which he is to call his own, and cultivate as he pleases. One of the boys began to erect a little hut of sticks and earth upon his plot, in which he might rest during the heat of the day, and to which he might retire when he wished to be alone. When it was all finished, it occurred to him to dedicate it to its use by religious ceremonies. Accordingly, he collected the boys together. The hut was adorned with wreaths of flowers; a little table was placed in the center, on which lay the open Bible, ornamented in the same manner. He then read with great seriousness the 14th, 15th, and 24th verses of the exviiith Psalm :

"The Lord is my strength and my song, and is become my salvation."
"The voice of rejoicing and salvation is heard in the tabernacle of the righteous."
"This is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it."

After this, the exercises were concluded by singing and prayer. Another boy afterwards built him a hut, which was to be dedicated in a similar way; but when the boys came together, they saw in it a piece of timber which belonged to the establishment, and ascertaining that it had been taken without permission, they at once demolished the whole edifice, and restored the timber to its place. At the time of harvest, when they first entered the field to gather the potatoes, before commencing the work, they formed into a circle, and, much to the surprise of the superintendent, broke out together in the harvest hymn :

"Now let us all thank God."

After singing this, they fell to their work with great cheerfulness and vigor. I mention these instances, from numerous others which might be produced, to show how much may be done in reclaiming the most hopeless youthful offenders by a judicious application of the right means of moral influence.

Hon. Horace Mann in his "Educational Tour," thus describes his visit to the Rauhen-Haus.

It was opened for the reception of abandoned children of the very lowest class, children brought up in the abodes of infamy, and taught not only by example but by precept, the vices of sensuality, thieving, and vagabondry, children who had never known the family tie, or who had known it only to see it violated. Hamburgh, having been for many years a commercial and free city, and, of course, open to adventurers and renegades from all parts of the world, has many more of this class of population than its own institutions and manners would have bred. The thoughts of Mr. Wichern were strongly turned towards this subject while yet a student at the university; but want of means deterred him from engaging in it, until a legacy, left by a Mr. Gercken, enabled him to make a beginning in 1833. He has since devoted his life and all his worldly goods to the work. It is his first aim that the abandoned children whom he seeks out on the highway, and in the haunts of vice, shall know and feel the blessings of domestic life; that they shall be introduced into the bosom of a family; for this he regards as a divine institution, and therefore the birthright of every human being, and the only atmosphere in which the human affections can be adequately cultivated. His house, then, must not be a prison, or a place of punishment or confinement. The site he had chosen for his experiment was one inclosed within high, strong walls and fences. His first act was to break down these barriers, and to take all bolts and bars from the doors and windows. He began with three boys of the worst description; and within three months, the number increased to twelve. They were taken into the bosom of Mr. Wichern's family; his mother was their mother, and his sister their sister. They were not punished for any past offenses, but were told that all should be forgiven them, if they tried to do well in future. The defenseless condition of the premises was referred to, and they were assured that no walls or bolts were to detain them; that one cord only should bind them, and that the cord of love. The effect attested the all but omnipotent power of generosity and affection. Children, from seven or eight to fifteen or sixteen years of age, in many of whom early and loathsome vices had nearly obliterated the stamp of humanity, were transformed. not only into useful members of society, but into characters that endeared themselves to all within their sphere of acquaintance. The education given by Mr. Wichern has not been an æsthetic or literary one. The children were told at the beginning that labor was the price of living, and that they must earn the wn

bread, if they would secure a comfortable home. He did not point them to ease and affluence, but to an honorable poverty, which, they were taught, was not in itself an evil. Here were means and materials for learning to support themselves; but there was no rich fund or other resources for their maintenance. Charity had supplied the home to which they were invited; their own industry must supply the rest. Mr. Wichern placed great reliance upon religious training; but this did not consist in giving them dry and unintelligible dogmas. He spoke to them of Christ, as the benefactor of mankind, who proved, by deeds of love, his interest in the race, who sought out the worst and most benighted of men, to give them instruction and relief, and who left it in charge to those who came after him, and wished to be called his disciples, to do likewise. It is strange that, enforced by such a practical exemplification of Christian love as their fatherly benefactor gave them in his every-day life, the story of Christ's words and deeds should have sunk deeply into their hearts and melted them into tenderness and docility? Such was the effect. The most rapid improvement ensued in the great majority of the children; and even those whom long habits of idleness and vagabondry made it difficult to keep in the straight path, had long seasons of obedience and gratitude, to which any aberration from duty was only an exception.

