your Board, has been kind enough to supply me with a return, which, though it does not enter into exact comparison either with the calculation of Mr. Macdougall or with that of Mrs. Nassau Senior, resembles much more nearly the conclusions of the former. A speaker at the Social Science Congress which was held at Nottingham in 1882, said that he believed that seven-tenths of the tramps of the country were brought up in their early days in workhouses. How singularly reckless this statement was is apparent from the fact, ascertained by Mr. Culley, that out of 871 vagrants who, during the week ended 21st October, 1882, were relieved in ten Unions of the North-Eastern District, only eleven had been for any period in a workhouse school ; that is only 1*26 per cent, instead of 70 per cent, as affirmed by the speaker at the Nottingham Congress. The vagrants were questioned by the masters of the several workhouses, the ten Unions being Hexham, Newcastle- on-Tyne, Tynemouth, Auckland, Darlington, Durham, Gateshead, Hartlepool, Stockton, Sunderland. The 1*26 per cent, of this calculation is in singularly near agreement with the 'not 1 per cent.' of Mr. Macdougall; and the fact elicited is very satisfactory." The truth is that no proof is forthcoming that Poor Law children do not get on well in after-life, and that their success is hampered by their having been educated and brought up under the Poor Law. If they can do their work well, and are painstaking and honest, the employer does not care to inquire how they have been brought up; and this book will have been written in vain if we have not been able to show that those children, who have been long enough under the 1 We have progressed since 1873, as th e later figures of Mr. Lockwood, presented to the Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools, and Lord Wark- worth's Return, show. (See ante, p. 128). 334 Children under the Poor Law control of the Guardians to obtain the full benefit of the education and training given to them, do turn out respectable and self-supporting men and women. No good cause has yet been shown for removing the children to the care and control of new authorities, and thus upsetting the work of our Poor Law System by placing one section of paupers under one set of authorities, and the other section under another set. As we have said, the placing of the educational inspection of the children in Poor Law Schools under the Education Department raises a very different question, and one to which there is not the least objection in principle, if it is possible in practice. But we altogether deny that the education of the children in Poor Law Schools has suffered in the least from its being under the inspection of the very able Inspectors of the Local Government Board. Such a "root change" as the one we have been considering has never, so far, been recommended by any Royal Commission, nor by any Parliamentary or Departmental Committee. The Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools never went so far as this, and even their recommendation has not been accepted by expert authorities. Besides, this Committee had to deal with the question from the point of view of London alone. We cannot, however, agree with their conclusion that "no mere reform of the management and local arrangements of the existing schools would be adequate or practicable, if their administration be left in the hands of the present authorities," 1 nor with their advocacy of the establishment of a new Central Metropolitan Authority, to which all Metropolitan pauper children over three years of age should be handed over, and which should have the absolute care of them so long as they remained chargeable to the rates. They recommended that this Central Authority should be entrusted with the following duties : — i. Controlling and supervising all the London institutions for Poor Law children, charging the expenses to a common fund. 2. Receiving and classifying all children, and dealing with them in isolation or probation wards until they are in a fit state to associate with other children. 3. Organizing separate institutions for the " ins and outs." 4. Providing for the better classification of children suffering from diseases such as ophthalmia and ringworm, when isolation from healthy children is imperative, but where, nevertheless, it is quite possible for many of the children to be under continuous instruction. 5. Providing and managing one or more seaside homes for such 1 Report, p. 139. Suggested Reforms 335 ailing or other children as may be medically certified to require residence thereat. 6. Providing special institutions, if found desirable, for children of defective intellect, and crippled, afflicted or depraved children. 7. Settling and carrying out the arrangements for boarding out such children as the competent authority determines shall be boarded out, and for the inspection of such children when boarded out. 8. Providing and managing training institutions where children who have been boarded out or otherwise provided for, may be fitted for service or various industrial pursuits. 9. Making suitable provision for the emigration of children, and for securing adequate reports upon their subsequent career. 10. Appointing an adequate staff of inspectors, who should report to the Central Metropolitan Authority upon the whole of the institu- tions maintained or aided by them. 1 This Central Authority was also to be given the power of appointing the superior officers of the schools, and these officers were only to be appointed for five years. 2 Upon the first point the Committee condescended to give us no reason for the change, while as to the second point Mr. Brooke Lambert and Mr. Vallance were at variance with their colleagues. "It is not, we think, equitable that persons devoting some of the best years of their lives to the work of Poor Law Institutions should be thus thrown upon the world. Especially is this true in the case of superintendents, masters, and (under present con- ditions) teachers, in the Metropolitan area. At the same time we admit the importance of Guardians or managers being enabled to determine the appointment of an incompetent or negligent officer, with the consent of the Local Government Board, this consent to be given, not as at present on the result of an official inquiry, but upon the Board being satisfied in regard to the bond fide adjudication of the Guardians or managers upon matters affecting the character, conduct, or efficiency of the officer." 3 We venture to say that the change suggested in the passage quoted would give satisfaction to the managers of Poor Law Schools, while really good and efficient officers would be quite as much protected as they are at present against unjust dismissals. The Departmental Committee threw no light upon the question how the new Central Authority, supposing it were desirable, was to be constituted. They did not recommend the Metropolitan Asylums Board. They thought that if the new and important functions which we have enumerated were to be entrusted to a separate body, there 1 Report, pp. 144, 145. 2 Ibid., p. 170. 3 Ibid., p. 175. 3 36 Children under the Poor Law might be some advantage in constituting a new Board which would make its own traditions. They were not prepared to recommend direct election, but thought that the Guardians who had hitherto managed the schools should be represented on the new authority to be constituted. 1 The Report of the Committee contains a separate chapter on "Finance," 2 and yet, while they criticised the cost of the existing system, they had not a word to say as to what the carrying out of their recommendation would cost. Nor did they say whether the necessary money was to be raised from imperial or local sources. The ex- pression "children of the State," of which the Committee are so enamoured, seems to point to the money being raised from imperial sources. If so, country ratepayers will have something to say to the proposal. But of course the London ratepayers would have to pay for the vagaries of this new Central Authority, which it was proposed should have its own staff of inspectors and officers, and therefore its own offices. There is an ominous ring in the suggestion of the Committee that a great deal of the Government supervision and authoritative right of veto which had hitherto prevailed might be dispensed with. 3 The Central Authority was to be left a completely free hand, and was to "have full power to appoint and dismiss all its staff and settle their salaries." Those of our readers who have read our previous chapters will be led, we think, to deny the premises from which the Committee drew their conclusion. But it is not necessary either to admit or deny those premises. It is sufficient to say that there is no reasonable prospect of the suggestions of the Committee being accepted. We need not there- fore examine the obvious arguments against their adoption; nor, for the same reason, need we do more than mention the proposal of Sir John Gorst and Mrs. Barnett that the new Central Authority should be an educational authority, and that it should be under the sole super- vision of the Education Department. But the proposal of the Rev. Brooke Lambert and Mr. Vallance did merit, and received, careful consideration. They were the only two "expert" members of the Committee who had a practical knowledge of Poor Law administration. The one was, and still is, an active Guardian of the Poor, and the other, the very experienced and able clerk of one of the best administered of London Unions, viz., Whitechapel. Mrs. Barnett has never, we believe, been a Guardian of the Poor, and her extreme bias against aggregated schools makes anything which she says about them less valuable than if she were more impartial. The two members of the Committee 1 Report, p. 145. 2 Chapter xxiii. 3 Report, p. 145. Suggested Reforms 337 mentioned also favoured the establishment of a new central body. They did not say authority, and they did not use capital letters. But this central body was to be representative of the Guardians, and was only to be charged with (1) the provision and management of one or more institutions, (a) for the care and education of children suffering from eye, skin, and scalp diseases, (b) for the technical training of boys (the needs of girls being probably already met), (c) for children requiring seaside air and other convalescent aid, and (d) for children who, by reason of defective intellect and physical infirmity, cannot properly be trained in association with other children in ordinary schools, and without special training would be unable to take their places in the world, and (2) the making of arrangements for, and supervision of, " boarded-out " children, including their inspection in the country homes. 1 Their proposal, therefore, was one of very limited reform, and left the children either under the control of the Guardians, or under that of a body representative of them. It was, in fact, a proposal involving compulsory combination of London Boards of Guardians for the special purpose of dealing with particular classes of children. Except as to giving to such a central body powers over "boarded-out" children there is nothing specially objectionable in this proposal. The Government, who in face of the Report of the Departmental Com- mittee felt themselves under an obligation to do something, adopted the idea. The Order which was the subject of so much discussion during the early months of 1897 was the result. This Order 2 proposed that a new central body constituted similarly to the Metropolitan Asylums Board should be established for (1) children suffering from ophthalmic or other contagious disease of the eye, (2) children suffering from contagious disease of the skin or scalp, (3) children requiring either special treatment during convalescence, or the benefit of seaside air, (4) children who, by reason of defect of intellect or physical infirmity, cannot properly be trained in association with children in ordinary schools, and (5) children who are ordered by two justices or a magistrate to be taken under the Industrial Schools Act, 1866, to a workhouse or an asylum of the district. It will be observed that the Order did not authorise the new body to deal with the technical training of boys, nor with "boarded-out" children, although it gave the new body power over "remand" children. Indeed, the objections to handing over the responsibility for " boarded- out" children from individual Boards of Guardians to a central body are very manifest. 1 Report, pp. 174, 175. 2 Times, 23rd January, 1897. Z 338 Children under the Poor Law In the first place, it is doubtful whether such a body would possess the influence and authority necessary for controlling Boarding-out Committees. These committees consist chiefly of ladies and gentlemen, some of them of high social rank, and their constitution and the supervision of their work require delicate handling. It is probable that many of them would refuse to submit to the dictates of any but a Government Department. Further, at present both Metropolitan and provincial Boards of Guardians send children to Boarding-out Committees, who are all authorised by the Local Government Board. If another body were empowered to organize Boarding-out Committees, there would be two sets of Boarding-out Committees throughout the country. If these two sets of committees were kept separate, and authorised to receive children from only one source, Metropolitan or provincial, it would often deprive Guardians not only from sending children to suitable places, but would limit the committees in the selection of children for suitable homes. At present a large number of committees receive children from both Metropolitan and provincial Unions, and for some time it would be impossible to alter existing arrangements. . If, on the other hand, the same committees were authorised by the Local Government Board to receive children from the provincial Unions, and by the Metropolitan body to receive London children, the com- mittees would be under the control of two bodies. This would result in friction, and additional trouble and worry to the committee, and it is not likely that many committees would put up with it. The same committee would also be visited by two sets of inspectors, one appointed by the Local Government Board, and the other by the Metropolitan body. This would be a waste of labour and expense, both of salaries and of travelling, and would involve overlapping. The Metropolitan body would also not be likely to secure the services of such inspectors as are at the command of a Government Department. But when the " boarded-out " children are left out of account, the remaining children requiring special treatment are comparatively few in number, and so it was generally felt that the setting up a new central body to deal with them was like using a steam-hammer to crush a nut. Besides which, some London Boards of Guardians have shown themselves quite capable of dealing satisfactorily with all classes of children. It is only the poorer Boards of Guardians which have laboured under difficulties in the matter. A central body was already in existence, viz., the Metropolitan Asylums Board. No good reason has ever been advanced against its taking charge of such of the Suggested Reforms 339 children as individual Boards of Guardians could not satisfactorily deal with. Consequently there arose so strong an opposition to the Order that it had to be withdrawn, and a new Order was issued on the 2nd April, 1897, by which the Metropolitan Asylums District Board had to make provision for the following classes of children who are chargeable to Unions in parishes within the Metropolitan Asylum District, viz. : (1) for children suffering from an ophthalmic or other contagious disease of the eye, (2) for children suffering from con- tagious disease of the skin or scalp, (3) for children requiring either special treatment during convalescence or the benefit of seaside air, (4) for children who, by reason of defect of intellect or physical infirmity, cannot properly be trained in association with children in ordinary schools, and (5) for children who are advised by two justices or a magistrate to be taken under the Industrial Schools Act, 1866, to a workhouse or an asylum of the district. The Metropolitan Asylums Board, immediately on receipt of this Order, appointed a special Committee to inquire what steps should be taken for giving effect to it, and this Committee made its report on the 1 8th May, 1897. The Report showed that the managers would have to make immediate provision for (1) 800 cases of ophthalmia and other contagious diseases of the eye, (2) 400 cases of ringworm of the scalp, and (3) 150 remand children. The Committee had so far not been able to arrive at the number of convalescent, weak- minded, and physically infirm children who would have to be provided for. As to the ophthalmic cases, they recommended the Board to provide for 800 cases in three institutions with administrative buildings, and arranged so that each institution could be enlarged for a maximum of 400 patients if necessary; they suggested that the Hanwell Ophthalmic Hospital, which can accommodate 300 patients, should be one of the institutions. For convalescent children they suggested that the establishment of the South Metropolitan School District at Heme Bay, and that of the St. Pancras Board of Guardians at Margate, which together can accommodate 226 cases, should be taken over by the Board, and that if further provision was required it should be supplied by means of small houses for about twenty-five children each. For those intellectually and physically infirm children who could not properly be trained in association with children in ordinary schools, they suggested that single houses should be rented in the vicinity of some of the special schools of the London School Board, where groups of children (say eight in each) could be properly trained and cared for by foster-mothers, and where at the same time they could enjoy the advantages of the special educational training which 34° Children under the Poor Law had been provided for cases of this class by the London School Board. As to remand children, they proposed that provision should be made for 150 of this class by renting, purchasing, or erecting three con- veniently situated houses — two on the north, and one on the south side of the Thames. For the management of these various institutions a "Children's Committee" was to be established, to consist (at first) of twelve members, but which might be enlarged if necessary. The only addition to be made to the staff of the Board was to be two more clerks. This scheme, which has been accepted by the Asylums Board, will be admitted by reasonable persons to be adequate to the circumstances of the case. Those Boards of Guardians who have already provided for their ophthalmic cases at their own Poor Law Schools will probably not take advantage of the Order, but that the Order will be welcomed by many Boards cannot be doubted. Those Unions or parishes which take advantage of the Order will, of course, each have to pay for the clothing and maintenance of its own children out of the local rates, but the general expense of management of the different institutions will be borne by each individual parish according to its rateable value as provided by the Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867. It is improbable that any further change of authority will for some time to come be made. Indeed, there is not a single real reform in the Poor Law, apart from revolutionary or " root " changes, which cannot be carried out under the existing authorities. Another effect of the Report of the Departmental Committee has been the issue of an Order prescribing Regulations with respect to the school attendance of children in workhouses and Poor Law Schools, and the time during which they may be employed in industrial training or manual or industrial work. This Order, which is dated the 30th January, 1897, is set out in full in the Appendix. 1 The rules are sufficiently stringent, and in some of the best managed schools they have been found to interfere in some particulars with their proper management. It is satisfactory, therefore, to learn that the Local Government Board are willing to relax them whenever they are satisfied that such will be the effect. There is one of the rules which certainly seems to us exceedingly unwise. Article IX. of the Order, which directs how the time-tables are to be prepared, also provides that they shall be hung up in some conspicuous place where they will be open to the inspection of the children to whom they relate. Could any 1 Post, Appendix E., p. 405. Suggested Reforms 341 regulation be imagined more subversive of discipline ? We hope that this paragraph will not be long allowed to disfigure what is generally admitted to be a useful Order. Surely the Local Government Board might trust the School Managers' Committees and Officers to conform to the spirit of the Order. We will now proceed to refer to reforms as to which, it may almost be said, the mind of Poor Law Guardians is made up. These reforms cannot be effected without the aid of Parliament. They relate to the acquisition by Boards of Guardians of further powers of control over the children. As to the " ins and outs," we have already gone fully into the question of their detention. 1 As to the other children, increased powers of control are wanted when they have gone into service or employment. We have already described how much good work can be effected by voluntary agencies in looking after the children during their early years of service and employment. But this good work has been much hampered by the little control which the law gives them over the children. For instance, Boards of Guardians cannot under the Act of 1876 2 delegate any powers to voluntary agencies which they do not legally possess themselves. It will be remembered that under the Act of 1 85 1 directly a child leaves its first situation the power of the Guardians over it ceases. They have no further control over the child, and are no longer bound to see that it is visited. Then if a situation turns out to be unsatisfactory there is no power to remove the child from it. The child is practically its own master, and it is easy to imagine, even in cases where the child really wished to leave its situation, the power which an unprincipled master or mistress could exercise over it in order to retain it. The hands of Boards of Guardians undoubtedly require strengthening in such cases. We understand that a Bill will be introduced into Parlia- ment giving Guardians power to adopt children who have been maintained for any length of time out of the rates. Under the Poor Law Act, 1889, 3 Guardians have power to retain the control of children deserted by their parents up to the age of sixteen in the case of boys, and to that of eighteen in the case of girls. Such an extension of the law as is proposed by this Bill has long been desired by Boards of Guardians; and, while certainly going a long way to remedy the evil to which we have referred, it would of course carry with it the duty of visiting so long as the child remained under the control of the Guardians, whether it had changed its situation or not in the meantime. 1 Chapter xii. 2 Ante, p. 295. 3 52 & 53 Vict. ch. 56, s. I. 34 2 Children under the Poor Law As to orphan children, the case for the extension of the Act is very well put in a letter dated the 19th December, 1893, fr° m certain lady Guardians to the President of the Local Government Board : " Sir, — Many women Guardians and others, much interested in the welfare of orphan pauper children, desire that the age of control of Guardians should be the same as that of deserted pauper children placed under the Poor Law Act, 1889. Could the Act be amended so as to include orphans? Undesirable relations, such as grand- parents, uncles and aunts, etc., frequently interfere with these children when first placed out either in service or in a trade. They would abstain from thus interfering if they found that orphan children were still under the control of Boards of Guardians. There are also cases in which children, supposed to be orphans, have turned out to be merely deserted, but too late to place them under the Act as it stands at present. We wish them to be made equally safe, whether deserted or orphans. The strict legal guardianship over orphan children terminates when they cease to be chargeable, therefore it is felt that it would be a great advantage in the case of orphan girls to have control extended to the age of eighteen, a wilful and thoughtless girl of sixteen without parents being too young to be her own mistress. We believe that all associations for the care of young servants will endorse this view. We, therefore, venture to hope that you will kindly consider our request by proposing this alteration to Parliament, and getting their assent to the same. We beg to remain, yours faithfully, " Mary Clifford, Guardian, Barton Regis Union. Louisa Twining, Guardian, Tonbridge. Elizabeth L. Lidgett, Guardian, St. Pancras Parish. Ellen McKee, Guardian, St. Marylebone Parish. Georgina Bramston, Guardian, St. Georges {Hanover Square) Union." But there seems no good reason against the Act being extended to other children who have been maintained for a length of time at the cost of the rates, and whose future may appear to the Guardians to be imperilled. 1 These children do require protection in starting in life. The evidence given before the Departmental Committee was unanimous on this point. Miss Poole gave a very striking instance of the necessity for Guardians acquiring extended powers of adoption for 1 The Departmental Committee on Metropolitan Poor Law Schools classify these children as follows : (a) Neglected children who have been maintained at the cost of the rates. (&) The children of paupers of the permanent class whose character or mental deficiency may render them unfit to have the control of their offspring. (c) The children of habitual tramps, and the "in and out" classes, (d) The children of parents who, living outside the workhouse, have had their children separately maintained and educated at the cost of the rates ; and (e) orphan children- chargeable to the rates. Suggested Reforms 343 all classes of children who had been brought up by them, and she told the Committee that she knew of several cases in point. In one case 1 the girl was placed in what turned out to be a most undesirable situation. She never had any wages, and she was never allowed to see a visitor, though the mistress took her with the understanding that she should have a visitor. She had never been allowed to go back to the school or to go to any treat, though constantly invited. Every effort had been made by the M. A. B. Y. S. and the Guardians to remove her, but she was under terror from her master and mistress. She always said when seen only before them — and she could not be seen alone— that she did not wish to leave. So she stayed on. Miss Poole added : "It seems to me a failing that when a girl is placed no one has a definite right to give notice for her. I think in some way or another it should be made possible for the Guardians to have the right to give notice until the girl is sixteen." This particular girl was seventeen or eighteen, but she was only fourteen when the Guardians wished to remove her. As to the age at which the control should cease there is some difference of opinion, but the balance seems in favour of eighteen both for boys and girls. Boys are of course more able to protect themselves than girls, but, as Miss Clifford said in her evidence before the Departmental Committee, such an extension of age " could not do the boys any harm, and it would do the girls a great deal of good." The recommendation of the Departmental Committee on Poor Law Schools that the age at which control should cease should be raised to twenty-one in both sexes, seems to us to go a little too far, and merely rests on a letter written to the Local Government Board by a lady. This letter is quoted in Miss Mason's evidence, 2 but Miss Mason herself carefully refrained from expressing any opinion as to what the limit of age should be. 3 At the age of eighteen young people of both sexes (unless in the special cases of those mentally affected in any way) may safely be expected to be in a position to protect themselves. Upon other reforms there is not such a unanimity of opinion. To us it still seems that the combination of Unions, especially in country districts, for providing for the education and training of their indoor pauper children is the right principle. No barrack school is necessary. The school can be arranged on the " cottage homes " plan, and the children can attend the ordinary public elementary schools, the District contributing to the expenses of those schools at so much per child. There will always be a certain number of children who, even if boarding-out were very much extended, cannot be boarded out; and 1 Evidence, Q. 4106. 2 Q. 14,458. 3 Q. 14,463. 344 Children under the Poor Law the reasons which led the Poor Law Board to advocate the formation of School Districts, and which we have referred to in our introductory chapter, are still as valid and strong as ever. The Guardians of small country Unions find great difficulty in dealing with the few children who remain in the workhouses. An additional advantage of the suggested combination would be that the inclination of Boards of Guardians to give outdoor relief, almost as a matter of course, to widows with children would not be so strong as it is at present. The arguments against this common practice have been stated fully in our book on The Better Administration of the Poor Law, and it is not necessary to repeat them here. We are convinced that hereditary pauperism, if it can be shown to exist, is much more likely to be found in those Unions where outdoor relief is freely given than in others where it is restricted. In properly arranged schools, separated from the workhouses, it is possible to train and educate the children in such a way that they are pretty certain never to be obliged to enter the workhouse at any time during the remainder of their life. On the other hand, the grant of outdoor relief to parents on account of their families brings with it the regular visits of the relieving officer, to which the children get accustomed, and when they grow up and have families, they have in turn no shame in becoming applicants for relief. It was given to their parents, why should not they have it? It is outdoor relief which fosters pauperism, i.e., dependence upon the public for support, and not the life in a Poor Law School. But if it is impossible to get the small Unions to combine, another very good plan would be for Guardians to utilise their powers to send their workhouse children to the schools of other Unions. We have already quoted what Mr. Byam Davies has to say on the subject. 1 Although, however, such a plan would work economically, it is difficult to overcome the objection which Guardians have to sending the children under their care to another workhouse, for they thereby lose all control over their management and education. For the purpose of improving the technical instruction and industrial training of the children in Metropolitan Poor Law Schools, it has been suggested that a highly qualified technical instructor (to be duly sanctioned by the Local Government Board) should be appointed as itinerant teacher for all the schools. Mr. Wyndham Holgate 2 described in 1893 a scheme which had been formulated at a Conference of School Managers and Guardians with this object. It was to be the duty of the instructor "to superintend and be 1 Ante, p. 174 ; see also 20 P. L. B., p. 143 ; and 2 L. G. B., p. 95. 2 23Z.G. £.,p. 153. Suggested Reforms 345 responsible for the whole work, to visit each school at stated intervals, and to give theoretical and practical lectures on subjects to be selected, directing and supervising the present staff of industrial trainers who will carry on the work in his absence. The lectures will be simple and yet eminently educational, they will teach the principles which underlie a trade rather than the trade itself; in carpentry, for instance, the boy will learn to use his drawing powers, to know the use and names of tools, to distinguish between woods, whence they come, and for what purpose each is most suitable ; in a word, he is taught to use both eye and brain. In cookery, again, besides learning the principles which form the method of working, the necessity for cleanliness, stove and kitchen management, and marketing are all dealt with. For to teach a girl how to buy food is as important as to teach her how to cook it. Similarly with needlework, girls are taught to use the eye for measure- ments, to test materials, to know the effect of sizing, and of close or open woven goods. By such methods, the eye, the hand, and the brain are stimulated, with the result that the boy or girl returns to ordinary school-work refreshed, and not, as is now constantly the case, with both physical and mental power wearied. That the suggestions now being considered are not mere fancies has been sufficiently proved by the happy working of a cookery class for the girls at the Central London Schools ; it has proved most satisfactory during the few months it has been on foot, and the girls show an interest in their lessons hitherto unknown." We have seen how the technical training recommended by Mr. Holgate is already carried on in individual schools. Besides advocating this plan for the better technical instruction of the older children, Mr. Holgate is also in favour of the employment of a peripatetic teacher for kindergarten purposes. 1 We have already referred to the "dietary" question. It certainly seems to us that the managers of the large schools might have been given more discretion in the matter. As a general rule the children are given the legal amount of food at meals, whether they can eat it or not. 2 It has been suggested that the same amount might be given in two helpings, and this certainly seems reasonable. The children are accustomed to have such a quantity of food on their plate at one time that they are encouraged to leave it. 1 Evidence before the Departmental Committee, Q. 15,260. a Dr. Bridges, however, told the Departmental Committee that it was now the usual practice to apportion the total amount which had to be given to the whole batch of children, between the children according to the needs of each one. (Evidence, Qs. 773-7770 346 Children under the Poor Law Dr. Downes told the Departmental Committee that at Banstead and Hanwell Schools the children were not tied down to any rigid scale. "The house mothers draw what provisions are necessary to feed the children, so that the children get about as much as they want." When there was any undue amount of waste he attributed it to a want of care in serving the food according to the children's appetite. But he said that, where the food was distributed according to the children's needs, it was very curious to see how closely the results came out with what was allowed in the ordinary dietary tables. 1 At none of the schools now, so far as we know, do the children wear a uniform dress. The only distinction between them and other children is that they go out to school more tidy and clean than the 'free' children. There is, indeed, no single reform in detail which cannot easily be effected without an entire change in the whole system. REMAND CHILDREN. Mr. Holgate drew attention as early as 1880 to a matter which he considered was "of grave importance in connection with Poor Law education." He said : 2 " I allude to the power which magistrates have of sending children from the streets to the workhouse for temporary detention; and although it is true that the Guardians may, under the second clause of Article 99 of the General Consolidated Order, 3 class such children by themselves, it is often the case that the workhouse does not admit of such separate classification, and that consequently they are associated with the other children in school, in play-yard, and in dormitories, at the imminent risk of contaminating the virtuous and well-conducted members of the school. I notice, therefore, with much satisfaction that at a deputation as to the treatment of juvenile delinquents which was recently received by the Home Secretary, his attention was specially drawn to this point, and the necessity of separating pauperism and crime was fully admitted by him. I under- stand that a Committee is now sitting to consider the general position of truant, industrial and reformatory schools, and I venture to hope that the opportunity will not be lost of dealing effectually with the evil which I have mentioned." The evil still exists, although in London the Metropolitan Asylums Board now has power to deal with these children. But the complaints of Guardians in the matter are not limited to London, and it is much to be desired that some arrangement should be made for providing for these children elsewhere than in the workhouse. 1 Evidence, Qs. 9021-9027. See also ante, p. in. 2 10 L. G. B., p. 191. 3 Order of 24th July, 1847. Sitggested Reforms 347 STATISTICS. We have in previous chapters given statistics to show how compara- tively few are the failures among children who have received their education in Poor Law Institutions. Needless to say these statistics are attacked. In all the returns made by Boards of Guardians relating to the successes and failures of the children a certain number are generally referred to as "lost sight of or not traced." The critics of the Guardians cannot dispute the number of the children who are set down in the Returns as known to be doing either well or to have turned out badly, but they are apt to put down all who are returned as "lost sight of, or not traced" in the latter category. Mr. Tufnell described this class as consisting of those who were probably the very best of the children turned out from the schools. 1 Mr. Holgate is more guarded in his remarks on the subject, although he did not think that the existence of the class ought to be counted to the discredit of the schools, for, as he says, "in very many instances it is found that these young people are self-reliant, and doing honourably and well, and that, with not unnatural self-respect, they are not anxious to be further associated with the surroundings of their early life." 2 On the other hand, Mr. Mozley has expressed his opinion that "the best children generally retain an affection for the place of their education, and, indeed, they frequently correspond with the teachers, or with the master or matron, after they have gone out to service. At the same time it is very unjust to assume that all who have disappeared have turned out badly." 3 When the inspectors cannot agree, who shall decide? We are satisfied that if any large proportion of those young persons who are classed as " lost sight of, or not traced " were not doing well, our work- houses would at the present time contain a much larger number of able-bodied inmates than are now to be found there. Mr. Tufnell criticised Mrs. Nassau Senior's method of excluding this class from her percentages. But we must frankly express our opinion that the lady was right in this particular case. Indeed, the class should be excluded from any statistics of successes and failures. It is something to think that while in 1873 2 ^ per cent, of the whole number of girls from the London Poor Law Schools about whom inquiry was made by Mrs. Nassau Senior had been lost sight of or could not be traced, in 1896 only 4 per cent, of the whole number of such girls known to the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants could be thus described. 4 1 Parliamentary Return of February 8th, 1875, P- 7- 2 24 Z. G. B., p. 73. 3 5 Z. G. £., p. 151. 4 See the statistics, post, p. 348. 4 8 Children under the Poor Law CONCLUDING REMARKS. Those who are so fond of finding fault with Guardians, school managers and Poor Law officials generally in their management of the children entrusted to them must forget, we think, the special difficulties under which they labour. The reduction in able-bodied pauperism seems to us to bear striking testimony to the success which has attended their efforts to put the children in the way of becoming hard- working and self-supporting men and women. What Mr. Bowyer said in 1879 is as true now as it was then. "I do not believe that there are any men more deeply interested in the welfare of the children under their care than the mass of the Poor Law Guardians and managers of district schools. The same acknowledgment is due to the teachers, with regard to whom I can unhesitatingly repeat what I have frequently said in former reports, that they constitute a highly respectable body of men and women, labouring steadily and conscientiously in their vocation, and actuated by a sincere desire to promote the welfare of the children committed to their care." 1 Voluntary associations such as we have described in a former chapter 2 have rendered most valuable assistance. For instance, the splendid work which has been and is being done by the M. A. B. Y. S. in London on behalf of Poor Law girls is acknowledged on all hands. The following statistics illustrate in a marked manner what the effect of the establishment of this Association has been. In 1873 Mrs. Nassau Senior classified no less than 53 of the 100 girls whom she traced as "unsatisfactory and bad." From the following table it will be seen that in 1890 only 265 out of 2647 could be so classified, &*., 10 per cent., while in 1896 the percentage had been reduced to 8*4 per cent. Classification. 3 Good and Fair . Unsatisfactory . Bad . In Training Homes Emigrated Married . Dead . Unfit for Service Visits refused Lost or never traced With relations . Not yet reported 1890 1896 . ... 2604 212 267 53 51 87 ... 258 II 5 16 16 II 10 49 51 22 66 121 ... 144 139 170 62 • • 46 Totals . 2647 -. 3688 1 9 L.G.B., p. 200. 