Chapter II: A Dinner at the Grange--A Pair of Owls (7)

As it is impossible within present limits to examine every detail of this extensive report, which fills 96 pages, we pass at once to the treasurer’s figures. The expenses for the past year amount to $225,747 92. To cover this the city and county of New York contributed $93,333 34; the Board of Education, $32,893 95; being a total of $126,227 29 contributed from the public moneys. The rest is made up by private donations, legacies etc.

As an illustration of the difficulties to be met with in trying to extract the gist of the various reports, the following sentence from the one in hand may serve. In describing “the year’s work” the superintendent says (p. 8): “The labors of charity of this society have become so extended and multifarious that it is exceedingly difficult to give any satisfactory picture of them.” If this is his opinion, what is ours likely to be? However, we will make such use of the limited means at our disposal as may tend to give some idea of the workings of this society.

The “industrial schools” constitute a prominent feature of it. There are twenty-one of them and thirteen night schools. They give occupation to eighty-six salaried teachers and a superintendent, and to a volunteer corps of seventy ladies in addition. The volunteers, we are informed, “produce results of which they have no adequate idea themselves.” The industries taught in these “industrial schools” are not brought out very prominently. The army of teachers, regulars and volunteers together, have acted upon “an average number” of 3,556, and an aggregate number of 10,288. Dropping the volunteers, that gives each of the eighty-six “salaried teachers” just 41 and the 30/86th part of a child to devote his or her sole attention to during the year. It is for these schools that the Board of Education awarded the $32,893 95 already mentioned.

The schools alone consume of the whole expenses of the society for the year $70,509 88, which is divided in the following pleasing manner:

Rent of school-rooms, $11,455 25
Salaries of superintendent and 86 teachers, 39,202 33
Food, clothing, fuel, etc., 19,852 30

That is to say, the salaries of the school superintendent and 86 teachers for 3,556 children cost considerably more than rent, food, clothing, fuel, children, and everything else put together. This is worse even than the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents, whose officers were modestly contented with a good third of the whole amount of money spent on the institution. But here at the present ratio more than one-half is absorbed in salaries. The public seems to labor under an idea that the institutions which they so cheerfully support are intended chiefly for the benefit of poor children. It is to be hoped that their eyes may at last be opened to their fatal mistake. At all events, in the present instance it is clear that the schools are less intended to instruct the children than to support the teachers. The very liberal allowance granted to these schools by the Board of Education falls miserably below the teachers’ salaries.

The cheerfulness with which these figures are contemplated by the officers of the society is positively exhilarating. We are informed (p. 45) that “the annual expense of twenty-one day and thirteen evening schools, with salaries of superintendent and eighty-six teachers, would be an intolerable burden to the society, did not the city pay semi-annually a certain sum for each pupil, as allowed by law.” The number of pupils paid for by the city is, of course, 10,288--“a gain over last year of 704.” Here is a sample of how the list is made up:

No. on Average
Rolls. Attend’ce.
Fifty-third Street School, 1,212 260
Fifty-second Street School, 561 199
Park School, 807 301
Phelps School, 417 80
Girls’ Industrial School, 298 91
Fourteenth Ward School, 650 219
Water Street School, 101 31

And so they go on. Comment is unnecessary. It is to be taken for granted that the average attendance here given by the society is not likely to be below the mark. Taking it then as correct, it may be left to honest men to judge whether half the number of teachers would not be amply sufficient. As to the question of salaries, it is needless to remark further upon that. Who can resist the piteous appeal of the treasurer after closing the account of the “thirty-four” schools? “Surely, then,” he says, “this branch of the society’s work may claim the merit of economy when considered in detail, although the aggregate cost is large.”

Mention of salaries occurs twice after. Five “executive officers” are paid $8,944 14; five “visitors,” $3,944 06. The total “current expenses” are set down at $174,821 38. Thus, as seen, salaries already absorb more than a quarter of the current expenses, and the chief salaried officers of the institution, as well as another small army of inferior officials, remain to be portioned off. No mention is made of them in the treasurer’s figures. Nor will it do to average the salaries of the superintendent and eighty-six teachers of the schools, setting them down at the modest allowance of $450 a head, granting, as seems incredible, considering the number of pupils, that the number of teachers is accurately given. The point is plain to all men: There is no need for such a number of teachers. Some of them, it is to be presumed, are only employed in the night-schools; consequently their salaries would be considerably diminished. The salaries are not all equal, and, even were they all equal, the amount of work done would be too costly at the price. To say that twenty-one schools and eighty-seven teachers, with a contingent of seventy volunteers, are needed for 3,446 children is simple nonsense.

