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LETTERS. 253
The moral injustice would in this way be, to a great ex-
tent, counteracted. Besides, one would avoid the danger
of getting, as it is the case now, a superfluity of artisans
and mechanics, whereas the healthy and useful class of
country people and agriculturists would increase, which in
our country is considered to be very advantageous. I
have been answered: “Your project is very judicious;
but in that case the House of Refuge ceases to be a moral
House of Refuge — it is then placed on the same footing
as the Orphan Asylum; it becomes merely an extension
of the same; and see what is the fate of those children
who are taken out of it and placed with other people.
Do not a great number of them become utterly lost in
the hands of their greedy foster-parents, who do not care
for them? Nor does any body know how they are trained
morally. Therefore, first to admit the children and then
to plant them out, would not be to save them.”
Notwithstanding these objections, I cannot help thinking
that this method would be the best and the right one, if
we consider the matter at large. The dangerous conse-
quences, which you allude to, might be guarded against to
a great extent by a strict surveillance. This surveillance
could best be kept up by the clergy in the respective con-
gregations; but I allow that the thing has its difficulties.
Some part of the moral injustice of which we have
spoken, may be avoided by means of the principles which
are followed in selecting the children which are to be ad-
mitted into the House of Refuge. In Stockholm this has
been actually done in this way: that the Directors in the
1 The plan suggested as above, was a few years ago adopted by the Di-
rectors of the House of Refuge, who, after having purchased an island of
considerable extent, situated at a distance of about five and twenty English
miles from Stockholm, entered into a contract with the peasants and farm-
ers living on the same, according to which they engaged themselves, on the
payment of a fixed sum, each to receive, educate, and to instruct in agricult-
ure, one or more children of the House of Refuge, under the supervision of
the manager of the principal estate on the island. This arrangement has
proved very beneficial to the children. — Eprror’’s REMARK.
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