2 Chapter xi. 8 " Good," i.e., these also throughout the year have been spoken of as satisfactory in conduct and work. "Fair," Ut. t those against whom no serious fault has been Suggested Reformi 349 If, then, we deduct from the total number of girls those who are classified as "lost or never traced," although, as we have seen, a large proportion would probably be found to be doing well, could they be discovered, we find that, whereas in 1890 71 per cent, were classified as "good and fair," 8 per cent, as "unsatisfactory," and 2 per cent, as "bad," in 1896 the corresponding figures are 72 per cent., 7 per cent., and 1*4 per cent. But this is not all. An interesting Return was first published in 1883, 1 and has been since published annually, showing the number of children placed out from the Metropolitan Poor Law Schools during the year, and the number for whom employment could not be found, and who had been returned to the workhouses. We have tabulated the figures for purposes of comparison, and it will be seen that the decrease in the numbers returned is very marked. It must also be mentioned that the main cause of the children being returned is owing to physical or mental defects. Year. Number of children placed out. Number of children returned to workhouse. Year. Number of children placed out. Number of children returned to workhouse. 1883 . 1206 30 189O 1335 14 1884 . I2II 33 189I I204 12 1885 • 1 134 20 1892 II62 16 1886 . 1 168 24 1893 IO93 16 1887 . IO90 28 1894 1203 15 1888 . 1122 22 1895 I237 18 1889 • 1336 16 Mrs. Nassau Senior had, in 1873, to admit the great improvement that had taken place in the management of the children in the district and separate schools of London. That improvement has continued, and is testified to by everyone who, from personal knowledge, is able to compare the state of things at the present day with what it was twenty-five years ago. But this improvement has not been limited to London merely; it extends over the whole country. New experi- ments are constantly being tried. Some of them will fail and some will succeed, but it is only by experiment that true progress can be made. alleged. " Unsatisfactory," *'. 2 years 53 , > > »> 3 11 40 > 11 >» 4 11 38 > s > II 5 ». 12 > J> 11 6 „ 14 1 II ») 7 „ 4 > >> J> 8 H 4 > >> >> 9 11 1 This chapter has been contributed by a friend of the author's who has a special acquaintance with the subject. 2 25 L. G.B., p. 514. 352 Children under the Poor Law Mr. Birkby, the Superintendent of the Swinton Schools, who gives these statistics, adds that during the preceding year there had been 640 admissions of children into, and 551 discharges of children from, the schools. It is plain that, in so fluctuating a body, a great many children must pass through the schools without receiving any per- manent impression from them; and if the children be regarded in the mass, very erroneous conclusions may be drawn as to the merit of the education given to so miscellaneous an assemblage. 1 True, a genuine conclusion might be obtained, if it were possible to regard solely the 100 or 150 children who had been three or four years (or upwards) in the school. It may be conceded that an ideal teacher would, and a good actual teacher with some approximation does, regard children with increasing individual interest, the longer they have been under his or her care. But the individualising of children is an arduous task; and it is an attempt which it is even dangerous to recommend too strongly, for it may result in favouritism. Within limits, however, it must be recommended; and perhaps it may even be said that the greatest forward step that any teacher (or even, perhaps, that any inspector) could take in regard to a Poor Law School would be resolutely to attend to the career of such individual children as come most under the influence of Poor Law institutions, to separate them from the mass of those who pass through these institutions more transiently, and to resolve that, as far as possible, the education of these children should be thorough-going and satisfactory. It is not, however, very easy to carry out such an idea as this. There are a great many most necessary matters in which every child has to receive an equal regard, whether he or she has been only seven days in the school, or seven years. Equally in the one case as in the other, the child has to be clothed, fed, taught, and the disposal of its time in the main regulated ; and the weakness of humanity causes those higher interests which consist in the observation of character to fall into the background. If this is true of teachers, a fortiori it must be true of inspectors, who see the children in any particular school only once or twice in the year. And the methods of inspection prescribed till lately by the Education Department, and followed even yet by the Local Government Board, have by the very fact of their apparent thorough- ness tended to discourage that reasonable discrimination between child and child which is necessary for vital education. In public elementary schools mechanical methods meet with a certain corrective in the natural vitality of the children, and in the facility with which they pick up knowledge from constantly rubbing 1 See also ante, pp. 129, 316, and 325. Education in Poor Law Schools 353 against other people, parents or other relatives, or schoolfellows. In Poor Law Schools this corrective, for obvious reasons, does not exist to anything like an equal extent. This is enough to show that the problem of education in Poor Law Schools is really a very difficult one. The advocates of unlimited boarding -out will, indeed, say that it is not merely difficult, but insoluble. This, however, ought not to be admitted. The difficulty is great enough to render alternative schemes (such as boarding-out, or sending the children to public elementary schools for their scholastic education) desirable; but there will remain for a consider- able time a large number of children in whose case no substitute for the Poor Law School is available, and it is therefore necessary to consider what the present educational status of Poor Law Schools is, and how it may be improved. Long before the Report of the recent Departmental Committee had turned the existence of the large Poor Law Schools into a burning question, the school inspectors of the Local Government Board had stated in their annual reports those deficiencies of general intelligence in the children of those schools, which that Report brought into prominence. Thus Mr. Holgate says : x "As in previous years, I have to notice with regret the poor quality of the reading, which, though of sufficient accuracy to secure a pass, is, with but few exceptions, very imperfect in articulation, emphasis, and punctuation, and monotonous in the extreme. The spelling in Standards IV. and III. is also of a very inferior description, and I am disposed to think that the weakness in this subject and in reading arises, as I said in last year's report, from the monotony of life in an institution destroying the energy and the interest of both the children and their teachers." This opinion has a trenchancy which might have satisfied even the Departmental Committee; but it is fair to qualify it by saying that the children to whom it refers have been subject not merely to the "monotony" of institutional life, but also (for the most part) to a great deal more of the undesirable variability of life in the slums of London. Still more compendiously Mr. Holgate, in his Report for 1885, summed up the results of education in Poor Law Schools : 2 " What can be taught by fixed rule is generally now done creditably, and often with great accuracy, whilst anything that taxes originality of thought is, very often, a lamentable failure." 1 In 1886. See 16 L. G. B., p. in. 2 15 L. G. B., p. 46. 2 A 354 Children under the Poor Law To the same effect, though not quite so pointed, is Mr. Byam Davies's opinion as given in 1884 : l " Although a larger percentage pass in reading than in writing and arithmetic, it is the subject that I am the least satisfied with, as, even where the children read fluently, they seldom appear really to under- stand the subject-matter of their books. I hope that this will improve somewhat by degrees, but as long as the children are restricted, as they must be in a workhouse, to each other's society, I am afraid that fluency and correctness in reading will be all that we shall find as a rule." Mr. Mozley is rather more lenient than his colleagues, and draws a certain distinction between boys and girls. Thus, in his Report for 1886, 2 after saying that the percentage of passes is not unsatisfactory, he adds : " I wish it were equally possible to say that the intellect, and, still more, that the soul, of the children had been vitally touched by the course of instruction which they have received ; but this is a thing of which the manifestations must, by the nature of the case, be rare, and traces of improvement are with difficulty to be ascertained. Moreover, the shortness of the time during which many of the children remain in these schools is a great impediment to the growth of slow-growing influences, and still more to the observation of them by outsiders. Yet real intellectual interest in the things around them is frequently shown by the boys; by the girls, more rarely." In a similar way, he says, in 1889 : 3 "There is nothing more noticeable in Poor Law Schools than the superiority of boys to girls in all that brings out intelligence I have usually attributed this to the fact that the girls here have more drudgery and less liberty than the boys; but I suspect that, besides this, the depression of the weaker sex is naturally greater the lower one goes in the social strata." Various instances are given by the same inspector which show, sometimes rather amusingly, the calibre of mind of the child educated in a Poor Law School. Part of the following passage is, perhaps, rather favourable to the children concerned, from the point of their capacity for observation. It occurs in his Report for 1891. 4 "Object lessons may be given so as to excite interest, but the information given is apt to be too bookish. The observant answer is not always the answer intended. Lately, when a schoolmistress in Lancashire had been giving an object lesson on water, I asked at the end, ' What two kinds of water are there on the earth's surface ? ' Several children answered, 'Clean and dirty water'; and those who 1 14 Z. G. B., p. 60. 2 16 Z. G.B., p. 94. 3 19 Z. G. B., p. 146. 4 20 Z. G. B., p. 178. Education in Poor Law Schools 355 have seen the river Irwell will admit that the answer was the result of correct observation, though 'salt and fresh' was in my mind. Less exact was another little girl, who, when I asked what water became when it was made very hot, answered, 'Tea.'" On the other hand, the following passage is not creditable to the subjects of it. 1 "The number of girls of 11 or 12 years of age who are ignorant of the name of their own country and of the capital of England is startling. The other day I asked a girls' school in Lincolnshire (in which were half-a-dozen girls of 12 years of age) the name of the capital of England; one said 'Lincoln,' another said 'Skegness'; after repeated efforts, the question being put in various ways, the top girl at last said 'London.' I have found a sixth standard girl in Yorkshire attending a public elementary school (being sent from the workhouse) who did not possess either of those two simple pieces of knowledge that I have mentioned. Of course the fourth standard girls, etc., in the same workhouse were equally ignorant." It will be noticed that the conclusion of the above passage implies that the deficiency in the intellectual progress of the children is apt to remain even when they are sent to a public elementary school. Here is another passage which gives some means of testing the arithmetical power of the children. Mr. Mozley, again, is responsible for the passage : 2 "Perhaps it may be of interest if I set down here a few of the questions which I have asked in various schools. Here is one : 'Three trees are planted along a straight road, each tree being a hundred yards distant from the next ; what is the distance between the first tree and the third?' Even the best children will for the most part answer, 'Three hundred yards'; though when told that this is wrong, there is generally a boy or two able to give the correct answer, ' Two hundred yards.' Another similar question is this : after having ascertained that they know what a draught-board is, and that each edge has eight squares, I ask, ' How many squares are there in all four edges of the board together?' Never, I think, has there been a child who has given me, without previous error, the correct answer, twenty-eight. The stupid children of course say nothing; the clever children say thirty-two, even when the actual draught-board, or a picture of it, is before them. However, here again, there are generally a few who can correct their error, when told that it is an error. I will give one more of my questions in this line, and this time it shall be one which has not unfrequently been answered correctly the first time of asking : ' A farmer goes to pay his rent ; he carries it in sovereigns in a bag; it takes him just half-an-hour to reach his landlord's house. But there is a hole in his bag which he does not know of, and out of this every minute a sovereign drops, and the 1 19 L. G. B. t p. 146. a 17 L. G. B. y p. 90. 356 Children under the Poor Law landlord, on his presenting the bag, tells him that he has only brought half his rent. What was his rent?' The answer, ^60, is often produced without difficulty, and this question represents, perhaps, the high-water mark of the children in the schools which I inspect as far as mental arithmetic is concerned. That mark is at once overstepped when I ask further, ' Supposing the landlord had said, You have brought me only a third of the rent; what would then have been the farmer's rent?' The best children, and even the teachers themselves, generally suppose the answer to be ^90, forgetting that if the farmer brings a third of his rent, the portion which he has lost is two-thirds of it, and that therefore the correct answer is ^45." The reader who happens to be acquainted with any town or village school may try, if he or she likes, whether answers to the above questions are readily obtained in such a school. On the whole, from all the evidence producible, it is clear that while exact rules of many kinds are capable of being taught to the children in Poor Law Schools, there is a want in these children of flexibility of mind, of readiness, of intelligence; a defect more noticeable among the girls than among the boys, but still not absent even in the case of the boys. This defect is not solely caused by the intrinsic character of the Poor Law Schools, but is also largely due to the low original status of the children, and to their frequently vagrant or starved life in the intervals when they are taken out of the workhouse by their parents (if they have any) ; but whatever the cause, the seriousness of it is indisputable. There is no direct remedy advocated in the reports of the school inspectors of the Local Government Board, but they strongly advocate, as calculated to raise the character of the children, moderation and judicious choice in the industrial work given them, and a sufficiency of playtime with proper care in the direction of it. Thus Mr. Holgate, writing in 1885, says: 1 " To my thinking the full meaning of education, whether industrial or mental, will never be grasped, its full result will never be attained, so long as there remains any inclination on the part of school committees to utilise the labour or the handicraft of the children as a means of reducing the cost of the establishment which was created for their education and for no other purpose." This is stringent doctrine. Whether it be in the absolute sense true, the passage from Mr. Holgate's Report for 1 886 (which has been already quoted) 2 is one of the evidences of legitimate progress, really gratifying to those interested in the schools concerned. Nor is the instance he gives an isolated one of the practice indicated; still the practice is rare, and it is much to be wished that it could be extended. The other 1 15 L. G.B., p. 46. 2 Ante, pp. 92, 93. Education in Poor Lazv Schools 357 means for improvement of character on which the inspectors dwell — the regulation of the play hours of the children — is illustrated by some gratifying instances of games played between Poor Law Schools and other outside schools or institutions (see Mr. Mozley's report for 1884/ and that of Mr. Holgate for 1889), 2 but, also, it is plain that there is great room for improvement in this quarter. Thus Mr. Holgate says : 3 "Children in many a Poor Law School get through their small modicum of playtime in a most miserable fashion, and that too often from their very ignorance, which the officers set over them do not interest themselves to dispel"; And Mr. Mozley says : 4 " There is no more difficult subject connected with Poor Law Schools than the amusements of the children. I was speaking on this subject lately to one of the best superintendents in my district, and he said : 'The hardest work my teachers have is the superintendence of the children in the play hours ; they prefer the school work ; there the duties are of the nature of routine and can be done with ease ; in the playground it is quite different.'" It will be evident that, with all the defects of Poor Law Schools, which must not be underestimated, there is a continual movement towards remedying them ; and that the disadvantages which lie in the original status of the children, and the unworthy character of their parents and relatives, much outweigh any defects of the schools them- selves, when their results are considered. Still, there are such defects ; and one, which the school inspectors of the Local Government Board have not dwelt upon, and perhaps could not dwell upon, lies in the technical character of the school inspection, in which one child is reckoned equivalent to another child, without any proper regard being had to the very different history of the children, and the differences in the duration of their stay in the schools. The Local Government Board has in fact followed in the steps of the Education Department. Twenty years ago, even twelve years ago, the methods of inspection prescribed by the Education Department were in the highest degree technical. Now they are so no longer; but the Local Government Board has not yet emerged out of a similar technicality. One of the steps of progress is probably the replacing of purely technical examina- tions by a more free kind of inquiry and testing of the children, so that the individual children may be more kept in mind, and most especially those who are longest in the schools, for whom the Poor Law School system is in the largest degree responsible. 1 14 L. G. B„ p. 47. 2 19 L. G. B., p. 156. 3 15 L. G. B., p. 47. 4 17 L. G. B., p. 92. APPENDIX A. A CRITICISM OF THE REPORT OF THE DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON METROPOLITAN POOR LAW SCHOOLS. WE have explained in our introductory chapter 1 the origin of the Departmental Committee, whose Report has been, since its appearance, the subject of so much discussion. Although that Report has been used in support of revolutionary changes in the Poor Law of the whole country, it must not be forgotten that the Committee was merely appointed to inquire into "the existing systems for the maintenance and education of children under the charge of Managers of District Schools and Boards of Guardians in the Metropolis, and to advise as to any changes which may be desirable." It is not, there- fore, correct to refer to the Committee as the "Poor Law Schools Committee," as is almost always done. It should be described as the "Metropolitan Poor Law Schools Committee. The distinction is not always borne in mind. Section I. INTRODUCTORY. The Report opens with an enumeration of the various institutions existing on the 24th November, 1894, for the benefit of Metropolitan Poor Law children, together with the numbers of the children in them over two years of age chargeable to the different Metropolitan Unions and parishes at that date. The following table summarises the information given : Institutions. Number of Children. Boys. Girls. Infants. Total. 30 Workhouses 30 Infirmaries . 6 District Schools . 12 Separate Schools 16 Roman Catholic \ Certified Schools J Other Certified Schools . Training-ship Exmouth . Boarded out . 3268 2247 1 103 582 2434 1590 884 im6 884 378 "59 972 6818 4721 2265* 302 582 968 Total 17,807 * This number only includes those children who were sent from Metropolitan Unions to these Schools. 1 Ante, p. 44. Report of the Departmental Committee The following are the particulars of the District Schools : 359 District. Date of Formation. Constituent Unions or Parishes. Situation. Number of Children. Boys Girls Infants Total i. Central London \ 2. S. Metropolitan \ 3. North Surrey . V 4. West London . \ 5. Forest Gate . | 6. Kensington and \ Chelsea* f Mar. 6, 1849 Mar. i2, 1849 April 5, 1849 Feb. 7, 1868 June 25, 1868 Aug. 15, 1876 J City of London ( St. Saviour's ( Camber well 1 Greenwich A St. Olave's 1 Woolwich ^Stepney i Lewisham -j Wandsworth ( and Clapham ( Fulham ] Paddington ( St. George's f Poplar t Whitechapel J Kensington 1 Chelsea Hanwell Four Schools — Brighton Road ) Sutton j Banstead Heme Bay Witham Anerley Ashford West Ham Banstead 533 1076 '58 105 446 367 3i8 365 399 101 629 117 329 279 ■73 234 201 364 37 119 131 108 156 "33 i54i 629 166 222 894 777 701 755 3268 2434 1116 6818 The following are the particulars of the Separate Schools : Schools. Situation. Number of Children. Boys. Girls. Infants. Total. Bethnal Green Leytonstone 24I 157 I** SS6 St. George's-in-the-East Plashet . 137 92 49 278 Hackney Brentwood 227 139 88 454 Hoi born Mitcham . 221 IS* 109 486 Islington Holloway . 194 128 93 415 Lambeth West Norwood . 278 228 506 St. Marylebone . Southall . 171 106 6S 342 Mile End f . Mile End . 26 25 25 76 St. Pancras . Leavesden 321 252 117 690 Shoreditch * * Hornchurch 159 Il6 77 352 Strand Edmonton I96 I46 5o 392 Westminster Tooting . 76 45 53 174 2247 i59o 884 4721 * The schools of these parishes are arranged on the Cottage Homes system. For a description of the Hornchurch Schools see ante, p. 145. t The Mile End Schools were practically closed at Lady-day, 1893, but in November, 1894, there were 76 children in the buildings at Mile End under the care of three officers : a foster-father, a foster-mother, and a nurse. It will be observed that two Metropolitan parishes, viz., Hampstead, and St. Giles, Bloomsbury, are omitted in the above lists. These parishes have no schools of their own, Hampstead sending its children to the Separate School at Tooting, and St. Giles to that at Edmonton. Mile End had about 300 children to deal with, one-third of whom went to Plashet, another one-third to Hornchurch, while the balance of 100 children were kept in a separate part of the workhouse, being sent out as day scholars to the neighbouring Ben Jonson Board School. 360 Children under the Poor Law It will also be observed how the number of scholars in the different schools varies — from 1541 in the Brighton Road Schools, Sutton, to 166 at the Heme Bay Schools. Thus : One school has more than . 1500 children. >> j» 53 between . 1000 and 1200 1 children. j> » jj j) Three schools have between 800 700 jj jj 900 800 jj Two Two jj jj jj jj jj jj 600 500 jj jj 700 600 j> jj Three jj jj jj 400 jj 500 jj Three Two Two >j u jj jj jj jj jj jj under . 300 200 200 jj jj 400 300 jj jj jj So that of twenty District and Separate Schools only three have more than 800 children, and ten less than 500 children. But the Report tars them all with the same brush, all being subject in a greater or less degree to the "dangers and disadvantages attending the massing of the pauper children into one large institution." 1 At the same time, as to the three largest schools (Sutton, Hanwell, and Anerley), the Committee admit that the buildings " have been erected and equipped with great liberality. The sites have been well chosen, ample ground has been secured for recreation, and some of the results achieved, as set forth from time to time in the Reports of the Local Government Board and in other ways, have furnished evidence of the care and humanity with which the institutions have generally been managed." But the bias against large schools and in favour of boarding-out which pervades the whole Report is exhibited already in the first chapter of the Report. To begin with, it was scarcely necessary to inform the public that in a large aggregated school "the community differs materially from an ordinary boarding school, and is wholly unlike a home." 2 Then the following charge is made : 11 There is little room in it for honourable emulation, and not much to encourage aspiration after a higher standard of thinking and of living. Such a school, even when most carefully and conscientiously managed, cannot furnish the training which will qualify its possessors to enter the ordinary markets of the world, or to hold their own with children who have been brought up under more natural conditions. 3 The evidence of nearly all our most experienced witnesses strongly confirms this view." It is a pity that no reference to this evidence is given. 4 To take the girls it is sufficient for our purpose to refer to the evidence of Miss Poole, the Secretary of the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants, a Society which undertakes to look after all the girls who leave the Metropolitan Poor Law Schools for service. She begins 1 Report, p. 5. 2 Ibid., p. 8. 3 Ibid. 4 We assume, however, that it is that of Dr. Barnardo, Miss Townsend, Mr. Ernest Hart, Rev. J. W. Horsley, Rev. T. E. Howlett, and Miss A. L. Lee. Report of the Departmental Committee 361 by saying that the " school " girls must be compared with girls of their own class, and not with ideal young servants, if a fair judgment is to be passed on them. 1 Judged by this test she finds that they are pre- ferred on the whole by mistresses to other girls of the same class " who have been brought up under more natural conditions" and whom the Society distinguishes as " locals," and she produced evidence from the trained agents of the Society in support of her statement. We may tabulate her evidence on the point as follows : 2 Reports of the Trained Agents of the M. A. B. Y. S. on "School" and "Local" Girls who came under the Care of the Society. District. Experience oi No. of the Trained Girls dealt Agent. with. 12 years 450 lo£ „ 200 IO „ I200 19 „ 300 II » 800 12 1, 650 9 » 600 7 ,1 211 13 M I20O IO „ I20 18 „ I200 12 „ 350 5i » 50 13 M I76o 18 „ IOOO IO „ 23O 3 >* 122 7 „ 200 8 „ 200 8 „ I50 Whether "Locals" or "School "Girls keep their places best. Preferred by Mistresses. Lambeth Holborn Islington Chelsea . Marylebone Fulham . Hackney Deptford Camberwell Woolwich Westminster Greenwich Richmond Wandsworth St. Pancras Whitechapel Hampstead Bethnal Green Ealing . Poplar . School girls Local girls School girls About equal School girls School girls decidedly. Local girls. School girls. No preference one way or the other. School girls. About equal School girls No answer School girls Local girls School girls No preference one way or the other. No answer. School girls. No preference one way or the other. Local girls. School girls. It will scarcely be believed that Miss Poole's most valuable evidence, showing the inaccuracy of the statement made by the Committee as to the inability of " the ' school ' girls to enter the ordinary markets of the world or to hold their own with children who have been brought up under more natural conditions," is absolutely ignored in the Report. Then we have the evidence of Mrs. R. Henniker, one of the managers of the West London District Schools, and of Miss McKee, a St. Marylebone Guardian, that the great majority of the girls who leave the schools turn out well. 3 Miss Tillard, who was a Guardian for Westminster, told the Committee that there was so great a demand for girls from the Tooting Schools that they could not be supplied fast enough; that very few of them came back to the workhouse; only four during a space of ten years, and two of the four returned on account of bad health. 4 Mr. J. G. Wainwright, the Chairman of the 1 Evidence, Q. 4027. 3 Ibid., Qs. 5547, 7956. 2 Ibid., Qs. 4064-4071, 4 Ibid., Qs. 2907-2910. 362 Children under the Poor Law Managing Committee of the Anerley Schools, gave evidence to the same effect. He told the Departmental Committee that there was no difficulty in finding situations for either boys or girls ; that the schools had got a good reputation j that there was no need to advertise for employers. He said : "We always ask the applicants how they ascertain that we had children to send out, and they generally say 'Mrs. So-and-So had a child and it did well,' or ' Mr. So-and-So has had a boy and he did well, and I thought I might have one.' So it comes about, it spreads ; we do not advertise. Many masters and mistresses have come again and again." 1 As regards the boys, the Rev. R. H. Hadden, a manager of the Central London District School from 1883 to 1892, said that on the whole they got on as well as the average boys from the public elementary schools, 2 while Mr. Steer (South Metropolitan District School) gave evidence as to the very large majority doing well. 3 Can it be that all this evidence was neglected because the witnesses were connected with the schools and consequently "experts"? In Appendix No. 34 to the Minutes of Evidence 4 will be found the reports of the superintendents of the Working Boys' Homes on the Poor Law boys who make use of them. These reports show that in health these boys are at last equal to the other boys making use of the Homes. The different reports do not entirely agree in other respects, but the report from Mr. G. Horton, the superintendent of Tyndale House, is very significant. He says : " I have found in my ten years' experience those who have been working at various trades in the Poor Law Schools more apt to learn than those outside, the technical training received there being a great advantage to them. Some of the boys I have selected from the Poor Law Schools, and who have been under my care, are now doing well, earning £2 and ^3 per week as pianoforte makers. One, only twenty- one years of age, is a foreman carpenter earning 37^. per week; another, twenty -two years of age, who has four boys working under him, and will, if his life is spared, be foreman in a large factory, earns 30J. per week. He is also a Sunday-school teacher, and a member of a Christian Church, and one of the most thorough, sincere fellows I have ever had. These were all taught carpentry in various Poor Law Schools, viz., the Central London District School, Han well, St. Pancras, Leavesden, and North Surrey District School, and some equally promising from the West Norwood Schools." 5 Curiously enough the largest of the Poor Law Schools, Han well, is the one which is most favourably reported upon by these superin- tendents, and when it is remembered that the boys who go to these Homes are by no means the best specimens of the boys turned out from the schools, the reports upon them must on the whole be con- sidered favourable. 1 Evidence, Qs. 2074-2075. There is a hard and fast rule at Anerley that no girl shall go to a single-handed place. Ibid. Q. 2178. 2 Ibid., Q. 3535. 3 Ibid., Qs. 5972, 8577, and 17,390. 4 Vol. hi., p. 159. 5 Ibid., p. 160. Report of the Departmental Committee 363 Mr. Lockwood's valuable statistics, to which we have already referred, 1 support the evidence given before the Committee to show that the children educated in Metropolitan Poor Law Schools were de- pauperised, and did receive a training at the schools to qualify them "to enter the ordinary markets of the world, or to hold their own with children who have been brought up under more natural con- ditions," but these statistics, too, are conspicuous by their absence from the Report. It is facts such as these which have laid the Report open to the charges both of the suppressio veri and of the suggestio falsi. Then, after throwing, in the form of a large generalisation, as much mud as possible at the large schools, in the expectation, amply fulfilled, that some of it would stick, the Committee go on to say that "the testimony received from our witnesses is emphatically in favour of the boarding-out of pauper children as the best system, one which secures to them the healthiest and most natural life, and gives them the best chance of escaping pauper associations and becoming absorbed into the respectable working population. The same testimony is almost uniforjnly unfavourable to the extension and even to the retention of large institutions in which children all belong to the same class, and subject to the same early disadvantages, are formed into one artificial community, and are kept apart and out of reach of those influences by which the schools and the social institutions and life of the industrial classes are being gradually improved." 2 We have already in our chapter on " Boarding-out " so fully pointed out the advantages and disadvantages of the system that we need only here point to the above extract as showing the strong prejudice against large schools which it exhibits. It would have been quite possible to set forth fairly and dispassionately the advantages of " boarding-out " for particular classes of children without depreciating these schools. Indeed, we must once more draw attention to the fact that boarded- out children are all selected and must be healthy subjects. The Poor Law Schools have to deal with the residuum. The Report does not refer to the evidence of Mr. F. Harston on this point. He showed that out of 740 children in the Banstead Schools at Michaelmas, 1894, no fewer than 150 were defective either mentally or physically, and that these 150 children had no fewer than 216 defects between them. 3 He also showed how year by year, from various causes, the best classes of children were gradually getting eliminated from the schools, and that they had to accept those whom orphanages and charitable schools would reject. 4 This fact makes the "results" attained all the more remarkable, but the Committee never once, that we can find, mention it. The comparison affords additional proof of the bias against the schools which animated the minds of the Committee; but if the comparison must be made we can only refer our readers to the facts and statistics which we have previously given, 5 as showing that the 1 Ante, p. 67. Evidence, pp. 374, 378, 379. These statistics were entirely con- firmed by Lord Wark worth's later Return of the 22nd July, 1896. Ante, p. 128. 2 Report, p. 9. * Evidence, Q. 8467. 4 Ibid., Qs. 8456, 8460, 8473. 6 Ante, pp. 211 et seq. 364 Children under the Poor Law children educated in these schools do equally well, and in many cases better, in after life, than children boarded out. It will further be observed that the paragraph quoted would lead the ordinary reader to believe that all classes of pauper children can be safely boarded out, which is, of course, not the case. 1 Section II. THE AGGREGATION OF CHILDREN IN LARGE INSTITUTIONS. The next three chapters of the Report are devoted to pointing out the defects of "aggregation." 2 No distinction is made between schools with 1500 children and those with only one quarter the number. They are all condemned equally. While we must agree that overgrown schools, such as those at Hanwell and Sutton, are subject to great disadvantages, we are not prepared to condemn, nor does the evidence given to the Committee condemn, aggregated schools of a moderate size. 3 Mr. Lockwood is indeed quoted in the Report as saying that 200 should be the maximum for any school. 4 But this is one of the many instances in which only half the replies of witnesses are given. The full question and answer was as follows: " Q- 9691. You think that 200 children are quite enough in a barrack school? — If I had the arranging of them I should say that 200 would be the maximum number that I should be disposed to deal with myself. But I suppose that in the Metropolis anything like so low a maximum as that is out of the question" It should be mentioned that some of the largest schools had already been broken up into blocks before the Committee was appointed, thus anticipating the recommendations of the Report. 5 Nobody with any common sense can deny that the bigger the school is, the greater will be the danger of a serious outbreak of infectious disease; but, while we are fully alive to this danger, we think we have shown already how scanty and unreliable is the evidence produced in support of the charge that aggregated schools (no matter what size they may be) must of necessity affect injuriously the general health and the moral and mental development of the children. 6 We will only point to a few additional facts which bear on this charge. 7 1. The Committee say that "when children are brought up in large institutions the standard of health is lower than that of children living under ordinary conditions. This is shown by the fact that out of 1 6,444 children in Metropolitan Poor Law Schools no less than 1330 (equal to 8 per cent.) were unable to attend the examinations by reason 1 See post , pp. 395, 396. 2 Chapters ii., iii., iv. 3 As to what should be the exact limit "the doctors" are disagreed, although all agree that the number of children in a school should not exceed 500. 4 See Report, p. 15. 5 Ibid. 6 Ante, pp. 1 12- 121. 7 See also post, p. 369, where the evidence of Dr. Downes is quoted. Report of the Departmental Committee 365 of illness." 1 By dint of diligent searching we have been able to dis- cover that this statement is based on the evidence of Mr. Wyndham Holgate. He was being questioned by Mrs. Barnett. 2 " Q. Out of the 16,544 whom you examined, I learn from your Report that 1330 were sick? A. Yes. — Q. Does not that mean that they were pre- vented from coming to the examination by sickness? Yes. — Q. That is something like 8 per cent. ? A. You are speaking of an exceptional year. — Q. But in other years it has amounted to something like 6 per cent., has it not? A. Yes, it has. — Q. Then if we apply the same calculation to the number of children who are in London Board Schools, it would mean then something like 48,000 children would be absent on examination days through illness ? A. Through the country. — Q. In London? A. Yes, I see. — Q. That is a very much larger proportion than is the fact, is it not? A. I should say very much larger. — Q. So that we may take it that the number of children who are sick, and therefore disabled from coming up for examination in the Poor Law Schools, is very much in excess of that in the ordinary elementary schools ? A. With this qualification, I am not at all sure that if many of the children who now attend the School Board Schools were in our schools, a careful doctor would not send them to the infirmary very quickly. — Q. They are not ill enough to prevent them coming up to be examined? A. That is so; and may I explain what I mean — at the Ha?iwell Schools we have full schools in the ophthalmic wards. — Q. Yes, I am fully aware of that. A. Do you not see? — Q. Yes, but the illnesses which prevented these 1330 children from being examined were disabling illnesses; they did not mean such illnesses as chilblains or eczema, or such things? A. Unfortunately, I am afraid that these would be the very illnesses that would prevent them coming up for examination, not chilblains, but eczema ; they are considered to be necessarily isolated. — Q. Yes, if the eczema is of a catching order, but not otherwise ? A. But there are doctors and doctors, and in one school a doctor will isolate a child when in the next school the answer would be, 'Oh, it is of no consequence.' — Q. Still, whether or not the standard of the doctors differs, the fact remains that there was enough sickness to exclude 8 per cent, of the children from going up for examination? A. I am afraid that is so." And of course down goes the fact in the Committee's Report. Is it a fair summary of Mr. Holgate's evidence? We think every impartial minded person reading the whole of his evidence will say that it is not fair to the schools to take an exceptional year and generalise from that one year alone. 2. The second fact bears on the point of mental development. Dr. Littlejohn is quoted as having said that "in some cases the children will not even play unless a master will start the game. They will not play by themselves." 3 Now anyone reading this paragraph would take this sentence as applying to several of the Poor Law Schools. We turn to the reference (Q. 495 in the Evidence), and we find that Dr. Littlejohn was only speaking of the schools of which he had personal knowledge. What he said was : 1 Report, p. 16. 2 .Questions 15,702-15,714. * Report, p. 12. 366 Children under the Poor Law "At our schools the children have been in the habit of having everything done for them, and unless you go and play with them, as a rule they will not play. If the master will go and play with them they will play, but if you simply show them the game they will not play by themselves. That seems to be a kind of natural tendency of the children." Thus, on the evidence of one witness alone as to one particular school, the Committee think themselves entitled to convey to the public mind the impression that the children in large schools do not know how to play by themselves. 3. The other facts bear on moral development. Mr. W. Pindard, the Superintendent of the "Macgregor House" Working Boys' Home, writes under the head of moral training as follows : " My experience has taught me (and I admit it may be exceptional) that it is in favour of Poor Law Schools, many boys being quite ignorant of the vices of London boys, and when speaking of some vices, urging them to avoid the same, have found myself not understood." 1 The Committee gave much prominence to Dr. Barnardo's statement that "very few girls come from Poor Law institutions who have not, apparently, been more or less contaminated." He said that he had had to deal with over 200 girls from District Schools 2 In the reply of the Metropolitan Guardians to the Report of the Departmental Committee 3 his evidence on this point is thus commented on : "We should like to know (1) Whether any Boards of Guardians send their children from their schools to Dr. Barnardo; (2) if the girls he speaks of were from District Schools or from Workhouses; (3) if from District Schools, whether they belonged to the class known as ' ins and outs.' " Dr. Barnardo has been written to, and asked to give the names of any children received from District Schools, in order that inquiry may be made. His answer is given below : " ■ 18-26, Stepney Causeway, London, E., u «4*i March, 1897. "'DEAR Sir,— I am directed by Dr. Barnardo to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of inquiry, dated the 3rd inst, and to say that he hopes himself to reply to you some time next week ; but he is far too overwhelmed at present with public and other duties to be able to turn aside and give the necessary attention to your letter. " ' I am, Sir, your obedient servant, " 'Claude Wright, Private Secretary. " 4 W. G. Vanie, Esq., " ' Per J. P. V. 11 '45, Boscombe Road, Shepherd's Bush, W.' "No particulars have been received from him so far (20th March). 