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EDITORIAL

CHARACTER BUILDING.

In every large city in the course of a year there come to the notice of those near the center of the charitable activity of the community many persons running over with altruistic enthusiasm, who are rushing about planning for the opening of some new philanthropic institution which they are sure will be wonderful and unique in its beneficial results to humanity. When they are tapped for information these geniuses often reveal a depth of ignorance that is pitiful. They show that they know little or nothing about the principles of the work they would so boldly enter upon, and usually they have absolutely no experience as to how to apply these principles if they did have them. Try to dissuade them from their purpose for their own as well as society's good, and you are likely to have revealed to you signs of the supreme egotist.

The first argument thrust against you will be that "Where there's a will there's a way." If the heart is big and pulsates with desire to be useful to fellowman, that is quite sufficient. What the "way" may be, or ought to be, is a hidden mystery to such pleaders; and then, too, their little successes in fields far remote from this institutional work they blatantly trot forth for exhibition, and point to as guarantees of equipment for fine, wise and effective dealing with human destiny. The pity of it all!

In comparison with this vacancy of conception as to fitness for planning and managing projects of this sort how mightily different is the wealth of knowledge and experience revealed in the National Conference address of Dr. Hastings H. Hart, printed in full in this issue. wisdom culled from a thousand different Here is sources, and a thousand different sources are, indeed, necessary to cull from, in order that even a program of procedure in modern institutional work may be formulated, not to say anything of the very many elements of power that must be combined in the managers of such institutions to make them really "fit."

While Dr. Hart intended his address to refer to Juve

nile Reformatories, it still throws out specifically much important advice, also, concerning principle and method for all juvenile institutions, and this makes it many times more valuable.

His reiteration of the basic idea that should underlie juvenile reformatory work, namely, character building, indicated that in Dr. Hart's mind somebody's notions on the subject need to be changed. It is a fact that the other conceptions of purpose which he mentions-punishment, long custodial care, trade teaching-still have many advocates, but gradually the number of these is growing smaller, and the one large, strong, inclusive idea is taking the forefront. It should. For if the young offenders who are sent to an institution need reforming they certainly need it in the sense of making over the ideals they have, the habits they follow, the ambitions they cherish; in short, their character.

This address is one to be closely studied by all who

have any connection with children's institutions, for mayhap they may be provoked to adopt better methods; and by all who contemplate stepping into this great field of philanthropic endeavor, for by taking heed of its wisdom, many unnecessary errors, costly to the money coffers and to human lives, may be saved.

DO NOT SEND BOYS TO THE REFORM

SCHOOL.

Seldom have we found an article so keenly, practically true, and so entirely in harmony with what we have been advocating for years as the following, taken from the "Twelfth Report Neglected and Dependent Children of Ontario," under the caption, "Keep the Boys Under Normal Conditions," by J. J. Kelso. It should always be remembered by philanthropic workers that however good the intention may be in sending him there, it is almost invariably injurious to a boy later in life to have been in a reform school. It frequently makes it impossible for him to attain to a position of trust, and it

often shuts him out of a position of any kind where the fact is known.

The suspicion and coldness with which these reform school boys are received, says the Kansas Home Finder, has driven many a well-disposed boy to fall back into the companionship of ex-reform school boys, who, like himself, have been spurned, and have entered upon a lawless life; and who, knowing the friendliness of their position, could blame them? Some have not only been refused work and taunted with their record, but have actually been hindered when they were trying to do right. The mother of a notorious young criminal, when asked how it was that her son had taken up such a career,

replied: "Well, sir, when he was a boy he was sent to the reform school. After he came out he promised to do all right, but every time anything was stolen in our neighborhood the detectives came and searched our house; the boy was thrown out of positions by these sus

picions, and at last he gave up, saying it was no use trying to keep straight." It is an undoubted fact that many of these boys feel that society has wronged them, and that they are justified in waging a warfare of crime. This feeling, coupled with the newspaper notoriety given such cases, has inspired many youths not only to continue in crime, but to plot bigger and more sensational crimes than have ever been attempted before. The logic of it all is, keep the young of our country in normal surroundings so that they may not be thus handicapped, or have any incentive to a criminal career.

