Excerpt from Fifty-Eighth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the House of Refuge, 1886: With the Annual Statement of the Treasurer, the Annual Report of the Superintendent, Etc The unfavorable effect produced by the abolishment Of the contract system Of labor by the Legislature in 1884, alluded to in the preceding Annual Report, we regret to say continues. Increasing efforts have been made to establish the home system Of labor upon a satisfactory basis, but without the desired results. An average Of over one-fourth Of the children have been unem ployed the past year. In some degree this may be attributable to the general depression which has prevailed in most branches of the manufacturing industries Of the country. Under the former system the employers provided competent instructors for the children; and, having a knowledge Of the wants Of their customers and facility in the disposal Of manufactured articles, possessed every advantage for the successful prosecution Of their business. Now great difficulty is found by the Managers to procure instructors who possess equal qualifications and mercan tile knowledge, and, in consequence, the revenue from the labor Of the children has been reduced one-half from that derived under the contract system, requiring larger appropriations for maintenance from the Commonwealth and city. It is ardently to be desired that a system Of labor may be devised whereby all the children may be advantageously employed. Manual labor is universally acknowledged to be an essential element in refor matory training. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.