4 " In connection with this, we may say that it is at least very unusual for the Managers of Poor Law Schools to send girls to Dr. Barnardo, 1 Appendix to Evidence, vol. iii., p. 160. 2 Report, p. 13. 3 This reply has been published by Messrs. P. S. King & Son, of Westminster. 4 Nor up to the present time. Report of the Departmental Committee 367 and that Mr. Fielder, of Lambeth, has made inquiries on that head of his brother superintendents, and ascertained that none of them have any knowledge of any such girls having been sent to Dr. Barnardo's institutions." But the Committee were willing to listen to, take for granted as true, and print in their Report, any loose general statements made by the opponents of Poor Law Schools, while refusing credit, as it would seem, to the statements made on the other side by the officers of the schools, although those officers would have the most intimate acquaint- ance with the real facts. Aggregation involves administrative difficulties. In illustration of this Miss F. Davenport Hill's evidence is referred to. 1 This lady gave a most pathetic and graphic account of how an unfortunate boy had died owing to bad treatment received at the hand of his schoolfellows. 2 The' Committee swallowed the bait eagerly, without troubling themselves to ascertain whether the story was true or not. As a matter of fact, the boy did not die at all. The incident had happened ten years before, and Miss Hill's memory was at fault. As to cases of cruelty or neglect being more liable to escape detection in a large school than in a village where the child is boarded out, 3 we need only point to the Reports of Miss Mason in contra- diction of the statement. 4 Against the Nurse Gillespie case, to which so much prominence is given in the Report, 5 we may well set out the Hockley case. Miss Hockley and Miss Boucher were two friends who, after having been fairly well off, had fallen in the world, so much so that Miss Boucher was compelled to become an applicant for outdoor relief. At this time these women had the care of an orphan child named Frances Beatrice Hopkins, who had been boarded-out for five years with them — from the age of three — by the Plympton Board of Guardians. This child was taken away from them by the Guardians after the application for outdoor relief had been made. The case excited the sympathy of some ladies of the place who had been very kind to the two women, and, in order that the child might be returned to them by the Guardians, they formed a Boarding-out Committee for the purpose. The child was then boarded-out as before. At this time there was nothing to show that she was not well treated by her foster-aunts — indeed, a strong attachment seemed to exist between them and her. This was in 1889. It should be mentioned that the Boarding-out Committee, formed for the benefit of only one child, consisted of five ladies and one gentleman, all of good social standing. It is to be presumed that the committee were not satisfied with this single child, for they afterwards allowed, if not actually helped, the two women to obtain babies to nurse as a means of living ; in other words, to become baby-farmers. They had at least five babies — three of them at one time. We will now continue the story in Miss Mason's own words. 6 1 Report, p. 14. 2 Evidence, Q. 3077. 8 Per Miss Brodie Hall. See Report, p. 14. 4 See ante^ p. 234. 5 Report, p. 14; and Appendix, A. 3. 6 See 22 L. G. B., pp. 1 17-120. 368 Children under the Poor Law "One of these babies died three weeks after they received it. Another, said to be a fine healthy child, was placed there in February, 1891, and paid for — 3.f. a week — till 15th July, 1891. On that day Miss Hockley, received a lump sum of ^18 down for its life, and it died on the 15 th October, insured by Miss Hockley for 50J. Another baby was removed by its own mother on account of its neglected condition ; and another, a few weeks old, was taken to the Plympton Workhouse, when Miss Hockley was brought before the magistrates. All this came out on the death of the fifth baby — Albert Mashford — whose mother, finding the condition he was in, took him to the Plympton Workhouse, where he shortly afterwards died, and an inquest was held upon him. The attention of the Plymouth Inspector of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was drawn to the case, and the Society took it up, but, on account of its importance, it was taken out of their hands by the Trea- sury. Albert Mashford was the child of a domestic servant, who paid for him periodically. He was insured for 50.$-. by arrangement between his mother and Miss Hockley. He had been with Miss Hockley but a year, and was between one and two years old at the time of his death. Both arms and one leg were found to have been broken, and left unset so long that one arm was joined at right angles. The broken leg lay helpless across the other, and the broken arms upon the sides, until they made deep impressions in them. The child had been left to die in one position without any attention, in a horrible condition of dirt, and without proper food." Miss Hockley was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to twelve years' penal servitude. The Boarding-out Committee had visited the home constantly, and saw Albert Mashford frequently. But as they were not responsible for his supervision, they had no right to undress and examine him, and seeing thus only the outside were quite unaware that he had three limbs broken. As to the boarded-out child, Beatrice Hopkins, "it was reported that she also had been ill-treated and neglected by her foster-aunts, and an inquiry into the subject was held by a Committee of the Guardians. The Reports of the Boarding-out Committee were produced, which stated that the girl's condition had been satisfactory. The Inspector of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was then called in, and he stated that when his wife received the girl she found her in a condition much the reverse. When asked how this statement could be reconciled with those of the Reports of the Boarding-out Committee, the Committee had to admit that they had made no investigation at first hand, but had trusted to the word of the foster-aunts." The Committee were duly censured, and having only been formed for the benefit of this one girl, voluntarily dissolved. Miss Mason quoted the case as showing how useless inspection of boarded-out children is when not thorough. We quote it because it acts as a pendant to the Gillespie case. Fortunately justice has been done to both delinquents, and Hockley and Gillespie are now serving out their sentences, in striking illustration of the abuses to which the Report of the Departmental Committee 369 most ideally perfect systems are always subject, when the supervising authorities do not thoroughly carry out their duties. Again, the fact that the presence of infectious disease in a village near a large school necessitates cutting off the usual country walks of the children and limiting them for a time to the school playing grounds for exercise, can hardly be said to cause any administrative difficulty. 1 Nor would any difficulty of the kind arise if the visits of the children to their relations had to be stopped for a time. 2 Not a tittle of evidence is given under the heading, "Aggregation involves administrative difficulties" which seems to us in any way rele- vant to the point. Aggregation prevents proper cubic space and ventilation. But this desideratum is by no means impossible of attainment in large schools. Of course every care should be taken that they are not overcrowded. That they have been overcrowded at times of pressure, and that such a thing may occur occasionally, cannot be denied, and if " experts " can agree upon what is sufficient space and ventilation, the conditions which they hold to be necessary should be complied with. For it must be borne in mind that the necessity for greater cubic space and increased ventilation in public institutions generally, and not only in Poor Law Schools, has only been brought prominently to the front in recent years. "Experts," then, not being agreed on the subject, it does seem to us manifestly unfair to lay the blame at the door of school managers who have only been confused by the multitude of advisers, each of whom advocates his own pet scheme. And if such a thing as "the institution smell" exists, no one who has entered a working man's dwelling in an overcrowded part of a city or large town would be willing to exchange it for the " slum smell." The expression of course serves as an additional stone to cast against the large schools, and while the Committee quote Dr. Sykes' evidence at length, they do not mention Dr. Downes' answer to Mr. Mundella's question : "Is it not common in all these large institutions," />., Poor Law Schools, " to find this so-called ' institution smell ' " ? " They do ?iot all smell."* It seems a self-evident proposition that the want of proper ventilation in any institution must affect the vitality of the inmates, and especially of children, but that the evil is greatly exaggerated was shown by Dr. Downes in his evidence. His evidence on the point is dealt with so unfairly in the Report 4 that we must quote what he said in full. " Q. 8789. What is your observation of the general condition of children in Separate and District Schools? A. From that personal observation which I described to you? — Q. 8790. Yes. A. I must say that I was rather pleased to find that the general condition of children was better than I had expected to find it from what I had read about them. I had read a good deal on the subject. I came as a new-comer, and saw these schools for the first time, and I naturally judged that I should find something of what I had read about ; but I cannot say 1 Report, p. 14. 2 Ibid. 8 Evidence, Q. 8754 4 Report, p. 19. 2 B 2,70 Children tinder the Poor Law that my acquaintance with the children entirely bears out all the assertions which have been published about them. I may say, first of all, that they were well fed, they were well clothed, and they appeared personally well cared for and clean ; but beyond that I found the younger children, in particular, on the whole, I thought, bright and happy. I judged of this by what I saw as I examined them, and the elder children were more lively than I had expected to find them. The class that I think, on the whole, I was least satisfied with was the younger boys in the large schools — those boys appeared to me to be, in many cases, of defective vitality, and did not seem as if they took exercise enough, and they suffered too much, in some cases, from chilblains, superficial whitlow, and diseases of that class." 1 The Committee say that the fact "that the children suffer from chilblains is not surprising, when it is known that at one school the little boys have to undress in the day-room and go naked along the passage to the bath-room. No provision is made for warming the lavatory, and consequently in the winter it is very cold." 2 The school referred to is that at Sutton. Why did the Committee not add that the bath-room had been warmed with radiators since Dr. Stephenson's Report, 3 and that, with regard to the juniors un- dressing in the day-room and walking along the passage to the bath-room, the managers intended to alter the practice, although it had not occurred to them to do so until that Report? 4 In any case such defects can easily be remedied, and are not in the slightest degree inherent in large schools. Aggregation encourages ophthalmia. Large schools are alleged, further, to specially encourage ophthalmia, the "great bane of these Poor Law Schools." "It has been almost impossible to keep it down to anything like a reasonable amount." " It is still the curse of these institutions." "It has been a scourge in the Pauper Schools of London from time immemorial, and from it they are practically never free." " It sometimes assumes proportions of alarming magni- tude, and we believe that it will continue to do so as long as the present system exists." It is quite impossible for us to enter thoroughly upon a criticism of the chapter of the Report which deals with the subject. All we can show is that it need not be the "great bane" and the "curse" of Poor Law institutions, whether they are large or small, and that it is quite possible not only to keep it down to a reasonable amount, but to free the schools entirely from it. Dr. Littlejohn is referred to as the authority for the statement that "ophthalmia is still the curse of these institutions." Anyone reading the Report would be led to think that this was Dr. Littlejohn's latest 1 Evidence, p. 323. 2 Report, p. 19. When we think of what our fathers had to go through at boarding schools in times not so very far removed from the present, they might, could they see a modern Poor Law School, well envy the lot of the pauper boys in regard to the arrangement of dormitories, washing appliances, etc. 3 Evidence, Q. 4767. 4 Ibid., Qs. 6630-6633. Report of the Departmental Committee 371 opinion. We will therefore give the question put to him and his answer to it. " Q- 399- You say in your Report in 1883 that though improve- ment has gone on, you consider ophthalmia is still the curse of our schools?" (p. 37) "A. Yes, I believe that ophthalmia was, up to that time, the curse of the Central London District School." 1 It was Mr. Hedley who said that, "during the time that I have known the schools" (/.*., up to 1894), "ophthalmia has been their great bane; it has been almost impossible to prevent its constantly breaking out, and to keep it down to anything like a reasonable amount," but he was far from attributing it to the size of the schools. He went on to say " it can never be abolished, because it exists among the population fro?n which the schools are recruited, and therefore you must always have it ; and for my part the remedy I should like to see would be the establishment of two Metropolitan ophthalmic hospitals, to which all children might be at once taken, either when they were found on first admission to be suffering from eye disease, or when any case occurred in any one of the schools." 2 It was Dr. Stephenson who, in outlining a scheme for the establish- ment of a central ophthalmic school under the Metropolitan Asylums Board, said, u A scheme such as I have outlined appears to offer the only satisfactory plan of coping with a disease that has been a scourge in the pauper schools of London from time immemorial." 3 It was Mr. Ernest Hart who, in answer to the question, "Then would we understand from you that between what are spoken of as epidemics or outbreaks, the schools were free from ophthalmia?" guardedly answered, " I should think never free." 4 All those, therefore, who, from personal knowledge and not from hearsay, are able to speak with authority on the question, give it as their opinion that the presence of ophthalmia in Poor Law Schools is preventible. They could hardly say otherwise. We have seen that the Ashford Schools house nearly 800 children, and yet for fifteen or sixteen years they have been free from any outbreak of ophthalmia. 5 This evidence is not referred to in the Report, At the Anerley Schools the disease has not been present since 1885, nor, with the exception of one small outbreak 6 in that year owing to the reception of an infant in whom the existence of the disease escaped detection, since 1872 ! What has been done at Anerley and Ashford can surely be effected at other schools, although the establishment of one special ophthalmic hospital-school or more would be of great assistance in preventing the introduction or spread of the disease. The examples of Anerley and Ashford seem also to contradict the conclusion of the Committee that large schools necessarily favour ophthalmic disease. That they will do so if overcrowded needs no 1 Evidence, p. 22. 2 Ibid., Q. 9379. 3 Ibid., Q. 90. 4 Ibid., Q. 1010. 5 Miss Bramston's Evidence, Qs. 13,450, 13,576-88, 13,607-15, 13,638. 6 Report, p. 23. 372 Children under the Poor Law demonstration. In support of their conclusion the Committee refer to the evidence of Dr. Littlejohn, among others, as showing that when the children enter the schools with eyelids not absolutely healthy, the effect of their stay in the schools is to render their eyelids less and less healthy until at last they "get ophthalmia." 1 Now Dr. Littlejohn was very severely examined on the point. He was speaking from his experience of the Hanwell Schools. The following passage in his evidence, however, was not " selected " : " It was my opinion that children coming in with slightly unhealthy eyes, and being massed together, as they used to be — / am not speaking of what is done now — massed together within walls with bad ventila- tion, would have a tendency to develop ophthalmia or to catch it. The conditions are now very different. The school has been cut up ; the dormitories are well ventilated ; the whole of the washing arrangements have been reorganized and made better, and cases of ophthahnia com- paratively rarely now occur in the school, and then they are only in a very slight form" 2 Having thus only quoted a small portion of Dr. Littlejohn's evidence on the point, the Committee go on to give a table in support of his mutilated opinion. 3 This table is taken from a Report of 1 890 of Dr. Stephenson's. It compared the condition of children which have been over a year in the Hanwell School with those who had spent a year or less there, and was as follows : Children in School. Total No. of children. Eyelids healthy. Decidedly granular. More than one year . One year or less 684 I44 per cent. 1 1 70 33 '33 per cent. 13*30 3 '47 The object of inserting the table in the Report is of course intended to show that the tendency is for the "granular cases" to increase according to the length of stay in the school. It is not stated that, while Dr. Stephenson did not deny the validity of the table, his explanation of it was that in that particular year contagion was rife in the school at the time, and that such a result was to be expected. 4 This is probably the natural explanation of the other statistics given in the Report. 5 The further evidence referred to in this section of the chapter on " ophthalmia " 6 seems to point to " overcrowding " and want of care in admitting children not free from the disease to the schools, as the causes of outbreaks. The examples of Anerley and Ashford prove this. If these be the causes, as the evidence seems to show, it follows that ophthalmia need no more be present in " barrack schools," properly arranged and ventilated, than it is among children boarded-out in the country. But here again the Committee cannot 1 Report, p. 27. 3 Report, p. 27. 5 Report, pp. 27, 28. 2 Evidence, Q. 466. 4 Evidence, Q. 11 15. 6 Ibid., p. 29. Report of the Departmental Committee $7$ resist a comparison between large schools and " boarding-out," much to the disadvantage of the former. 1 The unfairness of the comparison is shown by the fact that the following schools have been practically freed from attacks of ophthalmia: (i) Banstead (Cottage Homes), 2 Anerley (Barrack School), 3 Ashford (Barrack School), 4 Leavesden (Barrack School). 5 What can be done by one large school can be done by another, but, as we have said, the Committee were determined to condemn aggregated schools, and preferred to dwell on the disadvan- tages they labour under with bad administration rather than to point out their many advantages and to show that their admitted defects were not beyond remedy. Indeed, Mr. Brooke Lambert, who with Mr. Vallance was unable to concur in the sweeping censures passed on the aggregated schools, drew attention to the fact that there is a large hospital school at Greenwich, containing from 900 to 1000 boys; that these boys are taken from much the same class as those who come into our unions, but are carefully examined as regards health ; and that ophthalmia has been exterminated in such a school as that." 6 In an interesting letter to the Christian World (April, 1896), Mr. H. J. Cook, the Chairman of the Forest Gate Schools, wrote as follows, and his remarks entirely support our contention that ophthalmia is not necessarily inherent in Poor Law Schools : "You rightly speak of the prevalency of ophthalmia: it was very rife and still is in many schools, but the Report enlarges on the instances of schools where severe outbreaks have occurred, and passes over most casually those schools where the evil has been grappled with. It should also be observed that most of the statistics refer to the years 1870-85, and are not up to date. The school I am associated with (Forest Gate) was no better than the others until, in the year 1889, we succeeded with great difficulty in inducing the Local Government Board to compel our medical officer to resign, and in allowing us to appoint a gentleman who does not believe that ophthalmia is a sign of pauperism and inbred. " The following figures are interesting : they are taken from our official returns, and if there is any error, it is that, as they include the mildest cases, they overstate the number of children needing medical attention : Year. 1893 1894 I8 9 S Average No. of children. 644 699 669 Percentage of children under medical man, including all slight ailments. Percentage ol well children attending school. 8-4 6-3 Figures not ascertained by me f Percentage of Ophthalmic cases in infirmary. 91-6 937 o-8o 2*10 1 -04 Percentage of Ophthalmic cases in schools under observation C30 0-57 016 Percentage of ringworm cases. 1-9 1*4 16 1 Report, p. 30. 2 Evidence, Qs. 2900, 5868, 7869, 8478, 9440. 8 Ibid., Qs. 801, 811, 1985. 4 Ibid., Qs. 13,450, 13,638. 6 Evidence, Qs. 1274 (note), 5486. 6 Ibid., Q. 9535. 374 Children under the Poor Law " Further, the Report states that c Except in a few schools in which very expensive means have been employed,' the condition, if at all is little better than it was twenty years ago. Our experience at Forest Gate School is that the results above mentioned have been attained without great expense by attention to hygiene and sanitary arrange- ments, and chiefly by careful administration." One of the results of ophthalmia is alleged to be that "in the schools as conducted at present, with the exception of Hanwell, every child loses its education directly it gets ophthalmia." 1 There is no reference to any evidence in support of this statement, and worse than that it is untrue ; for the evidence shows that in addition to Hanwell, education was provided in the infirmaries (i) at the Ashford Schools 2 and (2) at the Sutton Schools. 3 Indeed, in only one case, that of the Brentford Schools, can it be discovered that the ophthalmic children received no education. What is to be thought of a committee which could make such an unfounded general statement ? Those school managers who have neglected to provide for the education of the isolated children are to be greatly blamed, but who can say that it is a necessary result of large schools that these children should lose their education ? That some children have suffered seriously from the effects of ophthalmia which they may have caught in the large schools, even to the loss of their eyesight, cannot be questioned, 4 but we think we have shown that with proper precautions such cases are preventible. The Report of the Committee is most useful in drawing the attention of the school managers to what may happen to the children in after life if they do not see that these precautions are taken, but we should imagine that such cases are very rare among those children who have recently left the school. Indeed, in all the cases mentioned in the Report 5 none of the children could have been in the schools later than 1885, and the large majority of them must have left the schools in the "seventies." But everyone knows, or should know, what a change has taken place in the management of all the large schools during the last fifteen years, and we think that very few modern cases of defective eyesight preventing the children getting employment could be adduced at the present time. The fact is that in the part of the Report we are now considering, as in many other parts, facts of ancient history are adduced as evidence of what is the state of things at the present time. The following question and answer are most important as bearing on this point. Dr. Littlejohn is being examined : 1 Report, p. 31. 2 Evidence, Q. 13,613. 3 Ibid., Qs. 4837-4840, 4847. 4 A striking instance was given by Dr. Stephenson (Evidence, Q. 1140), but this case requires more careful examination than was given to it. The child was born in 1868, and went to the Anerley Schools at three. Afterwards she was transferred to Banstead. At what age she left the schools is not stated, nor what happened to her between the time she left the schools and the first time of being placed out by the M. A. B. Y. S. when she was twenty- one years old. 5 Report, p. 32. Report of the Departmental Committee 375 " Q- 455 (Chairman) : Then I understand from you that ophthalmia entails very frequently serious disability in after-life"? 14 A. " Excuse me, I never said ■ very frequently? I think it is very seldom, considering the enormous number of cases we have had." The Committee further give expression to their belief that from 15 to 20 per cent, of the children in the Metropolitan schools and workhouses are afflicted with troublesome ophthalmia. It is really a shameful thing that the schools should have to bear the burden of the Committee's "beliefs" as well as that of their inaccurate statements. And they give no reference to any evidence which warrants this particular statement of belief. Dr. Stephenson has lately made a most careful examination of 17,000 children. Of this number 13,000 were in institutions directly under the control of the London Guardians. It will be seen that in 1896 6*i per cent, of these 13,000 children were suffering from troublesome ophthalmia. The following table affords a striking example of the improvement of the management of the Poor Law institutions directly under the control of the Guardians during the last twenty-four years : 1 In 1874 Mr. Nettleship inspected 8798 children, of whom there were In 1896 Dr. Stephenson inspected 13,000 children, of whom there were Children having discharge from the eyes. per cent. 12 Children having trachoma or granular lids. per cent. 42 4'9 Children having damaged sight. per cent. 9-1 1*2 We have no space to criticise the recommendation of the Committee that an ophthalmic school hospital should be provided 2 — this will probably be carried out. 3 About the other recommendations of the Committee we can only say that they are "drawn from conditions already existing in individual Poor Law Schools," in some of which ophthalmia has been entirely stamped out. In a very able and interesting criticism of the Report, 4 Mr. H. D. Aslett gives a Return which he had obtained of the ophthalmic con- dition of a certain number of schools, and which shows how possible it is to prevent the disease from attacking large schools. 1 The figures were supplied by Dr. Downes to the Special Committee of the Metropolitan Asylums Board on Children's Asylums. Good as the results are, Dr. Downes did not consider that the minimum had yet been reached. 2 Report, pages 33-36. 3 See ante. Chapter xiii. p. 339. 4 A criticism of the Report of the Poor Law Schools Committee (Knight and Co.). 376 Children under the Poor Law Return of Ophthalmic Condition of the Schools enumerated, dated June, 1896. Name of School. Total No. in the school. With Ophthalmia (severe). With Ophthalmia (slight). Drafted to the Hanwell Ophthalmic School. Anerley . ... 844 nil nil nil Shoreditch , 350 1 •l7 nil Westminster . 169 nil nil nil Strand . 330 nil 5 nil St. Marylebone . 308 nil t 2 nil St. George's-in-the-East , 236 nil nil nil Edmonton , 4OO 1 nil nil Islington , 400 nil nil II 4 Witham (S.M.S.D.) . 213 nil 8 nil Kensington and Chelsea, Banstead 700 nil nil nil ,, ,, Hammersmith I20 nil nil nil St. Pancras 636 nil 3 II 17 Forest Gate 700 nil Xio II23 The Exmouth 538 nil nil nil Mitcham 477 nil §12 nil Totals 6421 2 57 44 Excluding those at Hanwell Ophthalmic School, the percentage of affected children is . ... Including these, it works out at . ... *9 i-6 * These include cases sent down to the schools from the parish, never having been in a Poor Law School before. They are sent down for the benefit of the country air. They are taught daily by a special teacher. t 1 Congenital ; 1 Sequence of Measles. % All of these are attending school daily. The cases are so slight that none but a medical expert could detect anything amiss ; called ' ' Ophthalmia," to be on the safe side. § Two of these are recent admissions. || These cases are at the Hanwell Ophthalmic School, but whether sent from the school or sent direct from the parish— never having been at either of these schools— is not stated. Section III. EDUCATION. Chapter V. of the Report deals with "Education" We have nothing to add to our criticisms in a former chapter on the way in which the Committee dealt with the evidence. 1 As to their recom- mendations, 2 it might no doubt be in some respects a good thing if the children could attend the outside public elementary schools, but the disadvantages of their so doing (it must be remembered that we are only speaking of the Metropolitan Poor Law Schools) seem to us to outweigh the advantages. The risk of introducing infection into the schools from outside would be very great. Besides which the Report by no means convinces us that the children would get any better educa- tion outside the schools than inside them. The reports of the M. A. B. Y. S. seem to us conclusive evidence that the " school " girls are as a rule better educated than the "locals," 3 i.e., than those girls of the same class who have received their education in the Board Schools. If it could be effected it would be a good thing to have the "institution" school at some distance from the main building, so 1 See ante, pp. 96-104. 2 Report, p. 45. See ante, p. 361. Report of the Departmental Committee $jj that the children might have the benefit of the walk backwards and forwards to it. This has been provided for at the new Cottage Homes now being built by the Chorlton Guardians at Styal. With regard to the inspection of the education of the children being placed under the Education Department, there can be no possible objection to this change, if practicable, although we cannot admit that education of the children under the present system has in the past suffered from its being under the supervision of the Poor Law educational inspectors. 1 Section IV. INDUSTRIAL TRAINING. We now come to the chapter on "Industrial Training." It is divided into two parts, one dealing with the training given to the boys and the other with that given to the girls. At the very outset the Committee misrepresent the evidence of Mr. W. E. Knollys. They say, " Mr. Knollys, the Chief General Inspector of the Local Govern- ment Board, gives it as his opinion that the industrial training given to most pauper children is very unsatisfactory." 2 Mr. Knollys was only saying what everyone knows, that as regards the whole country the industrial training given to pauper children (including boarded-out children) is not satisfactory. The full question and answer shows that Mr. Knollys was thinking not so much of the industrial training given in the Metropolitan schools as of that which pauper children received generally. " Q. 16,706. Did I understand you to say in your previous evidence that you have long been of opinion that the industrial training in most of the District and Separate Schools is very unsatisfactory ? A. I do not think I said that. I should probably say that the industrial train- ing given to most pauper children is, in my opinion, very unsatisfactory. Q. 16,707. How long have you been of that opinion? A. Ever since I have been an inspector." It must also be remarked that Mr. Knollys does not lay much store on industrial training at all. " Personally, I do not believe very much in industrial training in these Poor Law institutions, if it is regarded from the point of view of fitting the child for some particular trade. I think that what you should aim at is simply to make the child's hand follow its eye — to make it handy — and I should myself gladly see much more time devoted to football and cricket, and much less time passed in the workshop." 3 But how unfair it is to the London schools to treat Mr. Knollys' evidence in the way the Committee do on this point. We have tried to show in another chapter 4 what is being done in the way of industrial training, and how Guardians and school managers have been trying to improve it and make it more efficient. 1 Thus Mr. W. E. Knollys in his evidence said : "I was not aware, and I am not aware, that the standard of education in our Poor Law Schools is below that received in the Board Schools. I know that it has been asserted that it is so." (Q. 16,200.) 2 Report, p. 46. 3 Evidence, Q. 16,708. 4 Ante, pp. 86-94. 37& Children under the Poor Law Mr. H. J. Cook, in the same letter to which we have already re- ferred, 1 justly says " that anyone would suppose after a perusal of this chapter that boys do nothing but housework, or attend on workmen, and that girls are mere drudges to fill drying-racks and turn the handles of washing-machines. This is ancient history indeed. In the best schools a very different condition exists; boys are taught carpentering, shoemaking, tailoring, and garden work. Girls are taught needlework as few domestic servants have learnt it. They are taught to wash and iron, not by washing 1,684,600 towels etc., but by wise and experienced teachers. Practical cookery for small families is taught by certified teachers, and not by helping in the general kitchen. It is true that children do help in most of the domestic work, but if their hours are reasonable, as they should be, then I think they are the better for it." Section V. HALF-TIME EMPLOYMENT. The proposals of the Committee in the next chapter of their Report (Chapter VII.) seem to us only to make the task of securing better industrial training more difficult, for they suggest that the age of all half-timers should be raised to twelve, but that no child should be put to half-time employment until it has passed the Fourth Standard. It is in this chapter that we come across one of the most untrue state- ments which we find in the Report. It is not only stated of the London schools that "in most schools all the children are made to work for a portion of the day," but that " in some they " (the children) "are employed as half-timers at the tender age of eight." 2 As to the former statement Miss Lidgett has pointed out that "it is incredible, if we remember that children may be admitted at the age of two, unless learning to put on their clothes (say their shoes) is to be called work." We look at the reference given to the evidence (Q. 16,739) for the purpose of seeing what support it gives to the latter statement. We must begin, however, with the previous question. Mr. W. E. Knollys is being examined. " Q. 16,738. Now let me give you another school — the Holborn School at Mitcham, also a girls' school. Are you aware of the fact that there are 112 half-timers in that school ? A. No. — Q. 16,739. And that the minimum age for half-time in that school is eight years, and that the numbers are: Standards V. and VI., fifteen half-timers; Standard V., eleven; Standard IV., twenty-four; Standard III., twenty; Standard II., twenty-five; Stan- dard L, seventeen; total 112? A. No, I am not aware of that." But Mr. Knollys inquired into the matter, and in a note which is attached to these questions 3 he gives an entirely satisfactory explanation of the matter, which the Committee, however, in their desire to blacken the large schools as much as possible, quite ignore. He says : " I find on inquiry that no girls in the school under eleven, or in Standards I. and II., are allowed to do any domestic work, and that the true explanation of the numbers returned as half-timers is that a large number of the girls attended the whole of the school hours of each 1 Ante, p. 373. 2 Report, p. 54. 3 Evidence, p. 698. Report of the Departmental Committee 379 alternate day in the reading-room, to learn needlework, under the industrial trainers, instead of having it in the schoolroom under the schoolmistress, and she returns these as half-timers. I do not say she is wrong, but the matter needs explanation. The real defect here appears to have been that an undue amount of time has been given to needlework. Article twenty-seven of the Board's Order of October 27th, 1877, provides for a reasonable time for needlework being in- cluded in the time provided for school attendance, but a reasonable time has been defined as two afternoons in each week." Thus the allegation that in some schools the children are employed as half-timers at the early age of eight is only founded on evidence given as to one school and as to girls only ; and even in this school it is clear that the girls were not really employed as half-timers at all ! That the Committee should have allowed such an untrue statement to be made is the more remarkable in that the Report gives a list of the minimum ages at which the children are employed as half-timers in the schools. In no one school is the age less than ten (for we have shown that the minimum age is stated wrongly as regards Mitcham), whereas in most of the schools it is eleven, and in some twelve. 1 This chapter of the Report, however, is much more a condem- nation of the inaction of the Local Government Board in the matter of making regulations as to "half-time" than of the Guardians and school managers. 2 In any case these latter authorities would, we feel sure, be quite willing to accept the recommendations made by the Committee. 3 Section VI. APPRENTICESHIP AND EMPLOYMENT. 4 We have little to add to what we have already said on this subject. 5 Reforms of the apprenticeship system under the Poor Law are no doubt necessary in order to bring it into line with the present con- ditions of labour, but here we see how firmly the preconceived idea of the " pauper taint " was impressed on the minds of the Committee. They state that the Poor Law form of indenture, "coming ultimately into the hands of the apprentice, is not only an unpleasant reminder to himself of his pauper origin, but reveals the fact to all employers with whom he may be seeking work, and who, according to trade custom, require to see his indentures." 6 We should ourselves be inclined to think that an employer is not much influenced by the origin of his workman so long as he does his work well. The idea is, of course, merely one of sentiment, and not a tittle of evidence is adduced in the Report to show that a Poor Law indenture prevents the holder of it from getting employment, if he is a good workman. 1 Report, p. 55. 2 Ibid., p. 57. 3 Ibid., p. 58. 4 Ibid., Chap. viii. 5 Chap. x. 6 Report, p. 59. 380 Children under the Poor Law Section VII. AFTER-CARE. 1 Our chapter on this subject will show that we entirely agree with the Committee's recommendation that voluntary agencies for looking after the children when they leave the schools should be encouraged and extended. But even in this chapter there is a paragraph (259) which gives a very wrong impression of an answer given by Miss Poole. The Committee say, " Miss Poole suggests that the mistresses who take these girls {i.e., those from the Metropolitan Poor Law Schools) do so to a large extent ' on account of their coming with very tidy clothes.' " We turn to the reference (Q. 4071), and we find that while Miss Poole did say that the coming with tidy clothes did " a good bit " to influence the mistresses in taking them, she also added that another reason was "because they are more industrious than the local girls. The local girl's great idea is how many holidays she can have, and how long she can keep out in the streets; but the other girl does not certainly bargain so much for holidays. She is not so sharp in one way." Anyone who reads Miss Poole's evidence must be convinced that it was much more the habits of order and industry of the " school girls " than any other cause which caused mistresses to prefer them to the "local girls." Section VIII. CHILDREN IN WORKHOUSES. 2 Here again the Guardians cannot be blamed, because for various reasons 3 children are apt to be kept for a time in the workhouse when they are above school age. We have seen how the Kensington and Chelsea Guardians have provided that no child over two years of age need be kept in the workhouse. 4 There can to our mind be no doubt that to all Metropolitan Poor Law Schools should be attached branch schools similar to that which has been so successful at Hammersmith. Section IX. "INS AND OUTS." 5 We have already dealt with this chapter of the Report, 6 and ex- pressed our opinion that the successful experiment of the branch school at Hammersmith should be carried out by other school authorities. 7 Section X.— FEEBLE-MINDED CHILDREN. 8 Upon the best way of dealing with this class of children the experts are by no means agreed. Their evidence is very conflicting. But of course the Committee are quite confident as to the best method. This is that they should be boarded-out or placed in special training-homes. 9 1 Report, Chap. ix. 2 Ibid., Chap. x. 3 Ibid., p. 68. 4 Ante, p. 323. 8 Report, Chap. xi. 6 See ante, Chap. xii. 7 The Guardians of the Gateshead-on-Tyne Union are now building a similar institution in connection with their new Cottage Homes. 8 Report, Chap. xii. u Ibid., p. 82. Report of the Departmental Committee 381 We really dare not venture to give any opinion on the subject, nor indeed do the Committee make any attack on the Guardians in the matter. We can only say that the balance of evidence seems to favour small special training-homes for this class. As to boarding them out, no doubt a feeble-minded child might benefit if a suitable home could be found where it would be sufficiently cared for. But the difficulty of finding such homes is, of course, very great. Dr. Warner's evidence is referred to in support of boarding-out this class of children. 