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[CHAP. I.

the present time but five such Inebriate Asylums in the country, of which our Washingtonian Home is the oldest and the best known. The others are at Binghamton, N. Y., at Chicago, at Media, Penn., and on Ward's Island, New York City. All these, except the Washingtonian Home and the New York State Asylum at Binghamton, were established within a few years past. The arguments in favor of such Asylums are made in view of the fact that the best legislation thus far is found but an imperfect means of reaching or reforming the habitual drunkard, and "legal suasion," so called, is an instrumentality about which good and wise men differ; while repeated imprisonment, both for intemperance itself and the crimes which it engenders, (over seventy per cent. of the whole,) has little or no effect upon the intemperate offender.

It is thought by many that the habit of rum-drinking is as much a disease as a crime, and more a mania, perhaps, than either. If a disease, moreover, it is often one inherited, and scarcely more deserving of punishment, perhaps, than the misfortune of deformity or imbecility. For these reasons, a hospital for the proper and peculiar treatment of this malady has been called for,-a place for the poor drunkard where the law of kindness should have greater sway, and the inmate be treated as unfortunate rather than criminal. With this view, in 1857, our Washingtonian Home was opened in Boston by private benevolence, and has been ever since a source of great satisfaction to all who believe in this mode of treating the inebriate. Its reports show an aggregate of nearly 3,000 patients received, one-half of whom probably have been cured and restored to sobriety, and the remainder generally much benefited.

Following this example, like establishments at the localities already mentioned have sprung up in other States, with similar success, but in a more limited degree; and the drunkard has come to look to them as a safeguard and a salvation.

In 1863, Governor Andrew, in his Annual Address, urgently advised the Legislature to consider the subject of establishing a Public Asylum of this kind, and the committee to whom the matter was referred reported favorably, but counselled delay

GENERAL OLIVER'S REPORT.

till after the war. The joint committee of the last Legislature also made a report favorable to the plan, but adverse to its proposed establishment at Rainsford Island. They asked leave to report further a plan upon which such an institution should be founded, but this was not granted. Probably the best mode. of meeting the public demand for such an institution, will be to enlarge the present Washingtonian Home, or establish branches of that in different parts of the State. Further comment on the legislation of 1868 will be made in the subsequent portions of this Report.

CHAPTER II.-THE LEGISLATION OF PREVIOUS

I.

YEARS.

CHILDREN IN FACTORIES.

An effort was made at the last session to amend the new law in regard to children in factories (Chapter two hundred and eighty-five of the Acts of 1867.) General Oliver, the special State Constable appointed under that Act, in his report to the Legislature, (Senate Document No. 21, 1868,) showed the nature of the law, and suggested certain amendments, which were in substance adopted by the Committee on Education, who reported a bill in accordance with them. It failed to pass, however. The main defects in the law of 1867 are thus stated by General Oliver :

"1. There is no power conferred by it, whereby the party detailed to attempt its execution can determinately secure satisfactory evidence of its having been violated. No owner, agent, superintendent or overseer of any manufacturing or mechanical establishment, nor any parent or guardian, would be likely to criminate himself, if called on as testimony in any case that might be attempted under the statute, in which such party was concerned. "2. No power to enter any such establishment, in order to learn of any overt act under the law, is conferred upon any party whatWere the person detailed to see to its execution to be refused

ever.

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SECRETARY'S REPORT.

[CHAP. II.

admittance to the premises of any party suspected, he could not move a step forward.

"3. No provision is made for the manner of prosecution, nor is any form of indictment prescribed, nor any court named before which parties charged with violation of the statute shall be summoned for trial.

"4. The law is unbending, and yields nothing in any cases whatever, not even in those, and many such there be, where its rigid enforcement would be not only needless, but positively injurious to all parties concerned.

"5. Its own phraseology is not prohibitory, in certain cases, against violations of its own provisions.

"6. It furnishes no system by means of which the party detailed for its execution can learn the whereabouts of these several establishments, nor, supposing he had succeeded measurably in doing so, does it furnish him with any directions whereby he may obtain such desired and detailed information as not only the general scope of the law would seem to embrace, but such as, under a law so vitally important, it would be more than desirable that the legislature should possess.

