New-York tribune., 1872-05-07
PFFOPMATORY FARMS.
precedent.

While public attention is turned to the ques-
ton of civic government, we ask of those who
make law-giyers, as well as those who make
laws, to obtain correct notions as to the best
disposal to be made of the young of the dan
gerous class. A few weeks ago, we published
an elaborate account of the reform school on
board ship in Massachusetts, its mode of oper-
alton, and its results. Although well-nlgh
faultless in its administration, the proportion
of sailors to pupils was found, after tho lapse
of wears, to be too small to justify the con-
tinuance of the institution. AS large majority
of the race must always live on land, it is
natural that farm schools should give better
results. France has for generation been
acting on wise plan. She first established
the colony Of Mettray, where all boys were
sent who came before the tribunals for small
crimes, and wcro acquitted on account OF
youth or ignorance. Now, there are thirty
three such colonies, able to receive and teach
ten thousand homeless lads. OF the boys sent
to the old correctional schools, like ours on the
Island third relapsed into vice and villainy
as soon as they were released or the boys
trained on these farm schools, ninety-seven in
every hundred are rescued and become useful
members of society
Temptation and opportunity are the ruin of
those who inh crit bad organizations. Such Op-
portunities arc far more frequent in cities than
in rural districts. When boy comes away
from the Island or walks out from the House
of Refuge and Correction, he must live either
by vice or honest work. He can weave bas-
kots, make shoes. pick Oakum, bottom chairs,
break rock, and twist rope. In each of these
occupations he comes in competition with
hundreds as industrious and skillful as he. His
associates are of low grade. He can see little
to he gained by life of honor and virtue. He
finds chances to steal, and at night tho beer
saloon invites, cards fascinate, liquor intlames.
and girls coax. No wonder that thirty in a
hundred go back, like the SOW that was washed,
to their wallowing in the mre. Suppose that,
instead of an education in Oakum and chair
splits, he has been taught how to milk, how to
feedcows how to groom and manage horse, how
to set out cabbages, how to dig pOsthOles and
lay fence. Such penal farms have, of course
abundance of labor, and their management is
supposed to be in competent hands. Many will
rise above q constant drudgery and learn to love
Howers to manage hOt-beds, to prine trees and
cultivate berries. When they come out they
must leave the city to find work, and with
such knowledge they will nog travel far for
employment. A farm is o great leveler. No
farmer can fail to respect and treat in many
ways as a companion and an eqnal the work
man who carries his row beside him and does
his work as well as he wants il done. Even
Slavery was shOrn Of half its horror in those
States where man and master chopped OH the
same log. or cradled side by side in the
wheat field. It is trade and subdivided man
ufactures, where labor is treated as one ele-
ment and the staple as another which de-
grade the workman and make him spoke in
the wheel. The great redeeming feature of
farm labor is its unceasing variety. Some
times it is hard and dirty, but it seldom lags
into dull mOnOtOny--One stroke just like
million strokes that went beforc-One day
fac-simile Of thousands that began without
hope and ended without incident.
And then there is no work more intrinsically
honest than farm work. The shoemaker can
work in patches of brown paper. and tho case
viii sell ~ well. The blacksmith can hammer
over a asu IN Lis axle. and tho WAGON goes to