under the care of a superintendent, called the chief or head of the family (chef de famille), and an assistant who has the title of the eldest son (fils ainé). Thus are the lies of social affection re-established by a kind of adoption with a moral force that nothing ever destroys. These ties are so powerful, the attachment felt by the former colons of Mettray is so strong, that they return with joy to recount their successes in life. Every Sunday, those who have found employment on the neighboring farms, come to pass the day of rest at the old home, and to take part in the exercises of their comrades. I found things at Mettray precisely as prescribed by Mr. Sauvestre, and therefore gladly avail myself of some sentences taken from his account of the "ystem of Education." He remarks:

"I will now try to give an idea of the mode of education adopted at Mettray, and show the ingenious means and delicate precautions by which the hearts of its youthful inhabitants are touched and softened, and their ill-feeling, craft, and perverse instincts, which before menaced society, are converted into salutary and friendly forces. I have spoken of my arrival at the colony, across parks and gardens, and how I found myself in the middle of the square without having encountered a single barrier. I came again the next day, about the same time; it was during the play-hour, and the children were amusing themselves before dispersing to the workshops. There were no walls, nor ditches, nor inclosures of any sort, nor even any guards. The games were all in full swing, when suddenly a bugle sounded; at once play was stopped, and at ano: her bugle-call the children divided themselves into companies, according to their work. Then the band began a joyous strain, and the different groups in military style marched past the heads of families, led by their foremen. Here are agricultural laborers, gardeners, wheelwrights, millers, shoemakers; and others on their way to the school. When all had filed past, the musicians hastened to put away their instruments and join their several gangs. They go to their work as to a fête, with music to begin the day and enliven their departure; and come rain or sunshine, they bear it cheerfully and joyfully; everything is done that can make duty attractive and induce a co stant habit of performing it. The children are not pushed forward with rudeness; great care is taken not to bruise these poor young hearts, already frozen by neglect or withered by vice before they knew anything of life; they are carefully tended, and led on by degrees to goodness with gentleness and trust. It is considered a great privilege to be in the band, and one only earned by hard work and good conduct.”

The heart first, the physical powers next, and then the intellect; this is the order at Mettray.

If the colons of Mettray are the object of a constant solicitude while they remain at the colony, they are scarcely less so after they have left it. M. Demetz holds that there is no good penitentiary system without patronage, since the good moral principles which may have been implanted by the discipline of the prison, still weak and wavering, need some extraneous support to guard against the danger of a fresh fall. He considers that it is the same with the sicknesses of the soul as with those of the body, where the moment of convalescence is the most critical of all, and requires the greatest care. On this principle, the patronage of Mettray is kept up not only during three years, as is the custom in other similar institutions in France, but its duration has no limit; it is, in effect, a real adoption. Provision is made against whatever might be of a nature to compromise the future of the youths who have been discharged from the colony. Thus they need have no fear as regards want of employment, in consequence of which the workman who has no resource but the product of his labor is too often exposed to all the suggestions of want and misery. Whenever the liberated colons are without work, they return to Mettray, where they know they are ever welcome, on the sole condition that they work with energy; for M. Demetz regards it as of the last importance that they preserve those industrious habits which they formed at the colony. They are not permitted to leave until a new place has been found for them. So, also, when they are sick, they are received into the infirmary of the colony. Nor is it requisite to such admission that the ex-colon be so sick as to make it necessary that he should keep his bed; it is enough that he be unable to devote himself steadily to work. M. Demetz is of the opinion that there are indispositions which compromise the future of the workman more than a grave disease. In such cases, the workshop is closed against him because he is not well enough to labor, and the hospital refuses him

admission because he is not sick enough to be nursed; but Mettray willingly opens its gate and extends to him the needed relief.

Upon the whole, after the widest and most careful inspection which two days would permit me to make, I have no hesitation in saying that Mettray appeared to me the most perfect, the most complete, the most thoroughly wrought out, and the most effectively applied system of reformatory discipline that had ever The late eminent recorder of Birmingham, Englandfallen under my notice. Matthew Davenport Hill-whose opportunities of observation were far larger than mine, likened Mettray to a great and beautiful work of nature, rather than Nor to one who has been there and seen the wonderto any production of man. ful creation will this comparison seem much, if at all, exaggerated. The resemblance is found both in its gradual development and in the discovery of fresh perfections the more closely it is examined. Everything about the establishment, whether in the labor, the discipline, the instruction, or the recreationsthe farm, the workshop, the school, the church, the play-ground, the dormitory, the infirmary-all, all, without exception, seemed to converge to one point, and to have been made to yield their tribute to the great work in hand-the rescue and salvation of these young criminals, their restoration to society, with the power and the will to pursue a career of honorable, though, perchance, quiet and unheralded usefulness. The genius of M. Demetz has shown itself equal to every exigency, every emergency of his work; and in its power of originating expedients to re awaken, almost to create virtue, though, being human, it must have a limit, it certainly has not yet reached that limit; for it is still teeming Facile princeps with contrivances to the same beneficent and god-like end. among reformatory men is the position readily yielded to him by the whole Let the laurel be worn by him whose merit has body of his fellow-workers. won it.