Judging by what we have seen, if one-fourth the moneys spent on the Children’s Aid Society is devoted exclusively to the children, both children and public are to be congratulated on the self-denial of the management. It is for those who support the society to consider how long this state of things is to continue.

Among other benevolent works undertaken by the society is an Italian school, for the special benefit of the poor little Italian children decoyed from their homes to labor and beg for _padroni_ and such like in this city and elsewhere throughout the country. There can be no doubt about the religion of these children. The report informs us that this school is under the care of the “Italian School Young Men’s Association.” Their “collection of books has been enlarged by the contributions of friends, and the reading-room will soon contain a large assortment of Italian books forwarded by the Italian government, who, with provident care, watches over our work and furthers the benevolent purposes of the Children’s Aid Society.”

The object of organizing such a school is evident. There is no incentive so effective with the large majority of Protestant hearts, nothing so well calculated to draw contributions from their pockets, as the hope to “convert to Christianity” Papist children. This school is intended for just such a purpose, and the society would be the last in the world to deny it. “The increase of _newly-arrived_ children attests the popularity of the school. The benevolence of our patrons continues to make itself unceasingly felt in various ways, more especially at the Christmas festival, when the congregation of _the First Presbyterian Church_--Dr. Paxton’s--come almost in a body to gladden our children with useful and substantial gifts, and an outpouring of unmistakable Christian sympathy” (page 32).

The Western agency of this society is on a par with that already examined. The number of miles travelled by the agents is given, as also the number of children placed out. The very names of the agents bristle with activity. They are: Messrs. Trott, Skinner, Fry, Brace, and Gourley. The warm temperament of Mr. Fry, “the resident Western agent,” may be judged from the opening of his report. He writes from St. Paul, Minnesota, under date October 18, 1874, to tell us: “I am up among the saints, and ought to feel encouraged; but it seems such a hopeless task to convey to others the happiness and contentment I witness in my rounds of visitation that I always commence my annual report with a degree of hesitation.”

There are many passages of equal beauty with this, but unfortunately Mr. Fry’s pious enthusiasm is not exactly what is called for. What we want to know is what has actually been done with the 1,880 boys and the 1,558 girls whom we are informed by the report “have been provided with homes and employment” during the year. Men and women to the number of 242 and 305 respectively were sent out also during the year. Of the entire 3,985, 657 were Irish, 28 French, 13 Italian, 8 Poles, 10 Austrians--all of whom may be set down as Catholics. The “American born” were 1,866, the German, 879. Of these also a fair percentage were probably Catholic. What has become of them and of all? What has become of the 36,363 who have been sent out in the same manner by the same society since 1853? How many prospered? How many failed? How many died? How many turned out well? How many ill? What was done for the Catholic portion of the emigrants? It is absurd to put such questions to Mr. Fry, who is “up among the saints,” “wrapped in the third heaven” of S. Paul. A man in such an exalted state of terrestrial beatitude cannot be expected to descend to such sublunary matters as those presented. Consequently, Mr. Fry contents himself with vague generalities and a few specimen letters of the kind characterized at the beginning of this article.

However, “Mr. Macy and his clerks in the office have kept up, as usual, a vast correspondence with the thousands of children sent out by us. We unfortunately can have room but for a few of the numerous encouraging letters that have been received.” We may be permitted to give one, which will explain itself and also what is in store for the Catholic children cared for by this society. Needless to say, it does not find a place in the report which we have been examining. It is, however, an authentic copy, as Mr. Macy himself will testify, if necessary.

Mr. Macy’s letter, or the letter signed by him, needs a little explanation, most of which will be supplied by the letter from the “American Female Guardian Society,” which is also given. The story in brief concerns two Catholic children, a boy and girl, whose mother was dead and whose father was called away to the late war. They fell into the hands of the Female Guardian Society, who handed them over to the Children’s Aid Society to be “provided with homes in the West” or elsewhere. The boy was sent to a Protestant in Dubuque, Iowa, the girl to a Methodist family in the State of New York. After returning from the war and coming out of hospital the father was anxious to learn something of his children. His efforts were futile until, as said in the letters, he interested the Society of S. Vincent de Paul in the matter. After such trouble as may be imagined the society succeeded in gaining possession of the children. _They had both become, or rather been made, Protestants_, and hated the very mention of their religion. The following letters are exact copies of the originals:

AMERICAN FEMALE GUARDIAN SOCIETY,
29 E. 29th Street,
and
HOME FOR THE FRIENDLESS
30 E. 30th St., N. Y.

