BOOK NOTICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16288, 22 January 1915, Page 9

BOOK NOTICES

"The Men of To-morrow." By Edith C Onions. Melbourne and Ijondon Thomas C. Lothian. (Cloth; 3s 6d.)

Sixteen years' work among the newsboys of Melbourne made Miss Onions realise intensely the necessity of understanding tha great problem of child rescue work and the progress that had already been made in the Home countries in that direction. Hitherto her work had been chiefly aiming boys, but she was now beginning to feel that in order to grapple properly with the boy-problem she must study girls as well as boys, and the two in conjunction, in order to learn the best ways of helping them to realise and make the best of themselves. Without knowing anything of Madame Montessori and her work— which was still in its infancy and at no time attempted to go beyond the youngest children—Miss Onions realised the same central idea—namely, that what was needed for all neglected children of all ages was self-expression, and such training as might lead to it. Imbued with the desire to see what others had done in this direction and to obtain hints and suggestions from them, Miss Onions laid down for a time her work in Australia in order that she might equip herself better to carry it on in the future. Two years' study and inquiries in England, America, and on the Continent of Europe and many valued and varied experiences have taught her that " although one may take hold of the fringes of this great problem, many lifetimes must be spent in unravelling these fringes before the problem will be solved." But this reflection tends rather to spur than to daunt our energetic Lady. It ; s the result of her inquiries and experiences which are offered to the public in the present work. Her first visit was to America, which she reached in March, 1912, in the depths of the most severe winter experienced there for many years. Miss Onions went direct to Chicago amid heavily falling snow, and when during the night she heard the bell which is attached to every engine in order to warn the country people to keep clear of the line, she fancied that it must be a church bell ringing for service. At Chicago she made some valuable acquaintances, and turned her attention first to the working of the Juvenile Court in that city. She found the methods employed there to differ in. many respects from those of Australasia. Yet * substantially they were the same. She gives numerous quotations from the roports of the Juvenile Courts, Detention Homes, etc.; and speaks enthusiastically of the excellent woTk done in this direction by Judge Pinckney and his army of probation offioers. Later on she got into touch with the Juvenile Protective Association, the Court of Domestic Relations, and other similar institutions, all having for their object the amelioration of the conditions of the lives of children and their parents. In May. Judge Ben B. Lindsey paid a rvisii to Chicago, and Miss Onions" had the privilege of an introduction to one of the most advanced of the social workers of our day—"the man who instituted the Children's Courts, the world-famous champion of children's causes." The lady sat in the lounge, waiting and trying to read. Suddenly she heard a voice say : ''Are you Miss Onions? My name is Lindsey." " I was so pleased to see him,'* she writes, "that I am afraid I said it so many times. I told him, too, that I was surprised to find him such a young man. I had pictured to myself a benevolent, kindly old gentleman with flowing beard and silvery hair, and I should think that Judge Lindsey is under 45, a spare, dark man, slightly bald, ■with piercing black eyes.'' Judge Lindsey told Miss Onions a great deal about his work and his system, and her enthusiasm and admiration increased every moment. He said : " There are no bad boys; but bad things attack good bovs.'' He held that "the personal touch is wanted always, especially in the Juvenile Court. The judge must have a personal touch. The judge is the court. A bad judge, an indifferent judge, means a lax oourt." In Colorado, his State, the laws for the protection of children aTe very far-reaching. " At the Juvenile Court at Denver a man can be tried for child murder; parents can be tried for any offence against children; so may saloon-keepers, and so on." Nor is any time lost in administering justice in these courts. "A man can be attested one day, tried the next, convicted the next, and on his way to the penitentiary on the fourth." The judge explained his methods and mode of action very fully, and in every case it was found to be " the overcoming of evil with good." He said, "When a boy has done wrong, I talk to him about the wrong of what he has done and explain to him the good he may do. Then ne coines to me every two weeks and tells me. of the trood that he is trying to do, in the home, the school, the neighbourhood. So that I can now praise the boy for good, just as I had to reprove him for evil." In Colorado a child is a ward of the State to the age of 16 and under the jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court to the age of 21. After she left Chicago, Miss Onions visited the Newsboys' Club at Toledo, Ohio, and went thence to Cleveland to see the famous Cooley farms of that city. These are four in number—the Colony farm, for the aged and infirm; the Overlook farm, a sanatorium for tuberculosis; the Correction farm, or workhouse; the Highland Park farm, a municipal cemetery. When Miss Onions got to Boston it happened to be court night, so she sat with the judges and heard the cases, and was able to form her own opinion of the nature and treatment of each case. Her description of this experience is long, detailed, and very interesting. The Massachusetts School for the Feeble Minded proved to be a most wonderful institution—a village in itself, the children being divided into " families" and separated into 11 well-defined grades, each having distinctive and peculiar needs, but all under one general, central management. At New York Miss Onions was introduced to the most noted social workers and shown the Child's Welfare Exhibition, etc. From America she went to London, thence to the Continent of Europe. She says: "England with its huge population, its tremendous social problems, and its appalling poverty, has perhaps more child-saving institutions than any other country in the world. Her child-saving and reformatory work is carried on by nearly 1400 institutions, many of which are under independent management. In these institutions there are about 90,000 inmates. In London alone there appears to be no limit to the number of various Government, county council, and private charities. Just when you think you have grasped one side of one question and seen all there is to see bearing upon it, you hear of other organisations, acquaintance with which is equally necessary to the thoroughness of your quest." Into this labyrinth it is impos. sible, in this column, to follow the writer, but every page is full of deepest interest and every page is well worth reading and thinking over. Where there was so much to study, and the time at her disposal was limited, Miss Onions wisely selected onlv such schools as were typical of each form of child life in order to get a general idea of " what England is doing towards the welfare of her great family of children.". An interesting meeting which the author was able to attend and from which she derived much information was "The National Conference for the Prevention of Destitution." Miss Onions also studied the various educational homes cf the London County Council, the Special Schools in London, Liverpool, and Manchester, and the industrial schools, training ships, reformatories, and Borstall institutions under the jurisdiction of the Home Office. She visited many children's hospitals and homes for boys, and took part in the first International Eugenic Congress. Later on she travelled through Belgium, Holland, Germany, and France, inquiring into the methods adopted by those countries in educating, reforming, and generally caring for their children. Everywhere she found good work going on apace; its importance more and more realised. Of the French svstem, embracing all child-rescue work, sne says : "It is the only thorough svstem of State care for children.'' At Antwerp she was told : " There are no workhouses in Antwerp, no old-age pensions. The municipality looks after ail its employees when they aTe too old to work. 'Hie peasantry are very ignorant. The only beggars are a few children sent out by worthless parents, who trade on their children. There is work for all, and no poverty except what is caused by drink. The feebleminded are cared for. No class is neg-