1 "Dr. Warner," says the Committee, "speaks hopefully of the beneficial results that may be anticipated from placing the children in more favourable surroundings. He says : ' I find that the best thing to do with the feeble-minded is to place them in a family or place them in a small school. . . . While the child is in that family or small school she should as far as possible be treated like the others.'" It will be observed that the compiler of this portion of the Report has left a blank in the quotation from Dr. Warner's full answer. If we fill in this blank we again find one more instance of the many suppressions veri in the Report. Dr. Warner said : 2 " I am speaking of families where the lady will do what is wanted, or employ a governess to do it. I should like such a child to become a member of that family or school, and I should insist on one of the teachers who has to do with that child learning what are the special points of defect about that child, in order that I might give her some advice for carrying out her work and ascertaining what is best to be done." In a further answer to a question, Dr. Warner again took the oppor- tunity to explain exactly what he had in his mind when he talked of boarding-out feeble-minded children. He said : 3 " I think that boarding-out would be very good for a feeble-minded child, always provided you get a party to undertake properly that child's care and training, and that such could be paid for. I am fairly success- ful in the cases that come under my notice in practice ; but people pay sums of ;£ioo and .£150, and if you can get them to do that you may expect success ; but as a system, and to be reduced to a general practical matter, it must fail unless you select your cases, but, selecting your cases, it can do well." What, then, could be more misleading than to quote the opinion of Dr. Warner as if he were referring to the boarding-out of pauper feeble- minded children ? The following witnesses among others also expressed a strong opinion against boarding-out this class of children: Miss Temple (Q. 11,247) and Miss Mason (Q. 14,409-15, 14,683). But the Committee seem to have had " boarding-out " on the brain, and their mental vision was consequently obscured to all its defects. 4 1 Report, p. 80. 2 Evidence, Q. 367. 3 Evidence, Q. 382. 4 See post, pp. 382-396. 382 Children under the Poor Law Section XI. THE CONTROL AND CUSTODY OF CHILDREN. 1 We are in entire sympathy with the recommendations which the Committee make in regard to Guardians acquiring further powers of control over the following classes of children : (a) Neglected children who have been maintained at the cost of the rates; {b) the children of paupers of the permanent class whose character and mental de- ficiency may render them unfit to have the control of their offspring ; (c) the children of habitual tramps and the " in and out " classes ; (d) the children of parents who, living outside the workhouse, have had their children separately maintained and educated at the cost of the rates, and (e) orphan children chargeable to the rates. While we agree as to the necessity for the age of control being raised for both sexes, we are not certain that it should be raised to twenty-one years as the Committee suggest, the age of eighteen seeming to us sufficient. There seems to be at the present time a consensus of opinion in favour of legislation in this direction, and the Committee could come to no other conclusion. After all, Guardians are in loco pa?-entis to these children, and it does seem absurd that after the expense incurred in educating and training them they should have no power to protect them from vicious parents or relations by whose interference, almost always for the bad, all the money which has been expended upon them may be entirely wasted. The affection of such persons for the children is probably measured by the amount of gain which they expect to get from them;, and it is quite conceivable, and an answer to the objections raised against relieving parents of the burden of the children, that the removal from them of this source of gain would be of itself sufficiently punitive. There is also no doubt a great deal to be said for extending the powers of boarding-out to the classes of neglected children, 2 although the Committee do not adopt the proposal by including it in their recommendations. We can see no reason to doubt the fact that all parents, good or bad, dislike their children being removed so far away that they cannot get at them. We have seen 3 how, when Guardians advertise that children should be emigrated, parents suddenly appear from their hiding-places to reclaim them. The case might be similar when it came to the knowledge of a parent that a child was going to be boarded-out far away under a Boarding-out Committee. Of course there is the question to be considered, whether it is desirable to deliver up the child in such cases to the parent, and probably it was this consideration which deterred the Committee from making any recommendation on the point. Section XII.— BOARDING-OUT. 4 Although we have already written at length on the subject of " boarding-out," 5 we are driven to spend a little more time in criticising that part of the Report which deals with the subject. The Committee begin 6 by repeating the general statement which they had previously 1 Report, Chap. xiii. 2 Ibid., p. 87. 3 Ante, p. 266. 4 Report, Chap. xiv. 5 Chapters vii. and viii. 6 Report, p. 89. Report of the Departmental Committee 383 made, 1 that the evidence was emphatically in favour of the boarding- out of pauper children as the best system. There are no references to this evidence, but in a careful search after it we have discovered enough to show that the statement is greatly exaggerated. Thus, Miss Whitworth said that so far as her experience (which, however, she admitted not to be great) extended, "a larger proportion of the boarded-out have failed than of school girls generally," and that she had not formed an opinion adverse to the schools as compared with the boarding-out system. 2 Then Mr. Brandreth, the Chairman of the Banstead Cottage Home Schools, told the Committee that Kensington did not board-out any children, surely striking testimony to his preference for the Cottage Homes. 3 It seems that the Shoreditch Guardians have the same preference, for according to Mr. Clay's evidence, they only boarded-out six children in 1895, while they had forty boarded-out ten years previously. 4 Then Miss Clifford tells us that, as far as the moral career goes, the boarded-out children do no better than the children from the schools, although she thinks "that they often get a better start in a higher kind of service." 5 Mrs. R. Henniker said, 6 "Giving my own personal opinion, I am very much against boarding-out." " Fulham Union is opposed to it." " We object to lose sight of our orphan and deserted children, and to hand them over to irresponsible persons ; we prefer to keep them where, if anything goes wrong, we have a responsible officer that we can come down upon about it; and then, again, my experience of country life is that there is extreme difficulty in finding suitable homes for the children." Again, Miss A. L. Lee was asked (Q. 10,341) : "But taking boarding-out with all the disadvantages that you have mentioned, and with all the conditions of ordinary working-class life, do you think it is better or worse than the district schools? — A. I should think that Banstead is better. — Q. 10,342 You would think that Banstead is better ? — A. Better and safer on the whole ; for if the children there were boarded-out, a few might have more advantages, but the majority would incur greater risks." To give only one more instance on this point, Mr. J. T. Wainwright was asked (Q. 2333): "Have you come to any conclusion as to which is the best system ? — A. Well, it all depends on the individuals working it. Of course, you may get a very nice foster-parent, and one cottage may do very well; but it is very difficult, I gather from those who work it, to be sure of the foster- parents. I think myself that in a properly-managed school they will do as well as under any other system." Mr. Wainwright's answer really sums up the whole matter, and we think that we have now shown that the evidence given was by no means e?nphatically in favour of boarding-out, as the Report would give us to understand. Then the Committee would have it understood that there is no difficulty in finding suitable homes for the children. They refer to the evidence of six witnesses in support of the belief expressed by 1 Report, p. 9. Ante, p. 363. 2 Evidence, Qs. 6827, 6859, and 6862. 3 Ibid, Q. 5905. 4 Ibid., Qs. 7278-7281. 5 Ibid., Q. 10,944. 6 Ibid., Qs. 5541, 5542. 384 Children under the Poor Law them, that good homes could be found for many times the number of children boarded-out beyond Unions. 1 We can, without quoting Miss Mason, refer to the evidence of at least an equal number of credible witnesses who stated exactly the contrary. Why did not the Committee refer to it ? Against the evidence of Mr. Bevan, Miss Temple, Miss Brodie Hall, Miss Matthews, Miss Cargill, and Miss Walker, we can set that of Miss Baker, Mr. Howlett, Mrs. Lascelles, Miss Lee, Mr. Lockwood, and Colonel St. John. 2 . The evidence being so equally balanced, one would have thought the Committee would not have expressed their opinion so positively on the point. While three and a half pages of the Report are devoted to describing the advantages of boarding-out, 3 we cannot find any reference to its disadvantages, or that it can be anything but the ideal system it is described to be. Therefore it will be well to dissect this section of the chapter very carefully, although we have already drawn attention to the dangers to which the system is exposed. 4 The Committee, in showing that the children are, as a rule, treated with affection by their foster-parents, refer to a case mentioned by Mr. Clay " of a girl who had contracted dirty habits, and had been returned on this account to the Guardians. The foster-parent, however, was not happy until she got it back. After she had lost it she seemed to have found that she had grown fond of it, and she had it back, and we have not the slightest reason to doubt that it was really from good intentions." Now Mr. Clay quoted this as rather an exceptional case, for the Shoreditch Guardians had had such an unfortunate experience of boarding-out that they were obliged to give it up. Do the Com- mittee mention this fact? Of course not. Mr. Clay said that the Guardians had found that their boarded-out children were being repeatedly sent to fresh homes. "Then, again, we had complaints of a boy." The Boarding-out Committee "could do nothing with him, and so when they found that they could do nothing with him, we had to receive him back. The same with a girl from another Committee, two or three girls indeed, who as they grew up became unattractive sort of children, and they had a difficulty in getting a home for them, so that our experience is not quite satisfactory." Now the Depart- mental Committee give evidence to show that "even when the children are unattractive the foster-parents often show a remarkable affection for them." We have italicised the word often, because only four witnesses are referred to in support of the statement, Mr. Clay among them. But Mr. Clay had said that when children became un- attractive difficulties did arise, and he gave two striking instances where two such children, one a boy and the other a girl, had succeeded in the Hornchurch Schools, although they had failed when boarded- out. 5 Miss Temple, Miss Brodie Hall, and Miss Mason are the other witnesses referred to on the point, but Miss Temple merely said that 1 Report, p. 90. The number of children boarded-out beyond Unions on the 1st January, 1896, was 1833. (25 L.G.B., p. lxxxviii.) 2 Qs. 2424-5, 8218-9, 7085-7, 10,075-6, 10,105, 9688, 13,303-6. 3 Report, pp. 91-94. 4 Ante, Chapters vii. and viii. 5 Evidence, Qs. 7285-7288. Report of the Departmental Committee 385 she had known one case where the parents had shown a great affection for an exceedingly naughty and very badly behaved child 1 (it is not stated whether the child was good-looking, which is sometimes an attraction even to foster-parents) j and as to Miss Brodie Hall, what she said was : " I cannot speak highly enough of the affection which is shown by the foster-parents, especially when they had difficult children in extremely bad health, who, I think, in the workhouse must have died." And in the two cases mentioned by Miss Mason, and which are referred to by the Committee, she said they were quite exceptional? These extracts, then, from her evidence give no support to the general statements made in the Report. We now come to a paragraph 3 which really seems to us to show what was at the bottom of the Committee's recommendation 4 that boarding-out ought to be extended. It is the "pauper taint" fallacy. The Committee say : " When boarded-out the children become absorbed into the general life of the village in which they are placed, they lose the characteristics which inevitably attach to the institution child. Mr. McNeill, the Secretary of the Board of Supervision of Scotland, is of opinion that in Scotland the boarding-out system has had the effect of 'cutting off the entail of pauperism in many in- stances,' and he testifies that the children become merged in the labouring classes, and that it is only rarely that they appear as paupers when grown up. The ' pauper taint ' disappears, for there is nothing in the children's surroundings to remind either them or their neighbours that they belong to the pauper class. They are clothed like the other children of the village ; in many cases they assume their foster-parents' names, and they receive their education in the village school." We have already given statistics 5 to show that pauperism has, if anything, decreased more in England than in Scotland, and this book will have been written in vain if we have not succeeded in proving that decrease of pauperism depends entirely on administration, and not on the adoption of any particular method of dealing with pauper children. As for the " pauper taint " we never have believed in it, and never shall, as peculiarly attaching to children educated in Poor Law institutions. It is a term invented by the upper classes, and one of which the working classes do not understand the meaning. We have already discussed the subject in Chapter XIII., 6 and only mention it again here to show how seriously the Departmental Committee must have been affected by those two magical words. Let us see who are the witnesses who are referred to as supporting this extraordinary paragraph. They are Mr. Lockwood, Miss Brodie Hall, Mrs. Fawkes, Mr. McNeill, Miss F. Davenport Hill, Mr. Bevan, and Miss Cargill. As to the first of these names we are inclined to ask, Que diable allait il /aire dans cette galere ? On referring to his evidence we of course find that he has been placed there entirely against his will. " Q. 9727 (Mrs. Barnett). In the villages where you have seen something of the boarded-out children, do they take their stand with other village children? A. I think so." What on earth has this answer to do 1 Evidence, Question 11,248. 2 Ibid., Questions 14,411-14,412. 3 Report, p. 91. 4 Ibid., p. 101. 5 Ante. p. 210. 6 Ante, pp. 329-334. 2 C 386 Children under the Poor Law with the statement of the Report. Of course the children take their stand with the others. Why should not they? But Mr. Lockwood says nothing as to their losing "the characteristics which inevitably (note this word) attach to the institution child." That the majority of boarded-out children become absorbed into the population is a truism which is testified to by Miss Brodie Hall, Mrs. Fawkes, and Mr. McNeill; that "in many cases they assume their foster-parents' names" is told us by Mr. Bevan; that "they re- ceive their education in the village school " was a piece of information solemnly imparted to the Committee by Miss F. Davenport Hill, and carefully noted down. Mr. McNeill is the sole authority — and he had Scotland in his mind — for the statements that the boarding-out system cuts " off the entail of pauperism in many instances," that the children only rarely "reappear as paupers when grown up," and that "the pauper taint disappears." But even he did not use the term "pauper taint," for it was suggested to him by Mr. Mundella. Not a single one of the witnesses mentions the inevitable characteristics of the institution child, nor do they say that "there is nothing in the children's surroundings to remind either them or their neighbours that they belong to the pauper class," though possibly this last sentence is a paraphrase of Miss Cargill's reply to the question, "And they are not regarded as inferior children by the children of the neighbourhood, or looked down upon as pauper children in any way ? A. No, I have never found that." But of course the whole sting of the paragraph lies in the suggestion that the "pauper taint" attaches only to the "institution child." We will now refer to some evidence to the contrary, which was before the Committee, but which they ignore. We have already shown how about fifteen per cent, of the children boarded-out by London Boards in the country are returned to the Guardians instead of becoming " absorbed into the general life of the villages in which they are placed." 1 And as to the disappearance of the " pauper taint," Mr. Crooks told the Committee that in the village of Eyke, typical of many other villages where boarding-out is the staple industry, "the advantages which the children are supposed to gain from the change of influence are in my opinion altogether nullified by worse dangers than exist even in barrack schools. I find that the children are not removed from the stain of pauperism by their surroundings. The whole village knows and promptly recognizes that the little ones are pauper children, and they are known more by the name of the Union from which they are sent than by their own individual names." He then went on to say that the children were known as "Poplars," "Holborns," " Wandsworths." 2 But the whole of Mr. Crooks' evidence should be read. The Committee pass over this evidence very lightly. In a later portion of the chapter, in speaking of the necessity of inspection, they say that in this case Mr. Crooks "found that the committee had practically lapsed, and he was led to the conclusion that as the work had fallen entirely into the hands of one person, there was a danger of boarding-out being used as a means of patronage for the benefit of the foster-parents rather than of the 1 Ante, p. 214. 2 Evidence, Qs. 12,415-16, also Q. 12,479. Report of the Departmental Committee 387 children." 1 Now it seems to us that if Mr. Crooks' evidence proves anything, it proves that the pauper origin of boarded-out children is not concealed; indeed, it was the fact of Miss Mason's visit to the village which caused the committee to resign, and which led the Poplar Guardians to inquire as to their children. 2 Miss Mason told the Committee that " everyone in the village knew where the children came from, nearly everywhere." 3 But Miss Mason is no believer in the "pauper taint," under whatever system a child may be brought up. She says, " I think there is much more talk about ' pauper taint ' than reality." 4 Miss Bramston was asked (Q. 13,463), "What is it you wish to say as to children forming part of family life ? A. Well, some people say they entirely become a part of the family. They do in a way become a part of the family, but it is always known that they are not children of the family — that they are outsiders. I talked it over with the committee. 'Do not tell them they come from London.' But the children in the schools know; they say to them, 'That is not your mother,' or, 'You come from London,' and it is very well known. (Q. 13,464.) There is no objection to that? A. Oh, not the slightest, only there is a sort of sentimental idea that they become an integral part of the family, as if they had all been born and bred there." Now the Departmental Committee themselves admit that the success of boarding-out must depend largely upon efficient inspection. But this inspection cannot be carried out properly, as we have shown in our chapter on " boarding-out," without regular and constant visiting. Of course these visits are known to every person in a village, and the children to whom such extraordinary attention is paid come to be marked. In short, admitting for the purpose of argument that such a thing as the " pauper taint " exists, it is easy to show that it attaches to all classes of pauper children in whatever form they receive relief. But we deny that it exists at all except in the imagination of those who are so fond of proclaiming it from the housetops. The next paragraphs of the chapter we are considering 5 point out the advantages of boarding-out (a) in its beneficial health results, and in the freedom of children from those diseases such as ophthalmia and ringworm "which work so much havoc in the pauper schools"; (b) in that it supplies "home ties"; (c) in the personal interest which the members of boarding-out committees take in the children ; (d) in the raising of the general tone of village life, and (e) in that it is cheap. (a) As to the Beneficial Health Results of Boarding-out. We admit this at once, bat would again remind our readers that it is only the pick of Poor Law children who are boarded-out. The Committees have, somehow or other, omitted to draw attention to the point ! And yet the evidence was before them. Thus Miss Clifford told them that "boarded-out children are to some extent selected children; the workhouse children are a great mixture." And 1 Report, p. 97. 2 Evidence, Qs. 12,416, 14,470. 3 Ibid., Q. 14,558. 4 Ibid., Q. 14,559. 5 Report, pp. 92, 93. 6 Evidence, Q. 11,063. 388 Children under the Poor Law even Dr. Barnardo — their favourite witness — told them that all his cases were, with the exception of a certain section of them, selected children, and that consequently good health results were to be expected. 1 His examination by Mrs. Barnett on the point is very amusing, because it exactly bears out what we have said in other parts of our book as to the reasons why Poor Law educational institutions do not show such good results as would be expected if they did not board-out all their best children. — " Q. 9258. You say that the flower of your flock have been boarded-out ? A. In the main. — Q. 9259. So that in considering the results of your girls in the Village Home, it must be taken into consideration that the flower of them have been boarded-out? A. That is so. — Q. 9260. It is also true that you have sent the healthy ones away for boarding-out? A. Yes. — Q. 9261. So that in considering your tables of health we have also to remember that they have been taken after the most healthy ones have left? A. Yes, that is so. The results are necessarily lower, because we have taken away so many healthy girls, and the same with regard to character. We begin to prepare our records as to character at an early age. A girl may leave the village for boarding-out when she is from five to ten, and we cannot send a girl to Canada that has the least physical blemish ; the consequence is that the Village Home sometimes contains only a physical residuum. — Q. 9262. That has to be considered in showing the results of your girls who have been placed out in service? A. Yes." Here is verily a Daniel come to judgment ! Substitute " Poor Law institution" for "Village Home" in the above extract and the Guardians' case is proved. But we can find no reference to this very important evidence in the Report. We ought not then to be surprised at the freedom of boarded-out children from the diseases which are alleged to be peculiar to Poor Law institutions, viz., of ophthalmia and ringworm. But that they have not absolute immunity from these diseases was shown by several witnesses, e.g., by Miss J. H. Walker, m.d., Miss Mason, Dr. Stephenson, etc. It would, indeed, be interesting to know from what experience Miss Brodie Hall was enabled to state so positively that ophthalmia was "a disease never heard of in a boarded-out child." 2 Miss Walker told the Committee that 2*3 per cent, of the children boarded-out by Dr. Barnardo suffered from the disease in one form or another. Dr. Stephenson had had a few cases brought to him. 3 "For example," he said, "the Guardians of the parish of Lambeth, some time, I think over a year, ago, sent me three children who had been removed from some boarding-out centre, and also had different kinds of ophthalmia ; one case of trachoma." And he added that these children " seemed not to have had any particular attention where they were." 1 Evidence, Qs. 9127, 9128. 2 Ibid., Q. 11,347. In a return of the number of children returned to the Guardians after being boarded out, Miss Brodie Hall mentions eight cases in which the causes were * ophthalmia or defective eyesight.' The two statements seem to us to be slightly contradictory. 3 Ibid., Qs. 1 in and 11 12. Report of the Departmental Committee 389 Miss Temple 1 refers to the case of a boarded-out boy who had very bad eyes. " We visited him," she said, "the year before last. He had suffered for some time from weak eyes, but this year (1895) when we went again we were shocked to find how very much worse his eyes were; so, not having visited him for a year, because we saw the difference in him from one year to the next, whereas the foster-parent and the regular visitor seeing him constantly could not see the great difference, we were able to send him to an eye hospital to have his eyes seen to, and he is getting very much better." Miss Mason told the Committee that some children began with bad eyes after being boarded-out. 2 "I found a child this year (1895) beginning with the first symptoms of— I do not want to use technical words — but its pupil was contracted with an incipient gathering, and that child had been boarded-out some years, and when I saw it before its eyes were all right." She also referred to the case of another boarded-out child whose eyes were very bad ; " they were worse each time I saw her." 3 She was asked whether she had ever come across boarded-out children with anything that can be called contagious ophthalmia, and she replied, "Yes, I have. I find them with eye complaints of many kinds." 4 When it is remembered how careful the medical officers are not to certify for boarding-out, children suffering from any eye complaint, the conclusion is inevitable that they are liable to pick up those complaints in the villages to which they are sent. In a recent article in the Contemporary Review^ Miss Lidgett men- tioned the case of a boarded-out boy who had lost the sight of one eye, which had escaped the observation of the Boarding-out Committee, and which Miss Mason found out in one of her inspections. But un- doubtedly boarded-out children, being carefully selected, do not usually get these diseases, which are not common in country villages. That the Committee were not quite satisfied on the score of board- ing-out being so very superior with respect to the health of the children, is shown by the fact that they recommend " that a special hospital be provided for the treatment of acute cases of illness arising amongst boarded-out children." 6 {b) As to the Advantage of Boarding-out Supplying " Home Ties." We have not the least reason to doubt that in the large majority of cases foster-parents do get fond of the children, do their best for them, and offer them a home when out of place. Still Miss Mason's evidence must not be neglected. It cannot be dismissed in the off-hand way in which the Committee refer to it. They say : " Miss Mason observes that whether the foster-parents treat the children well or not, the child has a home of some kind to come back to in times of necessity," 7 and they refer to Q. 14,544. We turn to this reference and we find that Miss Mason was asked whether the boarding-out system provided * Evidence, Q. 11,180. See also 11,299-11,301, where Miss Temple says that the child was so blind that it could hardly read without putting the book up to its eyes. a Ibid., Qs. 14,594-14,600. 3 Ibid., Q. 14,659. 4 Ibid., Q. 14,704. • February, 1896. « Report, p. 101. 7 Ibid., p. 93. 39° Children under the Poor Law homes for the children when they are grown-up, and whether they continued frequently to live with their foster-parents. Now note the reply. " Yes, they do sometimes. But they do not continue to live there very long. The adoption of the children, as it is called, is not at all satisfactory as a rule; when they go on living with their foster-parents, it is usually because they want to keep them on for the sake of their services. A much better thing which you find is that whether they treat them well or not the child has a home of some kind to which to come back to between situations, but the remaining with the foster-parents I have found generally is not satisfactory." This is an instance of the way in which the Committee carefully pick their way through Miss Mason's evidence, choosing all those parts which fit in to their Report, and rejecting those which do not. As showing that the " home tie " is not always advantageous to the children, Miss Mason said that she had found cases of partiality shown by foster- parents toward their own children as contrasted with the boarded-out children. " I know cases," she said, " where the boarded-out boys get up in the morning to light the fire, blacklead the grate, and clean the boots for the rest of the family. I know one where the boarded-out boys have to bring in the coal, and the son of the house sits doing nothing. They have to bring in the coal, bring in the wood after school hours, and they are also taken out by the foster-parents hedging, and are kept from school for the purpose." 1 The Committee further report that the evidence is completely reassur- ing on the point that the foster-parents do not receive the children merely for the sake of making a profit by them. 2 References are made to the evidence of three witnesses, Miss Baker, Rev. F. C. Green, and Miss Mason. The evidence of the former discloses such a flow of benevolent sentiment unrestrained by sober judgment that we are inclined to somewhat mistrust it. 3 Mr. Green probably states the truth when he says that while it is the idea of profit which in the first instance causes people to adopt children, love and affection spring up afterwards in many cases. 4 But Miss Mason's evidence is, as usual, much misrepresented. The Committee wrote : " Miss Mason says that in the first instance the children are undoubtedly taken for profit, but that in many instances the foster-parents become so attached to the children that they would ultimately keep them without payment rather than part with them." 5 It must be observed that it was Mr. Green who used the words " in many instances," and not Miss Mason. She said that there were not very many foster-parents who took the children for the sake of doing good, but there were some. Then in answer to the question "What do you think is the chief motive that induces the foster-parents to take children ? " she replied, " Undoubtedly they take them for profit in the first instance ; nearly all do ; afterwards some of them become attached to the children, and some become so attached to 1 Evidence, Q. 14,550. In a country Union quite a short time ago, some boarded- out boys who ought to have been in school were found to have been allowed to play truant in order to act as beaters for a shooting party. 2 Report, pp. 95, 96. 3 Evidence, Q. 2604. 4 Ibid., Qs. 12,682-83. 5 Report, p. 96. Report of the Departmental Committee 391 them that they would really keep them for nothing, and some do." 1 (Q. 14,535.) " Keep them without payment ? " " Would, rather than part with them, keep them without payment — some, but 1 do not say many." Again, we ask, what are we to think of a Committee which distorts the evidence of important witnesses in such a way ? We cannot find a single reference in the Report to the cases of cruelty which come to light from time to time, nor indeed does it appear that the Committee troubled themselves to ask questions on the subject, although they printed in large type in an appendix to the Report the well-known " Gillespie " cruelties at the Brentwood Schools. However, Miss Mason was asked (Q. 14,377) : " Have you found many cases of cruelty on the part of the foster-parents? A. Yes, a good many. — Q. 14,378. Now taking the whole number under your care? A. I have told you that I could not tell you off-hand the contents of these note-books. I will never make guesses at figures, because I am quite sure that I should give an inaccurate impression. I have never given any figures anywhere as to the number of cases of ill-treatment. But if you want cases of any sort or kind, I can give them to you. — Q. 14,379. Let us take your recent experience? The last three months. Have you found any case of ill-treatment during the last three months ? A. Yes, a good many. I found a boy with his shoulders completely covered with bruises ; and the year before I found this same boy and another in a different and a very dirty home, with a bedridden old woman and a girl about thirteen, who ill-treated them. They were then covered with bruises, they were in rags, they had scarcely any clothes. The committee moved them on my representations, and put them in another home, where I again this year found this boy covered with bruises. — Q. 14,380. That is five cases in the last three years ? A. I have not said they were all. — Q. 14,381. I say you have found these five cases in the last three years? A. I did not say five cases, and I did not say in the last three years. You asked me in the last three months. — Q. 14,382. Two last year and two the year before? A. I did not say so. I will give you an instance of anything, but I will not give you numbers ; I will give you another bad case, various bad cases if you like, during the last three months. — Q. 14,383. No. But I want to ask you of the 400 children that you saw during the year 1893 or 1894; did you find any that were cruelly treated in your opinion ? A. It depends on what you call cruelty. Some people say it is cruel to cane a boy in a district school, but that it is proper for foster-parents to beat and bruise children with hard sticks. If you ask me whether they beat them, I can tell you that I found a good many children severely beaten and bruised amongst those 400. I found a little boy, for instance, at the end of the year, whose toes looked as if they would come off from raw chilblains. Bad, broken chilblains, untended, and touching a dirty stocking or hard boot with nothing between, are very common among boarded-out children. — Q. 14,384. I want a general statement from you. A. I cannot give you figures, / cannot give you general statements; I would do so if I could, but I am sure it would be misleading. It is very seldom I go a month 1 Evidence, Q. 14,534. 392 Children under the Poor Law without finding an ill-treated child, a really ill-treated child. It depends entirely upon the committee, whether they inspect thoroughly. — Q. 14,385. You say you have seldom gone a month without finding an ill-treated child? A. Yes, I might more accurately say a fortnight" (c) As to the Personal Interest Taken in the Children. The fact that the members of a good Boarding-out Committee take a personal interest in the children under their care is undoubtedly a strong point in favour of boarding-out: but there is absolutely nothing to prevent philanthropic ladies from taking an equal interest in those children who are brought up in institutions. Indeed, we have shown in our chapter on " After-Care " what a good work is being done for the benefit of these latter children. (d) As to Raising the Tone of Village Life. As to boarding-out raising the tone of village life, we require something more than the evidence of one witness 1 to convince us on the point. (e) As to the Cheapness of the System. As to the cheapness of the system, we are afraid, after all is said and done, that this is its principal merit in the eyes of the represen- tatives of the ratepayers. It is cheap. Some Boards of Guardians are content to pay 3s. a week to the foster-parents, and pride them- selves on the fact ; but if boarding-out is to be largely increased the ratepayers must be prepared to see training-homes established for the children before they go out to service or employment, and special hospitals for the treatment of acute cases of illness arising among them, 2 so that their "last state may not be worse than the first." They must also be prepared to find employment for the children who are fit for service. On p. 94 of the Report the Committee repeat the assertion that a further advantage to the ratepayers in boarding-out the children "is the prospective decrease of pauperism, because the children become absorbed into the general population, and parents are deterred from deserting their children when they know that they will be boarded- out." Mr. Fuller's is the only evidence referred to in support of the statement (Qs. 5237-5252). Whether these children will become absorbed into the general population is a question entirely of numbers. Where considerable numbers of them are boarded-out in one place this absorption is absolutely out of the question. On the second point it is, of course, quite possible that parents and relations may prefer their children being sent to the schools to their being boarded-out. But we should like to have some stronger proof to show that the fear of their children being boarded-out makes the parents less inclined to desert them. 3 But whether this be so or not 1 Report, p. 93. 2 Ibid., p. 101. 3 Miss Lidgett is very positive that the offer to board-out children makes their parents think twice before it is accepted, whereas they do not mind their being sent Report of the Departmental Committee 393 there is no evidence — not even that of Mr. Fuller — to show that boarding-out tends to decrease pauperism. On the contrary, as we have shown, it is not excepted from the general rule that outdoor relief, in whatever form it may be administered, has a tendency to increase pauperism, and boarding -out is a form of outdoor relief. Indeed, Mr. Fuller, who is a great advocate of boarding-out, told the Committee that the reduction of pauperism in the Paddington Union was owing to "more thoughtful administration and consequent reduction of outdoor relief. 1 We wish that the Committee had taken more evidence as to the operation of boarding-out in other countries. We have shown that its effect is not to reduce pauperism in Scotland 2 (Mr. McNeill and Mr. Peterkin are the only two witnesses whose evidence is referred to by the Committee, and they are Scotch Poor Law Officials), and Miss F. Davenport Hill is so prone to loose statements of fact that we can attach very little importance to her evidence (and she was the only witness on this point) as to its effect in other countries. We have already given one example to show with what caution her statements must be received, 3 and we will now give one other example. She was asked (Q. 3128), "Will you tell us what has been the effect in the city of Massachusetts as regards the number of children who have been thrown upon the State for maintenance since this system (boarding-out) was established? A. The numbers at first were very considerable, but they have sunk very satisfactorily. — Q. 3129. Can you give us the figures ? A. It is now two or three years since my latest information, but they have been steadily going down. I have not heard of anything likely to raise them. During the first ten years, the number of children in the schools had sunk by 300. By 1887 the decrease had reached 836, those remaining in the schools being 504. There were besides 1060 dependent children, placed in families, of whom 534 had been transferred thither from schools; of these 1060 only 161 were on payment, the rest costing the State nothing but for supervision, a large part of which is gratuitous." Now Dr. Rhodes has stated the true facts in a paper read at the North- Western Poor Law Conference in 1896. He took the following figures from the Seventeenth Report of the State Board of Lunacy and Charity of Massachusetts, and it will be seen that they directly conflict with Miss Hill's evidence : Year. At Board. In Schools. Total.* 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 to the schools, and • 247 563 1695 . 262 536 1697 • 240 575 1717 . 262 643 1802 • 274 655 1975 • 325 674 2057 . 378 609 2284 • 437 590 2448 • 582 524 2565 • 736 415 2633 Includes those self-supporting in families. that the effect may be to prevent the Guardians being imposed upon. (Report, p. 94. Evidence, Qs. 1481-2.) 1 Evidence, Q. 5245. 2 Ante, p. 210. 3 Ante, p. 367. 394 Children tinder the Poor Law Thus while in 1886 810 children were being supported by the State, the number had risen to 1151 in 1895. 1 Nothing has been more remarkable in the Poor Law history of England and Wales than the great decrease of pauperism which has taken place during the last fifty years. On the 1st January, 1849, 382,720 children were receiving poor relief (24*8 per 1000 of the population), while on the 1st January, 1896, the number was 238,489 (or 7 -8 per 1000 of the population). We venture to say that no country or colony in the world can show better results than this. There is one point about boarding-out which the Committee are obliged to refer to, and that is the deficiency of industrial training for the children. In comparing the system with that of large schools on the score of cheapness ; this fact must be borne in mind. Good industrial training can only be given in institutions, 2 and indeed the Committee recommend that institutions should be established for the training of boarded-out children before they are placed out in service or other employment. 3 The Committee refer to the religious difficulty, 4 and, as regards children whose creed cannot be ascertained, see no reason why the boarding-out authority should not be free to place such children with Protestant Dissenters when the homes are otherwise suitable, and indeed they recommend that this power should be given. 5 Miss Mason told the Committee that this was sometimes done now, and that the "religious difficulty" was practically unknown to the Local Government Board. 