themselves, the fighting English demigods! So, should it be the hap of our nation to find itself ere long in the probation of some such enterprise of all its strength, some such contest of life and death, as many foresee for it, little doubt that then, in the general shaking which shall ensue, fallacies shall fall from it like withered leaves, and meaner habits with them, and that then many a mind to which at present the sole competent use of pen or of voice seems to be in a splenetic service of small

sarcasm, shall receive a noble rouse for the service of the collective need. Meanwhile, in these yet clear heavens, and ere the hurricane comes that shall huddle us together, it is for any one here and there that, having escaped the general taint of cynicism, has dared to propose to himself some positive intellectual labour of the old enthusiastic sort, to secure the necessary equanimity by pre-arranged and persevering solitude.

THIS is the age of Reformatories. Judges have declared against the cruelty of awarding punishment, pure and simple, to those whose chief fault is utter neglect on the part of parents to teach them what is right, or diligence in teaching them what is wrong; clergymen have preached about it; Parliaments have voted upon it; public meetings have declared against it; and, what is still better, Mettray, Redhill, and hundreds of other similar asylums for young offenders have been established, and have proved the possibility, and therefore the duty, of reforming wicked boys, instead of severely whipping them, or confining them, or hanging them. So undeniable has the reformatory success been, that we have almost ceased to hear the plausible argument that bad boys. are taken care of, and honest boys left to shift for themselves. The Christian instinct of warm-hearted people long ago burst through the bonds which this argument would lay upon them, and we now see clearly enough that the argument was only a sophism, and that the real answer to it is this, that wickedness is like a loathsome infectious disease, and that to remove a bad case to a hospital is not more a kindness to the

neighbourhood. neighbourhood. In fact, the reformatory work done by the removal of a clever ringleader in wickedness is by no means to be measured by the benefit conferred upon the individual, or even by the advantage to society of having one knave transformed into an honest member; the reformation of your one knave probably breaks up a gang, and leaves many lads, who would soon have joined the same, to the more wholesome influence of their pastors and masters. Within my own knowledge, the establishment of a reformatory for a small number of boys, in the neighbourhood of a large city, almost immediately produced a marked effect upon the number of juvenile offenders brought before the magistrates.

Nevertheless, every one feels that a poor lad who has never been committed for stealing, but who is quite willing to steal if occasion offer, a young thief in posse, if not in esse, can make out something of a case against reformatories, if they shut their doors upon him as not being one of the brotherhood. you ever been in gaol? No. a thief? Not by profession; and my doings in that way have been so small, that I scarcely deserve the name. I am

Have

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cepted or deadened by it, or only transmitted the clearer.

What in the blasé habit of mind renders it so hurtful to the interests of literature is that it introduces into all departments a contentedness with the proximate-i.e. with the nearest thing that will do. For real power, for really great achievement in any department of intellect, a certain fervour of feeling, a certain avidity as for conquest, a certain disdain of the petty circle within the horizon as already one's own and possessed, or, at the least, a certain quiet hopefulness, is absolutely necessary. But let even a naturally strong mind catch the contagion of the Blasé, and this spur is gone. The near then satisfiesthe near in fact, which makes History poor and beggarly; the near in doctrine, which annuls Speculative Philosophy, and provides instead a miscellany of little tenets more or less shrewd; the near in imagination, which checks in Poetry all force of wing. I believe that this defect may be observed very extensively in our current literature, appearing in a double form. In the first place, it may be seen affecting the personal literary practice of many men of ability and culture far beyond the average, making them contented on all subjects with that degree of intellectual exertion which simply clears them of the Trite and brings them to the first remove from commonplace, and thus gradually unfitting them for the larger efforts for which nature may have intended them. There are not a few such men-the cochin-chinas of literature, as one might call them; sturdy in the legs, but with degenerate power of flight. In the second place, the same cause produces in these men and in others, when they act as critics, a sense of irritation and of offended taste (not the less mean that it is perfectly honest), when they contemplate in any of their contemporaries the gestures and evolutions of an intellect more natural than their own. The feeling is that which we might suppose in honest poultry, regarding the movements of unintelligible birds over

poultry, outrage all principles of correct ornithology. Let any one who wishes to understand more particularly what is meant, read the speeches of the Grecian chiefs in council in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, and then fancy how such a bit of writing would fare at the hands of many literary critics now-a-days, if it came before them anonymously. But it is, perhaps, as an influence tending to arrest the development of speculative thought, specially so called, that the distaste of so many literary men for all but the proximate operates most detrimentally. The habit of sneering at Speculative Philosophy, both name and thing, is a world too common among men who ought to know better. Sneer as they will, it has been true from the beginning of time, and will be true to the end, that the precise measure of the total intellectual worth of any man, or of any age, is the measure of the speculative energy lodged in him, or in it. Take our politics of the last twelve years for an example. How much of British political writing during these years has consisted in vilification of certain men, basing their theories on elementary principles, and styled visionaries or fanatics accordingly. And yet,

if matters are well looked at, these very men are now seen to be the only men who apprehended tendencies rightly; they alone have not had to recant; and it is the others-the from-hand-to-mouth men in politics-that have turned out to be the fools.