Don't send either boys or girls to the reform school; at least, not until all other means of reforming them have been faithfully, lovingly and persistently tried, and have not succeeded.

It is our experience that fully nine out of every ten of such boys and girls can be successfully reclaimed by placing them, away from former associations, in good Christian family homes.

We earnestly invite the attention of the judges of our juvenile courts and of all probation officers to these facts, and urge them to co-operate with us in this new, successful, Christian and economic method of solving the dependent and delinquent child problem.

The Juvenile Reformatory of the twentieth century represents a radical departure from the penological methods which prevailed seventy-five years ago. While the New York House of Refuge on Randall's Island was the first Juvenile Reformatory established in this country, the real evolution of the Juvenile Reformatory did not take definite form until the Ohio State Reform School, now the Ohio State Industrial School for Boys, broke away from the prison like buildings and the prison discipline which long prevailed in the early institutions of this class.

The Juvenile Reformatories were at first, in reality, juvenile prisons, with prison bars, prison cells, prison garb, prison labor, prison sentences for fixed terms, prison punishments and prison discipline generally. It was recognized as a legitimate part of the purpose of the institution to inflict upon the child punishment for his wrong doing, adjusted according to the supposed ill desert of the culprit, and this idea was considered not to be inconsistent with the effort at reformation.

THE NEW REFORMATORY.

The Juvenile Reformatory of the twentieth century is organized on essentially different principles. It abandons entirely the prison method and the idea of retributive punishment. Its design is to create and establish right character in delinquent children, when all other agencies have failed. For many years the friends of the Juvenile Reformatory regarded it as the one and only method for dealing with incorrigible children, but with the advent of the Juvenile Court law, with the probation system and with the recognition of the family home as the most practical and efficient reformatory in the world, the Juvenile Reformatory has taken a new place in the minds of those who are interested in children. It is no longer the instrument of first aid to erring children but it is now recognized as the dernier resort. When we have exhausted the resources of the home, the church, the public school, the private school, the Parental School. the Juvenile Court, the probation officer, then we turn to the Juvenile Reformatory and ask of it success in dealing with the problem in whose solution all other agencies have failed.

This view of the Juvenile Reformatory at once elevates and depresses it. On the one hand it is appealed to as an agency which is to accomplish work which no other agency can perform; on the other hand, the most

amenable and reformable children are now dealt with through the probation system, without commitment to an institution. As a consequence the children who are sent to the institution are of a more difficult class than formerly and must of necessity tax more severely the wisdom, patience and resources of those to whose charge they are committed. It is probable that the practice of claiming that 90 per cent of the children who are cared for turn out well will go out of fashion and that we shall have to be well pleased if 70 per cent or 75 per cent become useful and honorable members of society.

NOT TO BRING UP CHILDREN.

The Juvenile Reformatory is not designed as a permanent institution in which to bring up children to manhood and womanhood. However good an institution may be, however kindly its spirit, however genial its atmosphere, however homelike its cottages, however fatherly and motherly its officers, however admirable its training, it is now generally agreed among those who are familiar with the needs of children of this class, that institutional life is at the best artificial and unnatural and that the child ought to be returned at the earliest practicable moment to the more natural environment of the family home-his own home if it is a suitable one and if not then some other family home. This idea has found admirable expression in the twenty-first section of the Illinois Juvenile Court law, which reads as follows:

"This act shall be liberally construed to the end that its purpose may be caried out, towit: That the care, custody and discipline of a child shall approximate as nearly as may be that which should be given by its parents, and in all cases where it can be properly done, the child shall be placed in an approved family home and become one of the family, by legal adoption or otherwise."

