A FARM SCHOOL.

201 separated by reason of poverty, orphanage, or want of salutary home restraint.

The Board of Children's Guardians, to whom the guardianship of such children was commonly given, found itself unprepared to deal with them, because it had no place under its own control where they could be kept while the work was being done for and with them which was necessary in order to fit them for reception by families. Under these circumstances the board placed out many such children without previous training, and did as well by them and by the persons who took them as was possible.

Special difficulties were encountered with regard to securing educational advantages for such children after they were placed, the public schools in much of the territory open to them being commonly denounced, by those in position to know the facts in that regard, as being worse than useless; and, on the whole, the undertaking with this special class could not be said to be more than fairly successful. The board became, therefore, more and more reluctant to accept the guardianship of such children, especially since its funds for the employment of agents who might supervise children placed in families became more and more inadequate to the demands made upon them.

Matters drifted along in this way and settled back into much the same condition as prevailed before the board was created, children being not infrequently sent to prison or to reformatories when the only thing they needed was a chance and proper direction to enter upon orderly and useful lives.

A farm school for the training of colored boys from Washington has been the thing hoped and striven for for many years by many earnest friends of the colored race.

The following announcement, which appeared in the Washington Post on November 10, 1897, gave the public assurance that a way had been provided for putting the experiment to a fair test:

A problem which has perplexed the Board of Children's Guardians, the care of colored boys committed to its care, has at last been solved. The plan proposed, it is believed, is what has long been needed, and what will prove of great benefit to the colored race in the District. In the near future all the destitute little ones turned over to the board will find an ideal home on a farm down the Potomac, where they will be taught to become useful, industrious men.

At present there is no institution in the District where colored boys can be provided for. The asylum for destitute colored women and children, on Eighth street extended, is the nearest approach to a home for boys, but the management excludes all those over ten years of age. The plan of the Board of Children's Guardians, of placing the boys in homes in States adjoining the District, has proven a failure on account of the utter lack of training for those so provided for.

For two years the board has been considering plans for the proper care of colored boys. In his last report the idea of a farm was suggested by President William Redin Woodward. Then the question arose as to where the money for such a place was to come from. Just at that time William H. H. Hart, a colored man, who until recently was employed in the Congressional Library, came forward with a proposition, which was at once favored by the board. Mr. Hart offered to the board the use

of a 300-acre farm which he owns, adjoining Fort Washington. While the title was to remain in him, the farm was placed at the board's disposal, rent free.

Superintendent of Charities Lewis and President Woodward went down the river, and, after a thorough inspection of the farm, made a satisfactory arrangement with the owner. On the farm there are 20 houses, several cows, pigs, poultry, and an abundance of farming and timber land. It is in every way suited to the purpose to which it will soon be put. While the plans of the board are yet incomplete, it has been decided to have on the farm a practical farmer, a wheelwright, a blacksmith, and school-teachers to look after the training of the boys.

Mr. Hart will live on the place, and will take a deep interest in the experiment which his liberality has made possible. The farm has an assessed value of $15,000, and was bought by Mr. Hart out of his savings of many years. The details of the plans for the farm are now being worked out by Superintendent Lewis and President Woodward.

Certainly this is a fortunate opening. The plans put into operation are such as the Board of Children's Guardians is authorized to adopt, and provide that boys shall be selected by the board upon consideration of their history, conduct, and needs, to be placed under the control of Professor Hart, to be housed, clothed, fed, disciplined, taught, and made useful under the supervision and to the satisfaction of the board. The rates to be paid for this service are less than the annual per capita cost of boys at the Reform School of the District of Columbia, and less than the average per capita cost of inmates in the whole group of institutions of a reformatory character in the District of Columbia.

This is to be a place of labor, restraint, and discipline; a place in which a definite and special effort, earnest and long continued, is to be made to inculcate and stimulate those ideas of personal honor, industry, self-control, and right of property to which these boys are total strangers. For their physical comfort adequate provision has been made, and the boys already on the farm are thoroughly happy and contented.

It is believed that Professor Hart is specially well adapted to secure and maintain such control over the boys placed in his charge as will be for their good. As soon as the number of boys is sufficient to justify such a move, a graduate of the Hampton Institute or the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute will be engaged as a master under Professor Hart.

The affairs of the farm are to be administered without rigor and without sentimentality, and it is confidently expected that it will enable the public authorities to place under proper and salutary surroundings hundreds of boys now growing up in this community under circumstances which can not fail to add them to the pauper and criminal portion of the population if permitted to continue.

Should experience justify the expectation of the present promoters of this plan, the Congress will be asked to secure to the proper authority the title to the property, and to provide such additional substantial and inexpensive buildings and appliances as will make possible the enlarged usefulness of the school.

INDEX.

Appropriations for emancipation of Ballantyne, Miss M., 138.

Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station
proposed for hospital, 46; mite box at,
55.

Arminius Lodge, No. 25, F. A. A. M., 135, Baltimore, insane asylum in, 8.