Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/204

196 are taught to climb and name. Until they make choice of a trade, the new comers are, for the first two or three months, employed under two or three paysannes in washing the clothes of the inhabitants of the Colonie. Each boy’s food costs rather less than a franc a day. There are several outlying farms where those destined for farm-labourers are taught farming. A desire to enter the army is encouraged, and in order to stimulate their young imaginations, two pictures of Colons who have distinguished themselves by military prowess are suspended in the principal schoolroom; but otherwise, the conductors prefer to bring them up as agriculturists, that they may not return to the towns whence they have come and be exposed to the temptations of renewing their bad acquaintance there. Upon the different homes the name of the founder was inscribed; one was founded by the city of Paris; on another I read “Maison de Mdlle. Marie Emma Hébert.” “It is a young lady who is dead,” said our guide; “her mother founded this house in her memory.” In the chapel we saw lists of the fondateurs, or all who had given cents francs. At the head of the English donations, which I felt glad to see were neither few nor small, was Lord Brougham’s.

“Some of the boys who leave us become fondateurs,” said our conductor, pointing to a line: “See, Manny, Maître Menuisier à Lima, ancien Colon de Mettray, sent out of his savings, two hundred francs, ‘a ses deux mères’—Mettray, and his real mother.”

“C’est touchant, n’est-ce pas?” cried the French lady, turning to me; and I replied, “Yes,” with moistened eyes.

Henri Ardy was another fondateur who sent home, from the Crimea, his savings to the Colony that educated him. He also twice saved his colonel’s life in battle, for which he received a medal, and is one of the two whose portraits hang at the head of the classes to incite other students to distinguish themselves. The other is Richard, who was made Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur for carrying off a flag at Paris, June, 1848.

In frames, round the schoolroom, hang tables containing the name of every Colon educated at Mettray, with his subsequent conduct and position after quitting it, so that there is always, before the eyes of the boys, a prospect of infamy, or the reverse. The manner in which they behave will always be known to their ancient comrades, and in their old home. The obtaining this knowledge costs the establishment a large sum yearly, but it is found useful in inciting the Colons to do well.

It was l’heure de récréation when we returned, and we saw them in their playground gathered in knots upon benches, or exhibiting wonderful agility with a pole suspended by two ropes, called here a trapèze. Then the clarions sounded—the boys formed, like soldiers, in single then in double file, and all marched into school. In winter, school is kept morning and evening; in summer, only once during the hot part of the day.

After this we went to see the garden and the infirmary, which last is superintended by nine nuns from Tours. We saw them also at their prayers in their pretty little chapel and we peeped into their rooms, in each of which we saw a comfortable-looking bed with its white draperies. Above the hospital the conductor made the remark, “a most magnificent glacine;” and a long gallery shaded by its branches, whose windows were all but open now, but which, when closed in winter, formed a warm pleasant walk for the invalids, being almost a greenhouse. There are generally about twenty-four enfans de famille, gentlemen’s children, who are unmanageable, at Mettray. They never see one another, and none but their preceptors ever see them. Their health is preserved by gymnastic exercises, and twice a week they are taken separately out walking. Within, their solitary hours are fully filled up by more lessons than they can possibly get through; and the solitude is found not to make them mad or melancholy.

Two brothers were here once at one time. Neither of them ever saw the other, or heard his name. At chapel they sit behind a curtain where they can hear mass without being seen. Their windows look into the court yard, but no heads were visible. I should think they were so high placed the inmates could not look out. It must be a severe discipline, but we were told it ensured reformation. As to the Colons, they are all sent to Mettray after having been prosecuted and jugés, either for vagrancy or some small delinquency. This is not considered any disgrace, as they are not responsible for their early bad bringing up, and most of them are the children of vicious or extremely poor parents, or have been deserted by their parents. The Judgment is for the purpose of depriving these parents of all rights over them, and consigning them legally to the conductors of Mettray.

Since Mr. Demety founded the Colonie, in 1840, eighty other establishments, in different parts of France, have been founded on the same plan, as it is found the maintaining and educating them, as honest men, costs less to the Government than the retaining them hereafter in prison, and prosecuting them as criminals would do.

We finished our visit by going to a sort of bazaar, where articles of various kinds are sold for the benefit of Mettray, and where M. Dufau purchased an album of views of the Colony, which he observed, afterwards, was dear, but he should regard with pleasure as “Sa petite contribution” towards a “bonne œuvre.” At the gate we all thanked our well-informed conductor, and separated; but, observing I was walking to the railway-station, M. and Madame Dufau kindly offered me the vacant seat in their carriage home, and on reaching Tours I bade adieu, with real regret, to my kind and courteous French acquaintances.