And what has been the result of this great work? M. Bérenger de la Drôme, in his day the highest authority in France on penitentiary matters, says that, prior to the founding of Mettray, the proportion of relapses among juvenile What is it among the élèves of Mettray? Not more criminals was 75 per cent. Well does Mr. Sauvestre, in view of this state than 5 per cent. at the outside. of things, exclaim, "Is not Mettray a living witness against the old doctrine of repression? What would these children have become, if sent, as had previously been the custom, to the central prisons, those correctional establishments whence the inmates often go out worse than they came in ?" The founder of Mettray has substituted education for punishment; to what saving effect may be seen even in the very imperfect delineation which has just been given. What precious fruits of the same kind might not our prisons for adults show, if education -meaning by that term not simply scholastic instruction, but a complete system of industrial, mental, and moral training-were combined with punishment, and reformation everywhere made, as at Mettray, the real and supreme aim of the treatment!

Normal School for Sub-Officers of Reformatories.

After completing my observations at Mettray, I said to M. Demetz, "You Promptly, and with a beautihave created the best reformatory in the world.' ful modesty, he replied, "It is because I have had th best assistants in the world." The answer was no doubt true, but not the whole truth; for the helpers of M. Demetz have been his own creation, as well as every other part of the establishment. This leads me to speak, though it must be all too briefly, of a most interesting department of the colony, its preparatory school (école préparatoire), as it is called. This right arm of Mettray was created even before the colony itself. After the original buildings had been completed, M. Demetz, impressed with the just idea that the task of changing bad boys into good ones was not one to be committed to the first comers, spent an entire year, as he informed me, aided by his devoted colleague, the Count de Courteilles, in training some twenty young men to be associated with them as assistants in their work. This school, enlarged in its curriculum and its number of pupils, and embracing a three years' course of study and training, has been kept up ever since. It is a regular normal school, specially designed for Mettray, but supplying assistants to other similar establishments. So essential does M. Demetz consider this school

to the complete success of his work, that he has been often heard to say that if it were closed, the colony would be destroyed. It is through it that he obtains those devoted and efficient sub-officers, for whom Mettray has ever been distinguished; and through it, especially, he secures that unity of sentiment and of action, so indispensable in his great work of moral transformation, whereby a desolate and barren wilderness is made to rejoice and blossom as the rose. How devoted his helpers are to his person and his work will appear from two simple facts which may be told in few words. M. Demetz had secured for one of his agents a place where the work was lighter and the pay larger, and was himself accompanying the young man to introduce him to his new employer. While on the way, overcome by a sentiment of longing regret, he said: "M. Demetz, it is impossible for me to leave Mettrav;" and despite all persuasions, back he went to his smaller remuneration and his harder, rougher work. The other fact is this: During the late Franco-German war, the live stock of Mettray-cattle, pigs, and horses -had been taken by the enemy; the revenues of the colony were in great measure cut off; and half the members of the staff had felt it a duty to give themselves to the military service of the country. The half who remained, after consulting together, went in a body to M. Demetz, and said: 'Sir, we know your embarrassments, and will gladly do double work and accept half pay till the state of things shall improve." M. Demetz thinks, and rightly no doubt, that such devotion could be secured only through the école préparatoire, and that mere chance employés would be incapable of such self-sacrifice. Mr. Hill, after a visit to Mettray in its earlier years, gives his impression of the agents in this strong language: "The founders have breathed their own earnest benevolence into the hearts of their coadjutors. Seldom have I felt so deeply interested as in the hours I spent with these amiable and intelligent young men. Their devotion to their employment, their perfect knowledge of all the principles on which the institution is founded and of the best means for carrying these principles into effects, their enthusiastic attachment to the generous men to whom France and the world owe this noble establishment, the kindness evinced in their demeanor toward their wards, and the grateful spirit in which their notice of these poor lads was received, left me no room to doubt that I was among realities, not surrounded by mere shows and forms." Every recent visitor at Mettray will agree that the venerable recorder of Birmingham has as truly described the agents of to-day as he doubtless did those of twenty-five years ago.

