We are assembled upon a sloping hillside, over-looking a quiet country village. Happy homes are embowered in living groves, whose summer foliage is emblematical of innocence, progress, and peace. We have here a social life, with natural impulses, cultivated worldly interests, moral and religious sentiments, all on the side of virtue. Crime here is not social. If it appear at all, it is segregated; and, as the burning taper expires when placed at the centre of the spirit lamp's coiling sheet of flame, so vice and crime cannot thrive in the genial embrace of virtue.
Circumstances are here unfavorable to crime; it is never social; but sometimes, though not often, it is hereditary. A family for many generations seems to have a criminal tendency. Perhaps the members are not in any generation guilty of great crimes, but often of lesser ones; and are, moreover, in the daily practice of vices that give rise to suspicion, neglect, and reproach. Here together are associated, and made hereditary, poverty, ignorance, idleness, beggary, and vagrancy. Surely these instances are not common, probably not so common as they were in the last generation. But how is the boy or girl of such a family to rise above these circumstances, and throw off these weights? Occasionally one of great energy of character may do so; but, if the children of more fortunate classes can scarcely escape the influence of temporary evil example, how shall they who are born to a heritage of poverty, ignorance, and ever-present evil counsel and conduct under the guise of parental authority, pass to the position of intelligent, industrious, respectable members of society? Some external influence must be applied; by some means from without, the spell must be broken; the fatal succession of vicious homes must be interrupted. The family has here failed to discharge its duty to itself and to the state; and shall not the state do its duty to itself, by assuming the paternal relation under the guidance of that law of kindness, which we have seen effectual to control the insane, and melt the hardened criminal? But in cities we find vice, not only hereditary in families, but local and social; so that streets and squares are given up, as it were, to the idle and vicious, whose numbers and influence produce and perpetuate a public sentiment in support of their daily practices. This phase of life is not due to the fact that cities are wealthy, or that they are engaged in manufactures or commerce; but to the single fact that they are multitudinous, and their inhabitants are, therefore, in daily contact with each other, while, in the country, individuals and families are comparatively isolated. Yet some may very well doubt whether such an institution as this, with all the benign influences of home which we hope to see centred and diffusive here, will save a child of either sex, whose first years shall have been so unfavorable to a life of virtue.
The answer is plain: as in other reformatory institutions, there will be some successes and some failures. The failures will be reckoned as they were; the successes will be a clear gain.
But investigation and trial will show a natural aptitude or instinct in children that will aid in their improvement and reformation. There has been in one of our public schools a lad, who, at the age of fourteen years, could not recall distinctly the circumstances of his life previous to the time when he was a newsboy in the city of New York. He was ignorant of father, mother, kindred, family name, and nation. At an early age, he travelled through the middle, southern and south-western states, engaged in selling papers and trash literature; and, for a time, he was employed by a showman to stand outside the tent and describe and exaggerate the attractions within. When he was in his fourteenth year, he accepted the offer of a permanent home; his chief object being, as he said, to obtain an education. "I have found," said he, "that a man cannot do much in this country unless he has some learning." This truth, simple, and resting upon a low view of education, may yet be of infinite value if accepted by those who, even among us, are advancing to adult life without the preparation which our common schools are well fitted to furnish. And the case of this lad may be yet further useful by showing how compensation is provided for evils and neglects in mental and moral relations, as well as in the physical and natural world. Though ignorant of books, he was thoroughly and extensively acquainted with things, and consequently made rapid progress in the knowledge of signs; for they were immediately applied, and of course remembered. In a few months, he took a respectable position among lads of his age. The world had done for this boy what good schools do not always accomplish,—made him familiar with things before he was troubled with the signs which stand for them. There is an ignorance in manhood; an ignorance under the show of profound learning; an ignorance for which schools, academies and colleges, are often responsible; an ignorance that neither schools, academies nor colleges, can conceal from the humblest intellects; an ignorance of life and things as they are within the sphere of our own observation. From this most deplorable ignorance this boy had escaped; and the light of learning illumined his mind, as the sun in his daily return reveals anew those forms of life, which, even in an ungenial spring and early summer, his rays had warmed into existence, and nourished and cherished in their progress towards perfection.
