bootblacks' home."

For a short time it

seemed to be a

hot bed of evil, and was abandoned as all such homes have been in every city in this land. Some friends in Cincinnati requested me to send to them some of the good points of this Indianapolis enterprise, so they might profit by them in Cincinnati. I called upon the chief mover in the enterprise here, and made known my business. His answer was "tell them not to establish any such home. If they wish to help the newsboys and bootblacks of Cincinnati, tell them to get them out of the infernal business as soon as possible." Child labor in public places is ruinous. Habits are acquired that soon diminish the net earnings and frequently drag the boy to ruin. Provide homesteads for the boys. The girls in all well regulated homes already have these duties. Let newsboy and bootblack occupation be emancipated from its present harmful features by confining both those occupations to licensed stands at places convenient to the public. Allow no wandering newsboys. Let the only ones allowed be those who have regular routes for the delivery of papers to subscribers. Abolish the nuisance of a score or more yelling boys selling fruit at railway stations.

3. "Truancy and absenteeism from school." This is the direct cause of the downfall of more boys than any other specific cause. There is a moral shock produced by the very act of truancy. The truant's associations are all bad. Take a survey during school hours in your several towns and cities, of the boys who are not in school and it will appall you. I have known one act of truancy to completely unbalance the hitherto moral equipoise of a schoolboy. Habitual truants soon become pilferers and petty thieves. Remedy:-compulsory education laws, strictly enforced; laws that will have the sup

the children were taken from their parents and trained by the State. Semi-barbarians as they were these methods accomplished their purpose and "Spartany alor" has been the admiration of the ages. Many who stand at the altar to take upon themselves the sacred duties and responsibility of marriage are so far as intellectual and moral development is concerned, but infants. Neither by precept or example can such people fulfil the duty of parents. Look at the result of all this in this army of incorrigibles. What is the remedy? Let unfit marriages be stopped, and let society demand that unfit persons shall not enter the marriage relation.

A second and very prolific source of these evils is Idleness. In these boy locomotives employment is the safety valve. Keep a boy occupied at study, work, or play and school discipline becomes easy. In this respect parents in the country have a great advantage over those living in towns or cities. In the country a boy is required to work when not in school. During the school term he has chores that require his attention. He must feed the stock, milk the cows, while his sister must attend to household duties. He finds no leisure time to seek improper companions, living as they do at a distance. These duties prepare him to enjoy the rest and comfort of the fireside. Let parents in the city give more attention as to how their boys are to spend the sixteen to eighteen hours each day when they are not in school. In their weak attempts to give their sons occupations, they make most calamitous errors. I know none worse than the occupation of newsboys and bootblacks. This is the street school through which nine out of ten of the boys in the reform schools have graduated. All street occupations are demoralizing. Some years ago some of the benevolent people of Indianapolis established a "newsboys' and

bootblacks' home." For a short time it

seemed to be a

all such homes

hot bed of evil, and was abandoned as have been in every city in this land. Some friends in Cincinnati requested me to send to them some of the good points of this Indianapolis enterprise, so they might profit by them in Cincinnati. I called I called upon the chief mover in the enterprise here, and made known my business. His answer was "tell them not to establish any such home. home. If they wish to help the newsboys and bootblacks of Cincinnati, tell them to get them out of the infernal business as soon as possible." Child labor in public places is ruinous. Habits are acquired that soon diminish the net earnings and frequently drag the boy to ruin. Provide homesteads for the boys. The girls in all well regulated homes already have these duties. Let newsboy and bootblack occupation be emancipated from its present harmful features by confining both those occupations to licensed stands at places convenient to the public. Allow no wandering newsboys. Let the only ones allowed be those who have regular routes for the delivery of papers to subscribers. Abolish the nuisance of a score or more yelling boys selling fruit at railway stations.

3. "Truancy and absenteeism from school." This is the direct cause of the downfall of more boys than any other specific cause. There is a moral shock produced by the very act of truancy. The truant's associations are all bad. Take a survey during school hours in your several towns and cities, of the boys who are not in school and it will appall you. I have known one act of truancy to completely unbalance the hitherto moral equipoise of a schoolboy. Habitual truants soon become pilferers and petty thieves. Remedy:-compulsory education lawns, strictly enforced; laws that will have the sup

port of all good people, of all laber organizations, and all other political and patriotic bodies. In leaving this topic of truancy I wish to report that in the Reform School where 95 per cent. of the boys were confirmed truants before they came to us, that these very boys now enjoy going to school. The old temptation to be truant being removed, they study with a positive delight.

4. Want of permanent homes is a source of much of the delinquencies of youth. Did this thought ever impress you? We have all heard the charge made that "ministers' sons are generally bad boys." If this is true of them more than of other professions of high grade, it is due to the fact that the good shepherd may be giving too much watch-care to the church flock and may have neglected the dear lambs in his own home. But most of it must result from the fact that such ministers so often change their residence. Permanent homes are wanted to make children happy and virtuous. Not the cramped up tenement houses in which a boy must be a veritable Oliver Twist to come out uncontaminated in the end. Those who devised the Building and Loan Associations did the country a great service. They make it possible for poor laboring people to own their own homes.

Generous homestead laws passed by Congress have done much to secure to our people the blessing of permanent homes. Under their benign influences more than eight millions of our people own real estate. The grandest domestic blessings come from having fixed habitations. The old ballad, "Woodman spare that tree,' would never have been written by a man whose early life had been "on wheels." "The Old Oaken Bucket," "Suanee River" and kindred songs were the productions of poets who had fond recollections of permanent

homes.

་་

I believe that boys should be taught, more than

they are taught, that each of them should aim some day to own his own home, where figuratively he may "sit under his own vine and fig tree." John Howard Payne's name is immortal because he wrote that sweetest of all earth's ballads "Home, Sweet Home."

Here let me give an

5. Want of proper education is a cause of much delinquency on the part of the young. Most of the boys in the reform schools of the land are very illiterate; many not being able to read or write when committed by the courts. The habit of reading good papers and good books is an anchor to the home. The hours of greatest danger to a boy are those between sunset and bedtime. An illiterate person has no source of enjoyment in himself. He must go out and see company. It requires a pretty good common school education to enable one to read books intelligently and there is no enjoyment in reading unless they can be read in this way. While one is reading, his mind is occupied. illustration from my reform school experience. In our school from 500 to 600 boys take their meals in the same dining room. Their officers and teachers eat at the same time, but elsewhere. For several years I did not allow any reading at boys' tables during or after the meals. The consequence was that as soon as the meal was over they were in more or less mischief. I then changed entirely the rule and made it obligatory on every boy never to come to a meal without his newspaper, and that as soon as he finished eating he must get out his paper and read. There was a great improvement in the order.

Now at the close of a meal the

dining hall presents the appearance of a reading room,

and the order is excellent.

The evils of deficient education are seen on every hand. Something must be done to reach these classes