ABSTRACT
Three years ago the public were almost entirely unacquainted with the mere existence of schools especially intended for the rescue and reformation of young persons who had fallen into crime. “In the year 1788,” says the Report of the Philanthropic Farm School for 1850, “the attention of several earnest and enlightened men was directed to the increasing numbers of depraved and vagrant children infesting the metropolis and its neighbouring districts, living, and trained to live, by begging and dishonesty.” The difficulties to be encountered were extreme, and such as would have daunted any but those who had their hearts in the work. There was of course no parental control,z of the children; this could not be supplied by the delegation of parental control, for in such cases this seldom existed. A steady, firm, yet kind discipline, with method, regularity, and order in the daily routine, are of course important auxiliaries.
