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PROTESTANT


493


PROTESTANT


Canada, 4 in the Archdiocese of Montreal. In Eng- land: for boys, at Walthamstow, Essex; Fam worth, Lancashire; Birkdale, Lancashire; and Market Weighton, Yorkshire: for girls, at Bristol, Glouces- tershire; and Liverpool, Lancashire. In Scotland, at Parkhead, Glasgow. In Ireland: for boys, at Glencree, Co. Wicklow, and Philipstown, King's Co.; for girls, at Drumcondra, Co. Dublin.

Most of the juvenile delinquents sent to institu- tions in the United States are committed either during minority or for an indeterminate period. Statistics show that female delinquents are com- mitted during minority more frequently than the males. On the other hand, commitment for an in- determinate period was more frequently imposed upon males than females. Most of these delinquents are literate. During 1904, of the male delinquents, 84-7 per cent could both read and write; the per cent of literate females was as high as 89-4. The length of stay in the institution is as a general rule not long. Under the system of parole and probation, the actual restraint is much shortened. The average duration of residence of 1.508 boys discharged from the New York Catholic Protectory had been fifteen and two-thirds months; of two hundred and fifty girls, thirty-two and one-half months. The manage- ment of the Protectory claim that the girls' depart- ment cannot be considered a reformatory or even a home for delinquent children, and express their satisfaction with the recent amendment of the law in New York to prohibit the conviction of children under sixteen years of age of crime as such, restrict- ing the complaint to delinquency.

At St-Yon, in France, in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, St. John Baptiste de la Salle undertook the training and correction of wayward youth. The methods which are now employed at the New York Catholic Protectory, which is under the care of the order established by him, may well be taken as indicative of the general plan of pro- tectories or the ideals which they seek to attain. The Protectory aims to form the youth committed to its care by vigilance, good example, and instruc- tion: vigilance, to remove from the children the many occasions of offending; example, that the teachers be exemplars of the virtues they inculcate, for example is much better than precept; instruction, that they may become intelligent scholars, not only in the secular sciences but in religion, which is (he warmth that gives life and light to all other learning, without which there is danger that knowledge may but minister to evil. Many of the boys received have been truant players with a strong disinclination to study. To overcome this and to train and de- velop the receptive faculties in the usual school studies entails much labour upon the Brothers. Moreover, it is felt that for these children especially vocational studies should not be postponed until mature years, but should be commenced early, so as to accustom the boy to what may afterwards prove to be the means of earning his own livelihood when he shall have left the Protectory. Accordingly, the ef- fective faculties are instructed in different industries, in printing in all its branches, photography, tailoring, shoemaking, laundry work, industrial and ornamental drawing, sign-painting, painting, wheel-wrighting, blacksmithing, plumbing, carpentry, bricklaying, stone-work, baking in its different branches, and in practical knowledge of boilers, engines, dynamos, and electric wiring.

At the Lincoln Agricultural School, a subsidiary institution, the boys, moreover, receive a training in dairy-farming and other agriculture. It is felt that if thejje children should not acquire a taste for the farm and for husbandry, but should return later to the city, they will have passed the trying period of their lives under conditions that will help them to be


good men and assist them in health and in many other ways in after-hfe. While the productivity of these protectories is sometimes considerable, this is not the aim, but simply incidental to their primary object, which is the development of an industrious boy of good character for the glory of God and the good of the country. Protectories are always desirous of allowing their inmates to go out into the world, if they are prepared for it. They are impressed with the truth in the statement of Archbishop Hughes in his letter of 19 June, 1863, to Dr. Ives: "Let the children be in their house of protection just as short as possible. Their lot is, and is to be, in one sense, a sufficiently hard one under any circumstances, but the sooner they know what it is to be the better they will be prepared for encountering its trials and difficul- ties". These protectories have established working boys' homes, like St. Philip's of New York City, St. James' of Baltimore, the Working Boys' Home of Chicago, and other places, where the chiklren may be safely housed and fed, taught manners, trained in the amenities of life, and somewhat accustomed to the use of money and economic conditions before they become incorporated in the great mass of citizenship. U. S.ICensus: Prisoners and Juvenile Delinquents in Institu- tions: 1904 (Washington, 1907); Proceedings of the National Conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, held at Richmond, Va., 1903 (New York, 1909); Proceedings of the First National Conference of Catholic Charities, held at the Catholic University of America, 1910 (Washington, 1911); F. H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation. (New York, 1S95) ; The Life and Works of the Venerable J. B. de la Salle (New York and Montreal, 1878); E. C. Wines, The State of Prisons and of Child-Saving Institu- tions in the Civilized World (Cambridge, 18S0); Annual Reports of the New York Catholic Protectory and others in U. S.

William H. DeLacy.

Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. — The hi.story of this religious organization divides itself naturally into two por- tions: the periotl of its dependence upon the Church of England and that of its separate existence with a hierarchy of its own.

The Church of England was planted permanently in Virginia in 1607, at the foundation of the James- town Colony. There had been sporadic attempts before this date — in 1.58.5 and 1587, under the aus- pices of Walter Raleigh in the Carolinas, and in 1607, under the auspices of Chief Justice Pophain and Sir Ferdinando Gorges in Maine. The attempt to found colonies had failed, and with it, of course, the attempt to plant the English ecclesiastical institu- tions. During the colonial period the Church of England achieved a quasi-establishment in Mary- land and Virginia, and to a lesser extent in the other colonies, with the exception of New England, where for many years the few Episcopalians were bitterly persecuted and at best barely tolerated. In the Southern states, notably in Virginia and Maryland, in the latter of which the Church of England had dis- possessed the Catholics not only of their political power, but even of religious liberty, the Church of England, although well provided for from a worldly point of view, was by no means in a strong state, either spiritually or intellectually. The appoint- ment to parishes was almost wholly in the hands of vestries who refused to induct ministers and so give them a title to the emoluments of their office, but preferred to pay chaplains whom they could dismiss at their pleasure. This naturally resulted in filling the ranks of the ministry with very unworthy candi- dates, and reduced the clergy to a position of con- tempt in the eyes of the laity.

As there were no bishops in America, the churches in the colonies were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, who governed them by means of commissaries; but, although among the commissaries were men of such eminence as Dr. Bray, in Mary- land, and Dr. Blair, the founder of William and Mary College in Virginia, the lay power was so strong