The 'Industrial Schools Act 1874' defined an 'infant' to mean an 'infant, child or person' (s.19) and 'certified' institutions to receive, provide for and educate them (s.2). By modern standards, the Act is harsh and punitive but at the time it was an attempt to regulate the treatment of children and young people, particularly those who seemed to be neglected or abandoned by family, and 'juvenile offenders' who at that time were sent to adult prisons. It represents the tension between a belief that children should not be a burden on the public or charitable purse if they had parents to look after them, and a belief that many parents were not fit to bring up their children in respectable circumstances.

It formalised and entrenched the power of the managers of charitable institutions, making them guardians of the children in their institution (s.5) for as long as they felt necessary (ss.7, 8). This could make it difficult for parents who had voluntarily sent their child to an institution to claim them back, but in practice most children were returned if parents were insistent. The Act (s.6) allowed managers of industrial schools to apprentice any child 'either to some trade or as agricultural or domestic servants or to the sea service' as they saw fit providing the child was over 12 years old.

'Youthful offenders' were to be sent to an institution regulated under this Act (s.9) which ideally would be 'as far as possible' of the same 'religious persuasion to which such offender appears to belong' (s.10). The Act provided a mechanism whereby young people could be transferred from adult gaols into an industrial school (s.12), between institutions, or into the hands of a 'trustworthy and respectable person' (s.13) under a license issued by the Colonial Secretary. This time out of the original institution under license would be counted as part of the sentence (s.14).

If a young person 'escaped' from an institution, or from the person with whom they were placed under license, they were 'deemed to be guilty of an escape from lawful custody on a criminal charge' (s.15) and anyone who helped or harboured them was likewise guilty (s.16).

The 'Industrial Schools Act' (s.18) also made it 'a duty' for any Justice of the Peace in any district 'make inquiry' about any 'native' or 'crossbreed' child who was 'apparently under the age of twelve years' and who was 'not living under the care or guardianship of either father or mother'. If the inquiry led the Magistrate to have any concerns, the Act made it lawful for him to 'assume the guardianship' of that child.

The Act (s.20) also required managers of scheduled institutions to present a report of activities to the Colonial Secretary so that the report could be tabled at the Legislative Council, as a record of how public monies had been spent.