6 But she never said anywhere in her evidence that there should be any legal power given to enable the boarding-out authorities to board out those children who were classed in the Creed Register as "Church of England" with other than foster-parents belonging to the Established Church. She did, however, say that, in her opinion, the Guardians were not quite careful enough about entering the children under their creeds. " I think there would not be so much difficulty if they would take more trouble to find out what they are." 7 Although the Committee are at very little pains to point out the special dangers of boarding- out, they do just refer to them ; but they dismiss them airily by saying, "We should not recommend an extension of boarding-out if we were not perfectly satisfied that experience will result in the adoption of all needful safeguards. We are assured that on the whole the Boarding-out Committees do their duty well, and that their work is becoming year by year more efficient, with the prospect that as the work progresses a still higher state of efficiency will be attained." 8 Surely the same might be said of Poor Law Schools, which, however, are to be done away with just when years of experience have shown how their defects may be got rid of. 1 In a letter to the Local Government Journal (28th November, 1896), Dr. Rhodes tells Miss Hill that he had had the pleasure of sending to one of the colonies that she quoted particulars and plans of the new schools at Styal, and that he hoped before long to hear of the adoption in the colony of the " cottage homes" system. 2 Dr. Barnardo frankly admitted this in regard to boys. Evidence, Questions 9280-9287. 3 Report, p. 95. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., p. 101. 6 Evidence, Q. 14,730. 7 Ibid., Q. 14,737- 8 Report, p. 97. Report of the Departmental Committee 395 And anyone reading the chapter we are criticising would, we are sure, rise from its perusal with the idea impressed upon him that all pauper children can be boarded-out. Indeed, the Committee hint at this in their recommendation, "that the restrictions as to the ages between which children may be boarded-out for the first time be removed, and the new boarding-out authority be entrusted with the responsibility of making such regulations in this and kindred matters as may be found most suitable, to encourage and not to hinder the extension of the boarding-out system." 1 We have shown that there are very good reasons indeed for the restrictions as to age. 2 Indeed, the Committee do not adduce any evidence to support their recommendation on this point. 3 Of course the younger the children are boarded out the better. Everyone is agreed as to this, but to reduce the age below two would be most dangerous. 4 But as to boarding-out children over ten years of age the following witnesses expressed their dissent to the proposal : Miss Lidgett, 5 Miss Mason 6 ("I scarcely ever find a child that has been boarded-out over or near ten either satisfactory or well treated "), Miss Clifford, 7 Mr. Fuller, 8 and Miss Brodie Hall. 9 Miss Lidgett's reasons against the practice are worth quoting in full. She was asked, 10 "Why do you not think it advisable to board-out later than ten ? " and she replied, 11 If they are boys, they eat a good deal, and they grow out of their clothes. They are expensive to their parents. A foster-parent said to me, ' I wish you would send us little boys next time, because it really does not pay us. It pays us quite well when they are quite little j it does not pay us when they are bigger.' Now, if those little boys go when they are small, the foster-parents, if they are good, will put up with them when they are bigger, because they have an affection for them, but if they have to take them bigger, children they have no affection for, they will begrudge everything they do for them. With the girls I think the temptation is to make them into little servants too much. We want them to become useful; but I know at Atherstone, where I was visiting some years ago, a woman was complaining of her little girl that she was not handy at all ; she was not useful. It might have been a little servant engaged for the purpose by the way the foster-mother spoke." As to the classes of children which may be safely boarded-out, we are confident that there is overwhelming testimony that they should be healthy children, and either orphan or deserted. 11 There is also a large body of expert opinion which will not admit that the boarding- out system is best for boys. Thus Mr. Knollys told the Committee 12 that "boys in many respects, if the schools were reduced in size, I Report, p. 101. 2 Ante, p. 189. 3 Miss Baker was in favour of it, especially for girls. Evidence, Qs. 2434, 2437, 2715. 4 Evidence of Miss Bramston, Q. 13,400; of Miss Clifford, Q. 11,022-24; Mr. Fuller, however, favoured the practice, Q. 5263. 6 Evidence, Q. 13 14. 6 Ibid., Q. 14,502. 7 Ibid., Q. 11, in. 8 Ibid., Q. 5263. 9 Ibid., Qs. 11,341, 11,415. w j b i d ^ q. I3I4 . II See e.g. the evidence of Mr. H. J. Cook (Q. 1525), and of Miss M. Clifford (Q. 11,070). 12 Evidence, Q. 17,202. 396 Children under the Poor Law would do better in schools than anywhere else. I do not apply the same to girls." But whether boys or girls be boarded-out they must be healthy subjects, both physically and mentally ; but, unfortunately, too many of the children who come under the control of Boards of Guardians are not so. Thus the number of children who can be boarded-out will always be limited. The large majority of them must be dealt with in other ways. These facts were brought to the notice of the Committee by witnesses, but they are almost ignored in the Report. The evidence of these witnesses showed that the system of boarding-out is not good for delicate cases, which were continually requiring medical treatment. Thus Dr. Warner told the Committee that "it will not do for children who have any degree of defect at all." 1 The Rev. J. H. Hadden gave evidence to the same effect, and added a list of particular cases. 2 Nor will Boarding-out Committees have anything to do with children who are not sound in body and mind, and return such children at once to the Guardians. 3 Dr. Stephenson, who favours the boarding-out system where it can be applied, said emphatically that it cannot be applied to diseased children, that is to say "chronically diseased children." 4 Nor is the system good for feeble-minded children. Dr. Barnardo seems to be the only witness who says that it does benefit this class. 5 We have seen how Dr. Warner's evidence has been twisted and turned to make it appear that he is in favour of these children being boarded- out. 6 Miss Temple expressed herself strongly against the practice, 7 and so did Miss Mason. 8 Dr. Stephenson, again, spoke most emphatically against boarding-out children suffering from ophthalmia. 9 Boarded-out children are thus seen to be selected children, while workhouse children are a great mixture. We do not believe that the Committee emphasise this point anywhere in the Report, and yet not a single witness seems to have disputed it. It is a most important con- sideration when a comparison of results is made. And yet whenever the comparison has been made the percentage of failures among boarded-out children is, at least, as great as that among those children who have been brought up under other systems. 10 This chapter of the Report ends with an attack on the Local Govern- ment Board, and the suggestion that the duty of settling and carrying out the arrangements for boarding-out the pauper children of the Metropolis should be transferred to the new Central Authority recom- mended by the majority of the Committee. 11 We have discussed this proposal in Chapter XIII. 1 Evidence, Q. 353. 2 Ibid., Qs. 341 5-3418. See also evidence of Dr. Bridges, Q. 974. 3 Ibid., Q. 2406. 4 Ibid., Q. 1 1 70. 5 Ibid., Qs. 927^-9279- 6 Ante, p. 381. 7 Evidence, Q. 11,247. 8 ^id. t Qs. 14,409-15, 14,683. 9 Ibid., Qs. 1106-1109. 10 Ante, pp. 21 1-2 16. n Report, pp. 97-8. Report of the Departmental Committee 397 Section XIII. CHAPTERS XV. TO XXIV. OF THE REPORT. Chapters XV. to XX. of the Report treat of Cottage Homes, Certified Schools, Training-Ships, Isolated Homes, and Emigration. We have nothing to add to what we have already said in criticism of the state- ments of the Committee in our chapters under those heads. We have dealt with the arguments brought forward in Chapters XXI. and XXII. of the Report in favour of the establishment of a new Central Metropolitan Authority, with its own body of inspectors, in Chapter XIII. As to the chapter on finance, 1 we have already incidentally referred to the subject, so far as we wished to do so. We believe that " results" have justified the expenditure incurred. In the last chapter of the Report, which deals with reforms in " Miscellaneous details of administration," 2 the Committee make some useful recommendations, the least debatable of which, however, are drawn from conditions already existing in Poor Law Schools. We have criticised the suggestion that the proposed Central Metropolitan Authority should appoint the superior officers in Chapter XIII. We need only draw attention here to one very striking paragraph which illustrates the fierce animus against large schools which pervades the whole Report. 3 It describes in full the experience of Mr. Crooks, L.C.C., when he was a boy, thirty years ago, at the Sutton School, and would lead the ordinary reader to believe that it is a faithful description of the large schools at the present day. Of course, it is a perfect libel on them, and Mr. Crooks himself would probably be among the first to say so. Indeed, Mr. Crooks is not against "barrack" schools of a reasonable size. 4 " It seems to me," he said, " that no school should get over its 300 boys or 300 girls, as the case may be ; it is big enough for any one institution." But he favours the school being cleared out at least once a year, and the children sent to the seaside or to the country, and said : " Would it not give them something in life different from what they have now ? You wish to put them on a par with the big public schools. They would have the home to go to in vacation time ; the school would be thoroughly cleansed and done up ; and it seems to me it would give them a better tone if you did that." 5 Section XIV.— APPENDIX A. TO THE REPORT. The Report concludes with a memorandum prepared by the Rt. Hon. Sir John E. Gorst, m.p., at the request of the Poor Law Schools Committee, on Papers submitted by the Local Government Board to the Committee on the following subjects: (1) The fatal fire at Forest Gate Schools in 1889; (2) the accidental poisoning of children at Forest Gate Schools in 1893; (3) tne cruelties practised at Brentwood Schools, for which Gillespie was sentenced to penal servitude in 1894. 6 The 1 Chapter xxiii. 2 lbid. t xxiv. 3 Report, p. 167. 4 Evidence, Q. 12,626. 5 Ibid. 6 Report, pp. 176-8. 398 Children under the Poor Law Committee, however, do not appear to have requested any of its members to prepare a memorandum on cruelties practised on boarded- out children, which would have filled many more pages of the Report than are filled by the cases of neglect so prominently brought forward to prejudice as much as possible the " large school " system. (i.) As to the fire at Forest Gate, the incident had already done duty in the Report, 1 the Committee, on the authority of Mr. Ernest Hart, pointing out that the fire " was partly owing to the disorganization consequent on an epidemic of ophthalmia." " If," they say in effect, "the schools had not been 'barracks' there would have been no ophthalmia, and if there had been no ophthalmia, there would not have been any fire ! " The prejudice shown by the Committee against large schools was never more clearly shown than in the prominence they give to this case. (2.) The same may also be said of the poisoning cases at these schools, but here a serious statement of a most misleading character was made by Sir John Gorst. He wrote : " No inquiry as to how the children came to be poisoned has ever been made either by the managers or the Local Government Board." 2 The evidence given to the Committee was before him directly to the contrary, and until attention was drawn to the point in some correspondence in the columns of The Times in May and June, 1896, no one knew what he meant to imply by the statement. In a letter signed "A Student of the Report and Evidence," it was shown that Dr. Downes, the Poor Law Medical Inspector for London, not only made a special inquiry into the poisoning, but that he gave a full account of it in his evidence before the Committee (Qs. 8898-8915). 3 In reply, the Secretary to the Committee, Mr. H. F. Aveling, supported the accuracy of Sir John Gorst's statement. 4 This latter letter drew forth the following correspondence, which we must insert in full here, the question being such an important one : 5 " To the Editor of ' The Times: "Sir, — I beg to forward to you the following correspondence in reference to this matter. u j ^ ^ yQur obedient seryantj "Henry F. Aveling. "June \th? "Local Government Board, "June isty 1896. " Dear Mr. Aveling, — I observe that in The Times of May 30th, you state that my evidence corroborates Sir John Gorst's assertion that 'no inquiry as to how the children (at Forest Gate) came to be poisoned has ever been made by the Local Government Board,' and you refer to my replies to questions 8891 and 8896 in the Minutes of Evidence. " Will you pardon my pointing out to you that you appear to have overlooked my replies to the remaining twenty-two questions put to me 1 p. 31, par. 116. 2 Report, p. 177. 3 Times, May 28, 1896. 4 Ibid., May 30, 1896. 5 Ibid., June 5, 1896. Report of the Departmental Committee 399 on this very matter by Sir John Gorst himself? Let me quote some of them. "'8893. Did you go down? I went down immediately I saw the announcement of the outbreak.' " '8894. You went down officially of your own accord? Yes.' "'8895. Without waiting for special instructions? I went down immediately and inquired into it.' " '8898. Has that ptomaine poisoning ever been inquired into by anybody ? Yes, it was inquired into by me.' "I further narrated to Sir John Gorst (8899-8915) my method of inquiry, the conclusion to which I came and my reasons, together with an explanation of certain exceptional cases, and I also stated what action the Local Government Board had taken in the matter. "As you are aware, I am one of the Poor Law Inspectors of the Metropolitan District ; it is, therefore, neither necessary nor customary, nor would it accord with common sense, that I should wait for formal instructions to inquire into any occurrence which may seem to warrant immediate investigation, and, as stated in my evidence, I immediately, in my official capacity on behalf of the Local Government Board, inquired into the whole circumstances of the food poisoning at Forest Gate. " I may add that I had also before me on behalf of the Local Government Board all the depositions taken at the inquest, including the report of Dr. Stephenson. "It appears to me, therefore, that, so far from corroborating Sir John Gorst's statement, my evidence contradicts it. " You are at liberty to make any use of this letter. I, of course, reserve the same right. " I am, yours faithfully, "Arthur Downes, m.d., ' { Local Government Board Inspector. " Henry F. Aveling, Esq., "Secretary to the Poor Law Schools Committee" " 289, Harrow Road, W., June 2nd, 1896. "Dear Dr. Downes, — I have shown the correspondence in The Times and your letter of the 1st inst. to Sir John Gorst, and I have called his attention to the following paragraph in his memorandum on the ' poisoning ' at the Forest Gate schools, viz. : " ' The inquiry was conducted by Mr. Hedley, the Inspector respon- sible for the supervision of the Forest Gate Schools. It was an inquiry into Elliott's veracity only. No inquiry as to how the children came to be poisoned has ever been made, either by the managers or the Local Government Board.' " Sir John Gorst is of opinion that his statement is accurate, and, unless severed from the context, is incapable of being misunderstood. The inquiry to which he was referring was a public and formal inquiry of a totally different character to the investigation made by yourself. " I am, yours faithfully, " Henry F. Aveling. "Dr. Downes, Local Government Board." 400 Children under the Poor Law Local Government Board, "June yd, 1896. "Dear Mr. Aveling, — I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your reply to my letter of the 1st inst, but I regret that I am unable to follow the interpretation which Sir John Gorst places on the statement made in his memorandum as to the food poisoning at Forest Gate. "In fairness to myself I must ask you to give publicity to this correspondence. " I am, yours faithfully, "Arthur Downes, m.d. " Henry F. Aveling, Esq." It is a pity that, in making such a serious charge, Sir John Gorst did not express himself clearly and explicitly in the first instance. 3. As to the cruelties practised at the Brentwood schools, it is most distressing that they should have escaped detection by the School Committee. But is a whole system to be condemned because of one single case of abuse of this kind? Is it to be supposed that if the Committee had been able to find any similar case in the history of Poor Law Schools they would not have enlarged upon it ? Indeed, had they judged all the different systems in the same way, they must have condemned boarding-out. 1 And we are firmly convinced that there is much more chance of cases of cruelty escaping detection under the boarding-out system than under any other system. We have now concluded our criticism of the Report. Mr. Mundella said in the House of Commons that the Committee were prepared to stand by every line of it. 2 Probably some of the other members of the Committee would have preferred him to speak only for himself. We have tried to show that there are not only many lines, but also many paragraphs, making statements of fact which, however true they may have been years ago, are not in the least so at the present time. The consequence is that the Report has become discredited. That this should be so is greatly to be regretted, because there is so much in it which is extremely valuable. As it is, however, a picture all dark on one side and all light on the other has been drawn. Isolated cases of abuse in the schools have been treated as typical, and evidence un- favourable to the boarding-out system and small homes has been omitted. The Committee showed an avidity to seize upon and duly honour with a marginal note certain words of witnesses who were guileless enough to believe that they were helping in a good work, not by praising the good or crying their own wares, but by finding all the faults they could in the systems which existed in order that they might be remedied. 3 We so entirely agree with the concluding words of a very able letter signed by " A Guardian," which appeared in The Times on the 25th May, 1896, that we will adopt them as our own : 1 Ante, pp. 367-369. 2 Times, August II, 1896. 3 See Mr. Clay's paper on the Report read at the Special Central Poor Law Conference in June, 1896 (Knight & Co). Report of the Departmental Committee 401 "No one, probably, is an advocate for very large schools. Most recognize the desirability of intermediate houses for "ins and outs" and as receiving homes. Many managers already gratefully avail them- selves of the Hanwell Ophthalmic Schools, and recognize the necessity for some extension of the system. There are numerous suggestions as to the physical and moral training of the children which will meet with general approval. I venture to think that many of them emanate from existing school managers who are already endeavouring to carry them out. It is not necessary for me to defend existing school managers. I have known many of them, and I believe that a fair inquiry would show not only that they have been not unmindful of their duties, but that they have usually been willing to receive any reasonable reforms. They have doubtless had some regard for the ratepayers, though the expenditure that they have incurred shows that they have not erred on the side of economy. I tremble to think what the cost would be under the new Central Authority not responsible to ratepayers, and primed to carry out all the suggestions contained in the Report." It is only fair to four of the members of the Committee 1 to say that they expressed their opinion in a separate memorandum, 2 that " a more generous recognition of the work that has been done in many of the schools was due to the managers." It is still more important that the Rev. Brooke Lambert and Mr. W. Vallance should have frankly ad- mitted 3 that the greater part of the recommendations made by the Committee were drawn from conditions already existing in individual Poor Law Schools. The Report and its recommendations are valuable as a reminder to Guardians of their duties, powers, and responsibilities in relation to their treatment of the children entrusted to their care and control. It will be of use in putting them on their mettle, and in leading them to examine closely into the adequacy of the methods they at present employ. It is unfortunate that this desirable result could not be brought about except by a most unjust attack on one particular system which was forced upon the local authorities by the circumstances of the time, and which, beyond all question, has succeeded in training the children to earn their own living. The defects of the system have arisen either from the overcrowding of the schools, or because from various causes they have been allowed to become too large for con- venient management. The Departmental Committee have not proved that these defects are beyond remedy. Indeed, in many of the schools these defects have been completely cured, as the Committee could have shown had they chosen to do so ; but their Report demonstrates very clearly how far this was from their intention. The consequence has been that the public mind has been given a very wrong impression of the London Poor Law School of the present day. 1 Mr. E. Lyulph Stanley, Rev. Brooke Lambert, Sir J. G. Fitch, and Mr. W. Vallance. 2 Report, p. 173. ' /did., p. 174. 2 D 4-02 Children under the Poor Law APPENDIX B. I. CERTIFICATES GRANTED TO TEACHERS BY EDUCATION DEPARTMENT. Regulations of the Committee of Council on Education relative to Teachers in District or Workhouse Schools. u I. The teachers in district and workhouse schools may be admitted to examina- tion for the certificates issued by the Education Department, at the examinations held at the training schools in December in each year : "(i.) Who satisfy Article 47 (a) of the Code 1873 : — that is, who have resided as students for one year in training schools under inspection ; or, " (ii.) Who are 21 years of age ; have served with credit for at least two years in a district or workhouse school ; are recommended by the Local Government Board ; and hold at the date of examination certificates of efficiency, or certificates of competency of the first-class. "2. If a student, on leaving 'a training college, is appointed to a situation as teacher in a workhouse or district school, his service in that school (if not less than two years) will be taken into account if he subsequently removes to a public elementary school. If he does so, their Lordships will be prepared to issue his parchment certificate on receiving a favourable report on his practical skill as a teacher from one of Her Majesty's Inspectors, after his visit to a school in which the said teacher has been employed for a period of not less than three months before the date of the inspector's visit. "The period of a teacher's service in a workhouse or district school will also be taken into account in subsequently revising his certificate, under Article 55 of the Code. "The teacher must then produce and deliver to Her Majesty's Inspector, for transmission to this office, certificates of good conduct and good service from the Inspector of the Local Government Board charged with the supervision of the schools in which he has been employed, and showing the dates and duration of his employment in such schools. "These rules will also apply to female teachers. " In the event of any teacher duly qualified according to regulation No. 1. (i. and ii. ) desiring to sit for examination for a certificate at one of the examinations held in December at the several training schools, an application to that effect should be made by the teacher to the inspector of workhouse or district schools in the district, prior to the 1st of September in each year. "By Order of the Local Government Board, "Fras. Fletcher, Assistant Secretary. (These regulations are required to be mounted and hung up in the school-rooms for the information of the teachers). II. TEACHERS IN POOR LAW SCHOOLS.— PARCHMENT CERTIFICATES. Circular Letter to Boards of Guardians and Managers of District Schools. " Local Government Board, " 21 st January, 1890. "Sir, — I am directed by the Local Government Board to state that they have had under their consideration the disadvantages under which certain persons employed as teachers in poor law schools have hitherto been placed through not being able while so employed to obtain the parchment certificates of the Education Department. "The Board have been in communication with the Committee of Council on Education on the subject, and their Lordships, with the view of assisting in removing the disadvantages referred to, have agreed to the following arrangements : — " 'When a teacher in a poor law school has completed the prescribed period of probation (Article 62), and the fact is reported by the Local Government Board to Appendix C 403 the Education Department, one of Her Majesty's Inspectors will be directed to visit the school and make the necessary report upon which a certificate can be issued.' "Article 62 of the Code of Regulations issued by the Education Department to which reference is made in their Lordships' letter as defining ' the prescribed period of probation,' provides that 'candidates for certificates after successfully passing their examinations, must, as teachers continually engaged in the same schools, obtain two favourable reports from an inspector, with an interval of at least one year between them ; and if" the first of these reports be not preceded by service of at least six months since the examination, a third report at an interval of at least one year after the second report is required.' "When therefore a teacher in a poor law school, who is in all other respects qualified to receive a certificate, has completed the term of service prescribed by that Article, and has received two or (where necessary) three favourable reports from the Board's school inspector, the Education Department will cause a visit to be paid by one of their inspectors, and if his report is favourable will then issue a certificate. " The Board have pleasure in informing Boards of Guardians and managers of poor law schools of this arrangement, which they trust will meet the complaint which has frequently been made by poor law teachers of the disadvantages to which they were subjected by being unable to obtain parchment certificates whilst in the service of the Guardians and managers." M Y anij &c#j HuGH QwEN} Secretary. THe Clerk to t* I %%£C APPENDIX C. MEMORANDUM OF CONDITIONS UPON WHICH THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD ASSENT TO THE EMIGRATION OF ORPHAN AND DESERTED PAUPER CHILDREN TO CANADA. " The Local Government Board have been furnished with a copy of a despatch from the Governor- General of Canada, forwarding a copy of a report of a Committee of the Privy Council, from which it appears that the Minister of Agriculture will cause an inspection of pauper children brought to Canada by voluntary agencies * to be made annually by the immigration officers of the Department of Agricul- ture, or such other persons as he shall instruct.' The Minister, however, requires 1 as a condition of undertaking the responsibility of such inspection, and in order to enable it to be made, that all persons in the United Kingdom entrusted with the care of children from workhouses to bring to Canada shall be informed that it will be their duty to furnish to the Department of Agriculture at Ottawa a report containing the name and age of each child, and the name and address of each person with whom the child is placed.' It is also required that the name of the nearest post office, the name of the lot, the concession, and the name of the township in which the person with whom the child is placed resides shall be given as part of the address. ' ' With a view to give effect to this arrangement, and, as far as possible, to provide for the due care and welfare of the children, the Local Government Board must require as a condition to their sanction being given to the emigration of pauper children to Canada that the following conditions shall be observed : — " 1. The guardians shall in each case obtain an undertaking in writing from any person entrusted by them with the care of taking children to Canada, and of placing them in homes, that immediately after a child is placed out, the Department of Agriculture at Ottawa shall be furnished with a report containing the name and age of the child, and the name and the address (with the particulars stated above) of the person with whom the child is placed, and that a report containing similar information shall be furnished to the guardians of the union from which the child is taken. " 2. The guardians on receipt of such report shall cause a copy of it to be furnished to the Local Government Board. " 3. The person proposed to be entrusted by the guardians with the emigration of a child shall have notice from the guardians whether the child is a Protestant or Roman Catholic, and he shall give an undertaking if the child is a Protestant 404 Children under the Poor Law that he shall be placed with a family of the Protestant faith, or if the child is a Roman Catholic that he shall be placed in a Roman Catholic home. " 4. A child before being sent to Canada shall have been under previous instruction for at least six months — (a) In a workhouse or separate school under the guardians, or a district school ; or at a public elementary school at the cost of the guardians ; or (b) In a school certified by the Board under the 25 & 26 Vict. cap. 43. It will not be regarded as essential that such period of instruction shall immediately precede the emigration. I • 5. The guardians shall instruct one of their medical officers personally to examine each child proposed to be sent to Canada, and to report in writing as to its health, both of body and mind, and to certify whether, in his opinion, the child is in all respects a suitable subject for emigration to that country. A copy of this report and certificate must be forwarded to the Local Government Board. "6. The guardians must have such evidence as they deem satisfactory that the person taking out the children has a reasonable prospect of finding suitable homes for them in Canada. ' ' The Board consider that as a general rule girls should not be sent out above the age of 10 years, and in no case, except under very special circumstances, above the age of 12 years. " The Board have been informed by the High Commissioner for Canada that the assisted passages hitherto granted by the Dominion Government are to be withdrawn after the 27th April, 1888. 44 With a view to guide the guardians in determining what would be a reasonable amount to pay to the persons entrusted with the children for the cost of taking them from Liverpool to homes in Canada, the Board have obtained from the High Com- missioner for Canada the particulars of the charges at present made by the steamship companies for passages to Quebec and Halifax, which are as follows : — * ^ d Adults . . . . . . . .400 Children under twelve years of age . . . .200 II The rates vary from time to time, but the current rates can always be ascertained from the various steamship companies. " In addition to the above rates, a kit and bedding have to be obtained by the emigrant at a cost of a few shillings. 4 ■ The railway fares, which have now in every case to be paid from Quebec to places in Ontario, in which province most of the homes for the children are situated, range from ,£1 to ^1 15^. per adult, according to distance. Children between 5 and 12 years of age are conveyed at half fares. "Local Government Board, April, 1888." APPENDIX D. OPHTHALMIA. I. Circular Letter addressed to Boards of Guardians in the Metropolis. "Local Government Board, Whitehall, "yd December, 1873. 14 Sir, — The attention of the Local Government Board has been drawn by their inspectors to the fact that children are frequently sent from workhouses to district or separate schools in an unsatisfactory state of health and personal cleanliness. " It must be obvious to Boards of Guardians that, when large numbers of children are congregated together, ailments in themselves comparatively slight, may, by reason of their infectious nature, act very injuriously on the general health of the school. "The Board are therefore of opinion that it is very important that each child before he leaves the workhouse for the school should be subjected to a very careful examina- tion by the medical officer both as regards general health, and also, more especially, as regards the condition of the hair and scalp, of the skin, and of the eyes and eyelids. In the event of the child's health not being found to be satisfactory in Appendix E 405 these respects, he should be retained in the infirmary of the Union or Parish until he can with safety be removed to the school. " A medical certificate should be sent with the child, signed on the day on which he is removed to the school, or on the day immediately preceding his removal, which document should certify that the medical officer of the workhouse has care- fully examined the child, that he is free from any affection of the scalp, of the skin, or of the eyes, and that he is in such a state of health as will permit of his taking part at once in the ordinary discipline and occupations of the school. M The Board request that the Guardians will be good enough to cause a copy of this communication to be supplied to the Medical Officer of the Workhouse. "I am, &c, H. Fleming, Secretary. " To the Clerk to the Guardians:' II. Circular Letter addressed to the Managing Bodies of District and Separate Poor Law Schools in the Metropolis. "Local Government Board, Whitehall, S.W., " yd December, 1873. "Sir,— The Local Government Board have been made aware by the Reports of their Inspectors that pauper children are frequently sent to the District and separate Schools of the Metropolis in an unhealthy and uncleanly condition, and that in this way contagious affections have been imported into the Schools, and have spread among the other children. "The Board have addressed a communication to the several Boards of Guardians in the Metropolis upon the subject of the precautions that should be taken prior to the removal of children from the Workhouses to District or separate Schools. A copy of that communication is herewith enclosed. ' ' But, in addition to these precautions, it appears to the Board to be most desirable : — "A. That a Book should be kept by the Medical Officer of the School describing the state of each child on its admission. "b. That quarantine or probation wards should be set apart of sufficient size to accommodate children for at least a fortnight previous to their mixing with the other children. Such wards should be provided with day-rooms ; and it would be desirable, either that a certain day should be selected in each fortnight on which all children should be admitted, or, in the event of this being impracticable, that at least there should be only one admission day in each week, and that in the probation wards the children admitted in the first week should be, as far as possible, kept separate from the children admitted in the second week. " The Board direct me to add, that it is most important that the superintending nurse of the probation wards should be a person of superior qualifications, com- petent not merely to exercise the strictest watchfulness over the health and cleanliness of the children under her care, but also, as far as practicable, to superintend their occupations and amusements during the period of probation. " The Board will be glad to be informed of any steps which may be taken in the direction indicated in this letter. u I am, &c, " To the Clerk to the—" " H. Fleming, Secretary. APPENDIX E. REGULATIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE SCHOOL ATTENDANCE OF CHILDREN IN WORKHOUSES AND POOR LAW SCHOOLS, AND THE TIME DURING WHICH THEY MAY BE EMPLOYED IN INDUSTRIAL TRAINING OR MANUAL OR INDUSTRIAL WORK. " Local Government Board, Whitehall, S.W., " 1st February, 1897. "Sir, — I am directed by the Local Government Board to enclose two copies of an Order which they have issued prescribing Regulations with repect to the school attendance of children in Workhouses and Poor Law Schools, and the time during which they may be employed in industrial training or manual or industrial work. 406 Children under the Poor Law " The Order will not apply to children who are receiving instruction in public elementary schools. "The Board may observe that they consider it very desirable that in the case of children who attend school half-time, the school attendance should be in the morning and the industrial training in the afternoon, when the arrangements will admit of this. " I am, sir, your obedient servant, " Hugh Owen, Secretary, "The Clerk to the Guardians or Board of Management." "General Order. "To the Guardians of the Poor of the several Poor Law Unions for the time being in England and Wales ; " To the Boards of Management of the several District Schools formed under the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1844, and the Acts amending the same ; "And to all others whom it may concern. " Whereas by certain General and other Orders issued by the Poor Law Com- missioners, the Poor Law Board, and by Us, the Local Government Board, provision has from time to time been made as regards the instruction and school attendance of children in the Workhouses and separate Workhouse Schools of Poor Law Unions in England and Wales, and in District Schools provided by Boards of Management constituted under the provisions of the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1844, and the Acts amending the same ; "And whereas it is expedient that further provision as hereinafter mentioned should be made in regard to the instruction and school attendance of children in Workhouses, separate Workhouse Schools, and District Schools : M Now therefore, We the Local Government Board, in pursuance of the powers given to Us by the Statutes in that behalf, hereby order as follows : — "Article I. — From and after the First day of March, One thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven, the following Regulations shall apply to all children who are inmates for the time being of any Workhouse or any Poor Law School as defined by this Order ; and from and after the said date any provision in any of the Orders above referred to which is inconsistent with this Order shall be rescinded. " Provided that these Regulations shall not apply to any child who is receiving instruction at a Public Elementary School. " Article II. — Except on Sundays, Christmas-Day, and Good Friday, and during the holidays fixed by the Board of Guardians or Board of Management, as the case may be, including any day fixed as a weekly holiday, and subject as hereinafter mentioned in Article III., every child in good health between the ages of three and seven years shall receive, during the ordinary school hours, at least three hours of instruction in every day, and every child in good health between the ages of seven and fourteen years shall receive, during the ordinary school hours, at least four hours of instruction in every day ; provided — "(1) That, if two half-days shall have been fixed as weekly half-holidays instead of one whole day as a weekly holiday, every child shall on such days receive instruc- tion for half the time only hereinbefore prescribed by this Article. " (2) That instruction shall be given in the case of children between the ages of three and seven years in equal periods in the morning and afternoon, or during not less than two hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon, and in the case of children between the ages of seven and fourteen years in equal periods in the morning and afternoon, or during not less than three hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. " (3) That of the time occupied in any week in the instruction in needlework which may be included in the instruction of girls, at least two-thirds shall be occupied in plain needlework, knitting, and cutting-out and making garments, and not more than one-third in mending. "Article III. — A child over the age of eleven years, or such older age as may hereafter be fixed by law as the age at which a child may obtain partial exemption from the obligation to attend school, who shall have passed the Fourth Standard of examination under the Code of Regulations of the Education Depart- ment for the time being in force may be withdrawn from instruction during half of the time for which under Article II. such instruction is to be received ; but no Appendix E 407 child shall be entirely withdrawn from instruction unless such child shall have attained the age of fourteen years. "Article IV. — In every case where a child may be receiving instruction for half only of the time fixed for the ordinary school hours, the attendance of such child for the purposes of instruction shall be for not less than two consecutive hours ; provided that if two half-days shall have been fixed as weekly half-holidays instead of one whole day as a weekly holiday, the attendance of the child on such days shall be for not less than one undivided hour. "Article V. — (1) No child under the age of eleven years shall be employed in industrial training or manual or industrial work for more than one hour in any day. " (2) No child over the age of eleven years receiving instruction for the whole time required by Article II. shall be employed in industrial training or manual or industrial work for more than three hours in any day. "(3) No child who may be receiving instruction for half only of the time fixed for the ordinary school hours shall be employed in industrial training or manual or industrial work for more than five hours in any day. " (4) No child wholly withdrawn from instruction shall be employed in industrial training or manual or industrial work for more than eight hours in any day. " Article VI. — The time in every case for attendance at classes for instruction may include an interval for recreation of not more than fifteen minutes in an attendance of three hours, and of not more than ten minutes in an attendance of a shorter period of time. An attendance of two hours or more shall include an interval for recreation of not less than ten minutes. "Article VII.