I am unable to state what proportion of the current expenses of the colony is met by the labor of the colons; certainly not the whole, as at the reform school at Ruysselede, Belgium. M. Demetz says that some persons allege that Mettray is too dear. To this he replies, first, that Mettray does a great deal of good; and, secondly, that, in the matter of economy in charity, there are cheap purchases that ruin, as there are costly ones which enrich. It is the unusually large proportion of agents which has made the cost at Mettray high, as compared with other French reformatories; but it is to that also that the large percentage of reformations is chiefly due. The motto of M. Demetz on this subject is, "Reform as cheaply as you can, but reform."

Maison Paternelle-House of Paternal Correction.

On the same premises as the colony, but in no way connected with it, M. Demetz has organized an institution as novel in its plan as it is beneficent in its scope and action. This he calls a house of paternal correction (maison paternelle). An unhappy father, who foresaw nothing but ruin for his son, one day said to M. Demetz: "You have created an admirable institution for rescuing from vice the children of the poor; can you do nothing to save those of the rich?" Instantly his fertile mind conceived the idea of the maison paternelle. This is, in fact, a college for the reception and treatment of those sons of the upper and wealthier classes, with whom, because of their idleness or insubordination, the ordinary appliances of college discipline can accomplish nothing. Before M. Demetz founded his institution, which might be named a college for insubordinates, expulsion from the ordinary college was almost the only severe measure that could be employed. But so far from being a terror, it was often welcomed by the idle youth as a relief from what was felt by him as an intolerable burden. When one of these youths was reminded by a professor that, if expelled from

one college, he could be received into no other in France, his prompt reply was, "So much the better; I shall then have a vacation without end." The system employed in the maison paternelle is that of absolute isolation, each student having two cells-one for study, the other for sleep-with a small exercise-yard adjacent. After being placed in this establishment, he continues his lessons the same as at the college from which he has been temporarily removed, under competent professors obtained from the neighboring college of Tours. He sees none of his fellows, and feels no evil influence from their presence. Thus, left wholly to his own reflections, he retires within himself, and, generally, from one to two months is found a sufficient time to subdue his spirit, to change his habits, and to restore him to the institution from which he came, the joy and pride, instead of being, as before, the grief and shame of his family. Nothing is found so efficacious in conquering idleness as the discipline of the maison paternelle. Labor, which has been an object of aversion, becomes there a necessity and a consolation to such a degree that books are taken from the students as a punishment for negligence, and the want of occupation so weighs upon them that they soon beg to have them restored. Their studies are thus pursued without interruption, and with greater regularity, because free from all distractions, than under the ordinary conditions of scholastic life.

On the arrival of a pupil M Demetz exhorts him to a quiet and obedient behavior, assuring him that he has no quarrel with his person, but only with his faults. He says to him: "Your god father has answered for you before God; I answer for you to your family; show yourself docile, and you will have another friend to love you; resist, and you will be subdued."

The youth knows perfectly that his family has given all its authority into the hands of M. Demetz, and that if, after the first trial, he again fails in duty, he will be brought back to the maison paternelle and subjected to a discipline far more rigorous than before. As the feebleness of the parent is too often the cause of the evil to be cured in his son, M. Demetz says that as soon as the latter is convinced that he can no longer count upon impunity, he performs with prompt. ness and alacrity every duty required of him. It is at the moment when the college vacation begins that the discipline of the maison paternelle is most efficacious. When a pupil has been idle through the year, M. Demetz says to him on his arrival, You have rested while your comrades worked; it is but just that you should work while they rest." More logical than one would suppose, the youth is apt to be strongly impressed by this view, and generally goes to work at once, with ardor, to make up for lost time. M. Demetz promises him that if he applies himself diligently to his studies, he will grant him some days with his family before his vacation ends and he is sent back to resume his place with his fellow-students at college. Fear on the one side, and filial love on the other, cause the inmates of the maison paternelle to return to their institutions animated, for the most part, with better sentiments and higher purposes.

For eighteen years the maison paternelle has been doing the special work for which it was created. During that time more than nine hundred youths have experienced the wholesome pressure of its discipline, and perhaps for it has long been well known to the young collegians of France, and has been a terror to the lazy and the vicious-a still greater number have felt the silent influence of its deterrent power. Of the nine hundred who have actually been within its chastening grasp, stern it may be, yet wisely loving, a number, not greater in proportion to the whole, have been returned a second time; a very few have thrice made proof of its friendly severity. But the mass have been restored to a right mind and a right conduct by a few weeks or a few months of its paternal discipline; and the remainder, with here and there an exception, after a second or third experience.

Some sentences were found written on the bottom board of a table-drawer in the room of one of the inmates of the maison paternelle, addressed to the person who should succeed him in the occupancy of the room. They appear to have been penned by one who had shown himself rebellious, to a certain extent at least; but they so clearly reveal the good effect of the discipline, even upon a stubborn youth, that I begged a copy of M. Demetz, who kindly caused one to be made for me. I append a translation, which cannot fail to interest the reader.