And, ladies and gentlemen, let us indulge the hope that the events of this day and the faith of this assembly will declare that it is possible to save the children of orphanage, intemperance, neglect, scorn and ignorance, from many of the evils which surround them. Let it not be assumed and believed that the task of training and saving girls is less hopeful than similar labors in behalf of the other sex. It has been found true in Europe, and it is a prevailing opinion in this country, that, among adults, the reformation of females is more difficult than the reformation of males. But an analysis of this fact, assuming it to be true, will unfold qualities of female character that render it peculiarly easy to shield and save girls who are exposed to a life of crime; for, be it remembered, this institution deals with mere children, who are exposed, but not yet lost. It differs, in this respect, from most institutions, although many include this class with others. And it may be well to remark, that every reformatory school in Europe, even those altogether penal,—as Parkhurst in England, and Mettray in France,—have had some measure of success. Eighty-nine per cent. of the colons, or convicts, at Mettray, have become respectable and useful; while, of the youth sent to the ordinary jails and prisons, seventy-five per cent. are totally lost. It is not fair, therefore, to assume that this attempt will fail. The degree of success will depend upon circumstances and causes, to a great extent, within human control. There are, however, three elements of success, so distinct that they may well stand as the appropriate divisions of what remains for consideration. They are the right action of the government; the faithful conduct of superintendent, matrons, and assistants; the sympathy and aid of the people of the state in matters which do not admit of legislative interference.
The act of the Legislature, though voluminous in its details, contemplates only this: A home for girls between seven and sixteen years of age, who are found "in circumstances of want and suffering, or of neglect, exposure, or abandonment, or of beggary." The first idea of home precludes the possibility of the inmates being sent here as a punishment for crime; therefore they are neither adjudged nor actual criminals, but persons exposed to a vicious life. Secondly, the idea of home involves the necessity of reproducing the family relation, as circumstances may permit. Hence, the members of this institution are to be divided into families; and over each a matron will preside, who is to be a kind, affectionate, discreet mother to the children.
And here, for once, in Massachusetts, a public institution has escaped the tyranny of bricks and mortar; and we are permitted to indulge the hope, that any future additions will tend to make this spot a neighborhood of unostentatious cottages, quiet rural homes, rather than the seat of a vast edifice, which may provoke the wonder of the sight-seer, inflame local or state pride, but can never be an effectual, economical agency in the work of reformation. Every public institution has some great object. Architecture should bend itself to that object, and become its servant; and it must ever be deemed a mistake, when utility is sacrificed that art or fancy may have its way.
Reformation, if wrought by external influences, is the result of personal kindness. Personal kindness can exist only where there is intimate personal acquaintance; this acquaintance is impossible in an institution of two, three, or five hundred inmates. But, in a family of ten, twenty, or thirty, this knowledge will exist, and this kindness abound. Warm personal attachments will grow up in the family, and these attachments are likely to become safeguards of virtue.
Nor let the objection prevail that the expense is to be increased. It is not the purpose to set up an establishment and maintain it for a specific sum of money, but to provide thorough mental and moral training for the inmates. Make the work efficient, though it be limited to a small number, rather than inaugurate a magnificent failure.
The state has wisely provided that the "trustees shall cause the girls under their charge to be instructed in piety and morality, and in such branches of useful knowledge as shall be adapted to their age and capacity; they shall also be instructed in some regular course of labor, either mechanical, manufacturing, or horticultural, or a combination of these, and especially in such domestic and household labor and duties as shall be best suited to their age and strength, disposition and capacity; also in such other arts, trades, and employments, as may seem to the trustees best adapted to secure their reformation, amendment, and future benefit."