— The Board of Guardians or Board of Management shall cause the children in the Workhouse or Poor Law School to receive the religious instruction required by the Orders in force in the Poor Law Union or District, and the time occupied in such instruction shall not be included in the time occupied in instruction in pursuance of this Order. "Article VIII. — The Board of Guardians or Board of Management, as the case may be, shall fix one day in each week as a weekly holiday, or two half-days in each week as weekly half-holidays, and may, if they think fit, cause the School to be closed for all purposes of instruction for a period not exceeding six weeks, inclusive of public holidays, in any year, or for periods not exceeding in the whole six weeks in the year, for holidays, in addition to the weekly holiday or half-holidays. "Article IX. — The Board of Guardians or Board of Management, as the case may be, shall prepare separate time-tables for the infants, boys, and girls, in which shall be stated the division of each day of the week, except Sunday, into the hours of instruction, religious instruction, industrial training, manual or industrial work, recreation, and meals, for the children. The hours of religious instruction on Sunday, and the weekly holiday or half-holidays, shall also be entered. Each time- table shall be hung up in some conspicuous place where it will be open to the inspection of the children to which it relates. "Article X. — Nothing in this Order shall be deemed to relieve any Board of Guardians or Board of Management or any child from any duty or liability imposed by the Elementary Education Acts, or by any byelaws made under those Acts, and in force in the School District in which the Workhouse or Poor Law School is situate. "Article XI. — In this Order the expression " Poor Law School" includes any School belonging to a Poor Law Union which is under distinct management from that of the Workhouse, whether the school buildings are part of the Workhouse premises or, being separate from the Workhouse, are situated either within or without the limits of the Poor Law Union ; or any District School belonging to a Board of Management formed under the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1844, and the Acts amending the same ; the expression " Instruction," except in the term " Religious Instruction," means instruction in any of the subjects for which grants may be made under the Code of Regulations of the Education Department for the time being in force except cookery, laundry-work, dairy-work, or cottage- gardening. N Given under the Seal of Office of the Local Government Board, this Thirtieth day of January, in the year One thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven. 11 Henry Chaplin, Presid-nt. "Hugh Owen, Secretary.'" 408 Children tender the Poor Law APPENDIX F. INDUSTRIAL TRAINERS. Circular Letter from the Poor Law Board to Boards of Guardians. "Poor Law Board, Whitehall, S.W., " 12th March, 1867. "Sir, — The Poor Law Board have taken into their consideration the question of the repayment of the salaries of Industrial Teachers in District and Workhouse Schools out of the Fund provided by Parliament for the payment of the salaries of school teachers, with the view of laying down such rules as may secure a uniform practice on the subject. "In coming to a decision as to the proportion of the salary which should be repaid to the Guardians from the grant, the Board have borne in mind that in many cases, as in that of a baker, shoemaker, or tailor, the services of the officers are not devoted solely to the instruction of the children, but partly to that object and partly to supplying the wants of the establishment. It is also proper that a different rate of payment should be allowed when the officers are provided with board and lodging in the school or workhouse, and when they reside elsewhere and provide their own rations. "The Board, having reference to these considerations, are of opinion that the following scale would be a simple, and at the same time a fair and proper one : "That when the Guardians provide board and lodging two-thirds of the officer's salary should be allowed from the grant. " When they do not provide board and lodging one-half of the salary should be so allowed. 1 ' Thus in either case about one-half of the salary, inclusive of board and lodging, would be borne by the Guardians, and one-half be repaid to them out of the fund provided by Parliament. " If, however, the services of the officer are given solely for the instruction of the children, as in the case of a bandmaster or drillmaster, the whole salary may properly be allowed from the Parliamentary grant. "As regards the number of officers for whom the payments should be made, the Board are of opinion that an industrial teacher should not be allowed for less than about thirty children, unless in schools in which such a teacher is employed instead of a schoolmaster or schoolmistress. There should also be not less than six children under instruction to entitle the Guardians to a payment on account of the teacher's salary. " The inspectors in reporting on the industrial teachers will ascertain that they do not merely employ the boys and girls in assisting them in their work, but that they give them bona fide instruction, and that the children exhibit a satisfactory proficiency or skill in the trade taught. 1 ' The Board do not propose that the regulations should affect the payments for the current parochial year, except as regards new appointments. The allowances on account of the officers will be made as heretofore, according to the letters already sent out, for the year ending at Lady-day, 1867 ; but the Board will require the conditions now laid down to be observed in the grants allowed in subsequent years. "lam, &c, "H. Fleming, Secretary. " To the Clerk to the Guardians." UNIVE jj Appendix G 409 APPENDIX G. (I.) FORMS UNDER BOARDING-OUT ORDER. (A) Boarding-out Forms used by the Burton-on-Trent Board of Guardians. Burton-upon-Trent Union. I. — Form of Application for a Child to be Boarded-out. " To the Board of Guardians of the Burton-upon-Trent Union. "Gentlemen, — I am desirous of receiving a Pauper Child to be Boarded-out with me, and shall be glad to negotiate with the Guardians as early as may be convenient. I am, Gentlemen, yours obediently, u Date and Residence 11 Name and Address of the Minister of Applicant's Place of Worship, as referee, M Name and Address of a respectable Householder, as an additional referee, II. — Form to be filled up by ' referees.' Boarding-out Committee. "Union Offices, Burton-upon-Trent, 189 "Sir, "Mr of. being an applicant for a child to board-out, gives your name as a reference as to h fitness for such a charge. I shall be obliged therefore if you will fill in the annexed form, and return it to me at your earliest convenience. Your communication will be treated in strictest confidence. " I am, Sir, yours obediently, "C. F. Chamberlin, Clerk. " Is the applicant a relative of yours, and if so what? " How long have you known h ? " From your knowledge of applicant and family do you think h a person to whom the well-being, morally and physically, of an orphan or deserted child may be safely intrusted ? "Is your knowledge of applicant based on your own observations, or upon hearsay? III. — Form of Particulars of Children to be Boarded-out. Boarding-out of Pauper Children. " Particulars relating to the undermentioned Children proposed to be Boarded-out under the supervision of the Boarding-out Committee. "(i) Name of Child. (2) Whether Orphan or Deserted. (3) Age. (4) Legitimate or Illegitimate. (5) When admitted to the Workhouse. (6) Religious Persuasion as entered in Creed Register. (7) Any Information with respect to the Child's Parents or Relations. "Dated this day of 189 Master of the Workhouse." IV. — Form of Agreement between a Boarding-out Committee and the Board of Guardians. " Agreement entered into between the President and the Secretary on behalf and with the Authority of the Boarding-out Committee, in the County of (hereinafter called the 'Committee') of the one part, and the Board of Guardians of the Burton-upon-Trent Union, in the Counties of Stafford and Derby (hereinafter called 'The Guardians') of the other part." 410 Children under the Poor Law " We, the Committee, do hereby agree with the Guardians, as follows : — " That We will undertake to find homes and Foster Parents for Children to be sent to us by the Guardians, and for so many more Children as may hereafter be agreed upon between ourselves and the Guardians. "That We will cause each of the Children placed with the said Foster Parents to be visited by at least one member of the Committee at their respective homes not less often than once in every Six weeks, and will send a Report to the Guardians of the apparent bodily condition and behaviour of each Child, and of all reasonable complaints made by or concerning the Child against or by the Foster Parents, not less often than once a Quarter. ' ' That at each of such visits the Visitor shall duly inspect the Clothing of the Child, and will ascertain whether the quarterly sum allowed by the Guardians for the repair and renewal of such clothing is properly expended. " That We will make arrangements with a duly-qualified medical man for atten- dance upon the said Children in case of Sickness, and for the supply of the neces- sary medicines. "That, in case at any time any of the said Children should die, We will cause such Child to be decently and properly buried. "That We will truly and faithfully observe all regulations prescribed in the Boarding-out Order, 1889, or which may from time to time be prescribed by the Local Government Board with respect to the Boarding-out of Pauper Children. " That We will, upon the demand of a person duly authorized in writing by the Guardians, give up possession of any of the said Children who may be under our custody or control. " And We, the Committee, do hereby agree with the Guardians that we will from time to time appoint some one of our own body who shall be responsible for con- ducting all correspondence and other business matters between the Guardians and the Committee. "And We the Guardians do hereby on our part undertake and agree with the Committee, as follows : — "That, when suitable homes and Foster Parents shall have been found for the said Children, and the undertaking required by Art. VI., No. 7, of the Boarding- out Order, 1889, to be signed by the Foster Parents before receiving any Child shall, in the case of each child, have been forwarded to us by the Committee, We will provide every such Child with a proper Outfit of Clothing, and the Committee shall be authorized, in the case of every such child, to make on our behalf the following payments, namely : — "(a) The sum of inserted in the said undertaking as the amount to be paid for the weekly maintenance of the said Child, and such further sum (if any) for the Schooling of the said Child as the Committee shall find necessary. "(5) A sum not exceeding Ten Shillings per quarter for the repair and renewal of the Child's Clothing. " (c) A sum, not exceeding One Penny per week, to be paid as a remuneration to the Schoolmaster of the School at which the Child attends, for drawing up and sending the Quarterly Report upon such Child pre- scribed by the Orders of the Local Government Board. "That We will remit quarterly to the Committee the sum of money required to reimburse them all moneys expended and payments made as aforesaid in our behalf and a sum of One Penny per week for each Child, to meet other expenses incurred by the Committee in respect of the Child. Provided that where We advance a sum to the Committee under the provisions of the Orders of the Local Government Board on that behalf, the amount of such sum so advanced shall be taken into account in making the remittance aforesaid. "That, in consideration of the Committee making suitable arrangements, as herein- before agreed, with a duly-qualified Medical man for attendance upon the said Child in case of Sickness, and for the supply of necessary medicines, We will pay to the Committee the sum of Ten Shillings per year in respect of each Child, and such further sum as shall have been by the Committee disbursed for the purpose of pro- viding such extra nourishment for each Child in case of Sickness or Accident as shall have been ordered by the medical man aforesaid, and certified by a Member of the Committee. Appendix G 411 "That, in consideration of the Committee undertaking that, in case any of the said Children at any time while Boarded-out as aforesaid should die, they will cause every Child so dying to be decently and properly buried. We will pay to the Com- mittee, if the Child so dying be not more than Ten years of age, such sum not exceeding Twenty-five Shillings, and, if the Child be more than Ten years of age, such sum, not exceeding Forty Shillings, as they shall have disbursed on this behalf. M And We the Guardians do hereby further agree with the Committee, that if any of the said Children for whom homes and Foster Parents shall have been provided, shall at any time after they have been placed with the said Foster Parents be found to be suffering from any incurable bodily disease, or from lunacy, or shall in the judgment of the Committee be incorrigible and of confirmed bad habits, We will in every such case, upon the same being duly signified to us, cause the said Child to be removed from the home wherein it may be Boarded-out as aforesaid, and to be con- veyed at our own expense to the Workhouse of the said Burton-upon-Trent Union, or to a Lunatic Asylum, as the circumstances of the case may require. 1 ' In witness whereof the President and Secretary of the Committee have hereunto set their Hands, this day of 18 , and the Guardians their Common Seal, this day of. 18 " Signatures of the President and Secretary of the Committee. " The Common Seal of the Guardians" was hereunto affixed at a Meeting of the Board of Guardians, held on the day last aforesaid by Chairman of the Board, at the said Meet- ing, in the presence of Clerk to the said Guardians. V. — Form of Particulars of the Home. "The Boarding-out Committee. " Particulars respecting the Home in which the Committee propose to place ** , Aged Years. "(1) Christian and Surname of Foster Parent. (2) Age. (3) Residence. (4) Married or Single. (5) Widower or Widow. (6) Religious Persuasion. (7) Occupation. (8) Wages. (9) Name of Employer. (10) If from home at night. (11) Earnings of Children or other members of the family. (12) Rent of House. (13) Number of rooms in the House. (14) Number of bedrooms. (15) Number of beds in each. (16) Number of persons sleeping in each room and bed. (17) Is the child to have a separate sleeping room ? If not, what sleeping accommodation is provided ? (18) How far is the house from the nearest public elementary school? (19) How far is the house from the residence of the nearest member of the Boarding- Out Com- mittee ? (20) Are any other children boarded-out in the home, and if so, how many, and what are their ages and sex ? (21) Are any of the Foster Parent's own children residing in the home, and if so, how many, and what are their ages and sex? (22) Are there any adult lodgers in the house? (23) Number, names, and ages of any other persons living in the house, not mentioned above. (24) Has the Foster Parent had boarded-out children before, and if so, for how long? (25) Has the Foster Parent ever been in receipt of poor law relief? If so, when, and for how long? (26) Is there any person living in the house in receipt of poor law relief? (27) Is the Foster Parent and are all other inmates of the house sober, honest, and of otherwise good character ? "(Signed) , Secretary of the above-mentioned Boarding-Out Committee. "Dated " 412 Children under the Poor Law VI.— Form of Reports from Visitors on Boarded-out Children. "Boarding-out Committee. — Report of the Visitors. "Extract from the Boarding-out Order, 1889. " Article VII.— Every Boarded-out Child shall be visited not less often than once in every six weeks by a Member of the Boarding-out Committee, at the home of the Foster Parent, and the Visitor shall thereupon make a Report in writing to the Committee, stating the apparent Bodily Condition and the Behaviour of such Child, and all reasonable Complaints made by, or concerning the Child, against or by the Foster Parent. "The Reports shall be forwarded by the Boarding -out Committee to the Guardians not less often than Quarterly. " If in the case of any Boarded-out Child no such Report shall be received by the Guardians for the space of Four Consecutive Months, the Guardians shall either provide for the Visiting of such Child at the Home of its Foster Parent by an Officer of the Guardians at intervals of not more than Six Weeks, until such Reports are again received by them, or shall withdraw the Child from the Home with all reason- able expedition." " Boarding-out Committee. " Report of the Visitors for the six weeks ended , 189 . " (1) Name of Child. (2) Date of visit, and date of last previous visit. (3) What has been the state of the Child's health since the last visit ? and is it now in good bodily health ? (4) Did the Child seem well fed ? (5) Was the Child clean ? (6) Was it well clothed? (7) Has the allowance for the Child's clothing been properly ex- pended? (8) What has been the behaviour of the Child ? (9) Have any complaints been made _ respecting the Child by the Foster Parent? (10) Has the Child made any complaints? (11) Is it your opinion that the Child is properly cared for, and is happy at home; and is the home training of the Child good? (12) Do you think the Child has made satisfactory progress at School? (13) Are there evidences that the Child's moral and religious training are cared for by the Foster Parents ? Does the Child attend regularly at Church or Chapel and Sunday School? (14) Is the sleeping accommodation for the Child quite satisfactory ? Has any change been made in it since the last Report? (15) Has any change been made in the Home since the last Report ? " Names and Addresses of Foster Parents. "At a meeting of the Boarding-out Committee, held on the day of , 189 , the foregoing Report was submitted thereto, in accordance with Article VII. of the Boarding-out Order of 1889 ; and it was ordered that the said Report be forwarded to the Guardians of the Poor of the Union. " Signature of President or Secretary." VII. — Form of Schoolmaster's or Schoolmistress's Report. "Boarding-out. Burton-upon-Trent Union. " Name of School Report for the Quarter ended 189 . "(1) Name of Child. (2) Age. (3) Name of Foster Parent. (4) Address of Foster Parent. (5) Number of times school open. (6) Attendances missed. (7) Standard last passed. (8) Alleged cause of absence. (9) Observations as to appearance, conduct, and progress of child. " Dated this day of. 189 Schoolmaster or Schoolmistress." VIII.— Form of Medical Report. " Medical Report as to the undermentioned Children boarded-out under the super- vision of the Boarding-out Committee, for the quarter ended 189 . "(1) Name of Child. (2) Observations as to the appearance and health of the Child. "(Signed) "Dated 189 . of " Appendix G 413 IX.— List of Outfits of Children. " List of articles constituting outfits supplied by the Guardians of the above Union to boarded-out Children and to Children on leaving the Workhouse for service : " For a Boy. — Two caps, two suits of clothes and overcoat, three shirts, two night shirts, four pocket handkerchiefs, four collars, one scarf, two neckties, two pairs boots, three pairs stockings, two pairs braces, two combs, one brush, bible, prayer book. "For a Girl. — Two hats (trimmed), one jacket, one stuff dress, two print dresses, six aprons, two upper petticoats, two under petticoats, three chemises, three pairs drawers, two night gowns, four pocket handkerchiefs, three pairs stockings, one pair stays, two pairs boots, two combs, one brush, bible, prayer book. " Box for clothes in each case, if required. " By order of the Board of Guardians, C. F. Chamberlin, Clerk. "$th November, 1 89 1 . " X. — Form of Statement of Amount. " The Guardians of the Burton-on-Trent Union. " Dr. to The Boarding-out Committee at "Name of Secretary Address " Expenses incurred in respect of the undermentioned Children boarded-out under the supervision of the above-named Committee, for the quarter ending 189 . "(1) Name of child. (2) Weeks board and lodging at per week. (3) Clothing, not exceeding ior. per quarter. (4) School Teacher's Quarterly Report, not exceeding id. per week. (5) Incidental expenses not exceeding id. per week. (6) Medical attendance. (7) Extra nourishment ordered by Medical Attendant. (8) School fees, if any. (9) Total. ■ Examined and correct Clerk to the Guardians. "Approved and allowed Chairman of Finance Committee. "Received this day of ~ 189 , of the Board of Guardians of the Burton-upon-Trent Union the sum of. Pounds Shillings and Pence, being the amount of the above account. "(Signed) Secretary of said Boarding-out Committee. "N.B. — If any amount has been advanced on account of the expenditure for the quarter to which this bill relates, credit should be given on the bill for the amount so advanced." XI. — Form of Receipt for Quarterly Payments by the Board of Guardians. " 189 . "Received of the Board of Guardians of the Burton-upon-Trent Union, the sum of. Pounds Shillings and Pence, being a payment on account for the quarter ending next, in respect of Maintenance, &c., of Children boarded-out under the supervision of the Boarding-out Committee." (B) Form of Engagement by Members of a Boarding-out Committee. "[We, the undersigned, being desirous of being constituted a Boarding-out Com- mittee] for the purpose of rinding and superintending homes for orphan and deserted pauper children in the Parish of , in the Union of. , in the County of , do hereby state that we have read the regulations which are prescribed in the Orders of the Local Government Board, dated the 28th day of May, 1889, an ^ in the event of our obtaining the requisite authority of the Local Government Board to act as a Boarding-out Committee, do hereby engage truly and faithfully to observe the same, and any other regulations which may from time to time be prescribed by the Local Government Board with respect to the Boarding-out of pauper children. And we {or I) do also hereby undertake to furnish to the Local Government Board, or to any of the Inspectors of that Board, all such reasonable information respecting pauper children who may be boarded-out under the super- intendance of the Committee, as the said Board or Inspectors may from time to time require. 414 Children under the Poor Law ' ' And we do also engage that meetings of the Committee shall be held not less often than * at such and such a place, on days to be fixed by members of the Committee at the first meeting in each year, the days and places of meeting to be subject to such alterations as may be agreed upon at one of the ordinary meetings of the Committee, after due notice to every member. And further, that a book shall be kept containing a record of the proceedings of each meeting, and that the minutes of the last meeting shall be read at the next succeeding meeting, and signed by the presiding Chairman, who shall be a member of the Committee other than the person appointed to act as Secretary. " Signatures in Full. Rank, Profession, or Calling, t Addresses. Dated this day of , 18 "N.B. — In the case of one or more proposed additions to the Committee, substitute or the words in [ ] the following : — ' We (or I), the undersigned, being desirous of becoming | rnem i- )er \ OI " the Boarding-out Committee formed,' and also omit the words in italics and the whole of the last paragraph, beginning 'And we do also engage . . . (to) . . . secretary.'" * But at least quarterly. (See Miss Mason's evidence before the Poor Law Schools Committee, Qs. 14,242-3.) t In the case of a proposed lady member who has no calling or profession of her own, the rank, pro- fession, or calling of her husband should be entered in this column thus : Wife, Widow, or Daughter of (C) Form of Return of the Secretary of a Boarding-out Committee. • ' Return of the children boarded-out under the supervision of the Boarding-out Committee on the 1st day of January [or July] 18 , with the names and addresses of the Foster-Parents. "(1) Name of child. (2) Age. (3) Name and address of Foster- Parent. (4) Union or separate Parish, to which chargeable. "(Signed) Secretary of the Boarding-out Committee. 1 ' Address and Date "Given under the seal of office of the Local Government Board, this twenty- eighth day of May, in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine. " Chas. T. Ritchie, President. "Hugh Owen, Secretary. 11 Date of publication in the London Gazette, 28th May, 1889." Since this Order was issued, the following form has also been issued for the returns of the members of the Committees : — " Boarding - out Committee. Statement showing the Names and Addresses of the Members of the above Committee on the ist January (or ist July), 18 . "Note. — The Statement is to be sent in half-yearly. Strike out the words 1st January or 1st July as the case may be. " Names. * Addresses. "(Signed) Secretary of Committee. Date " * It will be convenient if the names are arranged in alphabetical order. (D) Form of Certificate of the Medical Officer of the Union or Parish from which a Child is Boarded-out. "Union [or Separate Parish]. " I, the undersigned, having this day personally examined CD., aged years, residing at , hereby certify that he (or she) is not suffering from any contagious or infectious disease, and that his {or her) bodily health is good [with the exception that* ]. " (Signed) A medical officer of the above-named Union [or Parish]. "Dated this day of ,18 ." * Here state the particulars of any exceptions, Appendix G 415 (E) Form of Undertaking by Foster-Parents. " Undertaking of Foster- Parent. " BoARDifoG-ouT of Child in a Home beyond the limits of the Union [or Separate Parish] to which such child is chargeable. Union [or Separate Parish]. Boarding-out Committee. Name of Child. Religious Creed of Child. Name of Foster- Parent. "I, A.B. } of , do hereby engage with the Guardians of the above-named Union [or Parish], in consideration of my receiving the sum of per week, to bring up C. D. , aged years on the day of last, as one of my own children, and to provide h with proper food, lodging, and washing, and to endeavour to train h in habits of truthfulness, obedience, personal cleanliness, and industry, as well as in suitable domestic and out- door work, so far as may be consistent with the law ; to take care that the child shall attend duly at church [or chapel*], and shall attend school according to the provisions of the law for the time being ; that I will provide for the proper repair and renewal of the child's clothing, and that, in case of the child's illness, I will forthwith report such illness to the Guardians of the above-named Union [or Parish], and to the above-named Boarding-out Committee ; and that I will at all times permit the child to be visited and the house to be inspected by any member of the Boarding-out Committee, and by any person specially appointed for that purpose by the Guardians or by the Local Government Board. I do also hereby engage, upon the demand of a person duly authorised in writing by the Boarding-out Committee or by the Guardians, to give up possession of the child, f "Dated this day of , 18 . Signature {in full) of Foster- Parent. Address of Foster- Parent. Witness to the Signature of the Foster- Parent. Address of Witness. "JV.B. — 1. Communications to the Guardians to be addressed 2. Communications to the Boarding-out Committee to be addressed * Insert "church," "chapel," or according to the religious creed to which the child belongs, t Any other matter which may be agreed upon may here be added. (F) Form of Receipt of a Child by Foster-Parents. " Union [or Separate Parish]. "J,A.B.,of , hereby acknowledge that I have this day received CD., aged years, from the Guardians of the poor of the above-named Union [or Parish], on the terms and conditions contained in the annexed under- taking ; and that I have also received for the use of the said CD. the articles of clothing set out in the list appended hereto. "Dated this day of , 18 . "Signature and Address "Signature and Address of Witness ,,. " List of Clothing. Here set out the Articles in detail." (G) Form of Schoolmaster's Report.* " Report for the quarter ending " (1) Name of child. (2) Age. (3) Name and Address of Foster- Parent. (4) Days absent from school during the quarter. (5) Alleged causes of absence. (6) Observa- tions as to appearance, conduct, and progress of child. (7) Books and stationery suppled during the quarter. (8) School fees and cost of books and stationery. "Signature Address Date " N.B. — This report may be arranged in any other manner which may be deemed more convenient, provided that all the particulars above mentioned be included in it." * See also form used by the Burton-on- Trent Board of Guardians, ante, p. 412. 416 Children under the Poor Law (H) Form of Return by the Clerk to a Board of Guardians. " Union [or Separate Parish]. " Return of the children boarded-out in Homes beyond the limits of the Union [or separate Parish,] on the first day of April, [or October,] 18 . "(i) Name of child. (2) Age. (3) Name of Foster-Parent. (4) Address of Foster-Parent. (5) Boarding-out Committee under whose superintendence the child is boarded-out. (6) Date of the first boarding-out. " Date of boarding-out with present Foster- Parent, if there has been a change, "Clerk to the Guardians. Date " (II.) FORMS UNDER BOARDING-OUT IN UNIONS ORDER. (A) Form of Report of a Medical Officer. "Union [or Separate Parish]. "I, the undersigned, having this day personally examined CD., residing at and alleged to be an orphan [or deserted] child of the age of years, hereby certify that he is not suffering from any contagious or infectious disease, and that h bodily health is good [with the exception that * ] "(Signed) Medical Officer of the Union [or Parish of ]. "Dated this day of 18 ." * Here state the particulars of any exceptions. (B) Form of Undertaking of a Foster-Parent. 11 Undertaking of Foster- Parent. " Boarding of Child in a Home within the limits of the Union [or Separate Parish] to which such Child is chargeable. Union [or Separate Parish]. [ Boarding-out Committee]. * Name of Child. Religious Creed of Child. Name of Foster-Parent. "I, A.B., of , do hereby engage with the Guardians of the above-named Union [or Parish], in consideration of my receiving the sum of per week, to bring up CD., aged years on the day of last, as one of my own children, to provide h with proper food, lodging, and washing, and to endeavour to train h in habits of truthfulness, obedience, personal cleanliness, and industry, as well as in suitable domestic and out-door work, so far as may be consistent with the law ; and to take care that the child shall attend duly at church [or chapel], f and shall attend school according to the provisions of the law for the time being ; that I will provide for the proper repair and renewal of the child's clothing ; and that, in the case of the child's illness, I will forthwith report such illness to the [above-named Boarding-out Committee and also to the]* Relieving Officer in whose District I reside, or to the Guardians of the above-named Union [or Parish] ; that I will at all times permit the child to be visited and the house to be inspected by [any member of the Boarding-out Committee, by]* the Relieving Officer or the Medical Officer of the District, and by any Guardian or other person specially appointed for that purpose by the Guardians or by the Local Government Board ; and that I will produce the child for examination by the Guardians when required by them to do so. I do also hereby engage, upon the demand of a person duly authorised in writing by the [Boarding-out Committee or by the]* Guardians to give up possession of the child. J "Dated this day of 18 . "(1) Signature in full of Foster- Parent. (2) Address of Foster- Parent. (3) Witness to the signature of the Foster- Parent. (4) Address of Witness. " N.B. — Communications to the Guardians to be addressed "[Communications to the Boarding-out Committee to be addressed ]."* * The references in this Form to a Boarding-out Committee are to be retained only where the child is boarded under the superintendence of a Committee. See Article IX. 3. t Insert " church" or " chapel " according to the religious creed to which the child belongs. \ Any other matter which may be agreed upon may here be added. Appendix G 417 (C) Form of Schoolmaster's Report. 11 School. Report for the Quarter ending "(1) Name of Child. (2) Age. (3) Name and Address of Foster- Parent. (4) Days absent from school during the Quarter. (5) Alleged causes of Absence. (6) Observations as to Appearance, Conduct, and Progress of Child. (7) Books and Stationery supplied during the Quarter. (8) School Fees and Cost of Books and Stationery. ' ' Signature Address Date M N.B. — This report may be arranged in any other manner which may be deemed more convenient, provided that all the particulars above-mentioned be included in it." (D) Form of Report of a Relieving Officer. "Relieving Officer's Report on Children Boarded with Foster- Parents. ending ,18 . Union [or Separate Parish]. "Name of Child Age Name and Address of Foster- Parent Date when Child was last seen by me Does the Child appear to be in good health ? Is it properly fed, lodged, and clothed ? Are the sleeping arrangements, as regards the separation of the sexes and otherwise, proper and sufficient ? Is the behaviour of the Child good ? What is the domestic and out-door work in which it is employed, and is its general training properly attended to? Does the Child duly attend Church or Chapel? Does it attend School regularly? Are any complaints made by or concerning the Child, against the Foster-Parent ? Are any complaints made by or concerning the Foster-Parent, against the Child ? General observations "Signed Relieving Officer of the Union [or Parish]." (E) Form of Report of a Medical Officer's Visits. " Medical Officer's Report of Visits ?nade to the Homes of Foster- Parents with whom Children are Boarded. 11 Quarter ending 18 . Union [or Parish of ]. "(1) Date of Visit. (2) Name of Child. (3) Age. (4) Name and Address of Foster-Parent. (5) Date of last preceding Visit. (6) Observations as to the Appearance and Health of the Child, the State of the House, and other Remarks. •'(Signed) Medical Officer of the District." The other Forms used under this Order are similar in terms to those used under the Boarding-out Order. (III.) RULES OF THE BRISTOL AND CLIFTON BOARDING-OUT SOCIETY, With Preface, and a Note on "After-care." " In the present great extension of the Boarding-out System, the following suggestions for the guidance of Committees may be found useful. "The Choice of a Home. 1 ' It should be remembered that homes are wanted in which children can grow up and become part of the family. Special attention, therefore, must be paid to the following points : " X. The moral character of both foster-parents. This must be known to be good. In addition to the necessary enquiries a little conversation may show their ideas on many essential points. u 2. The sleeping accommodation proposed for the children. It must be borne in mind that this is for the future as well as the present. Married people with boys and girls should always have three bedrooms. " 3. The income of the family. This must be quite sufficient for their mainte- nance without the children's payments. "4. The age and health of the foster-parents, (a) They should be vigorous enough not only for the present care, but likely to be so as long as the child remains young. (6) Young couples with increasing families are not, as a rule, good foster- 2 E 41 8 Children under the Poor Law parents, as the boarded-out children often under such circumstances become nurses or drudges, (c) Boys should not be placed with widows or single women — they usually grow out of the control of women. " 5. Country homes are, as a rule, to be preferred. * ' Committees should bear in mind the following regulations of the Local Govern- ment Board : "Article VI.— No. 3. 'Not more than two children shall be boarded-out by the Guardians in the same house at the same time, unless all such children are brothers and sisters, and do not exceed four in number ; not more than one child shall be boarded-out by the Guardians in a house in which any child is boarded-out by persons other than the Guardians, nor shall any child be boarded-out in a house in which there is more than one such child, and no child shall be placed in a house in which, at the time when the child would first be placed in it, there would be with such child more than five children present.' " No. 4. ' No child shall be boarded-out with any person who is at the time, or who has been within twelve months preceding, in receipt of relief ; and if the foster- parent shall at any time become in receipt of relief, the child shall be withdrawn from him.' "No. 5. 'In no case shall a child be boarded-out with a foster-parent of a religious creed different from that to which the child belongs.' " The Local Government Board also recommends that : "Especial attention should be paid to decent accommodation, and the proper separation of the sexes in the sleeping-rooms. Children over seven years of age should never be allowed to sleep in the same room with married couples. "No child should be boarded-out in a house where sleeping accommodation is afforded to an adult lodger. (This rule is often evaded after the child has been some time in a home. ) ' ' Particular attention should be paid to the Schoolmaster's report ; and if after two warnings to the foster-parents the reports continue unfavourable, the child should be withdrawn. "Rules of the Bristol and Clifton Boarding-out Society. " 1. A member of the Committee should visit each home once a month at varying intervals, and by surprise, keeping a record of the dates of her visits, and taking special notice of the following particulars : " (a) The health of the children. " \b) The food supplied to them. This is best ascertained by occasionally calling at meal times. The appearance of the children will indicate whether the food is right in quantity and kind. il {c) Clothing. This should be examined and thoroughly gone over half-yearly. The visitor should observe what underclothing the child is wearing at the time. "The following is the list of clothing for boys and girls when they are first boarded-out from the Barton Regis Workhouse ; that from the Bristol Workhouse is very similar. Foster-parents are expected to keep up the clothing from the allow- ance made by the Guardians. " Boys. — Two caps, two suits of clothes, three shirts, three pairs of stockings, two pairs of boots, two collars, three pocket handkerchiefs, one pair braces, one small tooth comb, one brush and comb, one bible and prayer book, one clothes box, one waterproof coat. " GlRLS. — Two hats, three pinafores, three frocks, three shifts, three pocket hand- kerchiefs, three pairs of stockings, two skirts, two flannel petticoats, two pairs of boots, two nightgowns, two pairs of drawers, one jacket, one small tooth comb, one brush and comb, one bible and prayer book, one clothes box, one waterproof. " It is desirable that soon after the arrival of a child in its home the visitor should, with the foster-mother, go over the outfit sent from the Workhouse with the child, and impress upon her the need for keeping up the stock of clothing, as should she for any reason give up the child, or it be removed from her, it must take away with it the same number of articles of clothing in good repair as were sent to her. " (d) Cleanliness. Visitors should not content themselves with the outside appearance, but should, at least once a quarter, remove a shoe and stocking, and Appendix G 419 look at the neck just below the dress or coat, and the arms. Not only has cleanli- ness to be considered, but general treatment. If children are ill-used, bruises, or marks of blows, are generally found on the upper part of the arms. "(e) Sleeping arrangements. Care must be taken that changes are not made in the sleeping accommodation promised. The whole house should be seen half-yearly. It is impossible to tell whether the boarded-out child really sleeps where stated without seeing the other rooms, and ascertaining who and how many are the other inmates of the house. The bedding thus ascertained to be that of the boarded-out child should also be examined at this half-yearly visit. 1 ' No foster-parents who are doing their duty will resent such inspection, which can only prove their trustworthiness. It should be clearly understood that these inspec- tions are not made on suspicion, but because the visitors are bound to report to the Committee from their own knowledge at first hand. All foster-parents must be treated alike. If exceptions are made, and thorough inspection only carried out in suspected cases, offence will be given. (/) Temperance. The importance of training in habits of temperance should be pressed on the foster-parents, and on no account should a child ever be sent to a public-house for beer or any other reason. " Care must be taken that these prescribed conditions continue to be observed, and the visitor must not relax her vigilance. " 2. The visitor should go to the school once a quarter, and ascertain from the master all particulars relating to the attendance and proficiency of the children, their general appearance as to health, cleanliness, tidiness, and treatment. Much informa- tion can be thus obtained respecting the character both of the children and their homes. * • 3. Each child shall be under the special supervision of one or more members nominated by the Committee. 