In connection with these establishments will I mention two of a similar design which I visited during my stay in London. One of these is known under the appellation of “The Dormitory for Thieves.” This was the undertaking of a single individual, and still depends, in a great measure, upon the extraordinary courage and clear-headedness of this one man, together with private assistance which his undertaking has received from noble-minded women and men.
Mr. Nash was a teacher in a Ragged School. Just opposite the school was an open shed, beneath which Mr. Nash observed that early in the morning a number of youths, of from about seventeen to twenty years of age, assembled, who appeared to have no other place of shelter. Before long he fell into conversation with them, and learnt that such was the case, and that these youths spent the greater part of the night, as well as of the day, on foot for the purposes of theft or plunder. He inquired from them whether they would be willing to give up this miserable occupation for something better. All declared that they had no higher wish than to do so. Mr. Nash then proposed to them that they should pass through a probatory period of two weeks, during which they should be placed in a solitary room, and have no other food than bread and water. After this time of trial, if they passed well through it, he promised to receive them into the school, and teach them some trade, of which they themselves should have the choice, and which would thus open to them a respectable path for the future. The boys willingly entered into the plan, and, under the oversight of Mr. Nash, commenced their noviciate on bread and water; a pound weight of bread each a day, in a solitary room, but without fastenings. Some of them grew weary in a few days, and went out again to cheat and to steal, but the greater number persevered, and with these Mr. Nash commenced the institution called the “Dormitory,” which soon extended itself, and now contains about fifty pupils, and at which forty or more candidates present themselves weekly, young men of from sixteen to thirty years of age, who are desirous of leaving the paths of vice. The great school for juvenile offenders, situated a few miles from London, receives only children under fifteen years of age. I very much regret that my time was too short to allow of my visiting it.
The house designed for the Dormitory was now building, and Mr. Nash was therefore compelled from want of room to reject each week many young men who were desirous of being received on trial. The fifty who had successfully passed through the heavy probation—a short one, it is true, but a sufficient trial for young men with hungry stomachs, unbroken wills, and unaccustomed to discipline—were employed in various rooms as shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, smiths, printers, and so on. They scarcely looked up, and were zealously occupied by their work. Three young men, of from eighteen to twenty, underwent, as best for them, their trial in an empty room, the doors of which stood open. They had determined upon pursuing a certain trade, and had firmly resolved upon amending their course of life. I saw among these young men many pleasant, hopeful countenances, and some also which it required courage to admit into an institution for improvement.
But this Mr. Nash has a countenance which is remarkable for great courage and the most cheerful confidence. And, perhaps, it is precisely this very courage and this cheerful confidence which are most needed and of which there is most want in society. Perhaps there would not be found any thing altogether irremediable in the world if we had only this right courage, this right trust—in the strength of resurrection!
The fallen youths in this institution are taught not merely a handicraft trade, but, as a matter of course, first and foremost the principles of Christianity. Many of them are destined for emigration, and, after having well passed through their apprenticeship, obtain aid for their outfit and their voyage, which is in a general way to Australia. For Australia Felix is a picture which floats before the eye of the converted youth as the goal and reward of his industry and his good conduct during his apprenticeship. And the beautiful skies of Australia seem intended by Providence as a symbol of mercy, to entice home the prodigal but repentant son of earth.
I hear at this point an objection which is often made.
“You are promoters of crime, inasmuch as you assist the criminal more than the innocent; inasmuch as the quality of thief becomes a letter of recommendation to ‘the Dormitory for Thieves,’ and thence to Australia.”