As the number of pupils increased, Mr. Wichern saw that the size of the family would seriously impair its domestic character. To obviate this, he divided his company into families of twelve, and he has erected nine separate buildings, situated in a semi-circle around his own, and near to it, in each of which dwells a family of twelve boys or of twelve girls, under the care of a house-father or housemother, as the assistants are respectively called. Each of these families is, to some extent, an independent community, having an individuality of its own. They eat and sleep in their own dwelling, and the children belonging to each look up to their own particular father or mother, as home-bred children to a parent. The general meeting every morning, at first in the chamber of Mr. Wichern's mother, but afterwards, when the numbers increased, in the little chapel, and their frequent meetings at work, or in the play-ground, form a sufficient, and, in fact, a very close bond of union for the whole community. Much was done by the children themselves in the erection of their little colony of buildings; and in doing this, they were animated by a feeling of hope and a principle of independence in providing a dwelling for themselves, while they experienced the pleasures of benevolence in rendering assistance to each other. Mr. Wichern mentions, with great satisfaction, the good spirit of the architect who came upon the premises to direct in putting up the first house. This man would not retain a journeyman for a day or an hour, who did not conduct with the utmost decorum and propriety before the children who were assisting in the work.

Instruction is given in reading, writing, arithmetic, singing, and drawing, and, in some instances, in higher branches. Music is used as one of the most efficient instruments for softening stubborn wills, and calling forth tender feelings; and its deprivation is one of the punishments for delinquency. The songs and hymns have been specially adapted to the circumstances and wants of the community, and it has often happened that the singing of an appropriate hymn, both at the gatherings in the mother's chamber, which were always more or less kept up, and in the little chapel, has awakened the first-born sacred feeling in obdurate and brutified hearts. Sometimes a voice would drop from the choir, and then weeping and sobbing would be heard instead. The children would say, they could not sing,-they must think of their past lives, of their brothers and sisters, or of their parents living in vice and misery at home. On several occasions the singing exercise had to be given up. Frequently the children were sent out to the garden to recover themselves. An affecting narrative is recorded of a boy who ran away, but whom Mr. Wichern pursued, found, and persuaded to return. He was brought back on Christmas eve, which was always celebrated in the mother's chamber. The children were engaged in singing the Christmas hymns when he entered the room. At first they manifested strong disapprobation of his conduct, for he was a boy to whose faults special forbearance had been previously shown. They were then told to decide among themselves how he should be punished. This brought them all to perfect silence, and after some whispering and consulting together, one, who had formerly been guilty of the same fault of ingratitude, under still less excusable circumstances, burst out in a petition for his forgiveness. All united in it,

reached out to him a friendly hand, and the festival of the Christmas eve was turned into a rejoicing over the brother that had been lost but was found. The pardon was not in words merely, but in deeds. No reference to the fact was afterwards made. A day or two after, he was sent away on an errand to the distance of half a mile. He was surprised and affected by this mark of confidence; and from that time never abused his freedom, though intrusted to execute commissions at great distances. But he could never after hear certain Christmas hymns without shedding tears; and long subsequently, in a confidential communication to Mr. Wichern, respecting some act of his former life, (an unburdening of the overladen conscience, which was very common with the inmates, and always voluntary; for they were told on their arrival, that their past life should never be spoken of unless between them and himself,) he referred to the decisive effect of that scene of loving-kindness, upon his feelings and character.

One peculiar feature of this institution is, that the children are not stimulated by the worldly motives of fame, wealth, or personal aggrandizement. The superintendent does not inflame them with the ambition, that if they surpass each other at recitation, and make splendid displays at public examinations, they shall, in the end, become high military officers, or congress-men, or excite the envy of all by their wealth or fame. On the other hand, so far as the world's goods are concerned, he commends and habituates them to the idea of an honorable poverty; and the only riches with which he dazzles their imaginations are the riches of good works. He looks to them as his hope for redeeming others from the sphere whence they themselves were taken; and there have been many touching instances of the reformation of parents and families, for whom the natural affection first sprang up in these children's hearts, after they had learned the blessings of home and what the ties of nature really are.

