The Dangerous Classes of New York, Part VI [pp. 631-632]

632APPLETONS' JO LTRNAL OF POPULAR [JUNE 4,
though the effect passes like the April cloud. On a broad scale, prob ably no remedy that man could apply would ever cure this fatal dis ease of society. It may, however, be diminished in its ravages, and
prevented in a large measure. The check to its devastations in a la boring or poor class will be the facility-of marriage, the opening of
new channels of female work, but, above all, the influences of educa tion and religion.
As a simple, practical measure to save from this vice the girls of
the honest poor, nothing has ever been equal to the
LID USTRIAL SCfHO OL.
This remedy was applied very early in the movement which I have
been describing. It is simply an expedient for educating in indus trious habits the girl-vagrants of the street, and for bringing into
connection the two extremes of society. Lady-volunteers are found
who are willing to assist in the teaching; salaried teachers are secured;
a hall is opened, and a meal is prepared. The little beggars and girl rovers of the street are beguiled in; they are taught in a stirring and
lively manner, especially through the "Object System," and soon are
set at industrial work, which they are eager to learn. The meal sup plies their wants, which they were gratifying by begging; they grad ually earn by labor the shoes and garments which they were so desti tute of; the little songs and festivals, and the bustle and work of the
schlool, attract them; above all, the influence of these ladies, so far
above them, and so unselfish and pure to their eyes, has a wonderful
power on their wild natures. Whatever coarseness or vileness they
may have learned, they never show to them. The thought of moral
purity and of unselfishness begins to dawn within their souls. They
come to like the school and the teachers; they get new habits of
labor and attention and cleanliness; the vagabond life is less alluring
to them; industry begins to please them; they are commencing, in
fine, the great transformation from creatures of impulse and idleness
and shiftlessness to beings under control, who are learning the first
elements in the profound lesson of labor and duty.
The influences which surround them seem, on any given day, almost trifling and superficial; yet they are founded on such deep principles that they need only a patient continuance, day after day, and
week after week, and year after year, to change the character and
destiny of a whole class, and to show their happy effects far away in
the dark records of the prison and the dry tables of statistics of childish crime and suffering.
No one charity or agency of benevolence in this city has ever produced such untold and far-reaching blessings among the daughters of
the poor as the Industrial Schools. They have saved thousands of
little girls, who were growing up amid brothels and in crowded cellars
or attics, from lives of shame and crime. They have made of them
honest, industrious, cleanly, and moral women, who have become servants in our families or the wives of mechanics and decent laboring.
men, and sometimes even the wives of persons of wealth and position.
They seem an absolute prevention of beggary, pauperism, and sexual
vice.
In seventeen years of experience in these schools, the writer has
known of no girl coming forth from them to be a pauper or beggar;
and, out of tens of thousands of children who have come under their
influence, he has only, after the closest inquiry, heard of some eight or
ten who have followed criminal careers for a livelihood, or have fallen
into sexual degradation. Yet the little girls of the industrial schools
are the very class from which prostitutes are fed.
The remarkable diminution in feminine criminal offences during
the last sixteen years, as shown by an examination of the reports of
the Board of Police and of the City Prisons, is a striking proof of
the profound influence of these simple agencies of charity and reform.
These figures I shall present fully hereafter.
The good influences are largely derived from the cooperating influence of the higher classes. The culture, refinement, and purity of
the fortunate stoop to the lower and debased to lift them up. The
two extremes are brought together, not without advantage to both.
The objections made to these schools are, that they do a work
which ought to be done by the public schools, and that they reward
pauperism.
It is true that we aim, by our system of popular education, to
reach all classes, and to a degree we do combine the children of the
rich and the poor under one method of education. But, in every large
city, there is a considerable community of the unfortunate classes,
whose children are growing up to be burdens or pests to society. They
are boys and girls who are employed in street-trades, or are sent out
by their parents to beg, or are roving the streets, soon becoming
thieves and prostitutes. They require peculiar treatment, and indi vidual means to reach them as a class, and thus educate them. Some
are too ragged and filthy for the public schools; some can only attend
a few hours; others can only afford to come if they are assisted with
food or occasional gifts of clothing and shoes.
To bring them to school, special agents are needed, to hunt about
the docks and low streets, and to persuade the parents to educate
them. To keep them within a place of education, and break up their
vagrant habits, a lively and stirring method of teaching is necessary,
and much industrial training must be intermingled; while their bad
habits and unfortunate circumstances should be counterbalanced by a
patient, moral influence in the school, which should come from a deep
"enthusiasm of humanity" and a fervent spirit of unsectarian religion.
All these conditions could not be supplied in a public school. An
eleemosynary branch in our Board of Education would be productive
of endless difficulties. Much moral or industrial training cannot be
expected in ward schools; and the contact of some of these wild and
ragged children with our own in the city schools is, to say the least,
not desirable.
No. The management of Industrial and Ragged Schools is much
better left to private associations. They are a necessity to the public
well-being, but can wisely be intrusted to individual philanthropy and
discretion.
The objection that they form paupers is peculiarly wide of the
truth. They, above all, train to industry and the habit of labor, and
the sense of self-respect. Their tendency is continually to elevate
their pupils, and place them above pauperism and beyond the lowest
temptations.
While vice, poverty, and neglect, continue among the laboringclasses, so long must there be some such agencies as these Industrial
Schools; and there is assuredly no way in which the benevolent can
so easily and so efficiently aid the extremely poor as by contributing
to the maintenance of these institutions.
LOVE AND FORGETFULNESS.
FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO.
S INCE to my lips I pressed thy brimming bowl,
Since on thy hands my pallid brow I laid,
Since I have breathed the sweet breath of thy soul,
A perfume hidden deep in depths of shade;
Since from thy star I caught one brilliant beam,
Now veiled, alas, forever from my gaze
Since fell upon my life's full-flowing stream
One rose-leaf torn from thy young joyous days;
Since it was given me to hear thee while
Thy words were murmuring' I am only thine;"
Since I have seen thee weep, have seen thee smile,
And felt thy loving lips and eyes on mine
Now I can say, while flit the rapid hours,
Pass, pass forever! I no more grow oldFleet fast away with all your faded flowers;
One flower no hand can cull, my heart shall hold.
Thy wing in brushing by no droplet dashes
From the full vase which to my lips I press;
My soul has more of fire than thine of ashes My heart more love than thine forgetfulness.
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