be discovered so
absolutely naked and destitute, that some proper clothing is a necessary
condition to their even entering the School.

Some of the teachers very wisely induce the parents to deposit their
little savings with them, and perhaps pay them interest to encourage
saving. Others, by the aid of friends, have bought coal at wholesale
prices, and retailed it without profit, to the parents of the children.

The principle throughout all the operations of the Children's Aid
Society, is only to give assistance where it bears directly on
character, to discourage pauperism, to cherish independence, to place
the poorest of the city, the homeless children, as we have so often
said, not in Alms-houses or Asylums, but on farms, where they support
themselves and add to the wealth of the nation; to "take, rather than
give;" or to give education and work rather than alms; to place all
their thousands of little subjects under such influences and such
training that they will never need either private or public charity.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

HOW SHALL CRIMINAL CHILDREN BE TREATED?

REFORMATORIES.

A child, whether good or bad, is, above all things, an individual
requiring individual treatment and care. Let any of our readers, having
a little fellow given to mischief, who had at length broken his
neighbor's windows, or with a propensity to stealing, or with a quick
temper which continually brings him into unpleasant scrapes, imagine him
suddenly put into an "Institution" for reform, henceforth designated as
"D" of "Class 43," or as "No. 193," roused up to prayers in the morning
with eight hundred others, put to bed at the stroke of the bell, knowing
nothing of his teacher or pastor, except as one of a class of a hundred,
his own little wants, weaknesses, foibles and temptations utterly
unfamiliar to any one, his only friends certain lads who had been in the
place longer, and, perhaps, had known much more of criminal life than he
himself, treated thus altogether as a little machine, or as one of a
regiment.

What could he expect in the way of reform in such a case? He might,
indeed, hope that the lad would feel the penalty and disgrace of being
thus imprisoned, and that the strict discipline would control careless
habits, but he would soon see that the chance of a reform of character
was extremely slight.

There was evidently no personal influence on