THE CONFINEMENT OF CHILDREN
in the House of Refuge simply because destitute of a home is, in my opinion, not only in violation of the spirit and meaning of the Constitution, as shown by the Commissioners, but wrong in principle as well. These boys have been guilty of no crime, not even of vicious conduct; but because so unfortunate as to be destitute of a suitable home, they are incarcerated in an institution where those guilty of crime or vicious conduct are confined. It is true that they are kept as much as possible separate and apart from the vicious and incorrigible, and, while I believe management to be good and the discipline and moral instruction excellent, yet they are liable to be contaminated by the vicious; at least they can not escape the stigma in after life of having been inmates of the House of Refuge, universally understood to be an institution for the confinement and reformation of youths guilty of crime, or so vicious and incorrigible as to be beyond parental control. The same may be said of the Female Prison and Reformatory In the Reformatory Department of the latter institution are children many of them entirely too young to be guilty of intentional wrong, or to come within the category of those needing the severe discipline and surveillance of a Reformatory Institution, the very name of which implies that those confined within its walls have been guilty either of crime, or of such bad conduct as to justify their incarceration in a Reformatory Institution. In fact, the Institution is known only as a Female Prison and Reformatory. I am clear that it is not a proper place to raise and page: 23[View Page 23] educate the pure and innocent child. That they are kept in the Reformatory Department of the Institution is no justification. It is enough that are under the same roof and management. The girl that leaves there at eighteen, or even of ten, will not be ignorant of the fact that she has been an inmate of an institution in another Department of which were confined the vilest of criminals. I do not believe any person, however capable, can superintend and manage hardened criminals, and at the same properly govern the pure and innocent, the manner, discipline and bearing essential for the government of the former is so widely different from the affectionate, maternal care, and kind treatment require by the latter. Neither ought the law to permit parents to cause their children to be incarcerated in such an Institution for the pose of relieving themselves of the care and expense of rearing them.
If the constitutional authority exists, and the State is willing and prepared to care for its orphan children, it ought to provide a suitable home. I know it will be urged that such a charity properly belongs to the Counties, but County Orphan Asylums, except in those Counties wherein are situated larger cities, are but little. if any, better than Poor Houses. If established, such an Orphan Asylum could receive and care for the orphans in the House of Refuge, the Reformatory Institution and Soldiers' Orphans' Home, and such others as might be committed thereto under proper restrictions.
