The Report on Physical Training (Scotland) calls attention once more to the fact that children in the pauper, reformatory, and industrial schools are superior in physique to the children in the ordinary elementary schools. Says the report: “The contrast between the condition of such children as are seen in the poor day schools and the children of parents who have altogether failed in their duty is both marked and painful.”[63] Commenting upon which an English Socialist writer says: “The obvious deduction is that if you are doing your duty ... and your children are brought up in the way they should go, they will not be half as well off as if they were truants or thieves. Therefore, ... the best thing you can do for them ... is to turn your children into little criminals.”[64] Without accepting these cynical deductions, the fact remains that in a great many instances those children who, by reason of the criminality of their parents or their complete failure to provide for their offspring, find their way into such institutions, are far better off, physically, than their fellows in the ordinary schools whose parents are careful and industrious. But for the taint of institutional life, and the crushing out of individuality which almost invariably accompanies it, they would be far better equipped for the battle of life. The real significance of this physical superiority is not so obvious as the writer quoted appears to assume. The fact is that these children are generally below the average even of their own class when they are admitted to these institutions. Their superior physique shows the regeneration which proper food and hygienic conditions produce in the worst cases. IX