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252 LETTERS.
you to consider it with me, and try to discover the point at
which the influence of the House of Refuge would become
combined with the moral justice which is the foundation
of virtue and of society, and which ordains that man shall
be responsible for his actions, — that “as he sows so shall
he reap.”
The House of Refuge for neglected children in Stock-
holm is, at the same time, an educational institution. More
than one hundred children are educated there at present,
and provided for from their eighth year until, when they
have been confirmed, they enter into service, which the
Directors of the Institution procure for them.
They very easily find employment, because these unusu-
ally clever and well-taught children are much in request.
All this is well and good; but the greater number of these
have come out of the abodes of vice and neglect. Here
appears the moral injustice, and this seems to me so dan-
gerous in its consequences in general, that, having been
led by thinking people seriously to weigh this matter in my
mind, I have taken the liberty to submit to the Directors,
whether the House of Refuge ought not properly to be
considered as a central depot for these children, into which
they should be received and taken care of during the
earliest part of their misery, which often is so great, that,
being previously nearly starved, they can in the beginning,
only with difficulty bear food; and from which depot they
may afterwards, as soon as convenient, be transplanted into
the country amongst peasants and small farmers, against
some moderate remuneration, by which means not only the
child would cost scarcely half of what it now costs the Insti-
tution; but the Institution would be enabled to admit a
much greater number of children ; besides which the still
more important advantage would be gained, that the chil-
dren would be placed in the same condition of life, would
become inured to the same toil, and would have the same
prospects for the future as poor people’s children in gen-
eral in Sweden.
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