As they are at present, our institutions of this class are neither schools nor prisons. They employ the inmates at labor and instruct them, as far as practicable, in the elements of useful knowledge and thus far they resemble the Industrial Schools of Europe. But they are places of close confinement--they have regulations and a police, not unlike those of a prison, and their inmates are sent thither as _offenders_--though _juvenile_ offenders. The worst that can be said of some of them is, that they are incorrigible truants--of others, that they are past parental control, (and in this respect, perhaps, “more sinned against than sinning;”) but some are adroit thieves and bold burglars--some skilful forgers--some incendiaries, and some assaulters with intent to kill. Their ages, too, range from eight to sixteen or even eighteen, and their size and physical strength are equally various. This is a motley group to bring into the relation of schoolmates or fellow-apprentices, and their care-takers must possess rare endowments, so to administer discipline, as to prevent much harm from being done to some in connection with all the good they do to others. For, that they have done immeasurable good, no one who has investigated their operations and results, can for a moment doubt. They have fully justified the high anticipations which were entertained concerning them at an early period of their history. “No disciplinary institution in our country,” said the Rev. Dr. Alexander of New Jersey, “promises to effect more for society, than a House of Refuge for juvenile delinquents. If it were ever lawful to rejoice in an event produced by crime, it would be, that these unhappy youth are, by the commission of a crime, snatched from the sink of pollution in which they have been immersed, and put to regular business, and educated as well as most children in the land.”[1] Having fully sustained their claim to confidence, as a system of reformatory means, we naturally desire to see them rendered as effective as possible. And to this end we would have them adhere punctiliously to the original design for which they were instituted. This was not to inflict a penalty, but to interpose a shield--not to bring suffering upon the guilty, but to supply instruction, wholesome discipline and kind offices to the neglected and exposed. They may easily be perverted by opening their doors to youth (“young in years, but old in sinning”) who are thought to require some milder discipline than the penitentiary affords, but whose offences are really as rank and as indicative of deep-seated depravity as those of the oldest and the worst.