This objection would be just if no protecting, aiding hand were stretched forth to guiltless and destitute youth. But in England this objection is overruled by many benevolent institutions. Among these is the Emigrant’s Home for young persons who can produce certificates of blameless life, and who wish to emigrate, but have not the means of so doing. I visited the Home, where young women of the working class and of good character are received for a time, examined, and afterward enabled to leave the country and to obtain situations in the English colonies. Between seven and eight hundred young women had, within rather more than a year, been sent abroad from this Home, their passage paid, and services obtained for them in the colonies, mostly in New Zealand and Australia. In the Ragged Schools also is Australia Felix a land which stands before the souls of the children as a future home with a brighter sky and better prospects for them than their native land, and the sending them thither is a reward for their progress in learning. From thirteen to fifteen years of age they are sent thither—that is to say, to the southern part of the continent, where the climate is most healthy, and where none of the convict population are to be met with; these, as is well known, being confined to the northern coast. The children obtain situations in the families of the wealthy colonists, still remaining in connection with the mother-school which sent them out; and their letters to the teachers and their friends, about the country and the people of that new world to which they have removed, diffuse the utmost pleasure and excite the deepest interest in the old home. I read some of these letters, printed in small, neat, stitched pamphlets, which are sold and circulated for a few pence, together with many other small writings of the same price and form. I read with great interest these child-like, naïve descriptions, fresh with morning dew, from the new world. And this led me to a more intimate acquaintance with the popular folk-literature of England. This subject, however, is too great to be treated of here, and demands a separate chapter. Merely a few words in short.
In order that it may actually be an advantage to the child to learn to read in the school, it is of importance that when it leaves the school it may find something good to read—something improving for the understanding, something ennobling for the heart. Rich men’s children have this in superabundance: the children of the poor have long had, and still in many countries have—when they leave school—no other reading of an amusing kind to go to than wretched ballads, rude stories, immoral tales and pictures, which degrade mind and taste—and they form themselves accordingly. In England, and in various cultivated countries, people have begun zealously to provide for the needs of the reading portion of the lower classes. Societies have been formed both in the Episcopal church and other religious bodies, for the diffusion of useful and entertaining reading, designed especially for the youth of the lower classes who have the wish to read, but who have not the means of purchasing expensive books. Small works, illustrated with beautiful vignettes, circulate in England by thousands, especially narratives, biographies, and such like, which are calculated to please the most uneducated as well as the most childish mind. The number of these writings, and so called “tracts”—which are sold at from one penny to six-pence each—is immense in England. They circulate over the whole country, and may be met with in all the book-shops.
In the Ragged Schools, in the Model Boarding-houses, in the Home for poor emigrants, in the Dormitory for thieves, in many benevolent institutions, had I seen a copper-plate portrait of a handsome, middle-aged gentleman, holding a roll of paper in his hand, from which he seemed about to read. This was the portrait of Lord Ashley, now Earl of Shaftesbury. It was thus that he stood up, time after time, in Parliament, with narratives which he had collected and written down from the life of the working-classes of England, with its neglects and necessities, its temptations to crime, and its bitterness against society, especially in the manufacturing districts. It was thus that he continued to stand forth and to plead, spite of opposition, derision, reproach, and threats, until he aroused that universal attention and that universal sympathy for the sufferings of the lower classes of society, which he made it his mission to search into and to alleviate. Thus, he became the promoter of important reforms, and of many excellent institutions for the oppressed and the fallen of the laboring classes. Thus, he became so well known for his spirit of active human kindness, that not long since, the thieves of London, to the number of more than a thousand—if I am not mistaken—sent to Lord Ashley, requesting he would meet them at a certain place which they named, where they wished to ask his advice, as to how they might get into some better way of life. Lord Ashley undertook to meet these thieves. These dangerous classes had laid aside their fearful aspect for the occasion. They came now as repentant children to a father, to whose counsel and guidance they would submit themselves. During this meeting, his lordship wished to give a small sum of money to an old man, but not having small change with him, produced a sovereign, and asked if some one would go out and get change for him. Many hands were stretched forth, and Lord Ashley gave the gold coin to a boy, who immediately sprang out with it. As he remained a considerable time away, a general uneasiness spread itself through the assembly; all looked eagerly toward the door, all were evidently anxious that he should not abuse the confidence of his lordship; and when, at length, he returned with the proper amount of change, a general satisfaction showed itself.