the child. Whatever bad
habits or traits he had, were likely to be uneradicated. The strongest
agencies upon him were those of his companions; and what boys, even of
the moral classes, teach one another when they are together in masses,
need not be told. Were he to be there a length of time, the most
powerful forces that mould and form boys in the world outside, would be
absent.

The affection of family, the confidence of respected friends, the hope
of making a name, and the desire of money and position--these impulses
must be banished from the Asylum or Reformatory. The lad's only hope is
to escape certain penalties, or win certain marks, and get out of the
place. Now and then, indeed, a chaplain of rare spiritual gifts may
succeed in wielding a personal influence, in such an Institution, over
individual children; but this must, of necessity, be unfrequent, on
account of the great numbers under his charge.

If the subject of a Reformatory be a poor boy or girl, the kind of work
usually chosen is not the one best suited to a child of this class, or
which he will be apt to take up afterwards. It is generally some plain
and easy trade-work, like shoe-pegging, or chair-bottoming, or
pocket-book manufacture. The lad is kept for years at this drudgery, and
when he leaves the place, has no capital laid up of a skilled trade. He
finds such employments crowded, and he seldom enters them again.
Moreover, if he has been a vagrant (as in nine cases out of ten is
probable), or a little sharper and thief of the city, or a boy unwilling
to labor, and unfitted for steady industry, these years at a table in a
factory do not necessarily give him a taste for work; they often only
disgust him.

Were such lads, on the other hand, put in gardens, or at farm-work, they
would find much more pleasure in it. The watching the growth of plants,
the occasional chance for fruit-gathering, the "spurts" of work peculiar
to farming, the open air and sunshine, and dealing with flowers and
grains, with cattle, horses, and fowls, are all attractive to children,
and especially to children of this class. Moreover, when they have
learned the business, they are sure in this country, of the best
occupation which a laboring man can have; and when they graduate, they
can easily find places on farms, where they will get good wages, and be
less exposed to temptations than if engaged in city trades. There seems
to me something, too, in labor in the soil, which