Besides other partial remedies that there may be for the wide-spread and still spreading vice of the Blasé among our men of intellect, there may be in reserve, for aught we know, some form of that wholesale remedy by which Providence in many an instance hitherto has revived the jaded organisms of nations. Those fops in uniform, those loungers of London clubs and ballrooms, who a few years ago used to be the types to our wits of manhood grown useless, from whose lips even their mother-speech came minced and clipped for very languor of life,-how in that

themselves, the fighting English demigods! So, should it be the hap of our nation to find itself ere long in the probation of some such enterprise of all its strength, some such contest of life and death, as many foresee for it, little doubt that then, in the general shaking which shall ensue, fallacies shall fall from it like withered leaves, and meaner habits with them, and that then many a mind to which at present the sole competent use of pen or of voice seems to be in a splenetic service of small

sarcasm, shall receive a noble rouse for the service of the collective need. Meanwhile, in these yet clear heavens, and ere the hurricane comes that shall huddle us together, it is for any one here and there that, having escaped the general taint of cynicism, has dared to propose to himself some positive intellectual labour of the old enthusiastic sort, to secure the necessary equanimity by pre-arranged and persevering solitude.

THIS is the age of Reformatories. Judges have declared against the cruelty of awarding punishment, pure and simple, to those whose chief fault is utter neglect on the part of parents to teach them what is right, or diligence in teaching them what is wrong; clergymen have preached about it; Parliaments have voted upon it; public meetings have declared against it; and, what is still better, Mettray, Redhill, and hundreds of other similar asylums for young offenders have been established, and have proved the possibility, and therefore the duty, of reforming wicked boys, instead of severely whipping them, or confining them, or hanging them. So

undeniable has the reformatory success been, that we have almost ceased to hear the plausible argument that bad boys are taken care of, and honest boys left to shift for themselves. The Christian instinct of warm-hearted people long ago burst through the bonds which this argument would lay upon them, and we now see clearly enough that the argument was only a sophism, and that the real answer to it is this, that wickedness is like a loathsome infectious disease, and that to remove a bad case to a hospital is not more a kindness to the

neighbourhood. In fact, the reformatory work done by the removal of a clever ringleader in wickedness is by no means to be measured by the benefit conferred upon the individual, or even by the advantage to society of having one knave transformed into an honest member; the reformation of your one knave probably breaks up a gang, and leaves many lads, who would soon have joined the same, to the more wholesome influence of their pastors and masters. Within my own knowledge, the establishment of a reformatory for a small number of boys, in the neighbourhood of a large city, almost immediately produced a marked effect upon the number of juvenile offenders brought before the magistrates.

Nevertheless, every one feels that a poor lad who has never been committed for stealing, but who is quite willing to steal if occasion offer, a young thief in posse, if not in esse, can make out something of a case against reformatories, if they shut their doors upon him as not being one of the brotherhood. Have you ever been in gaol? No. Are you a thief? Not by profession; and my doings in that way have been so small, that I scarcely deserve the name. I am

But I have no objection to steal, says the boy; only try me, and you shall see that there is no bar to my becoming a thief to-morrow. Well, then, become a thief, and, when you are one, we will take you in hand and reform you.

There is enough of truth in this caricature to make us glad that there are such things as Industrial Schools and Boys' Homes, to which the passport is not juvenile crime, but rather juvenile misery and misfortune. In every large town there are many boys, (and girls too, but I am just now speaking of boys only,) who are not actually criminal, but who are very likely to become so in times of idleness, and under the influence of temptation; boys of careless parents, or bad parents; neglected orphans; boys brought up to no trade; boys who have never been educated, and who have forgotten even the smattering of knowledge they picked up at the National School; boys who play at pitch-farthing at street-corners, or hang about railway stations, or sweep crossings, or beg for coppers, or do anything else but work for an honest livelihood and prepare themselves to become honest men and good citizens. What is to be done for these boys? The true philosophy of healing involves a careful diagnosis of the disease. In this case the disease is, fundamentally, idleness; the cure is industry. The idleness is in a certain sense artificial; the industry must be artificial too.

It was with such views as these that, some years ago, a school was established in Cambridge under the name of the Cambridge Industrial School.

