STATE FAMILIES

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 62, 15 March 1927, Page 10

STATE FAMILIES

IN DICKENS'S DAY AND OURS

(Written by X C. Mills.)

"Wanted, Someone to Board Boy, eight years of age. Kindness essential. . ."

It is not amiss for those of us "who are interested in child welfare to refresh our minds by a study of Dickens in his stories of child life. In this day and in this land, there is not the same need to awaken the public conscience as to. the treatment of children, who through force of circumstances are wards of the State, or inmates of Christian institutions. Yet there is some need, and nothing but the strictest of supervision by expert and experienced men and women can ensure for such children a happy childhood, obtainable only by comfortable conditions, right environment, and training. The glimpses into institutional life that Dickens gave accomplished much —so much that the minds of people even iv our day are to some degree influenced against all institutionalism. The trend of opinion where there is a mother living, and the father dead, is to keep tlie child in its own home. This, sane American States and our own New Zealand Government enable the mother to do, by subsidising her, in order that she may maintain her family with the aid of her own and her children's efforts. A good thing this, in every way.

We deplore the come-easy, go-easy attitude of the children of our day, and especially is this typical of the children growing'up in our institutions. They see nothing of the heart-rending struggle to make both ends meet, evidenced in the average workingman's home, they know nothing in their own experiences of difficulty and abnegation, and they.grow up, too often, devoid o£ just that fibre which is developed only by facing the hardness of life, and out of which grows true heroism. But there is the case of the motherless child to be considered. The breadwinner cannot stay home. and look ■■ after his children, were'he ever so able. Seldom is he in the happy position of having a home of his own, nor is he able to pay a housekeeper to care for his children. He is faced then, with two alternatives, either the boarding out of his children or their admission to an institution. More often than not he accepts the latter as a way out of his difficulty, places his children there, and goes back to a life of bachelordom himself. We pride ourselves as a Christian people in our homes, and truly we desire that they may be such. Let us hope that the Mr. Bumbles are no more, nor the committees they represented. "Yes, Oliver," said Mr. Bumble, to the trembling child, ''the kind and blessed gentlemen, which is so many parents to you, Oliver, when you have none of your own, are agoing to 'prentice you, and to set you up in life, and make a man o£ you; although the expense to the parish is three pound ten!—three pound ten, Oliver!—seventy shillings—one hundred and forty sixpences! and all for a naughty orphan which nobody can't love."

It is not an easy matter to love a "naughty orphan," and yet, it is the ideal of the- Great Founder of all our homes, who in His teaehiug speaks of being kind to the just and the unjust; to the unthankful and the evil, as well as the obedient and the good. It is a work that calls for men and women of high spiritual attainments, men and women who are imbued also with sound common-sense and who are not above "washing the feet" of others, and kindred dutiei, finding in so doing, that, "Who sweeps a room as for Thy cause Makes that and th' action fine." It is not always easy in dealing with children in a large number to remember to "leave a margin for human nature." Much truth there is in what Mrs. Piper in "Bleak House" says at the inquest on Nemos. "Has seen the plaintive wexed and worrited by the children (for children they will ever be, and you cannot expect them, especially if of playful dispositions to be Methaozellers, which you was not yourself)." There is little room for "dark Iqoks" where the ideal is to make home happy. One must be ever on the alert in dealing with what Dickens calls "the families that God hath brought together" to allow a margin for human nature. In America, we read, the institution is being made use of only as a temporary home. From it the children are drafted off to private homes, unless in cases where through physical or mental disability,- it is found advisable to keep them in the institution. Perhaps the most beautiful and touching of Dickens's stories of child life is to be' found in the story of Mrs. Betty Higden, and her wards of the State. "She was one of those old women was Mrs. Betiy Higden, who by dint of an indomitable purpose and a strong constitution fight out many years—an active old woman with a bright dark eye and a resolute face, yet quite a tender creature, too. She represented the boarding-out system of that day, having what she" called a 'minding school.' She' was allowed 4d a day for each child, and she was only permitted to mind three, seeing that she was able to eke out an existence by mangling. One elder lad, Sloppy by name, helped to turn the mangle. 'You mightn't think it,' said Betty, 'but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the Police in different voices'. Full Private Number One in the awkward squad of the Bank and File of Life was Sloppy; and yet had his glimmering notions of standing true to the colours." When Betty Higden was buried, "I've took it in my head," said Sloppy, laying it inconsolately against the Church door, when all was done; "I've took it in my wretched head that I might have turned a little harder for her, and it cuts me deep to think so now. . . Oh, Mrs. Higden, Mrs. Higden, you was a woman, and a mother, and a mangier in a million million."

In actual life it may be, that such gratitude and appreciation are seldom so expressed, but a life, lived in the interests of child welfare is not lived in vain.