May 14th, 1874.

Mr. Wilson:

DEAR SIR: Very unexpectedly to us, a few days since the father
of Edward Nugent, came to the Home, to inquire about his
children, we had not seen him for six years, and as he had not
even written during that time, we supposed he was dead; he has
been in the Hospital it appears most of the time, is lame,
having been injured in the feet during the war, he is not able
to take care of his children, yet still claims he has a right
to know where they are, though _we_ do not feel after all these
years he has any claim at all, but we learned something of
importance yesterday, which explains why he wants to know the
children’s whereabouts, it seems he is a Catholic, and has been
to the priests with his story about us whom they call heretics,
and the priests have influenced him to demand the children, so
we felt it our duty to let you know how the matter stands, for
they are very persistent, and may send some one in that part
of the country to ask the neighbours around there, if such a
boy is in that neighbourhood, and if they can get him, no other
way they will steal him, so if you have become attached to the
child, and would desire to save his soul from the power of the
destroyer of souls, we would say to you it would be better for
you to send the boy away for a year from you, that you could
say truthfully you do not know where he is; _when fourteen_
he can choose his own guardian, then if he chooses you, no
power can take him from you. Had he been fully committed to
us they would have no right to interfere, but as he was not,
they will do all in their power to get him from you, we would
feel very sorry to have them find him, as we dread Catholic
influence more than the bite of the rattle-snake, for that only
destroys the body while the other destroys the immortal soul,
too precious to be lost; if you have become attached to that
dear boy, save him from the power of the fell-destroyer, and
the conscious approving smile of your Heavenly Father will be
your reward. I cannot say what course they will pursue, but if
you wish the child, you must be very guarded how you act, and
must _not_ confide in anyone, not even your own brother what
your plans are, act cautiously, but decidedly. Please write
immediately on receipt of this, and let us know what your
course will be, as we feel the deepest interest in the matter.
Yours truly,

(Signed)

MRS. C. SPAULDING,
For “Home Managers.”

Please send Mr. Wilson’s first name.

[Verbatim copy, even to italics and punctuation.]

LETTER NO. II.

CHILDREN’S AID SOCIETY,
No. 19 East Fourth St.,

NEW YORK, May 19th, 1874.

[Writing to Mr. Williams, who had charge of the boy Edward
Nugent, in relation to the father of the boy.]

“He has recently called at the Home for the Friendless for
information in relation to Eddie and has interested the Society
of St. Vincent de Paul to hunt up and return Eddie. They have
begun to look into the matter and I presume that you will hear
from them one of these days. We wrote to you some time ago that
you had better have Eddie bound to you by the authorities and
hope that you did so. I feel that Eddie has a good home and do
not care to have him disturbed. It would be cruel to him and
wrong by you and so I trust you will do what you can to prevent
it. Please let me hear from him and you.”

Yours truly,

(Signed) J. MACY, Asst. Sec’y.

To comment on the letter of the “Female Guardians” or the easy conscience of the “Children’s Aid Society” would be “to gild refined gold”; certainly, in the case of Mrs. C. Spaulding, “to paint the lily.” Honest-minded men of any creed may now understand why it is that Catholics who have any faith in their religion at all, who believe it in their conscience to be the only true religion, demand in the name of justice that associations and institutions of this character be thrown open to the ministers of their religion, or that the State, to prevent all that is shameful and horrible in proselytism, imitate all civilized states, and adopt the denominational system of charities, which, as will be shown in the case of Catholics at least, will not only not cost it a penny more, but considerably less, and with results astounding in their contrast.

