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piness and prosperity. Like the grass, it creeps over the earth and makes green the barren land. It should be fostered and strengthened by the State as the source of virtue and strength in the people. But we must strengthen the several roots of the grass rather than strive to have a few of monstrous growth.

There is a marked tendency in civilized countries to bring all penal, correctional and charitable institutions into what is called the family system; and to make them resemble in some degree the normal family. We ought to take a step farther by using the thing itself instead of something in its likeness; the real family instead of its counterfeit, upon a large scale.

All legislation which encourages and strengthens the natural family is, in so far, good; all which weakens it is, in so far, bad. But the family cannot be created by law-it must grow. Its growth must be natural—that is, by multiplication and not by agglomeration.

We must guard, too, the separate independence of each family, as much as we would that of the individual; for both lose in character when individualism is merged in uniformity.

From disregard of these simple principles come the essential unsoundness, and the usual rottenness of socialistic communities based upon false theories; and likewise the evils inherent in large agglomerations of individuals in Asylums, and Institutions, erected by the State. The motive common to both is the saving of money; but both fail to be truly economical. God is wiser than men ; and the family, as He organized it, cannot be improved upon; nor can it be organized, and run upon a large scale.

Socialistic communities fail, because they consider the antagonism which exists in ordinary society made up of families, to be inherent and essential; whereas it is only phenomenal and temporary. It is one of the tares, to exterminate which they destroy the good wheat.

States sometimes adopt the penny wise pound foolish policy. The roots of all permanent social virtue and prosperity being in the natural families, these should be multiplied and strengthened by adding to them all the loose and detached social material which may exist. They are to the State what

THE FAMILY.

olive trees are, through countless generations, to the Eastern peasant. If a wise individual were farming all the resources of Massachusetts, getting the profit of the workers and supporting the dependent, he would seek to make each family prosperous and persistent. He would give aid when needful, and in proportion to the needs. He would look to his olive trees.

He would find some families still worth preserving, but about to break up for lack of that kind of help and stimulus which only the young can give. Others doing so because they cannot earn quite enough for their support. Others still able to carry on a household, and to nurture the young, or to care for the feeble and old, but, incapable of carrying on a farm, and therefore about to quit, reluctantly, the old homestead, and follow their children to a distant land, from a feeling of solitude, and lack of objects of interest about them. Other families, childless or bereaved; and needing some inducement to keep the fire burning upon the old hearthstone.

He would find a multitude, especially of single women, full of capacity and desire for useful work-but incapable of leaving home to seek it. He would foresee that many families still capable of usefulness, were slowly but surely dropping behind the productive class, for want of a little occupation, and falling into the dependent and finally into the pauper class.

Then, looking around, he would find many friendless orphans; abandoned children, and perverse youth needing restraint. He would find adults deranged in mind to the extent of inability for self-guidance, but not to the extent of inability to work. Others, from lack of mental vigor and bodily strength, incapable of keeping step with the self-supporting classes, and dropping into the rear rank of paupers; and so on. Then he would say I am obliged to support these orphans and abandoned children; to restrain and train these juvenile offenders; to provide guardianship for these lunatics; to maintain these imbeciles and paupers ;-how can it be best done, for that way is sure to be the cheapest? How can they be made most profitable to the whole interests of my great estate? How can the partial force which remains to them be made most available for

FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT, 1868.

the general good? And how can the blessing which follows humane works be equalized in the community?

He might have to build establishments for the absolutely dependent; but he would admit none as inmates who could by any possibility be supported and placed out. He would try to separate and to diffuse as widely as possible all the unfavorable material among the good material. He would place as many as possible of the dependents in families where they could be more or less useful; and pay therefor, if necessary, as much as they would cost him in the central establishments. Even if he paid a trifle more, he would gain by keeping together and aiding the families, and prolonging the family life. He would thus keep alive and invigorate his drooping olive trees.

