At one time, in this part of Scotland, the children of paupers and of criminals, and the orphans of the poor, were brought up in numbers in the poorhouse. They acquired characters in common that marked them off from children outside. When they grew out of childhood, and were turned out in the world to work and to live, many of them gravitated back to the institution or to the prison. It occurred to someone that what these children required was proper parents; and one was boarded out with a family here, and another with a family there, at less cost to the parish than had been incurred in keeping them in the poorhouse. Thousands of children during the last generation have been boarded out in this fashion to their great advantage in every respect; and their after-conduct has been as good--they have been as decent and law-abiding citizens--as the children of any other class in the community. This moral and social gain has been accomplished at less financial cost than that incurred by bringing them up in institutions. It was said that the institution child had been handicapped because of the stigma of pauperism, but the boarded-out child is equally a pauper in respect that he is supported by the rates. The fact is that the stigma from which the poorhouse child suffered was not the stigma of pauperism, but the stigma of institutionalism. When the public conscience was stirred regarding the treatment of the insane, great buildings were erected and lavish provision was made for the lunatic. To these places thousands were sent for treatment. By and by it became manifest that in many cases their latter condition was worse than their first. They were better housed, better fed, better clothed, and better cared for; they were protected from the cruelty of the wicked and the neglect of the thoughtless; but they acquired evil habits from each other, and they infected some of their attendants with their vices. Here and there suitable guardians were found for one and another of those whose insanity was not of such a kind as to make it necessary in the public interest that they should be confined to an institution; and now, in Scotland, between five and six thousand are boarded out. That in some cases mistakes are made no one denies; but the cases are few, and on the balance there has been an enormous advantage to everyone concerned. It has become apparent that not only the inmates of institutions acquire peculiarities which mark them off from persons living outside, but the officials who live in these places also tend to develop eccentricities, and there are proposals made with the object of preventing them from living in; the idea being that the more they are brought in contact with life outside the less they are likely to become narrowed in their views and their habits, and the better they will be able to do their work in such a way as would commend itself to the public whom they serve.