their young members the nature of alcohol as a means of discharging their duty to those in danger, but they are also coming to depend primarily upon the education of the young in the public school for the solution of the whole problem of intemperance. That school is the finest force in modern civilisation, and the scientifically trained teacher is the chief force in the school. Let him demonstrate that the use of alcohol is as much a physiological wrong as is the use of arsenic or strychnine; that it weakens the boy and the man, diminishes his chances of mental success, and exposes him to moral ruin; let him demonstrate that alcohol is not an article to be sold like sugar or tea, but a drug of the chemist, to be sold like aconite or prussic acid; let him persuade these children to think thus for themselves concerning alcohol, and two results will follow-first, the children will have built up within them the best possible defence against social temptations to drinking; and, secondly, the State will be preparing a nation of voters who will take care that the legislation concerning the drink traffic restricts its mischiefs within the narrowest possible limits.

Most likely this legislation concerning Tem perance teaching in State schools has received a considerable impulse from the manifest insecurity of the measures adopted for giving the people the immediate and complete control

THE NEED FOR TEACHING.

109

of the traffic in intoxicating drinks. In New Zealand, for example, I heard it suggested that Parliament had gone ahead of the opinion and convictions of the people, and that they were already in possession of "options" for limiting "the trade" which the people were not sufficiently educated to use. It is also affirmed in Canada that Temperance workers have to bring before the municipal and police authorities the need of enforcing the laws connected with the Sunday trading and the closure of public-houses on weekdays, and also of selling intoxicating drinks to children of tender years. Indeed, there is great difficulty in getting the law administered. The police in New Zealand habitually connive at its violation, and the public conscience is not sufficiently energetic to expose and punish the connivance. It is clear that there is not a full and accurate conception of the issues involved, and so the restrictive legislation passed is open to reversal the moment it encounters the first onslaught of its enemies. Hence it is felt throughout the colonies that the royal road to national sobriety is through a thoroughly scientific training of the young in a distinctly scientific knowledge of alcohol and all its works.

But this is not all. Most of the colonies have intervened to protect the young as well as to instruct them. Recognising the inherited weakness and predisposition of many children to the drink craze, they have made it penal to

sell "any description whatever of liquor to them." Ontario protects them up to their eighteenth year, and enables a parent to continue the guardianship of his children from the public-house till twenty-one by simply giving a notice in writing to the publican. Queensland fixes the limit at the fourteenth year for the purchase and carriage of liquor, but requires a youth to be eighteen before drink can be sold to him "for consumption on the premises." Manitoba and New Zealand have chosen sixteen years and South Australia fifteen; but they all proceed on the principle that the State, iustead of being an organised injustice to the weak and defenceless, a patron of temptation to wrong-doing, and a recipient of gold at the expense of the character of its citizens, shall become the protector of the feeble, a shield for the tempted, and a builder of disciplined and serviceable manhood.

John Morley says: "All practical projects of social reform taken together would not do half so much for improving the material prosperity of the country and the well-being of our countrymen as the progress of the Temperance cause. Will anybody tell us, then, why the children in England should not be taught and protected as they are in Manitoba and Ontario ?

وو

LETTER X.

YOUNG OFFENDERS-WISER ΤΟ SAVE THAN PUNISH-VICTORIAN "FOSTER HOMES

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THE PROBATION OFFICER-THE CHILDREN'S

COURT

SALVATION BY WORK.

January 6, 1898.

WHEN John Howard set himself to the task of reforming the prisons of Europe he was met with the question, "What can be done with the young offender in our gaols ?"

More than a century has passed since this man, who spent his life like an apostle and died as a martyr, started that inquiry, and Greater Britain is still eagerly looking for the right answer. Wrong and inadequate replies have been produced, tested, and condemned. The pages of criminal history are eloquent of our failures. In October, 1851, The Edinburgh Review said:

The young offender gains ground upon us, the plague of the policeman, the difficulty of the magistrate, a problem to the statesman, and a sorrow to the philanthropist. Some say punish them more effectually and so deter. Educate them better, says another class, and so prevent. Open houses of refuge and asylums, and so reform.

Since those words were written our experience has deepened and widened indescribably, and still Howard's question is on our lips, and The Edinburgh Review's laments are in our hearts. "The young offender gains ground upon us." So, at least, they were saying in Adelaide when I was there; but I do not think they made out their case; for whilst it was undeniable that the inmates of their reformatory had doubled within the last two years, it was also stated that the South Australian legislation had been so altered that, whereas juvenile delinquents over sixteen were not allowed to be sent to them prior to 1894, now they could be sent, and had been sent, up to the age of eighteen. The addition of these "two years years most fruitful of juvenile crime-will certainly go a long way towards accounting for the lamented increase. Still, it was wise to appoint a committee of investigation, especially in view of the fact that the Parliament of South Australia has legalised the "totalisator," and by thus taking "gambling" under its protection may have given a strong impetus to thefts by the young.

But, broadly speaking, it is safe to say crime is decreasing throughout Greater Britain, and notably amongst the young. This is due to several causes. First, it is vividly realised by the States that it is wiser and less expensive to save children than to punish criminals; secondly,