In taking action which looks toward co-operation with another body, we have been moved by considerations which affect profoundly three interests: (1) Those of the parents and guardians of the children admitted to the Home; (2) those of the public which is asked to give it support; (3) most of all, those of the children.
I. Since the Home was started, thirty years ago, the population of Philadelphia has increased from about 500,000 to nearly 1,000,000. In such a vast and dense mass of human beings, personal relations between giver and receiver have become more difficult, and the indiscriminate charity which encourages pauperism has been a cause of growing concern. A habit of dependence, which takes advantage of every opportunity to live by public or private charity, is widespread; and the growth of false, communistic views makes necessary more guarded methods than those which may serve in smaller communities, with simpler social conditions.
The history of our own institution, as the managers well know, shows a constant pressure for the admission of children whose parents are able to support them, but are naturally disposed to do this at the lowest possible cost, and that we have also been furnishing easy facilities for those who desire, for selfish reasons, to rid themselves of the presence and care of their little ones. The charitable feature of the institution, or the fact that a part of the expense is borne by our contributors, is disguised by the fact that we are accustomed to charge $1.25 to $1.50 a week for each child, so that the institution is regarded by such parents simply as a cheap boarding-house for children. We believe that many, who could themselves bear the entire cost with no serious hardship, are tempted to magnify their own disability by the fatal facilities afforded by a well-meant charity. Some of this class are doubtless in need of help, but it should not come in this delusive form. They may want friendly counsel and wise direction in finding suitable homes; and they may sometimes be assisted by kindly oversight of these homes and of their children. It is in our power to secure for them these advantages, with added pecuniary assistance where needed, by utilizing the methods of the Children’s Aid Society, which is also a Bureau of Information.
III. The most important consideration relates to the children. No mere saving of money would justify a change which threatened injury to the least of these little ones. But a majority of the managers are convinced, by observation and experience, that life in the average institution is not so good for children as life in the average household. None can realize that so fully as those who are best acquainted with the inner workings and vicissitudes of child-caring institutions. We have sought to guard our children from the worst effects by providing a kindergarten for the younger ones, and by sending the elder to the public schools; and they have enjoyed the care and kindness of an exceptionally competent and faithful matron; but the total result has compelled us to the same conclusion with many tried workers in charity,—viz.: that the children can best be fitted for the life they must live in the world by being placed in good families.
The testimony of two gentlemen on our Board of Council, both experienced as heads of great industrial enterprises, is that institution boys are generally the least desirable apprentices. They have been dulled in faculty by not having been daily exercised in the use of themselves in small ways ... have had all particulars of life arranged for them, and, as a consequence, they wait for some one else to arrange every piece of work, and are never ready for emergencies or able to “take hold.”
One great evil of institutions for children is quite overlooked—the effect on the parents of relieving them of the care of their children,—because the attention of the managers is almost exclusively devoted to the care of the children while in the institution; they do not think it part of their duty to study the family from which the child was taken, or the influences which surrounded it before it came under their charge; nor do they, with rare exceptions, follow the children’s lives with any systematic care after they leave them. They thus know nothing of the results of their own work, and may be doing great evil, where they wish only to do good.
In Dorchester, Mass., there is a small “Industrial School for Girls,” which seems to be especially distinguished from most other Homes of the kind, by the thorough and systematic manner in which the children who have left the school are watched over. Besides the standing committee on “placing out,” which is required to report to the managers once in three months concerning the girls under its charge (those who, having been fitted in the school for household work, have been put into places to earn their living), a “Committee on Friendly Guardianship” has been created, whose duties are thus described in the report of the school for the year 1887: “To keep a list of all girls leaving the school, who, through the expiration of the papers placing them under our care, are no longer formally wards of the school; to keep up a knowledge of these girls and to report concerning their welfare twice a year, such report to be added to the secretary’s records. The term Friendly Guardianship is used to distinguish this oversight, which does not carry with it any formal authority, from the usual school guardianship of girls who are placed under our care for a period beyond that passed at school, and which is recognized as authoritative by the girls themselves and by their relatives, if they have any.”
In the report for 1888, it is stated that there are thirty-four girls under direct school guardianship, thirty-five under the charge of the Friendly Guardianship Committee, and an account is given of the present condition of fifty-eight earlier school graduates. The following reflection, found in the report, applies equally to other institutions of the same character:
“The expense of caring for a child at the Industrial School is large as compared with the cost of boarding in a private family, and this expense can only be justified by keeping up a high standard in the school, and by adding a large amount of personal work outside and beyond the school for the girls who have gone out from it.”