"7. It provides no system of documentary papers by the use of which information in the premises can be obtained, nor, provided such papers were issued as interrogative circulars by the party detailed to see to the enforcement of the law, does it insist upon replies being made by the parties addressed.

"8. It provides for no forms of certificates,-and these should be uniform throughout the State,-nor for other necessary papers to be used in determining either the age of a child employed, or the school attendance of such child, or length of time of employment in mill or elsewhere. It provides for no methods or books of registration to be kept by employers, setting forth the age and birthplace of the several children employed, the dates at which they commenced work, the amount of annual schooling, etc., all of which, and many more, are essential to the perfect working of an exact and practical statute."

These are chiefly defects in detail, but the fourth clause points to a defect of more importance, and not so readily obviated, in regard to which, however, General Oliver makes the following wise recommendations:

RECOMMENDATIONS OF GENERAL OLIVER.

of ten years

"And first, the provision that 'no child under the age shall be employed in any manufacturing or mechanical establishment within the Commonwealth,' is most wise, merciful and necessary, and should not be repealed, unless it shall be thought better to provide that no child under the age of thirteen (13) years shall be so employed; and that in order to be eligible to employment, each and every such child shall, on actual examination by a party duly appointed therefor by the School Committee of the town wherein such child resides, or is to work, be found able to read correctly in its own language, to spell ordinary words therein, to write a fair, legible hand, to understand, and to be able to perform the common processes of simple and compound arithmetic, of ordinary fractions and simple proportions, and to have some knowledge of geography and keeping accounts. And for all the practical purposes of life, the above is about sufficient, and is as much as most children possess who go from schools to trades.

"I am by no means sure that, by taking some point of age higher than ten and lower than fifteen years, with these requirements of education, the children may not safely be permitted to enter our industrial establishments, and there remain without further schooling, excepting such as they may voluntarily secure. If that could be agreed upon, and ten hours made the legal day's work for all, the difficulties now encountered would mainly be overcome. In my younger days, apprenticing of boys to trades (manufactures had not yet been established in Massachusetts,) took place at the age of fourteen years; and the master-workmen took only such as had about the above-named amount of education."

No man has a better right than General Oliver to criticize the Act of 1867, for nobody has observed its effects half so closely. His official position requires this, and his previous experience as a manufacturer has enabled him to execute to the best advantage the duties of his office. He has now visited more than half the manufacturing establishments in the State, and is at present examining those in Hampden and Hampshire Counties. He finds the law best enforced in Lowell and Lawrence, and least complied with in Fall River, which has been notorious for years on account of the number of young children at work in the mills there who ought to be at school. But General Oliver's visits to Fall River have had the effect of helping forward a

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[CHAP. II.

change for the better; and a special school is now supported by the city, to which detachments of factory children are sent for three months at a time, as the law requires, and are well instructed by competent teachers. One of these speaks French, and acts as interpreter for the Canadian children, who are numerous there, as well as in other parts of the State. It is these children who particularly need instruction in our schools, for without it they may not even acquire the language of the country. There are said to be mills in the State where operatives of this race do not speak a word of English, and are unwilling their children should learn it.

It is much to be regretted that the bill reported by the Committee on Education, was not substituted at the last session for the present law, which, it is quite clear, is not now generally enforced, and probably cannot be. The question here involved is a difficult one, inasmuch as the apparent necessity of a family often requires children to labor instead of going to school, so that, if attendance at school is compelled, it may often happen that the parents must receive, as paupers, from the public, the amount of money which their children would otherwise have earned; but, by discussion and experiment, some way can be found of meeting the difficulty, and avoiding the scandal and danger of allowing so many children in Massachusetts to grow up in ignorance.

II. THE PRIMARY SCHOOL ACT.

Closely related to this subject is that of educating the pauper children of the State. Their education, under the Primary School Act of 1866, is to be carried on at Monson until they can be placed in the better school of a good Massachusetts family, where they can learn thrift and self-respect, and manifold lessons that are seldom taught in great public establishments. There can be no doubt, I think, that the results of the Act of 1866 (Chapter 209,) have been good; but the best results have not yet been attained, because the Monson establishment has very slowly changed the Almshouse character which it had acquired in the dozen years before the Primary