& d e much good talk has been lost, while so much bad writing has been preserved, we are inclined almost to be angry; and are scarcely consoled by knowing that the spoken wisdom has not altogether failed of its purpose, though it. is less easy to show the channels by which it has enriched humanity than to trace the influence of the thought which remains embodied in print and paper. Conversation is at a low ebb in England at present. The higher belles-lettres of an age are admitted to be exponents of its manners, and we find the complaint made by Mr. Disraeli, and testified to by Mr. Thackeray. How small a part is played by conversation in our best novels! How rare is an elegant and familiar conversational style in our contemporary literature, which in that respect is far behind the literature of the time of Queen Anne! Who really converses at a conversazione? and has not Mr. Carlyle suggested that each lion should have a label on him, like a decanter, that you might learn his name and ascertain those pretensions which will certainly not be manifested by anything you hear from him? The action of the press is one great cause of this colloquial inferiority. Newspapers, novels, magazines, reviews, 'Punch,' gather up the intellectual elements of our life, like so many electric machines drawing electricity from the atmosphere, into themselves. Everything is recorded and discussed in print, and subjects have lost their freshness long before friends have assembled for the evening. Music is more cultivated, though this is rather an effect than a cause a device to fill up a painful vacuity; dinners are late and large, and the 'Mahogany' is an extinct institution. For the social dulness of the majority of men of letters the author of Coningsby' accounts with a fatal plausibility, when he tells us that they hoard their best thoughts for their publishers. To this, however, there are striking exceptions, and it may be urged that some of them are shy. Still, taken altogether, the genial converse which marked the old tavern life '-those lyric feasts Made at the Sun, The Dog, the triple Tun'-Herrick. -the life led in rare Ben's time, then in Steele's, afterwards in Boswell's-belongs to tradition and to the past. Here and there, among authors, there is a diseur de bon-mots; but he is talked of as an exception and a wonder, just as here and there, among the circles of high Whiggery, there is a conversationist of the old Mackintosh school, lettered, luminous, and long-memo VOL. XCVIII. 'ried. But these are the remains of the last generation, and where are their rising successors ? Where there is talk of a superior character, it appears to affect the epigrammatic form, and this is an unhealthy sign. If there were no other objection, how rarely can it avoid that appearance of self-consciousness and effort which is fatal to all elegance and ease! The epigrammatic is a valuable element, but should never predominate; since good conversation flows from a happy union of all the powers. To approximate to this, a certain amount of painstaking is necessary; and though artifice is detestable, we must submit that talk may be as legitimately made a subject of care and thought as any other part of a man's humanity, and that it is ridiculous to send your mind abroad in a state of slovenliness while you bestow on your body the most refined care. You We have no wish to let loose a troop of Conversation Browns' on the diningrooms and drawing-rooms of England. On the contrary, we feel intensely the social misery which a single Bore, with a powerful memory and a fluent tongue, can inflict on a large and respectable private circle. Compared with such a pest the worst book is a trifle, since it can be laid on the shelf; but he-how can he be ejected? cannot, like Sir Philip Francis, take him by the throat; you can only have recourse to the mingled resignation and pleasantry which Horace exhibited in a similarly terrible position in the Sacred Way; for the Bore was known to the ancients -as when was he not known ?-and in all ages has honestly believed himself a very entertaining fellow. Alas! he must learn to be silent before he can learn to talk; the old crop must be pared from the soil and burnt, the ground must be well broken up, care-fully tilled, and entirely re-sown, before he can become a profitable member of society. But as this is a discipline which could only be practised by the wise, and is beyond the capacity of a prater, we must be content with recommending to him, and even this we are sure in vain, the remark of an old writer, that nature has created man with two ears and but one tongue Treatment. By Mary Carpenter. Lon- reason to acknowledge the truth of the don. 1853. poet's caution, that 3. Mettray: a Lecture read before the Leeds Philosophical and Literary So-Satan now is wiser than of yore, ciety. By Robert Hall, M.A., Recorder And tempts by making rich, not making poor.' of Doncaster. London. 1854. 4. An Act for the better Care and Reformation of Youthful Offenders in Great Britain. 17 & 18 Vict. c. 86. 5. A Collection of Papers, Pamphlets, and Speeches on Reformatories, and the various views held on the subject of Juvenile Cime and its Treatment. Edited by Jelinger Symons, Esq. London. 