The same idea is expressed in section seventeen of the Act creating the Illinois Home for Delinquent Boys, which reads as follows:

"The Board of Trustees shall also make regulations for the placing in homes and placing in employment, or returning to his own home if suitable, of such inmates of such Home as may safely and consistently with the public good, be so placed out or returned to his own home; it being the intention of this Act that no boy shall be kept in such Home who can properly be placed out or returned home longer than may be reasonably necessary to prepare him for such placing out."

Whenever the officers of the institution are convinced that the child has acquired such character that he can go at large with reasonable safety to himself and to the community, the sooner he goes out, the better for all concerned.

THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF THE JUVENILE
REFORMATORY.

Having considered the design of the Juvenile Reformatory, we come next to its spirit. In order that the design may be accomplished, there must be enthusiastic and wholesouled devotion to that design. Every person connected with the institution from the president of the Board of Trustees and the superintendent to the cook and the stable man should be inspired with the one purpose of developing the highest character which their young wards are capable of attaining. Every department should be organized with this purpose distinctly in view and neither expense nor labor should be spared which will clearly contribute to that end. Every activity of the pupils-study, work or play, should be directed intelligently and conscientiously toward the accomplishment of this purpose. Constant effort should be made to maintain such an environment and such a clean and wholesome atmosphere as shall contribute to high thinking and lofty purpose.

The methods by which this lofty design shall be furthered and by which this inspiring atmosphere shall be created will differ in detail in different institutions. Every true institution is a living organism, developing by inward vital principles, and every true institution has an individuality of its own, resulting from its peculiar evolution and from the personal equations of the men and women by whom it is fostered and ad ministered but there are certain general characteristics which prevail in all of the best institutions of this class, and which are recognized by common consent as essential features of genuine reformatory work. Wide differences of detail will be found in good institutions in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota and Colorado, but these general principles will be found in most of them. First, there is an absence of prison features. To one who is not acquainted with such institutions but who knows that they are places of detention for boys who have committed grave offenses and even high felony, it is something of a shock to approach an institution like the Minnesota State Training School or the St. Charles School for Boys in Illinois and to discover that there are no walls, no high fences, no barred windows. no cells; that the grounds are open to all comers, that the cottages are built like ordinary dwelling houses; that boy are sent freely to all parts of a large farm, or are sent on errands to a distant village or city; that the inmates live in families under the care of a house father and house mother and that boys of all ages attend school under the charge of women teachers who control them with as little effort as the pupils in an ordinary public school. Many Juvenile Reformatories have one or more strong rooms, where a refractory boy may be given opportunity for

quiet reflection on the error of his ways, but I have known reformatories where there was no place whatever to lock a boy up, but where, nevertheless, good discipline was maintained.

Second, the model reformatory is marked by encouragement of self control, and selfdependence. Many years ago a gentleman visited the Western House of Refuge at Rochester, New York. The boys were drawn up in line for his inspection. As he walked along the line he noted the downcast visages and the averted eyes of the boys. Turning to the superintendent he said: "Have you a boy in all that company that you would trust to go to Rochester on an errand and return unaccompanied?" The superintendent thought a moment and replied: "No, I do not think I have." The writer will never forget the sensation experienced, many years ago in visiting a large institution for delinquent boys in New York City and hearing a keeper say to a careless boy who was out of line: "Here, you Forty-Seven Hundred and Forty-Nine! What are you doing there?" There was among these boys a hopeless, forlorn and dogged aspect which is visible upon the countenances of many adult prisoners, but which has no place on the face of a young boy, however far he may have gone astray.

EDUCATIONAL METHODS.

Education in the Juvenile Reformatory must be religious, intellectual and physica. However strong may be our convictions regarding religious liberty and separation between church and state, we must agree that wise religious instruction is a powerful agency for the creation of character. Some have held that all that is necessary is to create right habits of thought and action, in order that the child may go right hereafter. Even if this be true, which may be fairly ques tioned, religious training is essential in order to the establishment of right habits.

RELIGIOUS TRAINING.

