DR BARNARDO' HOMES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3031, 17 April 1912, Page 36

DR BARNARDO' HOMES.

"NO DESTITUTE CHILD REFUSED." (Tc the Editor of Otago Witness.) Sin, —Last May the press all over the English-speaking; world wore good enough to publish a letter from me, written on behalf of the council of Dr Barnardo's Homes, pointing out the difficulty in which we then found ourselves owing to the drop of £38,000 in our income for the previous year, and to the continued decrease during the earlier months of 1911. We were faced for the hist time- with the possible necessity for abandoning the rule which Dr Bainardb laid down, and which we, as his suce-ssois, had faithfully maintained since his death—the rule that no destitute child shall ever be refused admission —unless we risked fit diug ouiaulvos unable to perform our obligations to the 9400 children already in our care; or uniess the public decided' for us that the rule was worth keeping, and by their help should be kept. Thanks, Sir, to the kindness of the press, and to the additional help which came to us during the latter half of the year, the iu'o has been kept, and so far as we know, no destitute child lias yet been refused admission. But we found ourselves tit the end of last year with only half of the deficiency made up. This is the excuse of myself and my council for troubling you again. in asking for more money we are met by a difficulty which the manogeis of every large institution have now to face. More and more the uublic aire beginning to ask themselves whether individual generosity ihould tax itself with voluntary burdens, in addition to those already imposed by law, for the benefit of the less fortunate or less capable members of the community. We have therefore to show not only that our work is worthy of support, but that it can better be carried on by private and individual effort than by the State In the case of children we have no doubts; we believe the help which in given freely, which comes direct from human sympathy, blesses both those that give and those that take; and our appeal for Dr ISarnardo's Homes applies also to all those great, wisely managed institutions which are our rivals and our very good comrades in the children's service. There is no workhouse taint about our children. Before our Loys become men we doubt whether there is any heavier sense of dependence among them than there is among average public schoolboys towards the parents who have done their duty by them in the matter of maintenance and' education; they are being given their chance, and in almost every case our children show that they deserve it. Our children do not become "charity children." In Canada, to have been 'at "Barnardo's" is a bond of union among Barnardo boys, as to have been at Eton is among Old Etonians; and we are tending out into the country and the colonics as—* many Barnardo boys in a year a 3 Eton produces Old Etonians in fire. Our children are not ashamed of their bringing up—are proud of it in fact, and do it credit. They grow up, as we want them to grow un, not pauperised, or humiliated by the remembrance of a somewhat grudging maintenance at the expense of unwilling rnti'payers, but honest, independent men and women, with a grateful and often, affectionate regard for the place that made them so. What might they have been? How many of these children would have had a chance of becoming anything but a curse to their country in the surroundings from which they are rescued? I'e-t almost every one will grow into a useful citizen, if we may judge by the past I spoke, Sir, of our "excuse" for troubling you. Really it is not an excuse that wo need, but a binding obligation that rests upon us to press the claim of our country's children upon the voluntary help and sympathy of everyone who loves the little ones, and who is as anxious as we are to sweep child misery, child inis-use, and child destitution from the face of our land. And for this cause we ask for donation? and subscription-; to enable us to keep our rule intact, that in»the last lesort every destitute child may always have a home to come to, which can never be too full to take it, into which it can always claim to be admitted by nothing but the sovoieign right of is own destitution. —I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Somerset, President. Head Offices of Dr Barnardo's Homes, 13 to 26 Sfenney Causeway. Locdon E., March 4, 1912.