1855. THERE is hardly, perhaps, a subject, the war excepted, which occupies a larger share of attention at the present time than Reformatory Schools. To use a familiar expression, they are becoming quite the rage; and we may look for a series of those peculiar demonstrations in their favour by which the British public are in the habit of displaying their interest in such philanthropic undertakings as they are disposed to encourage. We have not, indeed, yet reached the stage of reformatory bazaars, reformatory balls, and reformatory private theatricals; but now that we have got as far as that of dinners, the others will probably follow. The public sentiment, in short, is ripening fast; let us only hope that the public knowledge, to the imperfections of which a high authority drew attention a twelvemonth ago,* is gaining ground in something like an equal proportion. keenly alive to the shortcomings and the Earnest, practical, and pious persons, errors of our mode of dealing with youthful criminals, could labour heartily in what they knew to be a more excellent way of treating them, notwithstanding the sneers of the incredulous and the dogged resistance of the indolent. They could bear to be thwarted while they felt that the work on which they were engaged was making sure though tardy progress, and was bringing with it its own reward. The very opposition they met with had its use in rendering them more cautious to undertake no injudicious schemes which might bring discredit upon their cause. Such persons will have a wholly different class of trials to bear if public feeling should take an exactly opposite direction, and instead of pronouncing juvenile offenders to be hopelessly irreclaimable, and the efforts made on their behalf to be visionary, should indulge in the belief, which Mr. Symons fears is becoming alarmingly prevalent,' that they are errant angels, whose reformation requires little else than fondling."* The arguments in support of the reformatory system, and the practical results which have been attained by the experiments hitherto made, are indeed sufficiently striking to account for the tide in their We are far from desiring to undervalue favour. Whether we approach the subject the importance of a prevailing sympathy as Christians anxious to rescue our fellowwith the reformatory movement. We look creatures, and especially those little ones upon that movement as one of the utmost who have been so solemnly committed to national consequence, which is likely, if our care, from a life of misery, ignorance, rightly directed, to be productive of most and guilt; or as legislators desirous to rebeneficial results; and we are not insensi- duce the dimensions of a class at war with ble to the advantages which its promoters law and order, and ever ready to take up must derive from having the tide of feeling arms against society itself; or as economists in their favour instead of against them, (in the most restricted sense of the word) But though a moderate amount of support devising how to deal most cheaply with is necessary to set their schemes fairly our criminal population; whatever, in afloat, there is danger of no inconsiderable short, be the point at which our inquiries kind in an overwhelming and ill-guided commence, they are sure to terminate in flood of popularity; and it is quite possible that some of those who have hitherto been working their way laboriously but safely, against uncounted difficulties, may yet have * See Mr. M. D. Hill's letter to Lord Brougham, Dec. 18, 1854, republished in Mr. Symons's Collection: I have been led to doubt whether the public sentiment upon this great question is not -considerably in advance of public knowledge.' the same conclusion,-that the surest, the kindest, the least expensive course is, to snatch the child from the perilous position in which he stands, and to place him under influences which may convert him into a virtuous member of the community. When we consider what a child is, what ideas of grace and innocence the very name calls up in our minds, nay, what high moral lessons we have been taught to draw from the humble and confiding simplicity of a little child,' and when we contrast with these ideas and these lessons the condition of too large a class of our young fellowcountrymen, infants in years but adults in every kind of sin-when we see baby-faces full of evil passions, of cunning, of recklessness, or of cruelty, we can hardly fail to take to ourselves, as members of a society which tolerates the existence of such an anomaly, some part of the woe denounced upon him that offendeth 'one of these little ones.' And what makes the case more awful is, that the state to which these unhappy children have been brought is frequently the result not of mere negligence, but of deliberate training, on the part of their parents. I have seen,' says one witness, a baby of five years old reeling drunk in a tap-room. His governor did it for the lark of the thing, to see him chuck his self about, sillyfied like."* This young "shaver's father,' says another, encourages his children in badness. I heard him say with his own lips, that James was one of the best lads travelling; he said to me, “Johnny, I wish you would take my young one a wiring (pocket-picking) up the country, for the lads he is with will do him no good."'t 'I was in Street, Liverpool,' says a third,-when called upon to give evidence against a mother and her little daughter on a charge of larceny, 'on the 19th of November last. I was induced to watch the prisoners closely in consequence of hearing the elder prisoner ask the younger to go and see if some flannel was loose which was at a shop-door. The little girl went across to that shopdoor. I saw her touch the flannel, and then come back to her mother; and I heard her say, No, mother, it's tied." I followed them about 100 yards, when I heard the elder prisoner, the mother, say to the little girl, her daughter, "Go and see if any of those victorines are loose," pointing to a shop where I saw victorines hanging at the door. The younger prisoner, the little girl, went to the shop-door, and I saw her pull the victorine now produced out from between the two strings they hung upon,' &c. &c. Surely when the parental authority is thus fearfully misused, it is time for society to interpose, and to rescue the child from its unnatural protector. sented itself to the minds of individuals, and it is this view which has led to the greater part of the efforts which have hitherto been made. Warm-hearted