Psychology and parenthood

by H. Addington Bruce

In Pennsylvania an eight-year-old orphan girl of poor parentage, drudge in a city boarding-house, with no companionship except that of ignorant servants, was heralded in the newspapers as a “prodigy of crime” because she had been caught setting fire to a house. When asked in court why she had done this, she made the frank reply, “To see the fire burn and the engines run.” There being at that time no probation system in Pennsylvania, she was promptly sentenced to the House of Refuge, where, like the boy sent to jail for stealing apples, she would be sure to come under the influence of vile associates.

But, more fortunate than the boy of the orchard, this child had an unknown friend at court, Mrs. Hannah K. Schoff, who interceded with the judge and gained his permission to place the little incendiarist in a good home instead of the House of Refuge. Five years afterward, reporting to the International Prison Commission the result of her experiment, Mrs. Schoff was able to declare that this dangerous juvenile criminal had developed into “as sweet, attractive, and good a child as can be found anywhere.”

An Italian Camorrist had two sons. The younger, at the age of three, was separated from his father, taken to a distant city, and given a good education. Like the Juke child of the eighth generation he grew to be an exemplary young man. His brother, who remained with the father, became, like him, a man of vice and crime, hated, feared, and despised.

But far more impressive than isolated instances like these are the data now available regarding the outcome of similar experimentation on a large scale. Four years ago the Children’s Aid Society of New York—the organisation which took the Juke foundling under its wing—published a report detailing the results of its “placing out” system for a period of more than half a century. The officials of this society have always been imbued with the idea that every child, no matter how bad his heredity, is entitled to the benefit of a good home upbringing, and in accordance with this idea they have, during the period covered by the report, placed twenty-eight thousand children in carefully selected homes, besides finding situations in the country for about three times as many older boys and girls. Most of their wards have been slum children, having back of them a family history of crime, vice, insanity, or pauperism. Nevertheless, the society’s officials inform us:

“A careful investigation of the records gives the following results: 87 per cent. have done well, 8 per cent. were returned to New York, 2 per cent. died, one quarter of 1 per cent. committed petty crimes and were arrested, and 2¼ per cent. left their homes and disappeared. These last were larger boys of restless disposition, unaccustomed to country life or any sort of restraint. Some of them struck out for themselves, obtaining work at higher wages, and were temporarily lost sight of, but years afterward we hear of them as having grown up good and respected citizens.... The younger children placed out by the society always show a very large average of success. The great proportion have grown up respectable men and women, creditable members of society. Many of them have been legally adopted by their foster-parents. The majority have become successful farmers or farmers’ wives, mechanics, and business men. Many have acquired property, and no inconsiderable number of them have attained positions of honour and trust.”

One of the children thus developed was a typical waif of the slums, a ragged urchin loitering in the streets of New York, and sleeping in store-entrances and hall-ways, until one day taken in charge by a kindly policeman. Investigation disclosed that he was a homeless orphan, and until some definite provision could be made for his upbringing he was committed to the city institution on Randall’s Island. Thence, after a few months, he was transferred to the care of the Children’s Aid Society, which undertook to find a home for him.

In midsummer of 1859, accordingly, he was sent to Indiana with a party of other homeless lads, and was placed with Mr. E. E. Hall, a Noblesville farmer. Two years later, to the mingled grief and pride of his foster-parents, and when not yet fifteen years old, he enlisted in the service of his country, entering the army as a drummer-boy. After the war he went back to the Indiana farm, and, employing his leisure moments to good advantage, prepared for college. In the seventies, equipped with a good education and a well-disciplined mind, he moved farther West. He finally settled in North Dakota, where, after engaging successfully in various enterprises, he became, in 1881, the cashier of a bank.

His thoughts now turned to politics, into which he plunged with great vigour, and with every prospect of success, as he had in the meantime won for himself a commanding position as one of the most popular and trusted men in his community. In 1884 he ran for the post of county treasurer, won his election, and, adding to his reputation by the way he conducted this office, held it continuously for six years. Then higher honours were thrust upon him; for, in the Fall of 1890, “Andy” Burke, the former ragged New York street boy, became Governor Andrew H. Burke, of North Dakota.

Closely paralleling his career is that of another New York child derelict, taken in charge about the same time as young Burke, and, by a curious coincidence, a companion of his in the little party of boys sent to Indiana in 1859 by the Children’s Aid Society. The name of this other lad was John G. Brady. Before coming into the keeping of the Society he had been deserted by his father, after the death of his mother. He was just ten years old when Mr. John Green, of Tipton, agreed to give him a home.

And it was a good home that Mr. Green gave him, a home in which he was taught the value of hard, earnest work, and of love for God and his fellow-man. Remaining on the farm until he was eighteen, he then became a school-teacher, saved enough out of his scanty earnings to give him a start at college, and three years later entered Yale. By this time he had made up his mind to devote his life to the twofold cause of religion and social service; and in 1874, having graduated with credit from Yale, he became a student in the Union Theological Seminary. After his ordination he went as a missionary to Alaska, where his labours, both religious and secular, won him a firm place in the affections of the people, and lasting recognition as one of the real makers of that distant Territory. He was appointed governor of Alaska by President McKinley in 1897, and reappointed by President Roosevelt, serving three terms.