One of the most interesting effects of this charity is the charity which it reproduces in its objects; and thus it is shown that, in the order of nature, the actions of good men-provided they are also wise-not less than good seed, will produce thirty, or sixty, or a hundred fold of beneficent fruit. Mr. Wichern makes a great point of celebrating Christmas, and the friends of the school are in the babit of sending small sums of money, and articles of various kinds to adorn the festival. This money has often been voluntarily appropriated by the children, to charitable purposes. They frequently give away their pennies, and instances have happened where they have literally emptied their little purses into the hands of poverty and distress, and taken off their own clothes to cover the naked. On one occasion, six poor children had been found by some of the scholars, and invited to the Christmas festival. There they were clothed, and many useful and pleasing articles, made by the givers, were presented to them. One of the boys read a passage from the history of Christ, and the Christmas songs and other songs of thanksgiving and praise were sung. To the sound of the organ, which a friend had presented to the little chapel, some verses welcoming the strangers, succeeded. The guests then departed, blessing the house and its kind inhabitants; but who can doubt that a voice of gladness, more precious than all worldly applauses, sprang up unbidden and exulting in the hearts of the little benefactors?

But among numerous less conspicuous instances of the change wrought by wise and appropriate moral means, in the character of these so lately abandoned children, the most remarkable occurred at the time of the great Hamburgh fire, in May, 1842. In July, 1843, I saw the vast chasm which the conflagration had made in the center of that great city. The second day of the fire, when people were driven from the city in crowds, and houseless and half frantic sufferers came to the Rauhe-Haus for shelter, the children, some of whom had friends and relatives in the city, became intensely excited, and besought Mr. Wichern for leave to go in and make themselves useful to the sufferers. Not without great anxiety as to the force of the temptations for escape or for plunder that might assail them in such an exposed and tumultuous scene, he gave permission to a band of twenty-two to accompany him, on condition that they would keep together as much as possible, and return with him at an appointed time. This they readily promised; nor did they disappoint him. Their conduct was physically as well as morally beroic. They rushed into the greatest dangers to save life and property, and though sometimes pressed to receive rewards, they steadily refused them. At stated intervals they returned to the appointed place to reassure the confidence of their superior. On

one occasion, a lad remained absent long beyond the time agreed upon, but at last he appeared, quite exhausted by the labor of saving some valuable property. Mr. Wichern afterwards learned from the owner, not from the lad, that he had steadily refused the compensation offered to, and even urged upon him. When the company returned home at the appointed time, he sent forth another band under the care of a house-father, and these exerted themselves in the same faithful and efficient manner. This was done as long as the necessity of the case required. From this time the Rauhe-Haus was the resort of the poor and homeless, and not for days only, but for weeks. The pupils shared with them their food, and even slept upon the ground to give their beds to the destitute, sick, and injured. I can hardly refrain from narrating many other facts of a similar character connected with this institution, for if the angels rejoice over a rescued sinner, why should not we partake of that joy when it is our brother who is ransomed ?

In his report for 1845, Mr. Wichern says, the institution was actually so impoverished by the demand made upon it at that time, and the demands upon public charity have since been so great in that unfortunate city, that the inmates have been almost reduced to suffering from the necessaries of life, particularly as he was induced to receive several children rendered homeless by that calamity. To this object, however, even the children of the house were ready and willing to contribute portions of their wardrobe, and they submitted cheerfully to other privations. Mr. Wichern regretted above all other things the necessity of refusing many applications, and it is but doing justice to the citizens of Hamburgh, to state, that on an appeal made by him for funds to erect a new building, they were generously and promptly raised by those who had such unusual claims upon their charity.

A single remark, I must be allowed to make. When an individual effects so much good, it seems to be often thought that he accomplishes it by virtue of some charm or magic, or preternatural influence, of which the rest of the world can not partake. The superintendent of the Rauhe-Haus is a refutation of this idea. Laboriously, perseveringly, unintermittingly, he uses MEANS for the accomplishment of his desired ends. When I put to him the question, in what manner he produced these transforming effects upon his charge, his answer was, By active occupations, music, and Christian love." Two or three things should be stated in explanation of this compendious reply. When a new subject comes to the RauheHaus, he is first received into Mr. Wichern's own family. Here, under the wise and watchful guardianship of the master, he is initiated into the new life of action, thought, feeling, which he is expected to lead. His dispositions are watched, his character is studied; and as soon as prudence allows, he is transferred to that one of the little colonies whose house-father is best qualified to manage his peculiarities of temperament and disposition. Soon after the opening of the establishment, and the increase of its numbers, Mr. Wichern found that it would be impossible for him to bestow the requisite care and oversight upon each one of his pupils which his necessities demanded. He cast about for assistance, and though he was able to find those in the community who had enough of the spirit of benevolence and self-sacrifice to undertake the difficult labor to which his own life was devoted, yet he soon found that they had not the other requisite qualifications to make their benevolent purposes available. He could find enough well-intentioned persons to superintend the workshops, gardens, &c., but they had not intellectual competency. So he could find schoolmasters who could give good lessons, but they were not masters of any handicraft. He was therefore driven, as he says, to the expedient of preparing a class of teachers, to become his auxiliaries in the work. For this end, he has superadded to his original plan a school for the preparation of teachers; first to supply himself, then to send abroad to open other institutions similar to his own, and thirdly to become superintendents of prisons. This last object he deems very important. Questions about prison-architecture, he says, have given a new literature to the world; but as yet, nothing, or but little, is done to improve the character or increase the qualifications of prison-keepers. I have often felt the force of this remark, in the numerous continental prisons which I have visited. Though the masters of the prisons have generally appeared to be very respectable men, yet the assistants or deputy-turnkeys have very often seemed to belong to a low order of society, from whose manners, conversation, or treatment of the prisoners, no good influence could be expected.

