Charities for Children in San Francisco [pp. 78-101]

Chartztes for Children in San Francisco.
town. The father died soon after the
arrest of the childi en, but the drunken
mother still haunts the house of the society, cursing it wildly for robbing her
of her children.
Tie last is of a boy who presented
himself at the Home in a most ragged
and neglected condition. He said his
name was "Silas Fewclothes, from the
State of Arkansas, sixteen years of age."
He readily admitted that it was not his
true name, but said it filled the bill under
the circumstances, and no power on
earth should make him give any other:
he had run away from home and lived a
vagabond life in Texas and the southwest for eleven months, was "the latest
exponent of the parable of the prodigal
son," and did not intend to disgrace his
family any more. He wanted employment long enough to get decent clothes,
and get back home. He would not allow the society to send to his parents
for money for his fare, but earned enough
to clothe himself decently, and to have
a few dollars in his pocket to start with,
and then started off. In a couple of
months word was received that he had
reached home safely, together with a
letter of thanks from his mother.
Such are the stories, repeated over
and over with variations, of the seven or
eight hundred cases a year that come to
the several aid societies, - that of the
Indian girl and "Silas Fewclothes"
alone being at all exceptional. The
same circumstances lead to children's
finding themselves in the care of orphan
asylums; it is only in the after disposi tion of them that the story differs.
It must be obvious that there is a ne cessary antagonism between the advo cates oforphan asylums and the advocates
of aid societies. There is a fundamental
difference of opinion between them as to
method. I heard a very warm debate on
this point at the meeting of the Ameri can Social Science Association ten years
ago. Most of the experts, led by Mr.
Frank Sanborn, of the Massachusetts
State Board of Charities, inveighed
against "institution life" for children,
and urged that nature herself pointed to
the home as the only place for them.
The friends of asylums and reform
schools reasoned on the other hand, that
really proper homes, where people were
willing to take stray children, often vicious ones, were too rare to be counted
on; that in the asylum wise and experienced managers, experts in dealing with
neglected children, could be had, and
would be much better for them than miscellaneous strangers all over the country;
that no really close guard could be kept
over children so scattered. Which was
right I do not undertake to say: the major.
ity opinion was unquestionably against
institution life, and continues so among
charity experts. To give an idea of the
intensity with which this view is sometimes put, I quote some expressions from
an address by Mr. Smiley. He says that
asyltum children "are kept in herds and
not in families, and hence subject to rules
and training necessitated by this abnor mal life." "Every delinquent mother
and every drunken father nowv knows
that he or she can indulge their vices,
and get rid of their children. Thousands
of widowed mothers, learning that they
can marry again if not encumbered with
children, are putting their little ones in
asylums. The asylum thus offers a pre mium to child-desertion. Rich people
even are living in luxury, while their
nephews, nieces, and grandchildren are
being corrupted in orphan asylums. The
niece of a president of the United States
was, not long ago, in an asylum, while
her uncle, aunt, and three cousins, occu pied the White House." Four-fifths of
the children in asylums, he goes on, "rep resent indulgence by the asylum found ers and managers towards parents and
relatives who wish to shirk responsibili ties imposed by nature upon them." 1
1 Address before the Section of Economic Science and
Statistics, American Association for the Advance ment of Science, August, I888. Proceedings of the As sociation, Vol. XXXVII.
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