Prisons and Prisoners —— Some Personal Experiences

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ISBN: 9781333388003 出版年：2016 页码：377 Constance Georgina Lytton Forgotten Books

In the year 1906 my godmother, Lady Bloomfield, died. She had Shown me much kindness and I had never found an Opportunity to serve her in any way, the generosity had been all on her side yet, at her death, She left me some money, without any conditions as to how I should spend it. It gave me a strange new feeling Of power and exhilaration. I look back upon this event as being spiritually the starting point in my new life, Of which this book will tell, although, from the practical point of View, it seems only by a series of coincidences that my after experiences were evolved from it. I looked about me with a View to Spending the money. I had a fancy to put it to some public use. The commonly accepted channels of philanthropy did not appeal to me. I Shifted my inquiries in other directions. I remember that at this time I was chiefly occupied with the idea that reformers were for the most part town dwellers, their philo Sophy and schemes attuned to those surroundings. There seemed to me need for a counteracting influence to attempt reform and regeneration on behalf Of country dwellers. The noiseless revolution which had been worked in a few decades by the system Of compulsory education seemed to me tainted throughout by the ideals of townsfolk. The influence Of teachers and clergy, of public authorities in general, sets before the nation's children and their parents ideals which mould them into townsfolk.'