For those who must be restrained, and those who must be supported, he would make the needful provision, not necessarily in great barracks; but in establishments as nearly upon the family system as could be. These establishments

would be as few and small as possible. Every new one would be regarded as a blot rather than an ornament to the social fabric. His balance-sheet might not show a gain at first, but it would in the end; and, if he should count the demoralization avoided, and the moral powers gained, as of money value, the gain would be prodigious.

Any comprehensive and wise scheme for the support and care, the training and reform of State dependents should look to the natural institution of the family as the best and most potential agency, and resort to special institutions only as a last resource, as a dire necessity.

But States seldom take this course. They build huge barracks, over whose doors should be written, social "rubbish shot here!"* for into them are gathered foundlings, orphans, abandoned children; juvenile offenders; criminals; lunatics, more or less mad; the halt, the lame, the blind, and paupers of all degrees.

Employment of Women.

Next in importance to enlisting the largest possible number of normal families in dealing with the vicious and dependent

* English cities designate places where garbage may be deposited by such a sign.

EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN.

children of the State, is that of enlisting the greatest possible number of women.

The more general adoption of this principle would develop an immense moral force, and bring in aid which is but little used in Protestant countries. Especially would it do so in this Commonwealth, where is so much unemployed "woman's power"; where so many women, who long to be useful, sit with folded hands.

Indeed, one of the most substantial forms in that shadowy array of "woman's wrongs," is her exclusion from posts of responsibility in the great field of public charity. In that field she could undoubtedly excel man, because it includes the nurture and admonition of children, the treatment and reformation of youth, the oversight and direction of perverse women, the care of the sick, the comfort and consolation of the old and of the dying.

As a general rule all these unfortunates (if paupers) are segregated from ordinary social life and social relations; they are aggregated into distinct classes, and they are congregated in special institutions. It is considered as a matter of course that these must be placed under the charge of men; and therefore man's spirit, not woman's spirit, pervades the whole administration of them.

Compared with other countries and States, Massachusetts suffers little from this mistaken policy; but still suffers. If woman's influence is brought to bear upon some of our public institutions, it is only incidentally. In no one of them is it direct and supreme.

There is one where it surely ought to be openly recognized as potential, if not supreme, viz.: in the Girls' Reform School. The Trustees of that establishment are men, who, properly enough, preserve and exercise the supreme power which the law intrusts to them. The immediate executive officer is a man; and his spirit is stamped upon the spirit and details of the whole administration. There is necessarily a matron in each of the five houses, and in the five mimic families, and of course woman's influence must to a certain extent be felt there. It is not, however, and it cannot be felt as it would be, if woman had at least

f

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equal powers with men in the general direction and administration of the establishment. Nor can woman's spirit, and the humanizing influence of the natural family, be felt in those five mimic families, as it would be in real ones.

The executive committee of this Board made a formal recommendation to the Legislature, that at least half of the trustees of this establishment should be women; but it was not followed.

The like defect, that is, lack of woman's presence and influence, is felt in other establishments. The amount of power which woman has in them, comes by concession rather than by right. Her influence is incidental, and not contemplated in the scheme of administration. The veriest child in those establishments understands that a woman's decision is not final, but can be overruled by that of some man.

But the most remarkable violation of those plain principles which we have been alluding to, is in the organization and administration of the nautical branch of the State Reform School for Boys, the School Ship; and which lessens the good results of the labors of the excellent men interested therein. The chief end of this establishment purports to be the reformation of boys of tender age; the correction of their bad manners, of their perverse tendencies, and of their vicious habits.

The method selected for bringing about this great end violates, at the outset, several plain principles.

First, the perverse material is aggregated together, instead of being diffused.

It is not more true that evil communications corrupt good manners, than that good communications correct bad manners. Both suppose strong love of imitation, and love of approbation, especially in the young. Both are violated by congregating several hundred perverse and vicious boys, and keeping them so closely together that their only real social communications are with each other. The influence of the captain, of the officers, and of the teacher, are as nothing compared with the mutual influence of the boys upon each other. This forms the social atmosphere,-the public opinion of the community. Thus they are necessarily cut off from good social communications, and subjected to bad ones.