The celebration of the birthdays is not forgotten. The poor of the vicinity are remembered, and each pupil is encouraged to save for charitable purposes. The child should be made to perceive how pleasant intercourse with his father and mother is becoming. Not to interfere the least with this relation, the House Father and Mother are never called father and mother by the pupils. Many parents find again in the Reform School the long-lost love of their children.

It would be casy to extend each division of this subject, but enough has been said to show how various are the enjoyments shared by the members of this family, how improving the duties imposed. Every-. thing in the rule of the household has its time and place; everyone conforms to that time and place. The elements of family order are impressed in this way on the pupils. In the parental household the government is necessarily mobile,-easily broken by the children. But in the Reform School this is not so. There can be no arguing the reasons for obedience, but silent conformity to the rule. The pressure of this moral force is remarkable. Many an obstinate and ungovernable boy, whom a father's severity, a mother's prayers, or a teacher's discipline could not move, seems transformed in the school. He yields to the gentle but powerful current, and is borne unresistingly along. Children whom bolts could never keep within their homes, come into this life of freedom, and never transgress. No special means of discipline are needed. Force would dissolve the bonds of this new life. No wall or roof would be too high for one who was resolved to escape. But they are free,-they can go if

they choose. Only a silent, tender, all-pervading spirit keeps them.

Of course this new order of things comes very hard on many children, although they are attached to the household. The difficulty proceeds from physical disorder and want of cleanliness. Among the poorer classes, poverty, neglect, the condition of the dwellings, causes, bad habits and blunts the senses of the children. The school must change all this. The order of the house must be insisted on. Punishments are rarely advisable; patience, forbearance and persistent, gentle teaching cure the evil by degrees.

The manners and customs of the different countries must determine in some degree the daily routine. But every house has introduced familyprayer, hours of work and play, and the observances of the Sunday. The practical equalization of study and work presents some difficulties, as yet, which experiments will soon settle.

With regard to meals, while the poverty of the children must be remembered, any thing like beggary in the establishment must be avoided. If there are in the school wealthy children who pay their board, this must be taken into account, that parents and children may be satisfied. All should have milk daily, and meat should be furnished two or three times a week at least. It has been observed in small institutions that meat increases the physical health of the children, although their moral improvement is not affected by it. As the schools have gardens and orchards, the children can have plenty of fruit and vegetables.

The clothing should be clean and warm. They should not wear a uniform. Good carriage of the body should be demanded. The Reform

School only admits healthy children, yet many are scrofulous, and need great care, a regular and simple diet, clothing warm and clean, personal neatness, well-aired rooms, with a change in occupation. These are the conditions from which health results.

Every reformatory institution should have a special room for the sick. Every indisposition should be cared for at once. The attendance of a physician should be required even in cases of slight ailments.

VIII. WORK AND INSTRUCTION.

In the Reform School, work, study and recreation should be so equalized as to promote and help each other. The problem of popular education is solved in these institutions as no where else; for elsewhere the element of freedom is wanting. The success of the training would not be complete, if the pupils had instruction beyond the walls of the establishment, that is if they attended a public or parish-school, for the necessary order in the division of the day would be lost. And there would be failure too, if the school were merely a school, and the other employments made secondary to instruction.

Again, if the institution requires the pupils to devote themselves to labor, by which money is made, the aim of the Reform School would be lost. The practice of parents to employ their children in factories where wages are earned, is too often the cause of wickedness and neglect. All monotonous and stupifying labor should be abolished from the Reform Schools. Under this head may be classed the occupation of pulling flax, horse-hair, manufacture of pasteboard boxes, etc. Still more ruinous is the practice of sending pupils to work in factories.

It should be made a rule that the family divisions of a Reform School should prepare with their own hands, as far as may be, whatever is needed for use. This may be done quite extensively, if the proper attention be given to the work. Success in this depends mainly on the director, who must be a person of administrative power, and have had special training in the technical parts of various trades. The house-mistress must superintend the household work in every detail, and overlook the sewing. Both should put their hands to work, whenever necessary. A sufficient number of persons should belong to the establishment, in order that the system of labor may be fully carried out. When this is done, the results are most important. The work is classified, performed with earnest diligence, and finished with skill. When the directors understand their calling, this system of labor can be carried out in a small institution of twelve children.

