REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS IN PRUSSIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5287, 6 March 1878, Page 3

REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS IN PRUSSIA.

The “ Rough House of Hamburg’* is an institution which our philanthropists would do well to study. Forty years ago Hamburg was renowned for being the wickedest city in the world. “ Its vice was more open, its materialism grosser, and its religion more of a sham.’ The only hope of religion was among the younger classes of criminals. A few spasmodic efforts were made to teach and refine them, but all in vain, while at length even these were given up, and respectable Hamburg folded its hand and wondered at the wickedness of its neighbors. Then a certain Imihanuel Wichern, firm of purpose, and believing in the old maxim, “ Desperate courage makes one majority,” put his hand to the enterprise—his heart in the work—and earned it through. The enterprise, like the famous Refuge of Fritz Miller, has never asked for State or individual aid, and has always b eu amply supported. In October, 183 ', Immanuel Wichern and his mothor opened the doors of a small cottage known as “Das Kanhe Haus,” announced their purpose, and waited. At the end of a week three boys bail come ; at the end of two months there were twelve, all that the house could hold. Their ages varied from 6 to 15, and they were uniformly steeped in crime. Such a band of prematurely developed rascals was probably never collected together before. Wichern was a sentimentalist, and the only rule was love. There was no restraint ; the inmates came and went at will. A high wall which surrounded the grounds was removed, in order that there should not he even the semblinee of forcible control. At the end of a year the first twelve boys wore reformed. Applications tor admission poured in, and the twelve built themselves a new house, and gave up the old one to the new-comers. Then a house was built for girls. The day it was finished it was filled—and filled with the vilest of the vile. Tho boys had given trouble enough, but the girls were by far more wicked and unmanageable. But Vf ichern’s setimentalism conquered here, too. From that.time to this, the Rough House of Hamburg has pressed on in its

triumphant career., , It ( mow consists of thirty-eight, separate houses, owns 400 acres of land, and educates!yearly more than 1100 hoys and girls.i, Of itsilSjOOOrgradilates not more than 5 per cent, have fallen. It has given rise to more than 800 similar reformatories iu Prussia. Of these, that of Berlin, founded in 1858, is the largest, and keeps busy, merely in the work of superintendence, fortyeight men. Tne order of the "Knights.of St. John,” of which we heard so much during the Franco-Prussian war, was founded at the Rough House of Hamburg, and now controls all the kindred institutions in the country. Immanuel Wiohern is still at the head of affairs.