11 4. The visitor must fill up the quarterly reports sent by the Secretary. *' 5. If the foster-parents have any complaints to make these must be stated to the visitor, and in the case of the removal of the child being desired by them, or in her opinion expedient, she shall at once communicate with the Secretary. In no case must a child be returned to the Union without the knowledge of the Secretary. 1 ' 6. Should any serious illness occur, the visitor shall at once inform the Secretary. "7. In case of absence from home, or illness, the visitor shall appoint another member of the Committee as her substitute, and in the event of her absence exceed- ing a month, notify the same to the Secretary. " 8. Visitors are expected to attend the Committee once a quarter. "9. An annual subscription of 2/6 constitutes membership. Three members shall form a quorum. " The Committee meetings are held on the second Monday in every month except August. "After-Care of the Children. 1 • The visitor should endeavour to be considered as a friend by both parents and children ; if she succeeds in doing so her task becomes an easy one, her suggestions taken in good part, and the parents will respect her for doing her duty. When the time comes for the children to go to service she should interest herself in the matter, helping to find a suitable situation, seeing that the outfit money is properly laid out, and encouraging the children to correspond with her, etc. It would be well if all boarded-out girls joined the G. F. S. " It is very frequently found that on being first boarded-out the children are inclined to pilfer. If a few half- pence were given to them occasionally, as a reward for good conduct, they might not be so inclined. In the Workhouse Schools they have little temptation to dishonesty, but when they come out and see shops, &c. , the desire to buy sweets or other things comes on them, and if they have nothing they are tempted to steal. M Ten shillings is awarded to those children who remain a year in their first place of service. "Catherine Temple, " Hon. Sec. Boarding-out Committee. " 19, Canynge Square, Clifton, Bristol." 420 Children under the Poor Law p > fa U w fa Q w W fa fa fa fa fa O w 53 rj •j 2j o w Oh > o 1 .§ o >. 13 r£ 7: 3 O a c c« <2 o o • 4> 2 1 3 to O a co 'So M c 3 O >< -a o 42 H C 'g *> .5 rt 42 CO .8 S C: < rt ^ O u 42 CU >S C . 4> o I] £ ° f« u c S3 4? K Home No. i. — Pure-minded and innocent young women. Over 1 6 years of age preferred. Home No. 2.— Young women who have had a first fall. Both permanent Homes. 31 it |2 fa a, c-S rt.ti B * O 4) a> « & S2 2^ c«'o d CO O II ^,P M 1- |l 11. Mo £ to 2 g pi a 'rt JS eg •H -^ '0 rt l« IJ ,u 'So > c ol "fi »•* b« . o'> •a 00 V N fi o'rt ♦ « B2 2 1 % •a O *u 2 3 . 42 to °i as? co j3 CO M 3 O •5 So" ^ c «= ►3'B 2 B« •> ^.t: 3 V fe <" M « * « 2 O Ot3 13 g rt H* 3 ^^ E v. 2 ■""^ be rt tj c Jc 2 ."H *Sb 2 rt c fi c 8 _>> 1| 2 cu'D c!l ii J> (0 J] CO O J a u 41 I I B | oil "S3 ■fjl fa 4) E ■gJl .g c 11 4)>< jj rt g 8 tl 11 IS c "2 ^ 42 * s N " t-» 0) s CU c 4) 3 O 55 l 1 1 8 3 11 £ E c ^ »S If g S * o o 3 M § B 3 9 & a in O . bi,"^ •5 2 -a > 8c2 ^^ 10 t~ VO Jl co ■B"fi l£ J5*S 2 00 ! VO I N M (N N 10 10 N ro 11 '« a, •d u > o a a < > O a a < -d 142 V 1 O a, a < 4) > 2 < > 0. a, CU s i E c3 .2 *T3 • 4)VO 00 00 fl o H ON CO >; s 00 g ^ «00 H 1 •*• «3 00 c« 00 S M 5.S 2.5co -a e .-gag CU O N « U « •a 3 t^i s 3 -Coo Oj- ,J- 3.MH g^ « fa« rtS»-i fa a o fa O fa a < fa >> B3 < to > 1 -a to K < a H rJ § § &° s ii 1 >• 05 8 | St; < 1 £§? ifa s ir M if !^ §^ M w" H O s < d J" «S ozr, M J C § Sal £ i.fa s§ <^ X A CO J O Q M O 4> s .1 U MS H Z w K M 3 O B <: a 1 3 §§& E 8 8 E cVD 3 « s co -a ■d n JJ < v -3 A. 4) cV3 w 1- f|* | 2 Q Ji « ii < | 3 ~T3 2 P CU Ji S O co* 2 ►2 a W 3 W g S g X O » T R hCJ «^-> w Sr « ^ < w 2 w ►J X fa H H cV) Appendix I 421 APPENDIX I. OUTFITS FOR CHILDREN SENT TO SERVICE. "Local Government Board, Whitehall, S.W. " 14th July, 1897. "Sir, — I am directed by the Local Government Board to transmit to you the enclosed copies of an Order which they have issued, providing that the Guardians of any Poor Law Union may, when they deem it expedient, incur a reasonable expenditure in providing an outfit for any child chargeable to the Union, on such child being sent to service by the Guardians ; or, if the child is boarded or boarded- out under the supervision of a duly authorized Boarding-out Committee, on such child being sent to service by the Guardians or otherwise. "Under certain of the Orders regulating the administration of out-relief it has been necessary that the Board's sanction should be obtained in order that expenditure might be legally incurred in providing outfits for children sent to service, except where, in the case of any child sent from the Workhouse, the outfit was supplied from the Workhouse stores. The present Order removes any necessity for such sanction, and confers on the Guardians full discretion as to incurring such expenditure, subject of course to the amount expended being reasonable in the circumstances of the particular case. 1 ' The Board may state that it has been their practice, in cases where their sanction has been required, to object to a child being sent to service without money wages, or to an inn or public-house (unless in exceptional circumstances), or to any place of service, the conditions of which seemed unsatisfactory ; and they have required to be satisfied that the child has attained the standard or made the attendances qualifying for employment under the Education Acts, or the bye-laws in force in the particular school district. "The Board do not doubt that the Guardians will satisfy themselves in each individual case before sending a child to service, that the Home and conditions of service will be satisfactory, and that the child is properly qualified for employment. " I am, sir, your obedient servant, " The Clerk to the Guardians" "Hugh Owen, Secretary. General Order. "To the Guardians of the Poor of the several Poor Law Unions for the time being in England and Wales, and to all others whom it may concern : "Whereas by certain General and other Orders, addressed by the Poor Law Commissioners, the Poor Law Board, and by us, the Local Government Board respectively, to the Boards of Guardians of Poor Law Unions in England and Wales, provision is made with respect to the grant of relief to paupers chargeable to any of the said Unions, and with respect to the boarding or boarding-out of pauper children ; " And whereas it is expedient to make further provision as hereinafter mentioned with respect to the relief which may be given to children who have been boarded or boarded-out by a Board of Guardians, or are otherwise chargeable to a Poor Law Union on their going to service : 1 ' Now, therefore, in pursuance of the powers given to us by the Statutes in that behalf, we hereby Order that, from and after the date hereof, the following provisions shall have effect, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any of the aforesaid Orders ; that is to say — "The Guardians of any Poor Law Union may, when they deem it expedient, incur a reasonable expenditure in providing an outfit for any child chargeable to such Union, on such child being sent to service by the Guardians, or, if the child is boarded or boarded-out under the supervision of a Boarding -out Committee in accordance with the Regulations from time to time applicable to the boarding or boarding-out of pauper children, on such child being sent to service by the Guardians or otherwise. 1 ' Given under the Seal of Office of the Local Government Board, this Tenth day of July, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven. "Henry Chaplin, President. "Hugh Owen, Secretary." 422 Children under the Poor Law APPENDIX K. FORMS USED BY THE METROPOLITAN ASSOCIATION FOR BEFRIENDING YOUNG SERVANTS Referred to ante, p. 297. {a) u Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants. "Office: 18, Buckingham Street, Strand, W.C. Union School. 189... "(1) Name of Girl placed out. (2) Age when placed out, and Month of Birth. (3) Length of time in School. (4) Character in School. (5) Date of leaving the School. (6) Is this the first Situation? (7) Has this Girl any physical defect or peculiarity? (8) Is she an Orphan, or deserted? (9) Address of relations. Where placed, and nearest railway station or omnibus route. (5) Proposal to take a Girl into Service from the "(i) Name of the proposed Master or Mistress. (2) Residence. (3). Occupa- tion. (4) Whether a Householder. (5) Number of persons in the family. (6) Nature of the duties required of the girl. (7) Are there any other Servants kept? If so, how many ? (8) Proposed wages and what increase (the wages must not be less than ^5 for the first year). (9) Particulars and description of the sleeping accommodation provided for the girl. (10) Will she be allowed to attend Divine worship ? and when? (11) When is she required to enter on her duties? (12) Name and age of the Girl selected. (a) The first outfit will be provided by the Guardians. It is for the Girl's use only, and is to be regarded as a loan to her from the Guardians. If the girl leaves her first place within six months she must not, without the consent of the Guardians, be allowed to take with her ?nore than the clothes she is actually wearing, the box containing the rest of the outfit must be returned to the (b) Each girl placed out from the Schools will, while remaining in service, be visited by a Member or Agent of the • Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants.' The Guardians will be glad if the Mistress will meet the visitor in a friendly spirit, encourage her visits to the Girl, and apply to her in any case of difficulty, (c) In the event of the Girl not suiting, or immediately upon any necessity arising for her leaving her situation, notice of the same must be sent to the Lady visiting on behalf of the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants, or to the Secretary at their Central Office, 18, Buckingham Street, Strand. The Mistress is earnestly requested not to permit the Girl to quit her service until such notice has been sent, (d) It must not be expected that Girls entering service from these Schools are fully qualified domestic servants. They have not been in service before, and have had but limited experience in household work. They require training, patience, and consideration on the part of Mistresses and others under whom they may be placed. " I agree (in the event of the above-named Girl entering my service) to permit the visits of a Member or Agent of the ' Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants,' and to fulfil all the other conditions set forth above. "Dated the of 189 . "Signature of the proposed Master or Mistress " REPORT OF THE VISITING OFFICER WITH REFERENCE TO THE PROPOSAL. "I have this day visited the proposed Mistress at the Address stated on the other side of this paper, and have inspected the sleeping accommodation provided for the Girl. With reference to this proposal I beg to report that "Dated the day of 189 . Visiting Officer.* LIST OF OUTFIT TO BE PROVIDED FOR THE GIRL. "One hair brush and two combs, three caps, three collars, three pairs drawers, three chemises, three night dresses, one pair boots and three pairs hose, one pair slippers, two cotton dresses, two stuff dresses, four linen aprons, four muslin aprons, two flannel petticoats, one top skirt, one jacket, two hats, one pair stays, Bible and prayer book, six handkerchiefs, one umbrella, one tin box." * This report is now made by the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants for the Forest Gate School Managers, and for Holborn and Stepney, and in the cases of the other schools by the Relieving Officers or Matrons or by the deputies of the Matrons. Appendix L 423 APPENDIX L. FOURTH ANNUAL MEMORANDUM ON THE BOYS SENT OUT FROM THE SOUTH METROPOLITAN DISTRICT SCHOOLS (SUTTON AND WITHAM.) From September •, 1892, to December, 1896. " In presenting the Fourth Annual Statement I wish to point out that no name has been removed from the list since the work was undertaken. This fact has to be taken into consideration in looking at the table given below. The names are kept on the list even though the boys remain untraced, because there is always a hope, from the friendship that exists between the boys, that we shall hear of them. When the boys reach the age of 21 their names will be removed. "Bearing this fact in mind, it is pleasant to be able to report that over 60 per cent, are excellent — 296 boys out of 452 are really good, remaining in their situations, giving satisfaction to their employers. A large number of these are now able to provide for themselves. Of 20 more we can report that they keep their situations, but they are not in character equal to the 296. Further, there are 56 who are gone to relations, and are keeping their places, doing well, and fairly earning the verdict satisfactory. Of the 2nd Class marked doubtful — 50 are gone to relations. These relations have moved from the address given when the boys were at the School. The boys have left the situations in which they were placed by the Guardians, and have gone to join them. All trace is for the time lost. Six are not traced because the master to whom they were sent removed before a visit was paid. Six having left towards the end of December, 1896, have not yet been reported on. Thirteen are unsatisfactory. Of these, four are in the Workhouse. The first case is not hopeless — the boy is a good boy — he went into the Infirmary of the country town where he was placed owing to a poisoned hand, and was thence sent to the Workhouse, having no situation to go to. I am in correspondence with the Guardians, and hope to get him out. Two were sent to the Workhouse for bad conduct. Of the 4th the Visitor reports ' I am trying to keep X out of the Workhouse, but I do not know with what success,' so he is classed as a workhouse case. Of the remaining nine — Absconded from their situations . . ... 7 * Was dishonest . . . ... I Was dismissed from the Boys' Home as saucy and insolennt . 1 9 "Two cases are in the Infirmary — one of these lads is epileptic, the other an ophthalmic case — both are of good character. 1 ' Three have died in the 4^ years, one from the result of a cart accident. This mortality does not show an alarming condition of ill-health amongst the boys from a District School. " As regards the general character of the boys, two extracts from the managers of Boys' Homes who are conversant with the general class may be given : — " 1. Mr. Scriven, Boys' Home, Walworth Road, speaks very highly of our boys, and concludes thus :— ' I am glad to be able to give so good a report of these boys. A master printer who had seen the Sutton boys at work, applied to me for " half-a-dozen like them'' This is in itself a good testimony that the boys are making good use of their opportunities.' "2. Mr. Cousens, of the Boys' Home, Fournier Street, says, 'As a whole the lads from your Institution are well educated, and do better than boys from most Institutions of the same kind.' "A visitor writes : ' Mr. never had any one of his age before who could do the work he does.' "The following sympathetic letter from a master speaks for itself. It was received by the late head master, Mr. Eyre : — " My dear Sir,— I am so much obliged for your note of 29th April, re . The youngster has received his bank-book, and is now saving up his money, and in time will turn out (let us all hope) a specialist in electric lighting. I am sure you will be pleased to know that he is a very industrious lad, and very honest, and we shall try to make him a useful member of society. He speaks very highly of you at the school, for which I am very pleased. Ratepayers do grumble, but your lads are evidently well cared for. I shall take an early opportunity of sending the boy down to see you. He is growing away very nicely, but we can't shake his nervousness out of him. However, time will do this. " Believe me, yours faithfully, 424 Children under the Poor Law "The boys in the Army seem to do especially well, and their Commanding Officers report in very high terms of their success. These are a few of the reports received : — " i. ' Bids fair to become a good musician.' "2. ' Doing remarkably well. Clean, smart, and very steady.' "3. ' Making steady progress on his instrument.' " 4. ' Was appointed full bandsman within fifteen months of his enlistment.' "5. 'Is likely to prove a credit to Sutton Schools.' "This report would not be complete without the very warm recognition of the help I receive from the staff — from Mr. Martin, the late Mr. Eyre, and the present school- master, Mr. Dean. Above all I must do justice to Mr. Steer, whose interest in the boys is as great as my own ; he does much for them, and without him the work could not be carried on as it is. He is most accurate in his book-keeping, and his classifi- cation of boys would stand the severest test. " Miss Thompson receives many of the boys at her house from time to time at tea, and I am not without hopes that some day we may follow the steps of Mrs. Lascelles, who, unknown to us, was at this work six years earlier. As the result of these meetings at her house, the Kensington and Chelsea District Schools Old Boys pro- pose to start a club for themselves and their juniors, and so little do they dread to recognize their connection with the Schools, that when asked what name they pro- posed to give it, they said the Banstead Club. M I have also most sincerely to thank the managers and other visitors who have undertaken cases for me. They have done work for which no thanks of mine can repay them. " I am glad to learn that our work is being imitated elsewhere. I have had many letters of inquiry since the matter was made known through the Poor Law Schools Committee Report. "Brooke Lambert. " The Vicarage, Greenwich, "March, 1897." Tabulation, February, 1897. GENERALLY. IN DETAIL. Classification. I. Satisfactory . Number of Boys. 372 Per- centage. 82-2 ] I. 2. 3- Classification. Good . Fairly Good. Gone to relations. Doing well Number of Bovs. 296 20 56 Per- centage. 4'4 12-4 2. Doubtful 62 I3'8 j 1. 2. 3- Gone to relations. No further record Not traced . Not yet reported . 50 6 6 1 ro 1 '4 3. Unsatisfactory. 13 2*9 { 1. 2. In Workhouse Unsatisfactory 4 9 •9 2*0 4. In Infirmary . 2 •4 In Infirmary 2 •4 5. Dead . 3 •7 Dead . 3 7 ■ Totals 452 IOO'O Totals . 452 IOO'O Appendix N 425 APPENDIX M. SCHEME OF THE GIRLS' FRIENDLY SOCIETY FOR EXTENDING THE WORK OF THE C. W. O. DEPARTMENT. I. 11 (A) A Local Committee to be formed in each Union, and to be called the ' Union Committee Girls' Friendly Society.' * 11 (B) This Local Committee to consist of {a) the C.W.O. representatives of the branch or branches within the area of the Union ; (b) not less than two associates to be appointed by the Diocesan Head of the C.W.O. Department in consultation with the branch or branches ; (c) the Diocesan Head of the Department {ex-officio) ; and (d) two of the Guardians of the Union. "(C) The Chairwoman of the Committee to be appointed by the Diocesan Head of the Department. "(D) Meetings of the Local Committees to be held monthly in large Unions, and in country Unions quarterly if possible. "An alternative scheme to the above, which may be adopted where the 'Union Committee Girls' Friendly Society' is not practicable, at the discretion of the Diocesan Head, proposes that Boards of Guardians should be asked to appoint a Special Committee to consider questions relating to the welfare of Poor Law girls, and that the Committee should invite two or more representatives of the Girls' Friendly Society to confer with them." II. "(A) A Girls' Friendly Society Committee to be formed for each Poor Law Conference District. "(B) This Committee to consist of (with power to add to their number) {a) the Diocesan Head or Heads of the C.W.O. Department {ex-officio) ; \b) the C.W.O. representative or representatives ; and (4 one Guardian from each Union Committee. " (C) The Chairwoman of the Committee to be appointed by the Central Head of the C.W.O. Department. "(D) The Committee to meet at least annually, and that after its business meeting it should hold a Conference to be thrown open to all interested in Poor Law work." * Where desirable, the Unions may be grouped, the representation on the Committee to be on the same basis. APPENDIX N. ISOLATED (OR SEPARATED) HOMES. Memorandum as to Conditions which the Local Government Board will require to be complied with when the system of Separated Homes is adopted by Guardians, subject to the consideration by the Board of the special circumstances in particular cases. " 1. That either buildings separate from the workhouse shall be provided, in connection with the homes, in which all children may be received and retained for a probationary period of not less than fourteen days before being drafted to the homes, or that separate accommodation, entirely distinct from the quarters assigned to the adult inmates, shall be provided at the Union Workhouse for the purpose. " 2. That in either case an adequate staff of officers shall be provided, in con- nection with the probationary wards, for the supervision of the children, and also for their education unless they are sent out to a public elementary school. " 3. That adequate sick accommodation shall be provided for the children, either in an infirmary in connection with the headquarters buildings, or in separate wards in the Workhouse infirmary. 426 Children under the Poor Law 1 ' 4. That each child shall be examined by the medical officer of the Workhouse both on admission to the headquarters buildings and immediately before being trans- ferred to a home, and that a medical certificate shall be given by the medical officer as to the child's fitness to be transferred to the home. 1 ' 5. That an order for the child's admission to the home shall be issued by the superintendent of the headquarters buildings, or by the master of the Workhouse, as the case may be, in a form that shall contain, so far as ascertainable, the child's name, the date of birth, the religious denomination to which the child belongs, the names and addresses of his nearest relatives, and the standard, according to the Code of the Education Department, reached by the child when last attending school- Care must be taken that one clear day's notice of the proposed transfer is given in every case. "6. That a superintendent shall be appointed, who shall have supervision of all the homes, and whose duty it shall be to visit each home at least three times every week, and to record the time of his arrival and departure, and any remarks in con- nection with the administration of the home which he may consider should be brought to the notice of the Guardians, in a book to be kept at the home for the purpose. "7. That, in addition, a committee of the Guardians shall be appointed, whose duty it shall be to visit and inspect each home once at least in each fortnight, to examine the books, and to record the fact of their visit, and any remarks which they may deem necessary in connection therewith, in a book to be kept at the home for the purpose. " 8. That further, a committee of ladies shall be appointed, not necessarily com- posed of ladies elected as Guardians, whose duty it shall be to visit each home once at least in every week, and to record the fact of their visit, and any remarks they may think desirable in the visitor's book at the home. " 9. That a foster-mother shall be appointed to each home, and that she shall be a person without children dependent on her, and that her own children shall not be allowed to live with her in the home. " 10. That more than fifteen children shall not be placed in one home. "11. That children shall not be sent to the homes before they are three years of age, and that boys shall not be kept in the same homes as girls after they are ten years of age. "12. That care shall be taken that each child shall be sent to a place of worship and Sunday school of the denomination to which the child belongs, and that if the children are sent to board schools, adequate religious instruction shall be provided for them apart from their school training. "13. That care shall be taken that a due amount of time for recreation shall be secured for the children, and that such arrangements for the performance of the domestic work in connection with each home shall be made, as to ensure that no child shall be employed on any such work after the return from afternoon school on an ordinary week day, or after the midday meal on Saturdays, with the exception of washing the crockery used at the last meal, and the putting to bed of the younger children by the elder children. '« 14. That a dietary table shall be drawn up setting forth the maximum quantity of provisions to be supplied weekly to each home, and that the foster-mother be empowered to requisition up to such maximum. "15. That a journal shall be kept by the foster-mother of a home, in which she shall report as to the character of the provisions provided for each meal in the home, the amount to be given to each child being left to the discretion of the foster-mother. " 16. That the books referred to in paragraphs 6, 7, 8, and 15 shall be submitted to the Guardians at each of their ordinary meetings. " 17. That corporal punishment shall be inflicted by the superintendent of the homes only, and in presence of the foster-mother of the home in which the child lives, and that he be required to adhere strictly to the following regulations in the General Consolidated Order : — "Article 138. No corporal punishment shall be inflicted on any female child. "■Article 139. No corporal punishment shall be inflicted on any male child, except with a rod or other instrument such as may have been approved of by the Guardians or the Visiting Committee. "Article 140. No corporal punishment shall be inflicted on any male child until two hours shall have elapsed from the commission of the offence for which such punishment is inflicted. Appendix O 427 "Article 143. The [superintendent] shall keep a book to be furnished to him by the Guardians, in which he shall duly enter (1) all cases of refractory or dis- orderly children reported to the Guardians for their decision thereon ; and (2) all cases of children who may have been punished without the direction of the Guardians, with the particulars of their respective offences and punishments. M Article 145. Such book shall be laid on the table at every ordinary meeting of the Guardians, and every entry made in such book since the last ordinary meeting shall be read to the Board by the clerk. The Guardians shall thereupon in the first place give direction as to the punishment of any refractory or dis- orderly child reported for their decision, and such direction shall be entered on the Minutes of the proceedings of the day, and a copy thereof shall be inserted by the clerk in the book specified in Article 143. The Guardians, in the second place, shall take into their consideration the cases in which punishments are reported to have been already inflicted by the [superintendent] or other officer, and shall require the [superintendent] to bring before them any child so punished who may have signified a wish to see the Guardians. If the Guardians in any case are of opinion that the officer has acted illegally or improperly, such opinion shall be entered on the Minutes, and shall be communicated to the [superinten- dent]. "18. That arrangements shall be made for the medical officer of the district in which a home is situated to inspect the children at intervals of not exceeding one month, and upon the summons of the superintendent or foster-mother to attend duly and punctually upon any child that may need it. " 19. That arrangements, where possible, shall be made for the children to attend classes for technical education. 11 20. That relief-mothers shall be appointed to take charge of homes during the absence of the foster-mothers, and that leave of absence shall be granted to every foster-mother for half-a-day in each week. " (It may be desirable that the wife of the superintendent of the homes should be a relief-mother, as under such an arrangement the superintendent would be likely to obtain fuller information as to the administration in each home than would other- wise be the case. ) "21. That the fullest liberty consistent with reasonable discipline and their moral welfare shall be accorded to the children outside the homes, the yards of which would not, as a rule, afford adequate space or scope for recreation. *' It will of course, be understood that any premises proposed to be acquired as a home must be inspected and reported on by the inspector of the district before the assent of the Local Government Board is given to the hiring or purchase of the premises, and in the selection of any house for the purposes of a home it is very important that the Guardians should ascertain that the sanitary arrangements are satisfactory, that the water-closet accommodation is sufficient, that there is a constant supply or adequate storage of water, that there are means of obtaining sufficient hot water, that there is an alternative means of escape in case of fire, and that there is a spare room reserved in case of illness. " When homes are provided, the Board will issue an order embodying regulations for their administration, and an order as to accounts. "Local Government Board, August, 1896." APPENDIX O. SCHEME OF THE WHITECHAPEL BOARD OF GUARDIANS FOR PROVIDING FOR THE PAUPER CHILDREN OF THE UNION. Provision for one hundred children is to be made in the form of four pairs of semi-detached cottages of simple construction, each for ten children of mixed ages and both sexes ; and one cottage for twenty boys who, by reason of age, may be inadmissible into a " mixed" cottage. The cottages will not be on one site, but on separate sites and sufficiently apart to prevent the children of the several pairs of cottages from forming one community. 428 Children under the Poor Law Subject to this, and to each pair of cottages being within a convenient distance of a Public Elementary School, one and all are to be as near as may be found practicable toa" Head Quarters " Home. By this and other means, it is desired to ensure a responsible control and, at the same time, that the every-day life of the children shall, as far as possible, correspond to that of other children of the working class. Each "mixed" cottage will be under the care of a Foster-mother, and the Boys' cottage under the care of a Foster-father and Foster-mother. Arrangements will be made for the attendance of the children at a Public Elementary School the same as for ordinary children, without distinctive dress ; and no serious difficulty is anticipated in the way of securing the admission of the children to such a school or schools. With regard to the "Head Quarters" Home already referred to, it will, in addition to Officers' Quarters and Receiving rooms, include a small Infirmary for sick children. In forming this "Head Quarters" it will be the anxious care of the Guardians to make the arrangements as simple and as free from distinctive and institutional appearance as possible. As to the administration of the series of ' ' Homes," it is suggested that, subject to the authority of the Guardians, the general control and government should be in the hands of a Lady Superintendent of administrative capacity and who should be a trained nurse. This will be a "new departure" in the management of children. At the same time, having regard to the small number to be dealt with, the importance of bringing the best and most refining influences to bear upon Foster-parents and children, and the value of expert knowledge in watching over their physical well- being, it is thought that the experiment of such an appointment will not only be an interesting and useful one, but will probably be of service to the Guardians in the selection of Foster-mothers. The appointment of a Lady Superintendent will probably necessitate the engagement of a female clerk for the accounts. In the " mixed " Cottages, the Boys are not to be retained beyond the age — not being earlier than seven years and not later than ten years — which the Lady Superintendent may, in her discretion, determine. It is necessary to add that the Guardians do not consider the scheme universally applicable — but as one which appears to them to be best adapted to the local circumstances of their Union, and which is rendered possible by the small number of children to be dealt with. The Guardians are quite ready to accept the ' ' Conditions," which the Local Government Board will probably impose, viz : — * 1. Provision for children over three years of age, at present in the Workhouse, pending their transfer — after a prescribed probationary period — to the separated country Homes, including an adequate staff of Officers and arrangements for their education : 2. The appointment (in addition to a Committee of Guardians) of a Committee of Ladies to visit and report upon the Homes weekly : 3. Arrangements for the attendance of the children at a place of Worship and Sunday-school and adequate religious instruction at home : 4. Restrictive measures against the undue employment of the children, so as to ensure sufficient time for recreation : 5. Rules in regard to dietary and requisitions : 6. The appointment of a Medical Officer whose duty it will be to inspect every child at least once a month, as well as to attend upon the sick : 7. Arrangements, where possible, for the children to attend classes for technical education ; and 8. Provision for the occasional relief of Foster-mothers from duty. * See Appendix N, ante, p. 425. INDEX Administration, success of all systems depends on, I, 21, 350 Admissions and Discharges, see Poor Law Schools, Ins and Outs Adoption of pauper children, powers of Guardians, 341-343 ; suggested extension of powers, 342 After-care, a boys' M.A.B.Y.S. wanted, 304; aim, objects, and work of G.F.S., 298-300; apt to be neglected by Guardians, 246; at Swinton, 291-294; best left to volunteers, 29 1 ; best way of keeping register, 290 ; Bristol Preventive Mission, 300 ; children from training homes, 245, 246 ; duties of Guardians under Act of 1851, 288, 289; form of register, 290; Guardians under no responsibility for emigrated children, 289 ; importance of register, 289-291 ; increased powers wanted, 382; jealousy of Guardians for volunteers, 313, 314; necessary for boys, 303, 304; offers a promising field of work, 313; proposed extension of the Poor Law Act of 1889, 341 ; recommendations of the Bristol and Clifton Boarding-out Society, 419 ; register to be kept for recording visits, 289 ; at St. John's Home, Ipswich, 313 ; servants' training home at Manchester, 292; suggested amendment of 14 Vict. ch. II, 341; value of volunteer work and examples, 296-313 ; visiting by volunteers, 295 ; volunteers have no further powers than Boards of Guardians, 296; work of the M.A.B.Y.S., 296-298. See Bolton Society for Befriending Young Servants, Homes for Working Boys, Kensington Lads' Union, Lincoln Working Boys' Aid Society, Sheffield House of Help, South Metropolitan School District Visiting Association, Young Men's Friendly Society Age, for boarding-out children, 188, 189, 395 ; for employment, 286 Aggregation of children, alleged evils of, 112-125, 364, 367-375 ; worse for girls than boys, 112 Ambulance work, instruction in, 89 Amusements of children, at Banstead, 156; at Hornchurch, 148; at Leavesden, 108; at Swinton, 108, 133 ; in workhouse schools, 57, 58 ; in large schools generally, 107-110; in London Poor Law schools, 1 00 ; want of interest of teachers in, 357 ; room for improvement in, 357 Anerley Schools, causes of "failures," 126 ; class of situations obtained by girls from, 260 ; conditions under which children go into service, 294 ; demand for children exceeds supply, 362 ; free from ophthalmia, 123, 371 ; wages obtained by girls from, 293 Apprenticeship, age for, 267 ; conditions for, 268 ; consent to, 268 ; distance of place of service, 268; duties of master, 268; Employers and Workmen Act 1875 applies to, 269 ; execution of indenture of, 268 ; obstacles in General Order to, 269 ; Order of 1847 as to, 10 ; original Orders as to, 9 ; " pauper taint " in, 379 ; penalties to which a master is subject, 269 ; premium, 267 ; suggested revision of Order as to, 269, 270 ; term of, 267 ; to what children applicable, 267 ; who may receive apprentices, 267. See also Compulsory Apprenticeship Apprenticeship to the Merchant Service, duties and fees of Superintendent of Mercan- tile Marine Officer, 273 ; indenture of, 274 ; regulations, 274 Apprenticeship to the Royal Navy, conditions of, 271-273 ; further powers of Guardians, 273 ; no distinction made between pauper and other boys, 271 43° Children tender the Poor Law Apprenticeship to the Sea Fishing Service, " absconding " and motives for same, 279, 280; advantages of, 278; age for, 274, 281 ; annual holidays for boys recom- mended, 282 ; as to Returns of Superintendents on, 283 ; description of life of boys, 276, 277 ; diminution of offences against, 280 ; duties of Guardians before, 282; duties of Superintendents, 274; General Order of 1847 applied to, 10; good opening for boys, 275 ; how abuses arise, 279, 280 ; how decay of system may be prevented, 281 ; indenture of, 274; instances of success of boys, 275- 277 ; masters usually kind to boys, 278 ; mostly at Great Grimsby, 275 ; on what success of system depends, 282 ; practice given up at Hull, 281 ; private owners preferred to companies, 281 ; regulations as to payments and perquisites to boys, 282, 283 ; Report of Mr. Davy and Mr. Berrington on, 277 ; responsibilities of Guardians, 275 ; responsibilities of Superintendents, 275 ; results of improved supervision, 280; "stopping the ship," 279; term of, 283; value of system recognized, 278 ; why boys abscond, 279 " Arethusa" and " Chichester" Training Ships, conditions on which pauper boys are received, 252 ; good reports on boys, 252 ; success of boys from, 252 Army Bands, consent required for enlistment in, 284 ; demand for boys, 284 ; success of boys, 284 ; training for, 86 Ashford Schools, freed from ophthalmia, 371 Assistant Teachers, use of boys and girls as, 25 Atcham Workhouse School, description in 1850 of, 15 ; efficiency of, 49 ; success of education at, 168 Attendance Registers, General Order of 1878, 40 Aubin, Mr., establishment of, 3, 7, 12 ; its success, 6 B Bands, see Army Bands, Navy Bands Banstead Cottage Homes, after-care of boys, 304-306 ; cost of, 141 ; dietary at, 346 ; industrial training at, 151-153 ; no "Ins and Outs" at, 323; practically free from ophthalmia, 373 ; success of girls, 138 ; trades to which children go from, 153 Barnardo, Dr., charges against Poor Law Schools, 114 ; charges against girls, 366 "Barrack" School, definition, 82; origin of, 82; type of a, 132-134. See also District Schools, Large Schools, Poor Law Schools Barton Regis Union School, special training of girls for service in, 258 Bedminster Union School, training of girls in, 72 Bethnal Green Schools, success of, 130 Blind, Deaf and Dumb Children, Act of 1893, 246 ; definition of school authorities, 247 ; powers of Guardians as to, 237, 247 ; Royal Commission of 1889 on, 246; should be sent to special institutions, 246 Boarded-out Children, as to clothing, 190; as to state of homes, 190 ; can be with- drawn from homes, 185 ; instances of cruelty to, 197, 199-201, 367-369, 391, 392 ; instances of neglect of, 197-202, 226, 228 ; number in 1896 of, 191 ; official inspection of, 216 ; Oliver Twist, 229 ; one who had never been kissed, 228; ophthalmia in, 226, 388, 389; outfits for, 421 ; personal interest in, 392; Return to Local Government Board on, 188 ; schoolmaster's report on, 188 ; sometimes made drudges of, 390 ; tears no proof of affection for foster-parents, 234, 235 ; visiting by men, 193, 200-202. See Boarding-out, Boarding-out Committees, Boarding-out System, Lnspection of Boarded-out Children Boarding-out, age of children for, 189, 395; becoming a hobby, 236; best when children young, 189 ; carried on by many agencies, 196 ; classes of children for, 395, 396 ; dislike of mothers to, 229 ; distinction drawn between Scotland and England, 26 ; first application of a Board of Guardians for, 25 ; Mr. Henley's Report on, 26, 27 ; rules for, 26, 27 ; Hockley Case, 367-369 ; increase of practice, 221 ; in foreign countries, 393 ; in Scotland, 26 ; in the Swansea Union up to 1875, 198 ; limit of distance for, 187, 188 ; limits of age for, 189 ; must not be on a large scale, 236 ; points to be observed in, 190; precautions to be taken in, 190 ; undesirable with relations, 190. See Boarded out Children, Index 43 1 Boarding-out Committees ; Boarding-out Forms, Boarding-out Orders, Boarding- out System, Boarding-out within Unions, Boarding-out without Unions, Cottage Homes, Poor Law Schools v. Boarding-out Boarding-out Committees, areas of, 193; conditions for success of, 184; disqualifica- tions for membership of, 182, 183 ; duties of, 193 ; duties of secretaries of, 184; signing of engagement, 184 ; engagements between Boards of Guardians and, 182, 183 ; form of agreement between Guardians and, 409 ; form of engagement by members of, 413; form of half-yearly return of secretary, 414; form of quarterly statement of accounts, 413 ; form of questions to be answered by, 183, 411 ; form of receipt for quarterly payments to, 413 ; form of report of visitors, 412 ; form of return of members of, 414 ; increase of, 192 ; must be approved by Local Government Board, 182 ; number in 1895 of, 192 ; number of members of, 182 ; penalties for breaches of engagements suggested, 184 ; regulations as to, 182; relation of secretaries to, 184; reports to Guardians, 187; sometimes die out, 192 ; some unsatisfactory, 194 ; secretary to be appointed by, 184 ; status of members of, 194 ; suggestions for visitors of, 188; their objections to official inspection, 217; visits by members of, 189. See Inspection of Boarded-out Children Boarding-out Forms, agreement between Guardians and Committees, 409 ; application for a child to be boarded-out, 409 ; certificate of medical officer, 414, 416 ; for referees of foster-parents, 409; outfits, 413, 418; particulars of children to be boarded-out, 409; particulars of home, 411; quarterly statement of accounts, 413; receipt of child by foster-parents, 415; receipt for quarterly payments of Guardians, 413 ; report of Medical Officer, 412, 417 ; report of Relieving Officer, 417; report of Schoolmaster, 412, 415, 417; report of Visitors, 412; Return of the Clerk, 416; undertaking of foster-parents, 415, 416 Boarding-out in Scotland, few statistics as to results, 211 ; Mr. Henley's criticisms on, 222, 223; independent of decrease of pauperism, 210; inferior to English system, 224 ; system inapplicable to England, 224 Boarding-out Orders, 1889, changes made by, 42, 43 ; distinction between the two orders, 180, 188; instance of breach of, 186; no penalties for breach of, 184, 187 ; principle of, 182 (Note 1) Boarding-out System, absorbs children into the general life of villages, 385-387 ; abuses of, 228 ; abuses must be exposed, 218 ; pros and cons of, 32 ; advantages of, 29, 180, 181, 389-394 ; advertising for foster-parents forbidden, 184; affection of foster-parents, 384, 385; affects efficiency of Poor Law Schools, 131, 206-208; alleged to be the best, 363 ; appointment of a Lady Inspector, 29 ; as a panacea for pauperism, 221 ; can only be of limited application, 28, 221 ; card for foster- parents, 187 ; choice of a home, 417 ; conditions and regulations of, 182- 191 ; conditions for success of, 26, 181, 216, 223 ; cost of, 122, 181, 392 ; dangers of, 181, 216, 221 ; difficulty in discovering abuses of, 234; difficulty in complying with regulations of, 192-205 ; does not get rid of the " pauper taint," 385-387 ; does not tend to decrease pauperism, 392-394 ; engagements between Boards of Guardians and Committees, 182; English system best, 218; forms used by Burton-on-Trent Board, 183, 188, 409-413 ; foster-parents not to be paupers nor dependant upon children, 186 ; gets pick of Poor Law children, 205, 209, 363, 387, 388; good homes not always to be found, 194-196, 223, 383, 384; gradually gains favour, 37 ; health results, 387 ; how it may affect the poor, 230-233 ; instance of defective supervision, 367-369 ; instances of cruelty and neglect, 199, 200 ; its extension recommended, 382, 394 ; limit to number of children in one home, 185, 186 ; limited by the orders, 185-187 ; limited to special classes, 26, 122, 185, 224 ; loss of industrial training, 394 ; may be best or worst system, 196, 221 ; Miss Mason's system of supervision, 217-220; mistrust of, 84; more open to abuses than other systems, 209 ; motives of foster-parents, 390, 391 ; must be carefully supervised, 28, 181, 196-205; not good in large towns, 190; not to be "farming-out," 183 ; not recommended for deserted children, 37 ; not successful at Birmingham, 136 ; object of, 196, 197 ; objections of Guardians to, 205 ; only an auxiliary to other systems, 222 ; only good for healthy children, 395. 