The religious training of the children must be directed, and its general methods regulated by the authorities of the institution. The practice of allowing every zealous clergyman, every representative of the Young Men's Christian Association or a Christian Endeavor Society, or a Woman's Christian Temperance Union, to administer religious instruction to the children, as they may see fit, is not only a wrong educational method, but it is a wrong religious method. However good their intentions, and however correct their teaching, they necessarily lack the experience and the knowledge of the needs of the children which is essential to the accomplishment of the best results. Continuity of effort and scientific method is just as essential in the religious training of the child as in his intellectual and physical training. It would be as reasonable to try to carry on the day school of the institution by means of a succession of visiting teachers, trained and untrained, as to carry on the religious training by the same method.

Religious instruction should be given to the children by religious teachers, chosen and authorized by the superintendent and trustees. They should be chosen with special reference to their piety, wisdom, sympathy and aptness in dealing with children. They should be required to take special training for this difficult and important work. In most states it is required by law that religious instructors shall be so chosen as to give opportunity for training children in the religious faith of their parents. At least one religious instructor should give the whole of his time to the school. In small institutions a portion of his time might be given to the

work of a state agent, finding homes and supervising children after their dismissal from the school. The Roman Catholic Instructor should be required to devote at least one day of the week to his young charges.

The work of the religious instructor should be not simply that of doctrinal teaching, he should have blood in his veins and be capable of entering sympathetically into the life of the child, winning his confidence and becoming his personal friend and counselor.

INTELLECTUAL TRAINING.

The intellectual training should be of the highest quality. The majority of the chilstudies; many of them dull and more dren will be found backward in their disinclined to study. Teachers should be selected with reference to their special aptitude in stimulating such pupils to an interest to study. The Chicago Parental School is carried on by the Board of Eduboys. Out of the army of public school teachcation. It is a school for truants and unruly ers in the city, the brightest and most successful teachers have been selected for this service. High salaries are paid and the results have been most encouraging.

The teachers should be men and women of originality, versatility, tact, patience and strong belief in the possibilities of human nature. No teacher should be tolerated wno does not believe in the future of the children. Pessimism is an inconquerable bar to success. Those teachers succeed best who become inspired with love for their pupils, stimulating to unfailing endeavor in their behalf.

Women have the advantage over men for the reason that there is in the heart of every boy an instinct of chivalry which can be successfully appealed to. Superintendent Ray, who was for many years at the head of the New Hampshire Reformatory once said, "When I want to send a boy to the city of Manchester on an errand I invariably make the arrangement through one of the ladies of the school. It is an unheard thing for a boy to run away after promising a lady to While the teachers in Reformareturn." tories are at a disadvantage in the material with which they have to do and in the previous habits of inattention and irregularity, they have some compensating advantage. The children are never tardy, they never play truant, they never run the streets at night and the teachers do not have to contend against a lack of wholesome discipline at home. Moreover, the children are spurred to application by the most powerful human motive, namely, the hope of freedom; and however kindly the discipline, however large the liberty enjoyed, however homelike and genial the cottage life may be, nine-tenths of the children look forward eagerly to the time of their release, and most of them are willing to exert themselves to gain it.

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.

Industrial training must be organized strictly with a view to its value as a means of producing character. This will eliminate productive industries, except in the agricultural department. Experience proves that if young boys and girls are to be used in productive manufactures successfully, their training must be specialized and they must be kept doing one thing at a high speed. This is hopelessly inconsistent with the effort to create character. Incessant, monotonous toil does not develop independence, hopefulness or love of industry. It produces a bodily weariness which hinders education in other lines. It will eliminate what is sometimes called "busy work" for little boys, such as cane-seating, stocking machines and brush making, for the same reason.

The teaching of domestic science efficiently as it is done in institutions like the Connecticut Industrial School for Girls and the Illinois Training School for Girls, or by such methods as are practiced in the Foulke and Long Institute for Dependent Girls in Philadelphia, is thoroughly and eminently practical. The difference is that the domestic training of girls qualifies them to enter and hold their places in family homes, the very thing which is most desirable for children of this class, while the training of boys in mechanical trades does not fit them for family life.