men have sought to apply the readiest remedy to the evil of which they could not bear to remain inactive beholders; they have given their time, their money, and in some cases their own lives also, to rescue the children around them from their fearful position, little considering, perhaps, what bearing their proceedings would have upon the general criminal system of their country. Yet ex-. perience shows that had these benevolent persons proposed as their object to effect a reform in criminal jurisprudence, and to point out a more effectual way of protecting person and property, they could hardly have taken a wiser course than that which they have adopted from motives of humanity alone. Difficult as our penal problem has now become, since the progress of public feeling has almost put an end to capital punishments, and the remonstrances of our colonies have made transportation to any considerable extent impossible, the only method which gives any reasonable hope of getting us out of our embarrassment is that which proposes to cut off the supply of criminals at its source, and divert the energies of our rising generation of pickpockets and burglars into more profitable channels. An outcry has already begun against the Ticket-of-leave system, and it is likely to increase as the formidable characteristics of our professional convict class become more familiar to us. But it must be borne in mind that, however the details of our system may be varied, we must ultimately come to this conclusion, that, if we can neither hang our criminals nor transport them, we have no alternative but either to imprison them for life, or to turn them loose upon the country, after a longer or shorter term of imprisonment. Being no longer able to cast them forth from amongst us, and being obliged to consume this description of our own produce at home, we are urged by the most immediate instinct of self-preservation to consider whether we cannot materially reduce the amount of the unprofitable crop, which is not only mischievous in itself but poisons all that grows around it. One year's seeding,' as our farmers say, 'brings seven years' weeding;' and one generation of trained and hardened criminals will multi This is the aspect in which the reformatory question has for the most part pre-ply its numbers sevenfold, by influence and example among classes that might otherwise have formed the strength of the nation. We hear much of the alarm which the owners of property feel at the depredations which they apprehend from the retention | before either of them had been projected. of our convicts at home; but there is Stretton on Dunsmore, too, may lay claim another, and a more serious danger, to to precedence as a reformatory school in which the humbler members of society are exposed, and which, says Mr. Recorder Hill, weighs heavily on the minds of parents in the respectable class,'-the danger which keeps them in fear and trembling lest their children should be corrupted by evil companions.' the present acceptation of the word, having been formed by the magistrates of Warwickshire in 1818, fifteen years before the opening of the Rauhe Haus, and twentyone years before that of Mettray. But in truth the friends of neglected children have been at work for many years in many countries, sometimes labouring în solitude and in ignorance of what was doing elsewhere, sometimes communicating with those who were of a kindred spirit, and deriving consolation and assistance from the labours of one another. Reformatory schools, then, if they can be made effectual for their purpose, afford the best means of diminishing the amount of crime in a country, because they aim at gaining an influence over the embryo criminal before he is hardened, and before he has had the opportunity of corrupting The place of honour in the movement others. If they succeed in nothing else, belongs, perhaps, to Switzerland, where they at least interrupt the child's criminal Pestalozzi, Fellenberg, and Vehrli, succeséducation at that critical time in his life, sively established, about eighty years ago, when from his pliability both of body and what the French call Colonies Agricoles' mind he is likely to be the aptest pupil.t for the employment of the children of the But there is no doubt that if properly poor in husbandry; the earliest institution managed they do far more than this, and being that of Neuhoff in the canton of that a large proportion of the neglected Argovie, founded by Pestalozzi in 1775. children who come under their care are These schools have become general in permanently reclaimed from evil ways. Switzerland, and form part of the usual The experience of Stretton on Dunsmore system of education. The idea of agrishowed a rescue of 65 per cent., that of cultural training developed in them has 'Red Hill 70 per cent., and of Mettray 89 been the foundation of most of the benevoper cent.. of the children committed to lent efforts which have since been made in them. The questions, then, connected so many parts of Europe on behalf of the with them become highly important. What neglected poor. Next to Switzerland in is their real prospect of success in the work order of time stands our own country; for of reformation ? On what principles the Philanthropic Society, as founded by should they be conducted? How far should they be left to private benevolence, and how far should the state interfere? Before attempting to answer these inquiries, let us briefly review what has already been done in the matter. Experience will help us to several conclusions. Robert Young in 1788, was the exact prototype of the most famous of the modern German institutions. Amongst the names of those whose selfsacrificing zeal in this cause deserves our warmest acknowledgments, we must not omit that of the truly noble Count Von der Recke, the founder of the Dusselthal Abbey established in Prussia, which, though not properly to be called a reformatory school, inasmuch as it is intended for vagrant and destitute rather than for convicted children, is in many respects a pattern of what may be done to reclaim those who have sunk into an apparently hopeless condition. It was at the close of the great Revolutionary war, in 1816, that Count Von der Recke and his father, shocked at the spectacles around them, attempted to win back to civilised life some of the numerous unhappy children who, house for their use, and finally, by the sacrifice of his own fortune, and with the help of friends, he purchased an estate which forms their present abode. Many were so confirmed in their wild habits, that any degree of restraint was intolerably irksome to them; they would run away and live in the woods until compelled by hunger to return.'