We have now examined three of our principal institutions with a view to their cost and results. With the exception of the two letters quoted, no information has been used which is not presented in public reports. It is seen that the Society for Juvenile Delinquents expends one-third of its resources in salaries; the Children’s Aid Society, as far as it is possible to base an opinion on its loose and incomplete figures, perhaps three-fourths; while the figures of the Juvenile Asylum are too confused to allow of any judgment in the matter at all. The results as affecting the children, in the first instance, are avowedly far from satisfactory; in the second and third instances no attempt is made to give such results, though the inferences to be drawn from such evidence as is given are far from hopeful. And so, unless a radical change is effected in the training and management of the institutions, matters are likely to continue. The excuse of inexperience in the management cannot hold here with half a century at the back of one and over twenty years at the back of the other two. The moral training of the children is in all instances distinctly and avowedly Protestant. As shown sufficiently in a previous article, there is no such thing possible as a religious education which is “non-sectarian.” Consequently, Catholic children, who form a large contingent of the inmates of these institutions, are subjected to a course of instruction and moral training which is a gross and persistent violation of the rights of conscience and of the constitution of the State, and to this training have they been subjected ever since the institutions were first founded. The only means of adjusting this grave difficulty, of righting this great wrong, is to follow out the plan which prevails in every civilized country with the exception of our own, of either adopting the denominational system, or at least of allowing free access to the clergymen of the religious denomination professed by the children. The means of adjusting the salaries so as to bear a more rational proportion to the work done is for the public to consider.

The effects of the denominational system are exemplified in the New York Catholic Protectory, which has just presented its _Twelfth Annual Report_. An examination of its working cannot fail to be instructive, inasmuch as it was founded expressly to meet the difficulty noticed above concerning the Catholic inmates of public institutions. From the beginning it has been looked on rather as an enemy than a friend by those who work the engine of the State. At the very least it was regarded as a suspicious intruder into ground already occupied. It was Catholic, therefore sectarian; therefore not a State institution, and consequently not to be supported by the State. State funds could not go to teach Catholic doctrine. But we need not repeat the arguments against it. They are too well known, and are met once for all by the provision in the constitution allowing liberty of conscience and freedom of worship to all members of the State. If moral and religious training be provided for children in all our public institutions, it is against all conscience, law, right, and the spirit of the American people at large to convert that moral and religious training into a system of proselytizing, no matter to what creed. In the case of Catholic children such a system, as known and shown, has prevailed from the beginning; and the first step in the reformation of a Catholic child has been to seek by every means possible to make it a renegade from its faith.

At the opening of the year there were in the Protectory 1,842 children; during the year 2,877; average (entitled to per capita contributions), 1,871. To their support all that was contributed of public moneys was the _per capita_ allowance for each child, which is common to all the children of the institutions examined. Nothing was allowed by the Board of Education, although the children are educated; nothing by “special appropriations”; nothing from “theatre licenses”; nothing from “excise funds”--nothing in a word, from any source at all, save the bare _per capita_ allowance.

This is not an exceptional instance, but the normal relation between the Catholic Protectory and the State. Within the twelve years of its existence the whole amount of State aid received by it, through share of charity fund, special grants, or from whatever source, has amounted to $93,502 08--that is to say, at not $8,000 per annum--while its entire grant for building purposes was $100,000.

The current expenses for the past year were $211,349 87. This includes all outlays, except for the construction of buildings or other permanent improvements. The _per capita_ allowance, received from the comptroller covered $192,339 22 of this amount. It is to be borne in mind that this allowance would have been paid for the children in any case, whatever institution they had entered. Consequently, it is no favor at all to the Protectory. The remaining $19,010 65 had to be met by the charity of private individuals or not met at all. Of course the labor of the inmates and the produce of the farm covered a considerable sum; but the age of the children admitted to the Protectory is limited to fourteen years, and the vast majority of them are considerably under fourteen, and consequently cannot contribute by their labor so efficiently as the inmates of the Society for Juvenile Delinquents, whose average age runs so much higher.

But the expenses by no means ended here. The Protectory is still really in course of erection. The aggregate expenditures during the past year for buildings and permanent improvements, “all of which were indispensable for the carrying out of the mandate of the State in the shelter and protection of its wards,” were $107,491 65. To this heavy sum State and city contributed nothing at all. The bare _per capita_ allowance was the only public money received to aid in the sheltering, educating, clothing, and feeding of these wards of the State; while to all other public institutions, even to institutions not strictly public, liberal special grants or appropriations from special funds were made. The Catholic Protectory alone was left to meet a bill of $126,502 30 as best it might.