The training of boys in agriculture has a similar advantage to the training of girls in domestic science, because it fits the boy for farm life, which is a wholesome and happy life; but it must be remembered that the great majority of boys in Juvenile Reformatories are too young and too backward to take advanced courses in agricultural training which they are capable of receiving can ing, and that the simple and primary train

be acquired quite as well on the farm as in the institution. If the boy has acquired a reliable character the farmer can train him. It must be remembered also that only a minority of the boys in Juvenile Reformatories can be adapted to the life of the farm. The majority of these boys come from the cities and villages. They have the town fever in their veins and it is practically impossible to keep them on farms. Home-sickness and distaste for farm labor attack many of them and they drift back sooner or later to city life. Any organization of industrial training which refuses to take account of this obvious fact in human nature and attempts to force the entire population of the institution onto the land is a mistake. It is true that many city boys take kindly to farming and remain permanently in the country; it is true also that many country boys crave the town life.

In order to meet the diverse needs of the pupils it is necessary to diversify the industrial training. There must be Sloyd, nature study, flower gardens, weeding, kite making, etc., for the little fellows. There must be farm labor, chicken raising, brick making, road making, stock raising, dairying, horticulture, manual training shops in carpentry, painting, blacksmithing, bricklaying, etc., for the older lads-all of these employed primarily and constantly for the great aim and purpose of the institution, character building.

Incidentally, there will be valuable crops, and animals, and roads, and sidewalks and brick buildings produced, but that is not what industrial training will be organized for. Incidentally, the farm boys will learn to make a gate or a wagon tongue or a hot bed, to cobble a shoe or nail on a horse shoe, but that is not the final purpose of the training.

Industrial training will tend to create character by developing the steady hand, the true eye, working to a plan, obeying orders, conscientious fulfilment of design, steadfast application to a task, delight in a perfect and finished job, respect for a master who knows how to plan and to produce results; taste for industrial labor and discovery of one's peculiar aptitude.

THE "PLANT" OF THE JUVENILE REFORMATORY.

A large farm of not less than 300 acres of fertile land, adapted for general agriculture, gardens, orchards and small fruit, is essential. The farm should be conveniently near a good sized town of perhaps 2,000 to 5.030 people (say not more than two miles distant). This is necessary in order to give employes a reasonable opportunity for church going, recreation, shopping, etc. It is very difficult to hold good employes on a farın

A Juvenile Reformatory should be planned for a maximum of 500 boys or girls, for the reason that the number should not go beyond what can be kept within the personal knowledge and acquaintance of a single superintendent.

It is now generally agreed that the "cottage plan" has great advantages over the congregate plan and most of the newer institutions are built on that plan: for example, those at Westboro, Massachusetts; Middletown, Connecticut; Glen Mills, and Morganza, Pennsylvania; Red Wing, Minnesota; Golden, Colorado; and St. Charles, Illinois. An ingenious escape from the evils of the congregate plan is the plan of families in flats, followed at the Girls' Training School, at Geneva, Illinois. Each flat forms an independent family which does its own cooking, baking, washing, dressmaking and mending. This plan affords some special facilities for the training of girls for domestic life in the modern city, to which many of them ultimately turn.

COST OF PLANT.

Institutions on the cottage plan have been built at a cost of all the way from $500 tu $2,000 a bed. It is necessary to avoid false economy on the one hand and extravagance on the other. A cheaply built institution with inferior architecture, poor bricks, unseasoned lumber, bad workmanship and cheap plumbing soon wears out and creates extravagant expenses for repairs. On the other hand, ornate and pretentious buildings with space wasted in wide corridors, spacious guest chambers and excessive room for employes, increase unnecessarily the expense of heating, cleaning, etc., use up funds which ought to be expended in providing for children, and still worse, create a prejudice against the institution in the minds of the people, and as a result the legislature becomes niggardly in its appropriations and the proper development of the institution is delayed.

