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A Few Brief Remarks

By Captain J. Rowland Brookes.

he entire purport of this Circular appears to be founded on the principle that the Managers of Schools are persons who have no interest in the future well-being of the children under their charge, and that the parents are actuated by a deep sense of parental responsibility, and are anxious to bring their children home in order that they may be influenced by their own virtuous example!

It seems quite to ignore the fact that the more degraded and miserable the condition of the parent may be, the more persistent will he be in insisting that the child shall return to his former vicious habits and surroundings, and thus quickly eradicate every good principle which has cost a largo expenditure of public money to inculcate.

In point of fact the action of the Circular is to render nugatory the effect of years of patient training, and to cause the wilful waste of a quarter of a million of Public money annually.

Its ill effects will be more especially and severely felt by those Institutions which prepare lads for a sea-life—and will be productive of the following dilemma:—

If the boy is discharged some considerable time before the expiration of his term of detention under a Secretary of State's warrant, he will probably go one voyage, and on his return home will decline to go again, and drift into his own surroundings—result: time and expense of training quite thrown away.

Or (as the Secretary of State has no power to issue a conditional discharge) he may possibly defy the school authorities, refuse to go to sea at all, and return home—result: time and expense of training quite thrown away.

Or should he be detained until his term of detention is about to expire, in nine cases out of ten, he will refuse to go to sea at all, and will return home—the result still being: time and expense of training quite thrown away.

It is further to be remembered that this Circular has been issued in direct opposition to the views expressed by the Royal Commission on Reformatory and Industrial Schools, and of the Howard Association who have urged in their reports that the powers of the parents over their children should practically be transferred to the School Managers.

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From my own humble point of view (which I believe the great majority of those who have had any practical experience in the matter will entirely endorse), the action of this Circular will tend in an enormous degree to still further limit the utility of our Institutions (more especially the Training Ships), and to render the result of the training which the children receive in them downright prejudicial to the community—resulting in a waste of labour, time, energy and money.

It is, however, to be remembered that the responsibility of any failures resulting from the action of this Circular, entirely rests on the Home Secretary, issued, as it is, in direct defiance of the written views of the Authorities to whom I have just referred.