The

school is still flourishing and virtually doing a great deal of reformatory work. Many boys who have been in the school are now well-conducted, useful men; not a few owe to the training which they received in it all that they are, and all that they hope to be; and some of the cases are so striking, that I think many of the readers of this magazine will thank me for putting before them the simple annals of several poor lads, which they will find a little further on.

concerning the organization and principles of the school in question. I will speak of it with as much fairness as it is possible to speak of a child which you have nursed from the cradle, and watched through its teething and other infantine infirmities; and I would say, once for all, that whatever good may have come from the school, is due (under God) not so much to its organization as to the superlative qualifications for the work possessed by the master whom the managers were fortunate enough to engage. I can easily conceive that an Industrial School might be established, apparently upon the same principles as that at Cambridge, and might fail; I have no doubt there are fit men to be had; only it must be remembered that the qualifications are such as can hardly be gained by training. With regard to some of them, at least, the Industrial Master nascitur, non fit.

The Cambridge Industrial School was intended for about fifty boys; and sometimes there have been more than that number in attendance-generally less. The boys may or may not be criminal; inquiry is of course made as to their history, but no objection is made on the score of not possessing a certificate of roguery. The school has about six or seven acres of land in spade cultivation, and the working of this land is the staple occupation of the boys. The land is a cold, heavy clay, and was terrible work for the boys at first, but it has given way to the general reformatory influences of the place, and is now very manageable and docile. Besides the field or garden work, there is a workshop, in which the boys pursue the useful occupations of tailoring and shoemaking, becoming snips or snobs according to fancy-only with this reservation, that a boy who has once declared for breeches must not go to boots, nor vice versa. Further industrial employment is afforded by a greenhouse; and there is a tolerably extensive piggery, the inmates of which may indeed be regarded as liberal subscribers to the institution, and amongst its most energetic sup

In addition to the workshop there are two rooms, one for the feeding of the mind, the other for that of the body. A certain portion of each day is passed in the former occupation, under the direction of the head master, who also superintends the outdoor exercises: this is an essential part of the plan-the field and the school act and react upon each other the former is the place for exercising the virtues instilled in the latter, and any faults which appear in the field can be discussed and corrected afterwards in school. The feeding is confined to one meal a day. I do not mean that the boys eat no more; but only one meal is provided by the school funds; whatever else is necessary to support life the boys are obliged to find for themselves. Hence there is small temptation to enter the school on false pretences; the maxim of little to eat and plenty to do, serves to keep away all those who are not proper subjects for the school's reformatory operations.

The admission is entirely free.. In the first instance a small payment was demanded, twopence per week; and I remember the case of a sturdy boy who used to work hard at the school all day, and then go round with a basket calling "Trotters!" through the streets of Cambridge all the evening in order to pay his school fee and find himself breakfast. But it was found, after some experience, that the payment of twopence per week excluded many whom it was desirable, above all others, to take in, and the rule was consequently abrogated.

The school has been open for exactly ten years. During this period nearly 400 boys have passed through it. These have remained for longer or shorter times, as the case might be some attending regularly for several years; others coming for a time, then getting work, then returning when work is not to be had-a practice encouraged by the managers, and which has kept many a poor lad out of mischief; others again coming for a short time, and then, on finding steady work and cleanliness too much for them, returning to idleness

Majesty in the army, fourteen in the navy, and for about fifty of the number good situations have been obtained through the agency of the school. I cannot pretend to weigh exactly the successes against the failures. I know that there have been some of the latter; I am equally sure that there have been many of the former; and even in cases which have seemed to the Committee and the master of the school quite hopeless, a seed may have been sown which should spring up afterwards. This was, in fact, demonstrated to be possible in a recent case. A boy, regarded as nearly the worst whom the school ever received, and who left the school without giving the master a ray of hope, has lately written a letter from India, in a new strain, announcing that he is acting as Scripture Reader in the regiment to which he belongs.

I ought to add that, during the ten years of the school's existence, the head master has been the same, the shoemaking-master the same, and the tailoring-master was the same till about two years ago, when he obtained preferment in one of the Colleges.

So much for the machinery of the school, which I have compressed into as short a space as possible, for fear of wearying my readers, and in order that I may carry them forward as quickly as possible to that part of my paper upon which I chiefly depend for any interest which may attach to it. Indeed I should hardly have ventured to draw the still life picture of the school, if I had not been able to add some sketches of the inmates, which can hardly fail to be deemed striking: some portions of the sketches will have the additional interest of being drawn by the industrial boys themselves.

I proceed, then, to give an account of some of the boys, and extracts from letters received from them: there are obvious reasons why, in some cases, the names ought not to be given, and, as they cannot be given in some, I shall withhold them in all, designating the boys by their numbers on the school register.