This second institution of Mr. Wichern is in reality a normal school, which the necessities of his situation suggested, and forced him to establish.

During the ten years of the existence of this institution, there have been one hundred and thirty-two children received into it. Of these about eighty were there on the 1st of July, 1843. Only two had run away, who not either voluntarily returned, or, being brought back, had not voluntarily remained. The two unreclaimed fugitives committed offenses, fell into the hands of the civil magistrate, and were imprisoned.

Who can reflect upon this history, where we see a self-sacrificing man, by the aids of wisdom and Christian love, exercising, as it were, the evil spirits from more than a hundred of the worst children whom a corrupted state of society has engendered; who can see this, without being reminded of some case, perhaps within his own personal knowledge, where a passionate, ignorant and perverse teacher, who, for the sake of saving a few dollars of money, or from some other low motive, has been put in possession of an equal number of fine-spirited children, and has, even in a short space of time, put an evil spirit into the bosom of them all? What is most remarkable in reference to the class of institutions now under consideration, is the high character of the men, for capacity, for attainments, for social rank, who preside over them. At the head of a private orphan house in Potsdam, is the venerable Von Türk. According to the laws of his country, Von Türk is a nobleman. His talents and acquisitions were such that at a very early age, he was elevated to the bench. This was, probably, an office for life, and was attended with honors and emoluments. He officiated as judge for fourteen years; but in the course of this time, so many criminal cases were brought before him for adjudication, whose only cause and origin were so plainly referable to early neglect in the culprit's education, that the noble heart of the judge could no longer bear to pronounce sentence of condemnation against the prisoners; for he looked upon them as men, who, almost without a paradox, might be called guiltless offenders. While holding the office of judge he was appointed school inspector. The paramount importance of the latter office grew upon his mind as he executed its duties, until, at last, he came to the full conception of the grand and sacred truth, how much more intrinsically honorable is the vocation of the teacher, who saves from crime and from wrong, than the magistrates who waits till they are committed, and then avenge them. He immediately resigned his office of judge, with its lifetenure and its salary; traveled to Switzerland, where he placed himself under the care of Pestalozzi; and, after availing himself for three years of the instructions of that celebrated teacher, he returned to take charge of an orphan asylum. Since that time he has devoted his whole life to the care of the neglected and destitute. He lives in as plain and inexpensive a style as our well-off farmers and mechanics, and devotes his income to the welfare of the needy. I was told by his personal friends that he not only deprived himself of the luxuries of life, but submitted to many privations in order to appropriate his small income to others whom he considered more needy; and that his wife and family cordially and cheerfully shared such privations with him for the same object. To what extent would our own community sympathize with, or appreciate the act, if one of the judges of our higher courts, or any other official dignitary, should resign an office of honor and of profit to become the instructor of children.

Even now, when the once active and vigorous frame of the patriarchal man is bending beneath the weight of years, he employs himself in teaching agriculture, together with the branches commonly taught in the Prussian schools, to a class of orphan boys. What warrior, who rests at last from the labors of the tented field, after a life of victories; what statesman, whose name is familiar in all the courts of the civilized world; what orator, who attracts towards himself tides of men wherever he may move in his splendid course; what one of all these would not, at the sunset of life, exchange his fame and his clustering honors, for that precious and abounding treasury of holy and beneficent deeds, the remembrance of which this good old man is about to carry into another world! Do we not need a new spirit in our community, and especially in our schools, which shall display only objects of virtuous ambition before the eyes of our emulous youth; and teach them that no height of official station nor splendor of professional renown, can equal in the eye of Heaven, and of all good men, the true glory of a life consecrated to the welfare of mankind?