A LADY'S IMPRESSIONS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF THE THAMES ORPHANAGE.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3399, 13 November 1879, Page 2

A LADY'S IMPRESSIONS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF THE THAMES ORPHANAGE.

To the Editor of the EtBNiNGt Stab.) Sib,—On Monday last, with a party of ladies and gentlemen, I visited the Kauaeranga Valley. After lunch we went for a stroll to the grass paddock of theEecroation Ground, and found the little children, tenants of the Orphanage, crossing from the Orphanage grounds over to the grass paddock we were on. My impression, from what I saw nnd heard, was that the heart of the Matron and Master were not in their work. The rule and control was by scolding and loud calling, not by love. The little baby was not convoyed across the creek by cither the Master or Matron ; the servant girl was left to do that. The Matron certainly took it for a few (say ten) minutes, but it was soon given back to the girl, and poor little baby, it was covered with mosquito bites: not much of a mother's love shown to that little baby it struck me. A mother's love would have devised something to save it from such misery as those mosquite bites must have cost it; neither would it have been handed over to the girl for hour after hour. All the time I was on the grass paddock. I did not hear one kind word or one loring expression to any of the children, but I heard a large amount of seoldingi and cross manner. Neither Master or Matron joined in or promoted these little ones' games. It was the paid Master and Matron who, for the remuneration given, put up with the annoyance of all that tribe, and not the father and mother of largo family entering fully into all the joys and sorrows of ;those little ones, and training them by love and firm judicious kindness into becoming, as they advanced in years, good members of society. Such ■ were the • impressions on my mind from that afternoon's visit.—'l am, &c, Eachel.