LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often more read,and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.] BORSTAL.
[To TUE EDITOR QF TUE " SPECTATOR ."1 SIR,—May I say how cordially I endorse the views expressed in your article on the working of the Borstal system? So much information has become available of late through the develop. ment of psychological research that I am- sure the Borstal authorities would welcome any suggestions for bringing their methods up to date if an expert Commission would collate ideas from the mass of reports available. As your article points out, a considerable proportion of juvenile crime is .due to natural and well-ascertained psychological causes, generally closely allied to hysteria. The way to make a hysterical patient worse is to try and check his outbreaks.
Repressive measures by prison warders and through punish- ment would therefore be precisely the worst• that could be employed with such a case. So the important step seems to be to study and classify each boy, not entirely according to his criminal propensities, but to some extent as a patient, and for remedy to give him a new and better outlook for. his energies. Above all, to raise his outlook and offer him ambition and hope. It is not much good to take out a broken tooth unless you replace it with a complete one—otherwise you are no better off—so far as chewing goes. It is of little avail to remove a vice -it you do not replace it with some virtue. A Scoutmaster when ho wants to cure a hooligan does not whack' him, he puts him -in responsible charge of a patrol of half a dozen boys, thereby supplying him with an outlet for his energies in a new line but a good one. And the system works. This principle is being tried in one Borstal institute• at any rate, and I look with hope to the results.—I am, Sir, &c.,
The Boy Scouts Association,
ROBERT BADEN-POWELL.
25 Buckingham Palace Road, S.W.1.
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