WELFARE OF ORPHANS.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 643, 21 June 1921, Page 6

WELFARE OF ORPHANS.

BISHOP AVERILL SPARKS, FAVOURS INSTITUTION LIFEDr. *A. W. Averili expressed his views convincingly, in his address to members of the Orphan Home Trust Board on Thursday week, when he Laid special stress upon the advantages of institution life for children oyer the boarding-out system.! He said it was a matter on which there had been much difference of opinion, and even men of sound eommonsense were not entirely in accord with one another on some of the main points at issue, but the balance of opinion was in agreement with Dr. AverilPs own views on the question He had seen a great deal of the boarding-out system and was convinced t,hat there was much to be preferred a reat homo such as the Orphan Home at Papatoetoe. \ • “I have been more convinced of this 4 since the present matron has been in charge” he said* “I saw much of the boarding-out system in England, but I do not consider it to be in the highest interests of the children. * In a home such as ours, where the childien are not brought up eft masse, as it were, but are treated as individuals, where they are not merely dressed in a uniform and treatetd as inmates of an institution, but as separ-, ate personalities, I am sure they better cared for than they w r ould bein such homes as would take them" to board/’

Sometimes children were received into homes—even into good, homes—more in consideration of the help they might be than of any motive arising out of a genuine desire to give them a good bringing up Under such conditions there was a liability that they vg-uld be called upon to do w<J?k which could not reasonably be considered as within their powers “In our home,” continued , the speaker, “the first interest is the welfare of the children, and I am fectly satisfied we k are on right lines. I should be very sorry to see the home frte at Papatoetoe changed for the boarding-out system.”