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spective supporters as unfailing specifics; but the result of all has nevertheless been an increase of crime in the course of this century far more than commensurate with the increase of population; and our rulers still avow themselves in the dark as to the best means of disposing of our criminals; but it does not seem to have occurred to any one that if a criminal population be so troublesome, so dangerous to our colonies, and so expensive at home; it would be far better to prevent than to punish. We all know that crime is comparatively rare in country places, and that it is only in populous cities that it becomes rampant. "A London thief" is a master of his business; and a policeman will detect in an instant the hand of an expert and practised London burglar in the manner of breaking into a house: but no one seems to have considered that in order to become perfect there must be a teaching, with frequent practice superadded; and that if our criminal records are filled from the pupils of one great school, the best, and probably the only way of lessening the number of convictions, would be to break up if possible this seminary of vice. It is a conviction of this which has led a few,

too

few, benevolent persons to endeavour, ere it

be too late, to counteract the mischief, and arrest the progress of the moral pestilence whose very magnitude has hitherto prevented the attempt. Hence the establishment of "RAGGED SCHOOLS."

Let those who may be disposed to doubt the expediency or the success of a movement begun by humble tradesmen, overlooked, or perhaps scorned by the great and the wealthy, remember that the world was once in a worse state than now, the rich more licentious, the poor far more wretched and corrupt; and who then undertook its reform, and in great measure accomplished it? - Eleven poor men, one of the middling class, and one gentleman and scholar! Though opposed and despised by the proud and the great, and too often maltreated by the wretched beings whose condition they strove to amend, "through evil report and good report," they did effect a change of thought and feeling which has been propagated to the farthest regions of the earth, and is still animating the true believers of the blessed law then taught, to walk in the steps of their first Great Master,* and to carry

* I know nothing more touching than the answer of one of those worthy tradesmen to a person who asked him who was at their head-"We have no head, Sir,

the message of peace to the hearts of the wretched.

The danger to society at large from the unhappy class which for the first time has found care and sympathy from the teachers of the Ragged Schools, has been seen and recognized in other countries also: so long ago as 1840, a work was published at Paris, by M. Fregier, on the dangerous classes of the population in great cities, and the methods of ameliorating them,† which had its origin in a question proposed by

we are all servants of One Master.". A reply worthy of the time when Peter and the other Apostles stood before the Sanhedrim, and avowed themselves the undaunted preachers of that doctrine which was "to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness." It was the blood of such men, shed like water in the service of that One Master, which was, as an ancient Christian writer expresses it, the Semen Christianorum which grew up into so rich a harvest.

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Voici les termes mêmes de la question mise au concours par l' Acadèmie des sciences morales et politiques: Rechercher d'après des observations positives, quels sont les élémens dont se compose à Paris, ou dans toute autre grande ville, cette partie de la population qui forme une classe dangereuse par ses vices, son ignorance et sa misère; indiquer les moyens, que l'administration, les hommes riches ou aisés, les ouvriers intelligens et laborieux pourraient employer pour améliorer cette classe dangereuse et depravée. "Des Classes dangereuses." Avant propos.

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the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences and in that year M. M. Demetz and Bretignieres established an asylum at Mettray, intended for the reformation of young criminals, on somewhat the same plan as our Philanthropic Society: other establishments of the same kind are to be found in France, as well as in other countries, but every where there is the same radical fault; the reformation is not attempted till some overt act of a criminal nature has been committed, and the boy is become amenable to the laws. The simple, and one would have thought, very obvious plan, of breaking up the great training school of vice, by instructing and reclaiming these outcasts of society before they have become adepts in the arts of villany, never seems to have occurred to any till a few years back. The insurrections and slaughters which have deluged with blood almost every great city in Europe, have formed a fearful comment on the mistakes and neglects of governments.

There is an extraordinary disinclination in most minds to search to the bottom of things: in the natural sciences, indeed, we begin to see that a few simple principles form the groundwork of all knowledge; and he who takes the phænomenon as it is, without inquiring into its

causes, is considered to have forfeited all claim to scientific distinction; but in politics it is far otherwise there none look for the first principles on which all law or government must be founded, if it is to be either permanent in itself, or advantageous to mankind; and the emergencies of the day are, for the most part, met by expedients of a no less ephemeral character. A law is repealed, perhaps, which seems to have caused discontent; or another made, about which popular clamour has been raised; but he who should go back to those moving springs of human action which ought to be thought of whenever legislation is attempted, would be held an impracticable visionary by every statesman in Europe; and would be told that "practical men" cannot lose their time over theories. These eminently practical men, nevertheless, have found their task of governing nations grow year by year, more onerous -year by year the prospect grows darker, and none seem now able to see their way at all clearly before them. There must be a fault in the system when this is the case; and as surface treatment has not succeeded, perhaps they will begin at last to see that a different plan may possibly be better. Let us see if there be not some clear and simple

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