bring to bear upon these children is not punishment but kindness, and nothing has surprised me more than the singular ease with which we can manage them, and the readiness with which boys fall into the ranks who have been picked off the streets, and who have led a wandering life before. It is a most surprising phenomenon connected with our school, how soon they fall into regularity and order, and how little difficulty we have in breaking them in by the power of kindness and steady training.' This shows how completely justified was the Conference of 1851 in the opinion that prisons, however exemplary the system adopted therein might be, are not the places for the correction and complete reformation of juvenile criminals. We all know how susceptible are children to kindness and affection, and we must not confine this susceptibility to the children of the affluent and the educated classes. Can we doubt that the germs of the same feelings exist in the breasts of the destitute orphan or the most humble outcast of society ?"

At this same Conference, Mr. Osborne said :

They must get rid of the children from the gaols-a point on which he felt very strongly. He would agree to probationary wards being established in the schools, to be regulated in their use by the committee, but he contended that the principle of giving punishment preparatory to reformation ought not to be approved by that Conference,"

Mr. Recorder Power said:

"Punishment could not be got rid of, but what he and others protested against was arbitrary punishment, not with a view to reformation, but vengeance because he had committed a wrong against society. The child was not without condition. It had committed a crime against society, but society had inflicted a grievous wrong upon the child, and it was adding insult to injury that they punished the child for an ignorant breach of the criminal law."

"If you go to Saltley you will see what can be done when love and, duty are built upon. I trust from this day forward there will be an impulse to try the principle elsewhere and everywhere, and it will never be tried in vain. If you trust and appeal to that sense of kindness which is at the very bottom of our human nature, you will succeed in raising those emotions which shall accomplish in the human heart more than the prison cell or prison labour can ever effect; you will succeed in recalling to society many and many an one who shall prove a good citizen and an upright man."

But

Thus far, Sir, I have cited authorities against the statement of your contributor, in which he attempts to show that practical philanthropists, men with "a little prudence, and a wholesome modicum of diffidence" are evidently of one mind with him. to prove this matter more clearly, I must refer to the Birmingham Conference of 1853. I beg you to remember that every man in these kingdoms, qualified to give an opinion upon the subjects before the

country, attended the memorable Birmingham Conference of December, 1853, and those who could not attend personally, wrote expressing their confidence in the "prudence" and good sense of these who were present the chief topics then urged were the excellence of Reformatory School training, and the necessity of a stringent law of Parental Responsibility. Upon the former branch of the subject I have, I believe, advanced sufficient authority in support of my views, but that neither the Conference nor I deserve the charge made against us, by your contributor, that charge which informs us that we are modern Solons, and that the Rev. Sydney Turner backs Solomon against us in our weak point which renders us, as your contributor elegantly expresses it, forgetful of the "maxim about sparing the rod and spoiling the child," is clearly proved by the statement made at the closing of the Conference by Mr. Recorder Hill, when he said, and none dissented:

"I could not be silent in the hour of the triumph of a cause which has for long years interested my heart and employed my thoughts— a cause in which I have grown gray. I have seen the small beginnings of this now glorious and flourishing enterprise. I have been met by sneers of utter disbelief: I have been called a sentimentalist and a visionary for entertaining doctrines to which you are now affixing the seal of public opinion in this the capital of the Midland Districts of England. And here let me for the thousandth time ask for one moment of your attention to defend myself against an impression which is utterly mistaken and unfounded, but which still remains-I would sanction the infliction of any pain necessary to produce reformation. I am not one of those who believe that either man or boy may be raised by namby-pamby indulgences out of crime into virtue; but I hold that he who inflicts one single pang which is not directed to a reformatory object, if he act unconsciously, has fallen into a great error; if consciously, into a great crime."

Sir, this passage appears to me to want neither "a little prudence," nor "a wholesome modicum of diffidence;" had it wanted these, the Rev. Sydney Turner was present and could have corrected the error, had he considered it necessary; he could have declared for Solomon, and might have silenced one of the "modern Solons" "Mr. Recorder" the friend of petted criminal juveniles. Mr. Turner was the fifth speaker after Mr. Hill; he did not declare his dissent from any principle advanced by the Recorder, he did not sneer at M. Demetz, he did not attempt to detract from the merit of Mettray, he did not deny, he has never denied, the excellence of that institution, as worthy of the French people, as its success is honorable to M. Demetz.

I have, Sir, thus far defended myself from the charge of inane

philanthropy-(indeed your contributor appears to use the term philanthropist as if he considered it but a synonyme for anthropophagist); I have shown how, in all my views on this subject of Reformatory training, I am supported by the best, and most experienced men in these kingdoms, who were capable of speaking authoritatively upon the subject.

The paper of your contributor contains only three other topics worthy of notice: the first is a perfectly quixotic attack on Mettray; the second, a very foolish attempt to misrepresent my argument in favor of the principle that the law of Parental Responsibility is of the chiefest importance in suppressing juvenile and adult vagrancy; the third topic is a most ludicrous, palpable, and incomprehensible effort to prove, by garbeling a letter addressed by Lord Brougham to Mr. Recorder Hill, that his Lordship has lost confidence in the success of the Reformatory System.

