7

E.—6A

The results of "probation " and of State agents have been so remarkably successful with juvenile offenders that Massachusetts has recently enacted a law to apply the same principle to the treatment of adult misdemeanants. [The city of New York has (but by voluntary and unofficial agents) materially checked juvenile crime by a wholesale emigration of destitute and deserted children to the Western States. During the last twenty-five years it has thus boarded out 51,000 children, at a cost of £600,000. To this is mainly attributed the result, in New York City, that the number of girl thieves has diminished by onehalf in that period, whilst the number of boy offenders has been greatly held in check. But the New York system is objected to, in certain quarters, on the ground that the emigrated children are insufficiently protected in some cases, and that in other instances they become sources of demoralization to Western homes. However, even if there be some foundation for this complaint, the great preponderance of the scheme is for good, both to New York, to the West, and to the children.] The Massachusetts system is preventive and also repressive, or punitory, where needed. It is both more complete and more successful than that of New York, being provided with an array of legal arrangements for authoritative supervision and control. It may, at the present time especially, be studied with profit by this country, for it solves problems still unsolved here. It points to the great superiority of the prevention of juvenile crime rather than its repression. It proves that systematic individualization, at home or in selected households, but under authority, is far more effectual for the diminution of crime than either the reformatory, or even the industrial school, or training-ship, or the birch, to say nothing of the gaol, which is now all but an obsolete institution for children in the fine old " Bay State." It is thus made a special aim to aid and direct the primary principle of parental responsibility by means of a kindly but authoritative influence, that of the State agent. The negligent parent is not abandoned to mere punishment, or mere ignorance, but is advised, guided, and supervised by the State agent. The main object is that the parent shall be induced to do as much as possible of his own duty. Failing that, he is compelled to do so, if practicable. But, in any case, the child is secured from neglect and vicious training. This system is less lenient than the English practice is, with the too-considerable class of parents who deliberately pauperize or cruelly ill-treat their offspring. At a Metropolitan union school it was lately stated that a certain beggar woman was, every few days or weeks, taking her children out for mendicancy or revelry, and then immediately claiming their legal re-admission for other brief periods. Massachusetts permits, neither to the beggar nor the pauper, such vicious, costly folly as this. Every child that she once has before her Courts, even on the slightest charge, is effectually "put through" by future State oversight. Parental responsibility is insisted on where possible ; but, if not available, the parent forfeits future control over the child. Again, Massachusetts teaches us that even those good things, institutions for children, whether industrial schools, or pauper district schools, or training-ships, may advantageously be exchanged (at least in great degree) for still better things—namely, for increased home oversight, or family adoption, or emigration. With us, a pauper child, or a juvenile offender, costs from £20 to £40 per annum, and even then its future becomes dubious, and often as costly still. By " probation," by boarding-out, or by emigration, a payment equivalent to less than one year's maintenance in an institution may often insure life-long independence of the tax-payer. Lastly, this system illustrates a specially successful combination of official authority and direction, with the advantages of voluntary and unpaid oversight of the youthful wards of the State. The disadvantages of the one without the other, in either direction, are in great degree avoided. The board-ing-out system, for example, has been a marked success in those parts of Great Britain where suitable provisions have been made for the systematic visitation and oversight of the children (pauper girls and orphans) placed out. But where this essential condition has been neglected, evils have ensued. Massachusetts secures responsible and systematic supervision by unpaid voluntary visitors, but also by their official authority, and by their own oversight, in turn, by a responsible State Board.

No. 3. Auckland Society foe the Belief of Neglected and Destitute Childbed (Howe Steeei1 Oephan Home.) 1. Extracts from the Bules and Regulations. The object of the society is the support, instruction, and industrial training of children of the following descriptions : — (a.) Children abandoned by their parents, or left without friends and protection. (J.) Children, the offspring of parents either or both of whom may, from profligate habits, or conviction for felony, be unable to support and unfit to educate them; or who, for other causes, may surrender them to the care of the society, (c.) Children who, coming within any of the clauses above enumerated, may, according to " The Neglected and Criminal Children Act, 1867," be compulsorily placed in the Home. 2. No child shall be admitted into the Home who shall be suffering from any contagious, infectious, or cutaneous disease. 3. No child shall be admitted into the Home of an age younger than four years, unless in case of emergency, to be decided by the Executive Committee. 4<. No child shall be admitted into the Home, or allowed to leave it, or shall be dismissed from it, unless by order of the Executive Committee, excepting as provided by the aforesaid Act. 5. So soon as any child shall have attained sufficient age and capacity, the Executive Committee shall take the necessary steps to have such child suitably provided for.