The importance of such a work is two-fold. First, the training of the mind and hand in any technical work. The established rule of any craft will not appear arbitrary to the boy, but necessary and pleasant to submit to. The quick, successful handling of a plane, hatchet, or plough, distinguishes the boy. He feels pride in becoming a good farmer or joiner. Work puts a definite goal before him. By determination he can reach it. He tries and succeeds. It is the same with the girl in her feminine crafts. These results cannot be attained without great diligence and perseverance. Repeated trials are necessary. All find the need of mutual

aid, without which no one can succeed. The pupil will suffer at first from the restraints laid upon him by his work, but all grows easy when be finds that endurance, thought and determination have attained the wished-for result. Then the work is done without compulsion; the will is strengthened and purified. Where the pupil is anxious to know the intricacies of the craft, the whole man is called out, and education begins. What else could take the place of healthy labor in this respect?

The second point gained by such labor is that it becomes a preparation for the future calling. There can be no more efficient means of furthering a good education for those who in the future must depend on manual labor for their support. They have learned that labor forms part of human existence, that a higher want is satisfied than the desire of carning money merely, that he who can work possesses a capital which he is in no danger of losing, and which gives him power and reputation. The result of such a system of training is, that most of the scholars leaving the institution are able to earn their living, which could hardly have been expected of any one of them when they entered. The statistical table in the 12th Division will show this sufficiently.

Nothing perhaps has been more instrumental in bringing about these results in the Rauhe Haus than its family system, which influences so energetically the various divisions of labor. No family will tolerate a “lazy” member, but urges him on to diligence. The family considers itself morally responsible for the existence of such a member, who would bring disgrace on it. The utmost is tried to bring him into a better way. This fact shows one of the results of this organization.

We must now briefly consider the work done in the establishment. The first object must always be the dwelling-house and its belongings. This is required of the family of every small mechanic, and to some extent from others, at least as far as the daughters of the house are concerned. The abode of the children is thereby endeared to them. Here in the sitting-room, bedroom and kitchen their earliest wants are satisfied. Every day begins with a local renovation, restoring the original order and cleanliness to the rooms. The House of Correction cultivates these virtues to some extent, although a high degree of perfection is impossible.

The Rauhe Haus goes farther than order and neatness, and cultivates the sense of beauty by embellishing the place of abode. There should be flowers and pictures in every Reform School. Among the lower orders of our population a germ of this love of ornamentation is found, which finds gratification in common pictures. This innate sense of beauty should not be despised, but raised and purified. All those tasteless pictures, which are often the object of misguided piety, should be excluded. Children readily learn the habit of giving each other pleasure. They gain that affection for their dwelling-place, of which the families from which they sprang were ignorant. In a very simple way the ideal side of family life may be cultivated. The world owes this to Christianity. It is a very important point in education, one which we cannot insist too strongly.

The domestic duties may be divided into two classes, viz: daily personal duties, like making beds, etc., and those voluntary, extraordinary

ones, which are suggested by the attachment of the members of the family. Among these are birthday and Christmas preparations, and the decoration of the house on festive occasions. After these domestic labors come the manual labors proper. These consist in the manufacture of various implements needed in the house,—of clothing, shoes, etc., and working in the field or garden. The Reform Schools of Germany and Switzerland are, in different degrees, small agricultural colonies. Where farming, a trade, and domestic labor go hand in hand, and the common life is made pleasant by mutual aid,—not compelled, but given voluntarily,—an element of vast educational and social importance will be developed. The proper value of work is learned, and the knowledge of the meaning of property acquired. These are great benefits.