-Reformatory Schools, p. 330. The peculiarities of these young outcasts, one of whom is said to have lived amongst and been suckled by the Westphalian swine, differ from those exhibited by our London or Liverpool vagabonds; but the following observations are equally applicable to both classes, and contain a great deal of truth which lies at the foundation of reformatory discipline : obtained. that the great difficulty is the perversion of taste, and the dislike of regularity, which almost universally characterise the young vagrant. The same tendency which made the young Westphalians prefer alternate gluttony and starvation to a stated diet common feature of most savage nations), leads the young London pickpocket to solute idleness, to moderate but regular prefer occasional hardship, followed by ablabour. It is, we apprehend, invariably the case that the inmates of a reformatory school, after the novelty of their position has a little worn off, and the daily work becomes familiar to them, rebel against its irksomeness, and struggle to escape from it; and it is only when this feeling is overcome, and they begin to settle down to a routine of duties, that hopes of their improvement may be entertained. Prussia furnishes several other examples of reformatory institutions, of which that of M. Kopf at Berlin deserves special notice. We pass on, however, to the consideration of an establishment which has attained far greater celebrity, and which stands at the head of all the German institutions the well-known Rauhe Haus in the neighbourhood of Hamburgh. Dr. Wichern, the animating spirit of this excellent establishment, was one of a small band of men, of very limited means, who in the latter part of 1832 were struck by the increase of juvenile crime in Hamburgh, notwithstanding the efforts made to check it by opening a prison school, and by appending a special penal school to the poor school of the city. While the matter was under the consideration of these philanthropists, one of them received from a 'Great wisdom and prudence, as well as incessant labour and attention, were required in managing such children as have been described, even so far as to prevail on them to remain under any partial restraint, and to receive any instruction. Their ideas of right and wrong had to be corrected, and their sense of enjoyment rectified, even in the lower capacities of animal enjoyment. They had no distinct conceptions with regard to property, nor could they perceive any injustice in applying to their own use whatever suited their convenience, and might be easily The vitiated appetites of the children, till corrected, derived more gratification from gluttony at one time, and almost starvation at another, than from the equable and moderate supply received at stated hours, which the rules of a well-ordered household provided. Nor was the properly prepared diet itself agreeable to their taste; they relished sour and wild fruits, raw vegetables, half-raw flesh, and a superabundance of bread, more than the same articles properly cooked, and fully but frugally administered. The discipline required was uniform, steady, and strict, yet kind. To gain their affections, without indulging their early vicious propensities, was no easy task, but until this was accomplished, nothing could be done effectu-person almost unknown to him, and wholly ally for reclaiming such wayward vagabonds. The training is threefold; and while the object of each division is distinct, they are all three carried on together in harmony with one another. In the industrial department, mechanical aptitude and such practical habits as may tend to secure a livelihood are aimed at ;-in the mental department, an endeavour is made to develope the powers of the understanding, and impress it with religious truth;-the moral department is conducted so as to awaken the conscience, to inspire the love of God, and to open the heart for the reception of the Holy Spirit.** In these few remarks, we seem to catch the key-note of the reformatory system. Those who have had to deal with the class for whose benefit it is intended, well know unacquainted with what was going on, a sum of 300 dollars for the benefit of the poor, to be expended upon some religious institution. The friends resolved, upon this small capital, to announce a House of Rescue. Other persons were at the same time induced to assist the undertaking, and in the autumn of 1833 the Rauhe Haus, a cottage belonging to a gentleman who had espoused their cause, was placed at their disposal. On the 1st November, 1833, M. Wichern and his mother entered it, with three boys gathered from the streets of Hamburgh. In the course of a few weeks this number was increased to 14, varying from 5 to 18 years of age, yet all old in the experience of wretchedness and vice. One of these lads, only 12 *Illustrations of Faith, quoted by Miss Car-years old, had been convicted of no less penter in her work on Reformatory Schools, P of the very worst class of street vagrants, than 93 thefts, and the whole of them were |