E.—l

XX

There is no doubt that the establishment of truant schools would result in a saving to the country, as we should thereby prevent many from taking the first step on the road to crime. If contributions from parents of children committed to industrial schools were more strictly required and enforced, so that negligent or weak parents could not hope to be relieved of the burden of maintenance on account of their neglect or inability to exercise due control, then the warning given by the milder measure of committal to a truant school would be more likely to be effective (cases of pure destitution are, of course, not here referred to). The key-note of the most recent and intelligent methods of dealing with juvenile delinquents is classification, and the classification should be as complete as circumstances allow, beginning before any criminal signs have appeared. We have, therefore, the distinction between the orphanage and the industrial school, between the industrial school and the reformatory, and between the reformatory and the prison or the rescue-home. For the orphanage we have substituted the boarding-out system. The industrial schools, which would probably be most successful if separate institutions were provided for the two sexes, should contain those who need firm control and systematic treatment but who cannot be described as criminal or criminally disposed. The reformatories should contain those who are viciously uncontrollable, or are criminally disposed, or who are actually criminals too young for prison treatment. These must be separate for the two sexes. It has been suggested that children (vagrant, uncontrollable, &c.) who have been convicted of any indictable offence might be committed to an industrial school up to the age of fourteen; but that no one should be detained as a resident inmate of an industrial school after the age of fifteen, except for brief periods, as when being transferred from one employer to another, unless he or she be physically unfit for work. Any one between the ages of ten and eighteen convicted of an indictable offence should be committed to a reformatory, with or without a previous sentence of imprisonment; notwithstanding this, children under twelve convicted of indictable offences, but not previously convicted, might be sent to an industrial school, unless it should appear that they had already become habitual criminal offenders. All children or young persons committed to industrial schools or reformatories should be under control until the age of twenty-one, unless discharged earlier. Inmates of reformatories might within the first six months be transferred to industrial schools, and inmates of industrial schools might at any time be transferred to reformatories. These precautions would be necessary in order to secure a classification based upon character, for the order of committal is by no means a reliable index of the character of the inmate. Inmates of prisons under eighteen years of age might be transferred to reformatories. In both industrial schools and reformatories there should be further classification ; in the former the classification may be on the basis of age, and need not amount to complete separation. The classification in a reformatory should be thorough ; there should be at least three classes, and promotion from class to class and early release should depend on good conduct and diligence in learning a trade. The lowest class would be governed by rules which resemble prison rules, but the educative purpose of the institution should even there be the most prominent. The planning of the building would be an important point, so as to fit in with the classification. The training in both industrial schools and reformatories should be really industrial; a boy or a girl should be so taught that a taste for manual employment should be acquired, and a trade properly learnt, or the learning of it properly begun. Several trades should be taught, and each reformatory should be to a large extent self-supporting. Farming and other country occupations may be looked upon as the most important of all " trades " for children of this class. And, reverting to the causes of all the evils we are attacking, effort should constantly be made to direct the attention of inmates towards a country life, except in cases where there was an obvious unfitness for such a life. To give concrete form to these ideas, one might suggest for New Zealand some such scheme as the following:— (1.) Day industrial or truant schools—to begin with, one in each of the four large towns;