One of the chief aims of the Reform School is to impress the pupils with regard for the sacredness of property. Many of them have been led astray by transgressing the law of property. This is more easily accomplished with children than with grown-up thieves, to whom the idea of the sacredness of property is unintelligible and ludicrous. The practical lesson enforced by a life of labor is of the greatest importance. The institution may cultivate this feeling still more, by giving the pupil some palpable result for diligent labor, placing him gradually in possession of some amount of property, be it ever so small, which naturally takes the form of a savings-box. Having and saving are ideas essentially belonging to every child. The pupil of the Reform School should be trained to a practical understanding of the two ideas. The system first introduced into the Rauhe Haus has been imitated by the saving-tables of the children of other institutions. As Pastor Wilhelm Baur does not mention it in his report of the Rauhe Haus, a short account may be of interest; for the method has had the best possible effect on the work and social intercourse of the children.

The beginning of a savings-box is made at the time of entering the school, when every child receives eight schillings (Hamburg currency), from the House Father. The parents of course are not prohibited from giving presents of money to their children. This can be done when visits are made. Notice must be given to the authorities, and the money at once put in the place assigned for it. Besides this, a few pennies are added at the end of every week to the account of each diligent child. The little sum increases month by month, and is recommenced at the beginning of the year. In some fortunate cases this sum may annually amount to eighteen shillings. It does not count as a reward of labor, but is a gift merely. The chief point is gained in putting a little property into the hands of the children. It is true that they have not the control of it, but every child has a savings-table, giving an exact account of income and expenditure. The money is at the free disposal of the child, after consulting the proper persons, for buying flowers, birthday gifts, or giving to the poor. The total amount belonging to the children is at present 706 Prussian dollars, 395 of which belong to former pupils of the institution. Out of this money, the repairs for damages are to be paid, and in this way an excellent method of punishment for carelessness is provided. Each child has clothes, a small garden, and tools confided

to his care, for which he is made responsible, and so the idea of property is in various ways impressed on his mind.*

As the family is thus connected with the labor of its various members, and the work distributed through the day maintains the existence of the family, so the school must be a link in the chain of the organization, and not an appendix merely. This would be the case if the school were not composed of the children of the institution, but when they formed a part of some other school. By the temporary dismissal of the pupils from the institution, they would not only be exposed to temptation, but would endanger the well-being of the village school, and give additional trouble to the master, to which he might justly object. In cases where the House Fathers were men of no education, there certainly was no other way of satisfying the demands of the school authorities than to appoint a separate teacher, or call in the assistance of the village school. In many places the utter incompetency of such arrangements has been reorganized, and more competent House Fathers appointed t

When the House Father can be the teacher also, everything assumes its just proportions. The only danger is that the establishment may assume too much the character of a school. This has sometimes been the case when the House Fathers have been school-masters. The temptation is great to overlook their present duties for their former ones. This danger is increased where men hold the doctrine that the school may take the place of the family, and be essentially the educator. In such instances the danger of the school's absorption of all other means of discipline is imminent. If the establishment should lose its labor system, it would be deprived of all its blessings, and cease to be a spot where, by gentle means, the working powers of the hand are developed, the character formed, the idea of self-help awakened, and the desire for mutual aid promoted. The question is to find the relative value of school instruction, social intercourse, and manual labor, and give to each its proper place.

The value of the school in reformatory establishments is evident,—it is one of the indispensable agents in the improvement of children. The school is likewise a peculiar field of labor. The teacher must work himself, but only in order to induce the children to work with him. He must awaken the interest of the pupils in the exercises which the school demands, and guide them on. The school tasks required of the pupi's develop the will as much as any other labor; the aim only is a different one. In school the work is constantly growing, and new ground is being conquered. The elementary instruction only provides the wherewithal to do this; but as instruction advances, new acquisitions are being con

Even in those Reform Schools which receive children from the better classes, manual labor is by no means to be neglected, though it may be limited by various circumstances. Interesting facts might be given to show the willingness with which boys of this class undergo great hardships, but this would lead too far. But this we must say, that the experiments male at the Rauhe Haus confirm our conviction that much good might be done if other institutions for the children of the wealthy would give their attention to the subject. In this way the foolish idea of the disgrace attaching to labor could be eradicated, and the value of work properly recognized.

+ In some institutions good educational results are obtained, because the House Father is a man of excellent character. This is another proof how much in education depends upon the person of the educator. Still these instances are rare, and are mostly of those men who without learning have had practical experience in the working of å school.