question of bodily health, there can be no
doubt that the establishment of large
district schools has not conduced in any
appreciable degree to the improvement of the
moral tone of the children. Neither is the
education imparted in such schools at all a
satisfactory preparation for the business of
life. As to the question of health, it is now
almost universally admitted that the gathering
together under one roof of large
numbers of children of the pauper class, ill-
nourished and poor in the vital principle
as they almost invariably are, is in the
highest degree detrimental to their physical
well-doing.

It would seem, then, that the solution of
the problem must lie in some system different
from either of those in general use.
If the pauper children who are entirely
dependent on the parish, or, to speak more
correctly, the State, cannot be satisfactorily
educated to be good citizens and useful
members of society, under existing
circumstances, how can the desired result be more
nearly approached?

The only alternative system appears to
be that under which the children are
boarded-out with such persons as may be
willing to take charge of them and to look
after their education in consideration of the
weekly amount to be received from the
guardians, and the value of such services
as the children may, as they come to be of
an age to work, be able to render. And,
as the miserable results of the old plan of
parish apprenticeship are still fresh in the
public mind, it is well that this boarding-
out system should be carefully considered
and impartially judged of; without, on the
one hand, allowing it to suffer by being
confounded with the old bad plan; and
without, on the other, allowing the defects
and positive harmfulness of the present
workhouse and district schools to prejudice
us in favour of the boarding-out system, on
the ground of any change being a change
for the better.

Nothing could have been worse than the
old system of parish apprenticeships. The
children were simply got rid of by the
parish authorities, and handed over with
little inquiry or care to the first comer;
their subsequent fate, as a rule, was a
matter of supreme indifference to their
legal guardians. The gentleman in the
white waistcoat, it will be remembered,
was delighted at the prospect of securing
for Oliver Twist so amiable a master as
Mr. Gamfield, and we may be very certain
that if the fates had destined Oliver's ribs
to have made intimate acquaintance with
the chimney-sweep's cudgel, the gentleman
in the white waistcoat would have
considered the arrangement highly satisfactory.
Supervision, without which,
constantly and carefully exercised, the system
was one of mere slavery, was rarely
employed at all; and even when Mr. Bumble,
the beadle, went now and then through the
form of visiting and inquiry, it was a
perfunctory ceremony worse than useless.
But, it must be borne in mind, that in
those days public opinion concerned itself
far less about the condition of the pauper
class than it does now; in fact, as to such
matters there was little or no public
opinion. Now-a-days there is an increased
certainty of publicity, and the acts of boards
of guardians and their subordinates are
subjected to a careful and jealous scrutiny in
all parts of the country. It is worth while
to consider whether, out of the wreck of the
system of parish apprenticeships, and parish
child-farming, under which so many Olivers
and Dicks suffered miserably, some
boarding-out system, at once simple and humane,
cannot be adopted.

An excellent report on this important
subject, drawn up by a committee of the
Bath Board of Guardians, is before us. Its
contents will assist us in the consideration
of what is to be said in favour of the plan.

It appears, from a report of Sir John
M'Neil, head of the Scottish poor-law
authorities, dated July 22, 1862, that the
system of boarding-out pauper children
singly, or in twos or threes, has been in
practical and successful working in Scotland
for many years. The children are
placed with persons of the working class,
selected by an officer of the parochial board,
and a close supervision is exercised over
the manner in which the children live, and
the kind of treatment they receive. The
cost of their board and lodging, clothing,
&c., is rather more than it would be in the
workhouse, but it is considered that this
increase is far more than counterbalanced
by the improvement in the children's
condition, physical and moral. They appear
to lose sight of their connexion with the
workhouse in a very short time, and to
acquire habits of independence and
continuous industry, almost impossible to be
attained by children whose experience has
not been drawn from out-of-door life. Sir
John is strongly in favour of the system.

Mr. Kemp, governor of the Edinburgh
Union, writes, in 1869: "We have no
separate building for the children who are