28 MARCH 1868, Page 23

Children of the ,State: the Training of Juvenile Paupers. By

Florence Hill. (Macmillan.)—Miss Hill has chosen a good and suggestive title, and has collected much information that is equally good and suggestive. It is a pity that her book should bo so deficient in style and arrange- ment as to counteract all these advantages. We are afraid that most people will find the book difficult to read, and will not form a precise notion as to what has boon done for poor children, at what cost it has been done, and what are the results of such experiments. It is true that we learn the details of some isolated attempts, and that we are told what is the cost of bringing up children in such places as Miss T wining's Industrial Home, and similar institutions. But in order to know how far such steps can be taken with the great majority of pauper children, we must be told much more than this, and we must learn if it is possible for the experiment to be tried on a sufficient scale. If we understand Miss Hill, of which we are by no means sure, she is opposed to education by masses, and she certainly gives striking instances of the helplessness induced by an absence of individual effort. But are the homes that have been established for small numbers sufficient, and if not themselves sufficient, can they be multiplied ?