DESTITUTE CHILDREN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5657, 17 May 1879, Page 3

DESTITUTE CHILDREN.

(To the Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald.) Sir, —The terrible spread of purulent ophthalmia in the Randwick and Benevolent Asylums, and your own hints that we may be not only rearing a great number of paupers, but a great number of “ blind paupers,” has set many minds a thinking, and has emboldened me to write what has been long in my mind. Just now in all the colonies a great many thoughtful minds are being exercised as to the best methods for relieving and training abandoned or destitute children. The Institution or Barracks system, adopted in all the colonies at first, has been almost entirely done away with in Adelaide and Tasmania, and is fast dying out in Melbourne, and is giving way to the far more natural and humane “ Boarding out system.” New South Wales, slow and cautious, is only just contemplating the change, and certainly has an advantage in being able to profit by the experience of the other colonies. One point has been already gained. Most seen agreed that the institution system is not the truest and best. Even in England it is beginning to give way to what is called “ the home and social method.” It will take long, perhaps, to bring about the change, but there is every hope that it will come, and when it does all will marvel that a system so false to nature, and so liable to abuse should have prevailed so long. Surely, no one who has thought much upon institution life and training can fail to see how utterly contrary it is to God’s plan for the training of the young, as well as to our notions of home life and influence, as a preparation for a child's entry into the world, and battling with its temptations and responsibilities.

How little could either those few gentlemen who met twenty-six years ago, and resolved “ that it is desirable to found an institution for the relief of abandoned and destitute children,” or those ladies who, five years ago, resolved to originate a “ foundling hospital,” have dreamt how many mothers and fathers would be actually encouraged through their efforts to abandon their children. To selfish and indolent parents, in the hour of deepest poverty, to poor abandoned wives and shame-stricken victims of sin, left by selfish cowards, either husbands or paramours,-to fight tho battle for living alone, these institutions are an encouragement to hand over their children and all responsibility about them.

In parting with her children many a mother parts with all that makes life worth living. The maternal love and even labor for them might raise her, bnt when they are gone she mostly sinks lower and lower, and dragging others with her, goes to swell the number of that class that fills our institutions with children.

While we must certainly employ means for relieving destitute children, ought we not to be very sure that they are such as shall not encourage parents to abandon their children ? Is it possible or probable that, had we no asylums like that at itandwick, the hundreds of" children now found in them, would have been deserted by their p meats 1 Perhaps the law would have had to stop in and teach some of them their duties, but even in such cases, it would have trained them better, and brought more good than soft-hearted charity has done in relieving them of all their responsibilities. If we really wish to help and raise an unfortunate man we do not hold out an inducement to him in his weakness and waut to renounce his independence of spirit and allow us to keep him. We rather urge him to turn-to like a man and face his difficulties, and if we be tiue Christians or philanthropists we help him to do this. The principles on which public charity and help are given ought to be the same surely. Anything that iesseus self-dependence and self-respect is an evil, even though good may seem to be done by itj and in this respect nearly all our public charitable institutions fail ; instead of helping people to help themselves they relieve them of their responsibilities, and so prove an encouragement to idleness.

But while these difficulties are to be contended against, and the true principle got at and acted upon, there is much present necessity for careful thought and decision about the best way of dealing with those children, grievously many in number, who must be kept by charity, either public or private. In Adelaide, Melbourne, and Tasmania the “boarding-out system” has been tried with great success. Certainly it is a great advance in the right direction. Having visited some of the little ones thus dealt with in their adopted homes, I can speak with assurance of the pleasing contrast they present to those I have seen in the Itandwick and similar asylums. Their faces tell a tale that no mother can misinterpret. I count tile lot of these little boarders, in the great majority of cases, to be vastly superior, for all true prepuation for after life, to that of their iustitutiou brothers and sisters.

New South Wales has not taken this step, though it scorns she is contemplating it seriously. Objections have been raised to the boardiug-out system, on the ground that most of our country settlers are of a different class to those of the other colonies, or at least Ho those of Melbourne and Adelaide, and are quite unfit because of their modes of living for the responsibility and training of these children. In Tasmania, where the same objections were urged, they have got over the difficulty by settling most of them in the towns with tradespeople, &c„ and the experiment has proved successful. There is no reason that it should not here.

But why should we not adopt more of the method of treating these children which has proved so successful in Germany ? It seems far nearer to God's own way of treating His human family, and at the same time gets rid of many of the abuses to which our public charitable institutions are so subject. Immanuel Wichern, a grand and noble man, gathered poor outcast children into families. Where it jwas possible he engaged a father and mother to superintend each home ; from eight to ten were placed with them, and grew up with their own children, if they had any. Or a widow, with her children, would be placed in a home with a few of these outcasts ; and many a Christian man and woman accepted the trust cheerfully as a work for God, and nob merely as a means of living. This was his way of beginning his great work. Why should not' “ families ” be formed of our destitute boys and girls, and be placed in the charge of fathers and mothers, or widows, or noble unselfish single women, whose lives would he made bright and beautiful by this grand work of love, for which nature has fitted them as much as it has done many mothers ? A little house, a fixed allowance for provisions and clothing, a salary sufficient to keep themselves respectably, and a “ home” might be formed for six or seven children.

The advantages of such a method are many. The children could attend the public schools, and so mix with their fellow-beings in the world, and learn while young to fight against and conquer the temptations which one day they will have to meet —and for which, alas ! our institution-trained children are so ill prepared—when, like caged birds let loose, they enter for the first time on their state of liberty. In their troubles, perplexities, and cares, (and children have these as surely as we), they would have a mother to run to, and as they grew up the friend and counsellor of their childhood would be their adviser still. She would.never lose her interest in them, nor they in'her; they would be bound together, and as they went out one by one from the home to win their own way in life, there would he someone who cared for them, and took an interest in their welfare.

It would be something Kite the home life we prize so dearly forour own children. It is almost needless, however, to point out the advantages of such a system to the children themselves. They are apparent to all. In the boardiug-out system we seem to have the very extreme of the, institution system. In the one case we get, say five or six persons’ direct interest and influence employed in the training of five or six hundred children. In the other we have to get five or six hundred persons’ interest and influence for nearly the same number of children. So many persons suitable and willing to take such a charge would lie hard to find.

In the “family system!’ the work could be far more efficiently done, and by a tenth part of that number. Many more, too, might be interested in each child, for it would be necessary to have ladies who would take the superintendence of each home, and each lady and her circle would soon feel deep interest in its inmates. Many a Christian mother who would not feel inclined to adopt even one such child into her own home, would gladly take the oversight (and perhaps even, were she wealthy,-might bear, the expense) of such a family. ' I have little doubt that after a few years working of this system the State would not have very much to do for these poor outcast ones. I believe, too, that the influence personally brought to bear upon mothers in this way would greatly decrease the number of these abandoned children. “Godsetteth the solitary in families,” and we shall never succeed until we try to work out God’s plans in His own way. , Mahian Jefferiss, April 15. Ketreat,’ Newtown.