In its struggle for existence the Protectory has had little in the shape of aid for which to thank the State. There was great fear even within the present year that the _per capita_ allowance would also be withdrawn, avowedly because the Protectory was a Catholic institution, and consequently without the range of assistance from public funds. This is highly conscientious, no doubt. But the report of the State Treasurer for the past year shows grant after grant to seminaries and “sectarian” (to use the orthodox word) institutions of every kind, with the sole exception of those professing the Catholic faith. A glance at the whole work done by the Protectory and the aid afforded it by the State shows the following:

It has been twelve years in existence. Within that period it has “sheltered, clothed, afforded elementary education, and given instruction in useful trades” to 8,771 children. This work cost in the aggregate for current, expenses $1,257,189 41. To this sum the State contributed through the comptroller out of the city taxes $1,057,578 66. This was merely the _per capita_ allowance still. There remained, consequently, for current expenses $199,610 75 to be paid by whatever means possible.

But the Protectory had to be built. Land had to be purchased, buildings to be erected, and so on. In a word, the Protectory, like all other institutions, had to grow, while there was a ravenous demand, as there continues to be, for admission within its walls. In these twelve years the outlays for land, buildings, and other permanent improvements amounted to $806,211 74. The amount of contracts now being carried to completion on the girls’ building, new gas-house, etc., is over $100,000. To help to meet this necessary sum of $906,211 74 the State made a munificent grant for building purposes of $100,000; while all its other grants, of whatever kind, amounted to just $93,502 28. This left another little bill for the Protectory to meet of $912,320 21 by the best means it could. Is it to be wondered at that there rests on the institution a floating debt of some $200,000, which seriously threatens its existence? Our wonder is, with the encouragement which it has received from the State and city, that it continues to exist at all. Private charity has been its mainstay thus far; but private charity has always an abundance of pressing demands on it, and may at any time give out, for the very best of reasons, in a case where there is really no great call for private charity at all. The children thus cared for, for whom these vast sums have been paid, would have had in any case to be supported by the State, and would have proved a costlier burden than in their present hands. All we urge is that the State be just; that it assist this institution in the same manner in which it assists other institutions, by grants from the same funds, by appropriations from the same sources, without cavil about religion or no religion. The crime of instructing these children in their own religion is evidenced in the results achieved. Of the 8,771 who have passed through the Protectory since its opening, _exactly two have turned out badly_. So much for Catholic education and mental and moral training.

We have reserved for the last an examination of the salaries. The entire amount expended on salaries for the officers and employés of every branch of the institution is $20,736 51; that is, between one-tenth and one-eleventh of the sum total of the current expenses of the year. This is the year’s pay of all officials and employés of an institution which cared for and sheltered within its walls for that period 2,877 children. Contrast this with the $34,880 52 paid the officials and employés of the Society for Juvenile Delinquents for the care during the same period of 1,387 children, and the $39,202 33 paid by the Children’s Aid Society for the teachers of 3,556 children. Contrast the result of the labors of each society. Then contrast the sums lavished by city and State from special appropriations and funds on societies whose chief claim for such special grants consists in their devoting so large a portion of their means to salaries, with their persistent deafness to the urgent appeals of a society which has only good to show everywhere and an army of workers such as the Brothers and Sisters, whose salary is embraced in their food and dress. Let us look at these things, and blush at our pretensions to justice and liberality. Why, it is not even honesty. We are too conscientious to grant a penny out of the educational fund to Catholic children educated by Catholics, while we give thousands freely for the stowing away of Catholic children in asylums that pervert them and can give no account of their stewardship. It is time to drop “conscience,” that counterfeit so recently and so admirably described by Dr. Newman, and fall back on common-sense. Of the institutions here examined the Catholic Protectory combines beyond comparison the greatest economy with the most extraordinarily successful results as affecting the wards of the State. Such an institution has a solemn and the truest claim on the heartiest co-operation and favor of the State.

THE BLIND BEGGAR.

I cannot pass those sightless eyes,
Or, if I pass them, I return,
Led by resistless sympathies
Above their rayless orbs to yearn,
And place within the outstretched palms
The patiently-awaited alms.

Then, as my footsteps homeward speed.
I dare with moving lips to pray
That God, who knows my inmost need,
May guide me on my darkened way,
And place within my outstretched palms
The patiently-awaited alms.

ARE YOU MY WIFE?

BY THE AUTHOR OF “PARIS BEFORE THE WAR,” “NUMBER THIRTEEN,” “PIUS VI.,” ETC.