I have, for my own information, conversed with some of the boys so
altered, and, during the conversation I had with them, they declared
that they derived the greatest happiness and satisfaction from their
change in life. I don't at all doubt the truth of these statements, for
their evident improvement and individual circumstances fully bear them
out; and I believe them to be really serious in all they say, and truly
anxious to become honest and respectable. I attribute, in a great
measure, this salutary change to the effects arising in many respects
from the establishment of reformatory schools; but I have more
particularly found that greater advantages have emanated from those
institutions since the parents of the children confined in them have
been made to pay contributions to their maintenance; for it appears
beyond doubt that the effect of the latter has been to induce the
parents of other young criminals to withdraw them from the streets, and,
instead of using them for the purposes of crime, they seem to take an
interest in their welfare. And I know that many of them are now really
anxious to get such employment for their children as will enable them to
obtain a livelihood; and it is my opinion that the example thus set to
older and more desperate criminals, belonging in many instances to the
same family as the juvenile thief, has had the effect of reforming them
also; for many of them have left off their course of crime, and are now
living by honest labor.
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