lected.'' Alas! Poor Antwerp! How different is her condition at the present moment. "The Men of To-morrow" is well written and intensely interesting. It is excellently illustrated, and is provided with a useful index.

" Memories of Mary Carrington." By H. V. L. Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. Whitcombe and Tombs. (Cloth; 2s 6d.)

These " Memories" consist of a short memoir and a selection of very dainty literary skeches. The memoir shows us one of those gracious, gentle characters which win all hearts when living and whose memory " blossoms from the tomb." Mary Carrington was "a noticeable figure in the throng of men and women, not so much from her striking or arresting personality as from the singularly sweet air of grace and gentleness which marked her bearing and demeanour." She was a city schoolmistress whose parents had both died in England when she was a young girl, leaving her with a good education and a slender stock of this world's goods. So, like many others under similar circumstances, she came out to New Zealand in search of higher pay and better conditions. She began work in a remote back-blocks school and later became a teacher in Wellington. It was here that Miss Carrington made the acquaintance and won the warm love and admiration of her present hiographer. "We decided to take rooms together," says H. V. L., "and in the daily meeting and association our acquaintance ripened into a close and loving intimacy. . . . Miss Carrington's disposition was naturally reserved, and her heart sought rather to draw nearer to the few friends she knew and cherished rather than to widen her circle of acquaintances. It is one of the proudest and most cherished experiences of my life that when she died (as she did when under 40 years of age) she regarded me as her dearest and most trusted friend." The little memorial is therefore a wreath of friendship laid on the early tomb of a loved one. The gentle schoolmistress was never robust; " her physical fragility added charm to her quiet ways and low-toned voice." Obviously the battle of life was too severe for her gentle nature, often she must have been overworked, always she had too little sunshine, and too few of the pleasant things of life. We may imagine how she faded and, fading, drew her companion's heart more closely to herself, so that when the end came it seemed inevitable to lay the little wreath Upon her tcmb. That Miss Carrington possessed considerable literary taste and craftsmanship is abundantly shown in the little tales and sketches which fill the greater part of the volume. Most of these touch on some sentimental phase of colonial life; many cf them show a keen appreciation of the beauties of nature, all of them are vibrant with that mournful, pessimistic note which seems inseparably connected with baffled literary cravings and an early death. Miss Carrington's colour sense was very' fine. What could be truer than the following tribute to Lake v» akatipu :—"The blue mornings, the radiant noondays, the wistful twilights, the red of the rata, the bold gorse that warred with its fairer, gentler rival the "broom. Nature, the unerring artist, paints in yellow from a lavish palette, in gorgeous diminuendo sweeping from the opulent orange .and ochre of sunset to the elusive pastels of the laburnum and the dear early primrose?" Miss Carrington's last work—also last in the book of remembrance—"The Happy Valley," touches with tender lingering on those •' thronging shapes that once in the long year " (on All Souls' Eve) " come from the world invisible to hold communion wtih those on earth who love them. Visits for which we pay so heavy a price, that they leave Us bankrupt unless we can lock forward to the time when the gates will unclose and admit us into far-reaching land of heart's desire, its radiant hilltops flushed with the rosy mists of eternal dawn."