{"id":141,"date":"2020-03-26T16:07:21","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T16:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/?page_id=141"},"modified":"2021-07-12T19:31:01","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T19:31:01","slug":"600-household-words-conducted-by","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/household-words-2\/600-household-words-conducted-by\/","title":{"rendered":"Pg. 600"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Household<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

600 HOUSEHOLD WORDS. [Conducted by<\/p>\n\n\n\n

giving to those boys to whom the\nknowledge will be valuable\u2014boys who will soon be emi\u00adgrants\u2014some practical experience\nin bricks and mortar. Adjoining the dining-hall and school\u00adroom (one\nlarge-windowed rural hall serves both uses) is a neat and ample chapel in which\nthe resident chaplain, the Reverend Sydney Turner, reads morning prayers, and\nofficiates on Sunday before a congregation of remarkably attentive boys. The\nboys at Red Hill have faith in their chaplain. They live under his eye, and\nexperience the kind spirit of religion which dictates his daily care on their\nbehalf. They feel the genuineness of his admonitions, and are, therefore,\nnotably attentive in the chapel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are corn fields, and\nfields containing vegetables in so immature a state, that our ex\u00adperience in\nagriculture declines to pronounce what they may be. In such fields, boys are\nhoeing. That is the work least agreeable to the young labourers. Here is a hay\nfield. We have got over stiles, through hedges now and then, and over ditches.\nThere is no sign of prison. It is all a simple farm scene; and the farm, being\nupon a hill, has, spread about it\u2014under the eyes of the poor boys who have too\noften been bred to vice over the gutter of a miserable court\u2014a wide rich\nwoodland prospect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the boys under the\nburning sun extremely busy with their long forks tossing up the hay. On this\nthe hottest day, cut grass may, I suppose, be dried in half-an-hour; but I will\nnot venture an opinion, lest I be laughed at, even by this very little boy of\nten years old. He is a new comer, from prison in Liverpool. He never made hay\nbefore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat did you make?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat had you been doing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWalking about the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing else?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI went to school.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the old story, the\nschool and the street; the street getting the better of the school; a great\ndeal learned in the street; a very little in the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The professor of haymaking has\nsome conversation with us, apart from his class, concerning neighbour Bunter,\nwhose hay had been spoiling for want of hands, and who had got it in by the\nhelp of half-a-dozen Red Hill boys. He had wished he might have twenty such to\nhelp him. Two other farmers in the like perplexity had asked for hands. The\nboys on such occasions feel proud of the trust put in their good behaviour. \u201cYou\nmust be warned,\u201d some of the boys are told, “how you behave at Farmer\nMallow\u2019s; he is a kind- hearted man, but he looks rough outside. Take care you\ndon\u2019t answer if he scolds, and mind you are very obedient!\u201d One or two faces\nare lighted up with that shrewd look of comprehension, which small boys get,\nwhen they are cast upon the world to prey upon the weaknesses of human\ncharacter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It must not, be supposed that\nevery de\u00adpraved boy who has been in jail and thence transferred to Red Hill, is\ntransformed at the same time into a pattern of obedience and virtue. The truth\nis very different. In the first place, the authorities at Red Hill have not the\nadvantage of applying their efforts to a single class of offenders. It wants\nthe aid of other institutions with which it might divide the work that must be\ndone. One institution might then take the class of offenders whose stay at the\nReformatory is upon compulsion; another, might take those sent by their\nfriends, as to a school; another, those who come of their own free will. One\nmight take children, and another might take youths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first instance it was\nattempted at Red Hill to part the boys into families;\u2014to adopt the home system\nof discipline that has been so successful at Mettray. That plan failed for want\nof Englishmen competent\u2014at any rate on the temptation of small salary\u2014to\nadminister it. The several heads of houses fell together by the ears. It was\nnecessary to return to the old system of official and sub-official, and even\nthen to make many changes. It is very easy to imagine that, if the experi\u00adment\nat Red Hill had been directed by anything less genuine than the sense, earnest\u00adness,\nand devotion of its present director, it would have been, at its beginning, a\ncomplete failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, it has not failed. Four\nboys out of five are rescued by it. The fifth very often takes advantage of the\nunwalled grounds, and unbarred windows, to escape. They who escape, are almost\ninvariably retaken. They elude detection while they roam the country; but, they\ncome to London in the end, and there they come into the glare of the\nbull\u2019s  eye. One boy who had escaped, was\nlost sight of, about the country, for a year. Then he thought he might venture\nupon London; in London he was seized immediately. The recovered boys are\ntreated as their cha\u00adracters require. The Society never dwells upon the topic\nof its outraged dignity; the object is to save as many boys as possible, and if\na boy can be saved he is forgiven and re\u00adstored to trust. In other cases, it is\nrequisite to use the power of carrying him before the offended majesty of law.\nThe one in five who cannot be reformed at Red Hill, certainly would not be\nimproved for the purposes of free life by prison discipline. He might make a\ngood prisoner, but be good for nothing else. He is a lost man to society. The\nother four, who would all be lost under the common system of neglect, are\nusually sent out to the colonies, where they obtain situations as farm servants\nor in other capacities; and\u2014 with the exception of a few who prove to belong,\nafter all, to the unredeemed fifth part, \u2014do well and live as honest men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has been some tree\nclearing, and there is a long ditch and fence made by the boys. Making a fence,\nthough hard work,
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

600 HOUSEHOLD WORDS. [Conducted by giving to those boys to whom the knowledge will be valuable\u2014boys who will soon be emi\u00adgrants\u2014some practical experience in bricks and mortar. Adjoining the dining-hall and school\u00adroom (one large-windowed rural hall serves both uses) is a neat and ample chapel in which the resident chaplain, the Reverend Sydney Turner, reads […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":664,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-141","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":726,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/141\/revisions\/726"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1853archive.com\/wp_annotation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}