Upon the first topic, Mettray, your contributor has no ground whatever of objection to the Colony-but, with a virulence of bigotry, and a total want of all reasoning power he writes:

It is in some respects, doubtless, a well-managed institution; but that it is, as we have often heard, a complete seminary of popery, we hardly expected such convincing evidence as this-Mr. Hall, in his account, says All the colonists at Mettray are Roman Catholics, but this is only to avoid the inconvenience of mixing children of different persuasions.' The remedy is very convenient, doubtless."

That a Roman Catholic country should possess Roman Catholic Reformatory Schools, is, one would suppose, perfectly natural; and as to the sneer that Mettray is, as your contributor "has often heard," a complete seminary of Popery, the objection is about as ridiculous as if M. Demetz, or M. Paul Verdier, or M. De Persigny were, with atrociously bad taste, only surpassed by its stupid intolerance, to state to the French people, that they had often heard" that Red Hill, or Saltley was "a complete seminary" of Protestantism-even whilst admitting that "it is in some respects, doubtless, a well managed institution," the question being not as to the religion taught, but the reformations, through God's grace, and by his servants' faith and charity, achieved.

Sir, your contributor has not quoted Mr. Robert Hall's Lecture, from which he extracts, fairly. I wish that that estimable, able, aud christian gentleman, whose ability is but the worthy accompaniment of "a little prudence, and a wholesome modicum of diffidence," were sufficiently restored to health to reply, by the publication of his notes

of his last summer's visit to Mettray, for he, Sir, visited Mettray twice, and writes of what he has seen, not of what he has "often heard." But I can answer for him in one respect, and that is, that in his Lecture upon his second visit to Mettray, delivered last winter in Leeds, he expressed his increased admiration of all he had seen, and of which, in his first Lecture, he had expressed his opinions.

Your contributor has called Mettray "a complete seminary of popery," and he quotes part of a sentence in Mr. Hall's Lecture. I shall now print the sentence in full, and by it shall prove that if Mettray is Roman Catholic for convenience, Sainte Foy is Protestant for the like reason, and we know that this separation has been made with the concurrence of the excellent President of the Society, M. le Comte de Gasparin, a Protestant. The sentence is as follows:

"All the colonists at Mettray are Roman Catholics, but this is only to avoid the inconvenience of mixing children of different persuasions. M. le Comte de Gasparin, the president of the society, is himself a Protestant; children of that faith are sent to a Protestant colony at Sainte Foy; if by any rare accident a non-christian child should be sent to one of thèse colonies, it must follow the religious instruction of the rest. There is family prayer in each house morning and evening."

So far of the no popery objection to Mettray; as to its excellence as a Reformatory, the Lecture of Mr. Hall, the Letter of Mr. Recorder Hill to Lord Brougham, or the various earlier accounts of the Colony, will prove; but I do not appeal to them, I rely upon the words of the Rev. Sydney Turner who, at the second Birmingham Conference said:

"About five years ago the attention of those who sought to effect the reformation of young offenders was excited to what was going on in France. We heard that a sort of miracle had been wrought, that a great number of juvenile prisoners had been gathered together, and kept together, by nothing more stringent, no bond more strong, than the exercise of loving kindness. I went and saw Mettray. My first feeling on seeing it was despondency. I said to myself, How can any one equal this in England? there we have nothing that can be compared with this.'"

The second topic to which I have above referred, as rendering your contributor vicious in his opposition, is Parental Responsibility considered as a check upon Juvenile crime and adult vagrancy. Referring to my paper, and intending as usual, by misconstruction, to refute my arguments, he writes." The fact is, that though the principle is excellent, parental responsibility is impracticable in three cases out of four. And yet without it, we are told that no security

can be given by the friends of the reformatory movement that the objects of the schools may not be abused."

We still hold this opinion-we contend that if the parents can pay, they must be compelled to pay-if they cannot pay, it proves nothing against the system; and if combined with a stringent vagrant law, could not fail to produce the most satisfactory results, and if, in but one case out of four the parent could be compelled to support his child whilst in the School, other parents would thereby learn that the law holds all liable for the discharge of those duties to which before God and man they are bound. These are opinions supported by Mr. Clay, by Mr. Thomson of Banchory, by Mr. Pearson, by Mr. Frederick Hill, and by all who have thought more deeply upon the subject than your contributor.* In the paper to which your contributor refers, I have condensed all the facts and authorities bearing upon the question;t and as they are indisputable-clearly soas even your contributor can only snarl at them, it is unnecessary to reproduce them in this letter.

Having exhausted his spleen upon my facts, your contributor relieves his temper by indulging in his peculiar style of fiction, and as usual in condemning the opinions of his opponents, he totally misrepresents their sentiments, and occasionally the common meaning of words. You know, I presume, that Lord Brougham is a very sincere supporter of the Reformatory Principle; and you are aware, I dare say, that having visited Mettray in the early part of 1854, he expressed his opinions of it in the most decided and most approving manner. On the 18th of last December Mr. Recorder Hill addressed a letter to his Lordship upon the practical working of Reformatory Schools-and to this most admirable letter Lord Brougham, the following day, thus replied:

MY DEAR HILL,

"GRAFTON-STREET,
Dec. 19th, 1854.

I have received your letter, and have read it carefully with all the interest which you may believe I feel in the important subject.

You don't require my praises of the manner in which you have treated the matter, but you wish for my opinion upon the positions you lay down, and I can say most conscientiously that I agree entirely

See in the Record, at end of this number of the REVIEW, some observations on this question, from Lieut.-Col. Jebb's last keport. † See IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW Vol. IV. No 15, pp. 709 to 716.