396; Order of 1870, 29; Order of 1887, 39; Orders of 1889, 42, 180; other systems bear failures of, 209, 210; payment to foster-parents, 182; penalties for neglect of duties suggested, 184, 187 ; prevents desertion, 392, 393; 43 2 Children under the Poor Law principal weakness of, 225 ; raising tone of village life, 392 ; reasons for abuses of, 191 ; reasons for slow progress of, 191 ; regulations not too stringent, 236 ; regulations of 1889, 42, 43 ; reports of Inspectors on, 41 ; results for Liverpool parish, 211, 212 ; results of Massachusetts system, 393 ; rules of the Bristol and Clifton Society, 417; statistics as to failures, 21 1-2 16; success dependant on administration, 220; and on visiting, 188; successful working of, 41, 42, 209; supplies home-ties, 389-392 ; the religious difficulty, 394 ; three main conditions for success, 26 ; uselessness of questioning children, 200 ; various classes of homes, 225, 226. See Boarding-out, Foster-parents Boarding-out v. Poor Law Schools, comparison, 31, 32 Boarding-out v. Workhouse Schools, as to results, 41 ; Mr. Doyle's opinion, 68 Boarding-out within Unions, a form of outdoor relief, 39, 229, 230 ; an old practice, 229 ; as to necessity for official inspection, 233 ; conditions for, 29 ; failure in the Swansea Union, 37; in certain Unions before 1870, 28; no official inspector for, 220 ; object of Order of 1877, 39 ; objections to, 28 ; opposed by Mrs. Nassau Senior, 229 ; pauperising, 230-233 ; practice may lead to favouritism, 230 ; preferred by Guardians, 205, 234; regulations as to, 191; should be done through Committees, 233; views of Poor Law Board upon, 28, 29. See Boarding-out Forms Boarding-out without payment, 180 (Note 3) Boarding-out without Unions, first application, 29 ; objections of Guardians to, 205 ; regulations as to, 182-190; technical objections to, 29. See Boarding-ojit Committees, Boarding-out Forms Bolton Society for Befriending Young Servants, opposition of Guardians to, 302 ; results of work, 301 ; work of, 301 Bolton Training Home, success of, 244 Brentford Union Schools, cases of cruelty at, 400 ; successful in training girls, 180 Bridgend Cottage Homes, cost of, 142 Bristol and Clifton Boarding-out Society, card for foster parents 1 87 ; rules of the, 417 Bristol Preventive Mission, its work, 300 ; success of, 300 Buckley Hall Certified School, account of, 312. Burton-on- Trent Board of Guardians, boarding-out forms used by, 409-413 Cards of Merit for Children, 171 (Note 3) Carleon Separate Schools, 92 Casual Children, definition of, 317 ; should be separated from other children, 36. See also " Ins and Outs " Central Metropolitan Authority, boarded-out children and, 337, 338 ; as to its estab- lishment, 335, 336 ; cost of, 336 ; not to be directly elected, 336 ; not to be Metropolitan Asylums Board, 335 ; proposal of Mr. Lambert and Mr. Vallance, 336, 337 ; proposed powers, 334, 335 , recommended by Departmental Com- mittee, 334 ; to be under Education Department, 336. See also Metropolitan Asylums Board "Centrals" definition of, 298 Certificates for Teachers, 402. See Parchment Certificates Certificates, as to proficiency of children in the three R's., 38 Certified Homes, cost of, 122 ; limit of children in, 241. See Certified Schools Certified Schools, Bolton Training Home, 242, 244, 301 ; Buckley Hall School, 242, 312; Chorlton Girls' Mutual Aid Home, 242; conditions for success of, 239; criticisms of Departmental Committee, 239 ; denominational, 238 ; expenses of sending children to, 238 ; how far used by Guardians, 237 (Note 1), 239 ; Holymount School, 242 ; Howard Orphan Home, 242, 243 ; illegitimate children can be sent to, 238 ; in north-western counties, 241-246 ; Leyfield Schools, 242 ; list of homes for feeble-minded girls, 420 ; Liverpool Roman Catholic Blind Schools, 242 ; Manchester Central Refuge, 242 ; Manchester Deaf Index 433 and Dumb Schools, 242 ; Manchester Emigration Training Home for Boys, 242 ; Manchester Emigration Training Home for Girls, 242, 244 ; no fair comparison between Poor Law Schools and, 241, 245; number of, 238; number of pauper children in, 237 (Note 1); ophthalmia in, 243; payments at, 238; powers of Guardians, 24, 237, 238 ; reasons for abuses in, 239, 240 ; reasons for success of, 241 ; Rossendale Cottage Home, 242 ; St. Mark's Home, 242 ; visiting powers of Guardians, 240 ; West Derby Orphanage, 242 ; Whitehaven Orphan Girls' Home, 241 ; Wigton Roman Catholic Orphanage, 241. See Poor Law Schools Children in Workhouses, characteristics of, 64. See Poor Law Children Chorlton Detached Schools, cost of, 142 Class Subjects, in London Poor Law Schools, 100 Classification of Children, difficult in workhouse schools, 59; M.A.B.Y.S. System, xi 5j 348; secured in large schools, 96; Mrs. Nassau Senior's System, 316 Clifton Boarding-out Committee, card for foster parents, 187 ; rules of, 418 "Clio" Training Ship, 253 Clutterbuck, Dr., on Cottage Homes System, 143, 144 Cockermouth Workhouse School, amusements for children, 57 Committee of Council on Education, inspection of children's education, 13 ; parch- ment certificates of, 56, 391, 402 Compulsory Apprenticeship, 3, 8 Control of Children, increased powers wanted, 341-343, 381 ; age at which control should cease, 343 Cookery Classes, at Edmonton Schools, 93 ; at Ely Schools, 91 ; at Forest Gate Schools, 93 ; at Hanwell Schools, 93 ; at Swinton Schools, in Cooking, well taught in some schools, 90, 91 "Cottage Homes," advantages of, 136, 140 ; advocated by Mrs. Nassau Senior, 37 ; at Banstead, 138; at Elham, 149-151 ; at Hornchurch, 145-149; at Marston Green, 136-139, 141, 153; at Neath, 136; at Styal, 135; at Warrington, 139; at West Derby, 139 ; cost of, 141, 142, 149; dietary in, 140 ; distinguished from "barrack schools," "boarding-out," and "detached homes," 35 ; education in, 154; family life in, 140; health results, 141 ; industrial training in, 140; list of Unions with, 38 (Note 2) ; number of children in each Home, 135 ; type of, 1 45-149. See ' ' Cottage Homes " System. "Cottage Homes'" System, described, 135; difficulties of, 139, 142-144; object of, 135, 143, 144; objections to, 136; recommendations of Departmental Com- mittee, 157; success of, 136, 139. See "Cottage Homes" "Cottage Homes" v. "Barrack Schools" 140 li Cottage Homes" v. "Boarding-out," 136 Cowley District Schools, description (1858), of, 19 Criminals, few from Poor Law Schools, 131 Cubic Space in Poor Law Schools, 369, 370 D Davy's, Mr., Return of 1894, 66 Deaf and Dumb Children. See Blind, Deaf and Dumb Children Defects of Large Schools, aggregation, 121-125, 367-375 ; costly, 121, 122; liable to outbreaks of infectious disease, 122-125 > l° ss 0I " individuality, 113; loss of the family tie, 106; monotonous life, 107; system too good, 110-112; too much machinery, no, in ; want of mothering for girls, 113. See Mental Develop- ment, Moral Development, Physical Development Departmental Committee, Appendix to Report of, 397-400; bias in favour of boarding-out, 360, 363; evidence of bias, 115, 119, 120, Appendix A; effect ot Report of, 44 ; general charge against large schools, 360 ; criticism of Report, Appendix A ; source of main recommendations of, 401 ; names of members of, 44 ; protest of Guardians, 45 ; Report of, 44 ; Report discredited, 400 ; scope of the enquiry, 44, 358 ; consequences of Report, 401 ; on education of Poor Law Schools, 97, 98. See Central Metropolitan Authority 2 F 434 Children under the Poor Law Depauperization, evidence of, 61-71, 125-131, 137, 179, 210, 307, 330. See Statistics Derby Schools, success of, 130 Deserted Child, definition of, 185 Detached Homes. See "Isolated Homes" System Detached Schools, may be " Separate " Schools, 82 Detention of Children, increased powers for, 341 ; powers of Guardians, 320. See 11 Ins and Outs" Dietaries, at Nottingham School, 1 12; discretion of Guardians as to, 345, 346 ; in "Cottage Homes," 112, 140; more variety suggested, 114; need for change in rules as to, m Discipline, regulations as to, 80 District School System, favoured by Central Authority, 83 ; opposition of Guardians to, 83 District Schools, Act for establishment of, 10 ; advantages and disadvantages of, 31, 32 ; advocated by Royal Commission of 1859, 20 ; and by Select Committee of 1864, 24; arguments in favour of, 6, 7, II, 84; compared with Separate Schools, 84; compulsory establishment of, 12, 21; cost of, 163; Cowley Schools in 1858, 19; early objections to, 12; first mention of, 6; industrial training in, 19, 20; in London, 359; Reading and Wokingham Schools in 1858, 20; regulations of Acts of 1844 and 1848, 10; right in principle, 343, 344; seven main advantages of, 85 ; statistics as to results, 22 ; success of, 1 1 (Note 2). See Large Schools, Large and Small Schools, Metropolitan Schools, School Districts, Separate Schools District Schools v. Separate Schools, 84 District Schools v. Workhouse Schools, 6, 7, 35 ; report of Royal Commission of 1859, 20, 21 ; and of Select Committee of 1864, 24 Domestic Service, age of girls for, 286, 287 ; girls in, 260 ; improvement in training f°r» 93 ; girls do well in, 260 ; most girls go into, 257, 261. See Employment, Training of Girls for Service Doyle, Mr. Andrew, his criticism of Report of Royal Commission of 1859, 22, 23 Drawing in Schools, 98, IOO Dulness, an alleged characteristic of schoolgirls, 119-121 Dunmow Workhouse School, success of, 62 Durham Workhouse Shool, success of, 65 E Education, at Swinton Schools, 133 ; criticisms of Departmental Committee, 99-104; early interest of Guardians in, 14 ; early orders as to, 4 ; Education Act, 1893, 40 ; effects of improved, 4, 15 ; effects of individual examination, 39 ; in 1834, 2, 5 ; follows standard of Education Code, 12 (Note) ; improvement in, 13, 40, 98 ; in parishes under Local Acts (1843), 7, 8 ; instances of its backward state in 1836, 5 ; of a pauper child, 99 ; of outdoor pauper children, 19 ; Order of 1847 as to, 12; originally better in Workhouse than in National Schools, 5 ; Poor Law Commissioners on, 6 ; results of, 24, 101, 102 ; subjects taught in London Schools, 101-103 ; Mr. Wainright on Report of Departmental Com- mittee as to, 102 ; what is a good, 96 (Note 2). See also Education of Pauper Children, Instruction, Physical Education, Technical Education, Workhouse Education Education Bill, 1896, 45 Education Department, certificates for teachers, 402 ; inspection of education to be transferred to, 45, 328 Education of Pauper Children, apt to be sacrificed to industrial training, 356 ; boys and girls affected differently, 354 ; deficient in public elementary schools, 355 ; difficulties of the problem, 353 ; to be under Education Department, 377 ; how far affected by ophthalmia, 374 ; individuality to be more considered, 357 ; Local Government Board lags behind Education Department, 357 ; methods of in- Index 435 spection too technical, 357 ; monotony of life in schools affecting, 353 ; originality not encouraged in, 353, 354; "permanents" and "casuals" to be separated, 352 ; possibilities of improvement in, 353-357 ; reasons for defects in, 356. See Education, Education in London Poor Law Schools, " Ins and Outs" Education in London Poor Law Schools, better as to three R's. than in some Board Schools, ico ; class subjects, 100 ; drawing, 100 ; manual training, 100 ; object lessons, 100 ; verdict of Departmental Committee, 97, 98, 99 Education in Workhouse Schools, can equal that of Board Schools, 77 ; deficiencies °f> 77t 78; House of Commons Return, 1851, 14; improvement in, 76-79; prizes in open competition, 78. See Education Elementary Education Act, 1876, 38 Elementary Education Act, 1893, 40, 246 Elementary Schools. See Public Elementary Schools Elham Cottage Homes, description of, 1 49-1 51 Ely Schools, Cardiff, lectures on cookery in, 91 Emigration, age of children for, 265 ; annual reports by immigration officers, 266 ; Canada a field for, 262 ; care in choice of homes necessary, 263 ; class of children for, 264, 265 ; children must consent to, 265 ; conditions for, 265, 403 ; distinction made between pauper and other children, 266 ; effect of advertising children, 266 ; favourable reports on, 263 ; loss of control of guardians, 264 ; neglect of children, 263, 264 ; necessity of regulations, 262 ; numbers emigrated, 261 ; only applicable to orphan and deserted children, 261 ; procedure to be followed, 265 ; regulations as to, 42, 403 ; responsibility of guardians, 289 (Note); Mr. S. Smith, M.P., on, 264; takes best children, 261, 264; two different views on, 261 Employment, age for, 179, 257, 286, 287 ; choice of home, 259, 287, 288; class of situation, 260; demand for children exceeds supply, 17, 91, 148, 256; domestic service general for girls, 257 ; points to be attended to, 257 ; success of Atcham School (1850), 16; success of Leicester School, 20; success generally, 285; suggestions of Departmental Committee, 260 ; training of girls for, 92, 261 (Note 1) ; various kinds of, 285 ; wages obtained for girls, 260. See Apprentice- ship, Army Bands, Domestic Service, Emigration, Navy Bands English Poor Law Systems, compared as to results with Scotch systems, 210 Epileptics, special treatment necessary for, 247 Excursions for children, 108, 109, 148 " Ex mouth " Training Ship, 30 ; age of admission to, 249 ; amount of schooling in, 249; cost of, 251 ; open to provincial Unions, 248; good reports on, 250, 251 ; health of boys, 249 ; number of boys certified for, 248 ; regulations for admission to, 249 ; success of, 25 1 F "Failures,' 7 mistress sometimes the cause of, 259, 260; reasons for, 126, 139 Family Life, secured in " Cottage Homes" system, 140 Family Ties, 106 " Farming-out" abolition of, 10 Feeble-minded children, homes for, 240, 420; not to be boarded-out, 381, 396; Scott House, 240; Dr. Warner's opinion, 381 ; small training-homes for, 381 Feeble-minded and morally depraved children, homes necessary for, 241 Fleming, Mr. Baldwin, his Return of 1895, 66 Forest Gate District School, cost of, 163 ; diminution of ophthalmia in, 373 ; fire at, 398 ; fluctuation of children at, 315 ; poisoning cases at, 398, 400 "Formidable" Training Ship, 253 Foster-parents, card for, 187, 253 ; duties of, 186, 415 ; form for referees of, 409 ; form of receipt of child by, 415; form of undertaking of, 415; motives for receiving children, 225, 226, 390, 391. See Boarding-out Full Time, age for exemption from, 40 ; present regulations, 406, 407 43 6 Children under the Poor Law G Gainsborough Workhouse School, success of, 64 Gardening, at Carleon Schools, 92 ; at Swinton Schools, 133 Gateshead Union, provision of separate schools for " Ins and Outs," 326 Girls' Friendly Society, C.W.O. Department, 299; co-operation with M.A.B.Y.S., 299; description of, 298-300; differentiated from M.A.B.Y.S., 298; schemes for extending Poor Law work of, 425; success of, 299; work well spoken of, 299 Girls from schools, choice of homes for, 287, 288 ; demand exceeds supply, 130, 134; their special disadvantages, 287. See After-care, Employment Gloucester Workhouse School, training of girls in, 72 " Goliath " Training Ship, 30 ; burning of, 248 Gorst, Sir John, criticisms of his Appendix to Report of Departmental Committee, 398-400 H Habitual Paupers, punishment of, 320, 321 (Note) Half-timers, age for, 378, 379, 406, 407 ; at Hornchurch Schools, 147 ; Order of 30th January, 1897, 340, 406 ; raising of age, 378 ; under Sheffield system, 161 Hanwell Schools, reports on boys, 362; free from ophthalmia, 372; training n cookery at, 91 Henley, Mr. J. J., on boarding-out, 26, 27 Hereditary Pauperism, 21 ; caused by outdoor-relief, 344 ; definition, 332, 333 ; independent of a Poor Law education, 49, 331-333 Hill, Miss F. Davenport, statement as to Swinton and Kirkdale Schools, 128, 129 Hockley case, description of, 367-369 Holgate, Mr. Wyndham, on " Cottage Homes " system, 142, 143 Homes for Boys and Girls, more wanted, 313 Hornchurch "Cottage Homes," cost of, 141, 149; description of, 145-149; indi- viduality encouraged at, 144 ; separate rooms for girls going to service, 145 ; training of girls for service, 146, 258 ; success of, 149 Howard Home, Kendal, success of, 243 Hoxne and Hartismere District School, description of, 127 ; success of, 128 I Idiots, may be sent to special institutions, 246 Idiots, Imbeciles, and Epileptics, require separate treatment, 247 Imbecile Children, asylum at Darenth for, 247 ; special treatment for, 247 "Indefatigable" Training Ship, conditions for receiving pauper boys, 253; success of, 253 Individuality, encouraged at Hornchurch Schools, 144 ; if exaggerated may become favouritism, 352 ; lost in large schools, 121 Industrial Schools, powers of Guardians, 24 Industrial Trainers, government grant for, 25, 408 Industrial Training, at Atcham in 1850, 16; at Banstead, 151-153 ; at Bedminster, 72 ; at Carleon Schools, 92 ; at Elham, 151 ; at Gloucester, 72 ; at Hornchurch, 147; at Marston Green, 137 (Note 2), 153, 154; at Shepton Mallet, 72; at Stockton-on-Tees, 73 ; at Swinton, no, in, 133 ; at Thome, 73 ; danger of its loss under "Isolated Homes " system, 165 ; and when children are sent to outside schools, 171 ; defective in certain districts, 73 ; difference of opinion as to benefit of shoemaking and tailoring, y$, 74 ; difficult to secure in Workhouse Schools, 59 ; existing conditions of, 378 ; field and garden labour advocated, 88, 89 ; good in some Workhouse Schools, 72 5 i ts importance recognised by Central Authority, 40; improvement in, 18; in Cottage Homes, 137, 138, 140; in large schools, 19 ; in London schools, 100 ; Mr. Knollys on, 377 ; most effective in Index 437 large schools, 86 ; Order of 30th January, 1897, 340, 406 ; shoemaking and tailoring, 89 ; what suitable for boys, 73-75 ; and what for girls, 73, 76, 90, 91, 138. See Instruction, Training of Girls for Service Infectious Diseases, additional powers of Metropolitan Asylums Board, 339 ; aggrega- tion favours outbreaks of, 122 : boarded-out children not free from, 387-389 ; Circular letter of Local Government Board as to, 404, 405 ; Order of 1889, 43 ; slight risk in "Cottage Homes," 141. See Ophthalmia "Ins and Outs" special difficulty in Poor Law Schools, 60, 245 ; bad effect on schools of, 322 ; difficulties in way of detention, 323 ; increased powers of detention advocated, 134, 317, 321, 322 ; intermediate school at Hammersmith, 323-326 ; proportion they bear to permanent children, 324 ; must be relieved, if destitute, 315; parents to be liable to detention, 317, 319, 320, 322; real difficulty as to, 317 (Note 3) ; suggested combination of rural Unions for, 326 ; suggestions of Mrs. Nassau Senior, 317-319; to be separated from other children, 36; under Sheffield System, 160 ; to what children the term applies, 315,317. See Marlesford Lodge Inspection of Boarded-out Children, good foster-parents do not object to, 202 ; Miss Mason's method, 203, 204 ; more important of child than of home, 193 ; must be thorough, 193 ; must not be superficial, 221 ; necessity for bodily, 197, 198 ; necessity of surprise visits, 202, 204 ; committees and deputations, 203 ; one visitor best, 203 ; results of insufficient supervision, 197-200 ; rules of Clifton Commiteee, 193, 418 ; what amount necessary, 197 Inspection of Boarding-out in Scotland, 224 Inspection of Education, transferred to Poor Law Board, 24 ; results of present method, 352. See Education Inspector of Boarding-out, appointment of, 216; duties of, 217; inspects for Guardians, 220; no authority under boarding-out in Unions Order, 191, 220; should be a lady, 217. See Mason, Miss Institution Smell, what it is, 369 Instruction of Children, ambulance work, 89 ; improvement in, 13 ; Order of 30th January, 1897, 405 ; in shoemaking, 89 ; in skilled gardening, 89, 90 ; in tailoring, 89. See Industrial Training Instruction of Children Order, 1897, 405 ; probable effect of, 104 Intermediate School for "Ins and Outs," advantages of, 326 ; adopted at Gateshead, 326 ; solution of difficulty, 326. See Marlesford Lodge Isle of Thanet School, success of, 65 Islington Union School, success of, 130 "Isolated Homes" System, advantages of, 164 ; adopted by Whitechapel Union, 167; children go to outside schools, 160 ; children lose industrial training, 161 ; cost of, 162-166 ; dangers of, 166, 167 ; defects of, 164, 165 ; description of Sheffield Homes, 159-162 ; founder of, 157 ; half-timers under, 161 ; headquarters, 159 ; health results, 161 ; "ins and outs," 160; not generally suitable for London, 157, 167 ; objects aimed at, 150 ; origin of, 158 ; regulations as to, 425 ; super- vision of homes, 162; infectious cases under, 162; Whitechapel scheme, 167,427 K Kensington Lads' Union, account of, 306 ; affiliated to Y.M.F.S., 304 ; how worked, 305 ; success of, 305, 306 Kindergarten, at Marston Green, 154 ; peripatetic teacher for, 345 Kirkdale Schools, annual excursion, 109 ; cost of, 142 ; good education given, 96 ; statistics as to results, 211, 212 ; success of, 211, 212 Large Schools, amusements in, 107-110; classification easy in, 96; condemned by Departmental Committee, 363 ; danger of outbreaks of infectious disease, 364 ; freedom allowed to elder children, 109 ; future independence of children assured, 104 ; general charge against, 360 ; holidays for children, 397 ; limits to 43$ Children under the Poor Law number of children 397 ; opinion of a Guardian on, 401 ; permanence of teachers, 104 ; playing-fields in, 107 ; small percentage of failures, 125 ; special defects enumerated, 106 ; success of manual training in, 86, 87 ; teaching most efficient in, 94 ; trades taught in, 88 ; training of children praised, 94 ; want of mothering for girls, 113 ; weak side of, 90. See also Defects of Large Schools, District Schools, Separate Schools Large Schools v. Boarding-out, 383 Large Schools v. Small Schools, as to economy, 104 ; as to education, 35, 96 (Note 2) Leavesden School, as to ophthalmia in, 373 ; success of, 130; success of girls, 297 (Note 2) Leicester Workhouse School, its success in 1858, 20 Lincoln Working Boys' Aid Society, object of, 312 ; success of, 312 "Locals," definition of, 298 "Locals" v. "School Girls," 115, 116, 258 LockwoooVs, Mr., Return of 1892, 66 "Logging by the Leg," 8 London Poor Law Schools, alleged case of cruelty, 367 ; cubic space and ventilation, 369, 370 ; health of children in, 364, 365, 369, 370 ; ophthalmia in, 375, 376 ; particulars of, 360 ; stringency of medical examination in, 365 ; variation in size of, 360 Ludlow Workhouse School, success in 1850 of, 17 M Mallow Union, wages obtained for girls in, 260 Malton Workhouse School, success of, 64, 65 Manchester Emigration Training Home for Girls, success of, 244 Manual Training. See Industrial Training Marlesford Lodge, class of children at, 323 ; ignorance of children, 325 ; infirmary at, 324 ; number of inmates, 323 ; object of, 323 j statistics as to admissions, 325 ; success of, 324, 325 Marston Green Cottage Homes, cost of, 141, 142, 163 ; happiness of children, 141 ; industrial training at, 153, 154 ; reasons for their establishment, 136, 137 ; success of children, 137, 138, 154 Mason, Miss, her method of inspection, 217, 218 ; her standard of treatment of children 219, 220; her standard of homes, 218, 219; Official Inspector of boarded-out children beyond Unions, 216 Matron of Workhouse, her duties as to education and training of children, 76 Medway Workhouse School, amusements for children, 57, 58 Mental Development of Children, at Banstead, 156 ; in large schools, 119-121 ; Miss McKee's evidence, 1 19 Merchant Service, training of children advocated for, 88. See Apprenticeship to the Merchant Service "Mercury" Training Ship, certified for pauper boys, 253 ; payments required, 254 Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants, classification of, 115, 348; number of girls under care of, 297 ; co-operation with G.F.S., 299 ; forms used by, 422 ; founder of, 37, 296 ; number of district committees, 297 ; number of ladies working with, 297 ; objects, aims, and work of, 296-298 ; progress of, 345; reports to Boards of Guardians, 297; "schoolgirls" and "locals," 361 ; success of, 115, 297, 298 Metropolitan Asylums Board, classes of children transferred to, 339; Order of 2nd April, 1897, 339, 340 Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867, 25 Metropolitan Schools, cost of, 165 ; scholastic training good, 37. See London Poor Law Schools Met tray System, 87 Index 439 Monotony of Life in Schools, how relieved, 56-58, 107-110 Moral Development of Children, Departmental Committee on, 114-119 ; at Banstead, iS5. 156 Morally Depraved Children, necessity of homes for, 240 Musical Training, efficient in large schools, 86. See Army Bands, Navy Bands N National Schools in 1870. See Workhouse Schools Navy, training advocated for, 88 Navy Bands, consent for enlistment in, 284 ; demand for boys, 284 ; employment in, 284 ; training for, 86 Neath Cottage Homes, cost of, 142 ; success of, 136 Needlework, good report on, 93 North Surrey District Schools. See Aner ley Schools o Object Lessons, 99, 100, 101, 103 " Oliver Twist," a boarded-out child, 229 Ophthalmia, at Anerley, 123, 371 ; at Ashford, 371 ; at Banstead, 373 ; at Hanwell, 372; at Leavesden, 373; bane of Poor Law Schools, 370, 371 ; Dr. Bridges on, 33 ; causes of outbreaks, 33, 124, 125 ; decrease of, 375 ; difficulties of School Managers, 33 ; exaggeration as to amount of, 375 ; few cases at Swinton, 124; in boarded-out children, 226, 388; in certified schools, 243; in Forest Gate Schools, 373 ; infirmary accommodation for, 33 ; isolation or quarantine schools recommended, 35 ; loss of education a result of, 374 ; Dr. Mouatt on, 34 ; Mr. Nettleship on, 34 ; no serious cases now in schools, 374, 375 ; non- existent at Anerley, 33 ; not inherent in large schools, 123 ; official circulars on, 33, 404, 405 ; outbreak at Anerley in 1885 and cause, 123; outbreak at Hanwell in i860, 32 (Note) ; prevalent in schools in 1872, 32 ; preventible in large schools, 34, 371 ; Dr. Stephenson on, 372 Ophthalmic Schools, advocated, 371 " Orphan" Child, definition of, 185 Orphan Children, extension of Act of 1889 to > 34 2 Outdoor Pauper Children, education of, 19 ; attendance at school of, 24 ; their degraded state in 1859, 23 Outfits for Children sent to Service, 285 ; Order as to, 421 ; purchase of materials by girls, 93 Outfits for Boarded-out Children, list of, 413, 418 Overcrowding in Poor Law Schools, causes of, 124 ; must occur sometimes, 125 P Parchment Certificates, 39, 56, 402 Parliamentary Grant for Teachers, its effect on District Schools' movement, 122 Parliamentary Returns on Education, that of 1 851, 14 ; that of 1 861, 22 "Pauper Taint" applies to all classes, 63 (Note 4) ; applies to boarded-out children, 203, 385-387 ; Dr. Clutterbuck's remarks on, 174-176; cruelty to children in using term, 331 ; does not affect children getting on, 329, 330 ; fallacy of, 62, 63 (Note 4) ; instances of success of children, 329 ; Mr. Murray Browne on, 63 (Note 4) ; not felt in after-life, 33 ; not known at Banstead, 138 ; term Invented by upper classes, 329; unknown at Atcham in 1850, 16, 17. See Hereditary Paupers Pauperism, decrease of child, 394 Permanent Children, definition of, 317 44° Children under the Poor Law Physical Development, at Banstead, 155; Dr. Downes on, 113; how affected by large schools, 113 ; not neglected, 113 Physical Education, at Carleon Schools, 92 Poor Law and Certified Schools, cannot be compared, 241, 245 Poor Law Children sent to Schools of other Unions, 10, II, 174, 254; Act authorising the practice, 255 ; objections of Guardians, 254; practice advocated, 174 Poor Law School Boys, good reports on, 362 ; good morals of, 366 ; majority do well, 362. See Poor Law School Children Poor Law School Children, affection for schools and officers, 330 ; alleged not to know how to play, 365, 366; come to school at all ages, 316; definition of "casuals," 317 ; definition of " permanents," 317 ; demand exceeds supply, 329; depauperised, 363; good habits of, 172; how distributed in Metropolis, 358; increased powers of protection for, 341-343 ; proud of their schools, 330 ; success in after-life, 323 ; uniform dress unnecessary, 346 Poor Law School Girls, alleged characteristics of, 114; alleged immorality of, 366; beneficial effects of schools on, 119; can be made into good servants, 118; charges against, 1 15 (Note 1), 361 ; defects being remedied, 357; demand for them, 361, 362 ; reasons for defects of, 117 ; how they should be judged, 361 ; majority do well, 361, 362; Miss Mason's evidence as to, 118; must not be compared with ordinary girls, 117 ; preferred to "locals," 115, 116; virtues of, 116 ; See Poor Law School Children Poor Law Schools, admissions to and discharges from, 316 ; alleged effect on girls of, 114, 115; best children being eliminated from, 205, 246, 363; can supply skilled labour, 257 ; cannot be abolished, 131 ; difficulties with " ins and outs," 245; fluctuation of children, 129, 315, 316, 317 (Note), 351, 352; great im- provement in, 349; ignorance of children coming to, 325; necessary, 351; number of children to be limited in, 364 ; progress in efficiency, 24, 25 ; Mrs. Nassau Senior's conclusions, 35, 36 ; success of, 256, 348 Poor Law Schools v. Board Schools, 101, 102; disadvantages under which former labour, 325 ; standards of education identical, 377 (Note i) Poor L.aw Schools v. Boarding-out, an advantage of former, 226 ; comparison of two systems, 31, 32, 227 ; comparison unfair, 363 ; statistics as to results, 210, 211, 212. See Workhouse Schools v . Boarding-out Portsea Lsland School, success of, 126 Prizes, good effect of, 103, 105 ; paid for out of rates, 103 Public Elementary Schools, Sending Children to, better scholastic education, 170; disadvantages of practice, 170-172; does not get rid of pauper taint, 175; growth of practice, 38, 168; industrial training, 170, 171, 173; powers of Guardians, 176, 177 ; provision for children while in workhouse, 38, 172, 173 ; religious training, 171; workhouse children a good example to others, 169; working of system, 169, 174; in a typical Union, 177-179 Punishment, effective mode of, 16 ; in workhouse schools, 80 Pupil Teacher System, beneficial effect of, 14 ; establishment of, 14 R Reading and JVokingham District Schools, description in 1858 of, 20 Reformers, two classes of, 328 Register of Children sent to Service. See After-Care Religious Lnstruction, good at Poor Law Schools, 117, 155 Remand Children, not to be sent to workhouses, 346 ; transferred to Metropolitan Asylums Board, 339 Rhodes, Dr., on cost of Sheffield System, 165, 166 Rossendale Girls' Home, success of, 244 Royal Commission of i8jg, Mr. Andrew Doyle's criticism of Report of, 22, 23 ; its Report, 20, 21 Runcorn Workhouse School, success of, 61 Index 44 1 St. John's Home, Ipswich, as to "after-care," 313 Salaries of Teachers, circular of 1848, 13; Parliamentary grant for, 13, 122. See Industrial Trainers ' ' Scattered Homes." See ' ' Isolated Homes' " System "School," definition for purposes of certification, 238 ; definition extended, 246 School Attendance, Order of 30th January, 1897, 340, 405 " School Authorities ," definition under Education Act of 1893, 2 47 School Bands, use of, 109 School Districts, Central London, 12; unpopular with Guardians, 114 "Schoolgirls," merits and defects of, 116 "Schoolgirls" v. "Locals " 115, 116 ; mistresses prefer former, 361, 380 Schools of other Unions, sending children to, 344; Act of 1851, 255; Guardians against practice, 254 Scotch Poor Law System, decrease of pauperism under, 210 " Scott House," description of, 240 Seamanship, training in, 87 Senior, Mrs. Nassau, admits depauperisation of children, 68 ; classification of children in schools, 316 ; on " Ins and Outs," 317-319 ; on training of girls for service, 257, 258 ; orphan children only to be boarded-out, 207 ; recommendations now carried out, 91 ; Report of 1874, 35, 36; system of classifying girls, 115; Mr. Tufnell and, 36. See Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants Separate Schools, arguments for, 84 ; definition of, 82 ; industrial training in, 19 ; in London, 359 ; seven main advantages of, 85 ; Unions first adopting system, 7. See Large Schools * * Separated Homes. " See * ' Isolated Homes " System Sheffield House of Help, account of, 302 ; well managed, 303 Sheffield Isolated Homes, cost of, 122. See " Isolated Homes" System Sheffield Workhouse School, success of, 129 Shepton Mallet Workhouse School, training of girls in, 72 Shoemaking, whether worth teaching, 89 Shopping, at Poor Law Schools, 93 ; children can go, 109 Small v. Large Schools, as to cost, 12 1 South Metropolitan District Schools, reports on boys, 423; "after-care" at, 306-309 South Metropolitan School District Visiting Association, account of, 306-309 ; illustrative cases, 308, 309, 423 ; object of, 307 ; statistics of results, 307, 424 ; system of classification, 307 (Note 5) Southall Schools, success of girls, 120 ; success of children from, 126, 127 Standards of Examination, similar to those of Education Code, 40, 97 State Children's Aid Association, main objects of, 334 ; objections to proposals of, 334 ; objects of, 328 Statistics, Banstead Cottage Homes, 139; boarding-out in Scotland, 210, 211; children returned to workhouses, 349 ; classes of school children, 363 ; Dr. Clutterbuck's Return of 1886, 69; Mr. Davy's Return of 1894, 66; decrease of child pauperism, 394 ; decrease of ophthalmia in London Schools, 375 ; decrease of pauperism in England and Scotland, 210 ; Mr. Doyle's Return of 1874, 69 ; examinations in workhouse schools, 79 ; failures from large schools, 125-132 ; failures of boarding-out, 214-216; Mr. Fleming's Return of 1895, 68; fluctuation of school children, 129, 316, 317 ; girls from Leavesden Schools, 297 ; health of schools, 80; Leicester workhouse school in 1858, 20; Mr. Lockwood's Return of 1892, 67 ; "lost sight of, or not traced," 347 ; M.A.B.Y.S. girls, 115, 348 ; Marlesford Lodge, 324, 325 ; Marston Green Cottage Homes, 137, 138 ; Neath Cottage Homes, 136 ; ophthalmia in Forest Gate Schools, 373 ; ophthalmia in London Schools, 396 ; Parliamentary Returns of 186 1, 21, 22 ; poor law girls as 44 2 Children under the Poor Law criminals, 37 ; results from workhouse schools, 61-71, 211 (Note 2), 213 ; results of boarding-out, 213 ; results of Massachusetts system, 393 ; South Metropolitan School District Visiting Association, 307; success of children, 17, 179, 126-132; success of M.A.B.Y.S., 348, 349; success of training ships, 251, 252; un- married mothers in workhouses, 66, 131 ; Lord Warkworth's Return of 1896, 128 ; Warrington Cottage Homes, 139 ; West Derby Cottage Homes, 139 Stepney Schools, training in seamanship in, 87, 88 Supervision of Boarded-out Children. See Inspection of Boarded-out Children Swimming, 94 Swinton Schools, appearance of children, 134; "after-care," 291-294; conditions of sending children to service, 293, 294; cost of, 134, 142; description of, 132-134; ophthalmia in, 124 ; training of girls at, 90, 91 ; wages obtained for girls, 294 T Tailoring, whether worth teaching, 89 Teachers, certificates for, 39, 56, 402 ; duties of, 95 ; improvement in, 95 ; liberty of, 96 ; qualifications for, 53 ; resident outside schools, 95, 96 ; some trained in Poor Law schools, 103. See also Assistant Teachers, Teachers in Workhouse Schools Teachers in Workhouse Schools, a model schoolmistress, 54 ; constantly changing, 55, 56; discouragements to, 51, 54; inefficiency at first of, 7; monotonous life of, 53 ; more liberty for, 52 ; often devoted to work, 54 ; often inefficient, 53, 55 ; overworked, 53 ; parchment certificates for, 56, 402 Technical Instruction, at Forest Gate Schools, 103 ; at Hornchurch, 147 ; at Leaves- den, 90; at Sutton, 90; for girls, 138; Mr. Holgate's scheme for improving, 344, 345 Teesdale Workhouse School, success of, 63 Thirsk Workhouse School, success of, 63 Thorn Workhouse School, training of girls in, 73 Time-Tables, 40; under Order of 30th January, 1897, 340 Tonbridge Workhouse School, success of, 70 Trades taught in Poor Law Schools, 88 Trained Labour, wanted, 93 Training Homes for Girls, at Swinton, 134; use of, 257 Training of Girls for Service, advantages of, 258 ; at Barton Regis Schools, 258 ; at Hornchurch Schools, 146, 258 ; Mrs. Nassau Senior on, 258 ; use of Training Homes, 257 ; what needed, 257, 258 Training Ships, more use to be made of, 254 ; powers of Guardians to supply, 248, 251 ; proposal to increase number of, 252. See " Arethusa and Chichester," "Clio," "Exmouth," "Formidable," "Indefatigable," "Mercury," "Warspite," "Wellesley" Tufnell, Mr., his reply to Mrs. Nassau Senior, 36 Tynemouth Workhouse School, success of, 64 U Unmarried Mothers, few from Poor Law Schools in Workhouses, 66, 131 V Vallance, Mr. W., on detention of " ins and outs," 320 Ventilation in Poor Law Schools, 369, 370 Village Community. See "Cottage Homes" System Visiting of Children. See After- Care Visits by Relations, 133, 134, 148 Index 443 W Wages obtained by Girls, Anerley Schools, 294 ; Swinton Schools, 294 Wainwright, Mr., on Education in Poor Law Schools, 102 Warkworttis Lord, Return of 1896, 128 Warren Farm Schools, success of, 117, 1 18, 130 Warrington Cottage Homes, cost of, 142 ; success of, 139 "Warspite" Training Ship, conditions of entry, 253 Washing and Ironing by Hand, at Swinton Schools, no, in "Wellesley" Training Ship, receives pauper boys, 253 West Derby Orphanage, success of, 243 West Derby Union Cottage Homes, cost of, 142 ; success of, 139 Westminster Union School, success of children from, 128 Whitechapel Scheme of Isolated Homes, 167, 427 Whitehaven Union Workhouse School, amusements for children at, 57 Wisbeach Workhouse School, success of, 62 Workhouse Education, not pauperizing, 66-70 ; weak point of, 72 Workhouse School, a typical, 80 ; definition of, 46 ; description of a, 48 Workhouse School System, successful with boys, 71 ; works well generally, 70 Workhouse Schools, Atcham in 1850, 15 ; beneficial effects of, 4 ; Mr. Bowyer on, 62; Dr. Clutterbuck on, 64 ; Cockermouth Union, 57 ; comparison with National schools in 1870, 48; condemned by Royal Commission of 1859, 20, 21 ; con- solidation into district schools, 82 ; contact with adult paupers, 58 ; difficulties in classification, 59 ; difficulties when too small, 25 ; difficulty of getting efficient teachers, 51, 56 ; disadvantages of, 50 ; discipline in, 80 ; Dunmow Union, 62 ; Durham Union, 65 ; early difficulties of, 6 ; effect of boarding-out on, 205-208 ; efficiency in 1870 of some, 48, 49; exaggerated attacks on, 61; favourable reports on, 38 ; Gainsborough Union, 64 ; great improvement on former system, 4 ; health results, 79 ; immobility of, 82, 83 ; improvement of, 48, 50 ; in 1834, 2, 3; industrial training, 59; "ins and outs," 60; Isle of Thanet Union, 65; losing favour in 1870, 31; Ludlow Union, 17; Mai ton Union, 64; Med way Union, 57, 58 ; monotonous life of children, 56-58 ; monotonous life of teachers, 53 ; Mr. Murray Browne on, 62, 63, 68 ; out of date, 50 ; not un- successful, 61-71 ; object of, 3, 83 ; provision of books and maps, 14 ; punish- ments in, 80; reasons for decay of, 71 ; results, 7, 17, 22, 24, 61-71, 211 (Note 2) ; Runcorn Union, 61 ; state about 1870 of, 47 ; success of, 18, 65, 66, 67 ; Teesdale Union, 63 ; Thirsk Union, 63 ; Tonbridge Union, 70 ; Mr. Tufnell defends, 69 ; two kinds of, 46 ; two peculiar disadvantages of, 46 ; Tynemouth Union, 64 ; weak points of, 83 ; Whitehaven Union, 57 ; Wisbeach Union 62. See Boarding-out v. Workhouse Schools, Industrial Training, Teachers Workhouse Schools v. Boarding-out, judged by results, 213, 214 Workhouse Schools v. Cottage Homes, as to cost, 142 Workhouse Schools v. District Schools, 6, 7 Workhouse Schools v. Public Elementary Schools, 49, 50, 168, 169 Working Boys' Homes, employment of boys, 309, 310; good reports on boys, 312, 362, 366; number of boys in, 309; rules of, 310-312; success of boys, 285; three classes of boys in, 309 ; Unions subscribing to, 312 Young Men's Friendly Society, 304 PLYMOUTH : WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, PRINTERS. 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