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Untitled Article
best , we aggravate to the utmost , — -first , by not procuring the * universal education of the people , and next , by making the worst of such regulations as we have , administering our punishments capriciously , and enhancing their mischiefs by bad modes of infliction . Two great works , then ,, have to be achieved , in preparation for the enlightened penal system of which our philosophers and philanthropists descry a glimpse in a coming age : —> the nation must be educated into a state of moral discernment ;
and , while this is doing , our present penal institutions must be purified from the executive abuses which render them ten times more cruel and pernicious than the most barbarous of their originators intended , or than there is any occasion for them to be made . We quote some remarks from the Report before us , on the first of the two objects we have specified : — 6
The distressed condition of juvenile offenders on their discharge from prison has continued to occupy the attention of th& Committee , and they have afforded such relief to these necessitous objects as the very limited state of the funds would allow . The prevalence of crime among the youth of the lower orders is well known to be alarmingly great . On the causes which contribute to this evil , the Committee have fully enlarged in their
former Reports . Whatever operates to the production of indigence among the adult poor , has , of course , a most unfavourable effect on the moral condition of their families , and the juvenile depravity , which now unhappily prevails , derives its origin and strength from circumstances too deeply rooted in the present state of society to be materially diminished by any plans , however wise , for the mere punishment of the offender . The diffusion of
education is , in every point of view , the most efficacious remedy for the prevention of crime . By education is meant , not merely instruction in the elementary arts of reading and writing , but a course of moral training" which shall impart religious impressions , control the passions , and amend the heart . In their previous Reports , the Committee have enlarged on the benefits which the establishment of Infant Schools is calculated to impart to the
most indigent classes , and especially in those crowded parts of the metropolis where a single room often contains several famtlies . Beset on every side by the most profligate associations , breathing a moral atmosphere the most corrupt , no benefits can be conceived more precious than those which are presented by these Institutions ; and it is therefore to be regretted that ,
notwithstanding their obvious importance , they should not have become universally established . In regard to the education of the poor generally , it must be acknowledged that the experience of the last thirty years has proved the inefficiency of the exertions made for this purpose , as well by public associations as by private individuals . In the metropolis and populous towns throughoift
Untitled Article
580 Prison fiis&p ' tini .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1832, page 580, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1820/page/4/
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