An adequate plant for a Juvenile Reformatory can be built and equipped for from $600 to $1,000 per bed, including land. Some very good institutions have cost complete about $800 per bed.

This amount may be roughly distributed as follows:

an ordinary family home. We have allowed for dwelling house, land, kitchen, laundry, etc., heating, lighting, plumbing, etc. $550 per bed. This would allow for a dwelling house, to accommodate six persons, at $550 per bed, $3,300. This sum will build a comfortable dwelling house and purchase a suitable lot in the suburbs of any city. We have allowed for one acre of ground for each inmate, at $100 per acre. We have allowed for school house, chapel, shops and gymnasium, composing the educational plant, $200 per inmate. This would be at the rate of $50,000 for a school house for 500 children; $25,000 for a church of 500 sittings and $32,500 for shops for manual training. The latter sum may seem inadequate, but it must be remembered that many children will be too small for shop training and that those who take manual training will work in sections so that each shop can serve the needs of three to four sets of boys each day. An acre of ground for each inmate is as much ground as can be profitably worked in connection with an institution. Intensive farming, gardening, horticulture and floriculture give the most valuable training and require only a limited acreage. The greater part of the land will be used to raise corn, oats and roots, for the live stock of the institution.

Cottages should be planned with the utmost care. They should be built for not exceed ing 30 children each. They should contain about 45 feet of dormitory space for each inmate; about 30 square feet of day room space; about 10 square feet of bath room and storage space and if dining rooms are provided they should contain about 15 square feet of space for each inmate. Provision should be made for two employes in each cottage (preferably husband and wife). They should have for sitting room, bed room, bath and storage about 400 square feet of space. The basement should contain playrooms for stormy weather with lockers for boys' private belongings.

The total floor space for the first and second floors would be as follows: Dormitories 1,400 feet; day room 900 feet; baths and storage 300 feet; employes 400 feet; total 3,000 feet. This would mean a building about 40 feet square.

Excellent examples of such cottages will be found at the Illinois Industrial Training School Farm, at, Glenwood, Illinois, built within the past two years at a cost of $10,

000 each.

The school building of a Reformatory in cities and will cost about the same. should pattern after the best ward schools

The shop buildings need not be expensive structures. They can be built one or two stories high and all heavy machinery can be ground and obviating the necessity for heavy located on the first floor, resting on the construction. A separate chapel is desirable in order to cultivate the spirit of reverence and to afford suitable accommodations for religious services.

A well equipped gymnasium is desirable as a means to physical culture. The gynu nasium need not be large because it can be used by the boys in sections.

The domestic buildings; heating, lighting and power plant, laundry, kitchen, general dining rooms, refrigerator, store house, fire department, etc., should be so located as to allow for economical returns from the steam plant and at the same time proper subordination to the remainder of the institution. The steam plant should be adequate and the house should be large. Inadequacy leads to expensive repairs and wasteful forcing of the plant, wearing out of boilers and expensive rebuilding.

Whichever plan may be adopted, it is vitally important to secure the purpose of the

institution that the officers shall be in full force at meal times, instructing the children in table manners and inspiring an air of cheerfulness and homelikeness to the daily meals. The use of linen table cloths, napkins and attractive table-ware will contribute to this end. It is an excellent plan, if practicable, to have an institution officer seated at each table. These officers should take their meals at a different time from the pupils' meal hours.

The farm buildings should be planned with as much thought and care as the other buildings. They should be attractive in appearance, not on account of incongruous decorations of the gingerbread order, but because of their proportions and their manifest adaptation to their purpose. They should be so constructed as to promote the utmost cleanliness and the healthfulness of the domestic animals kept in them, and the same standard of order, neatness and cleanliness should prevail in them as in other departments of the institution. The agricultural work of the institution generally should be of the very best, not only for the credit of the institution, but, chiefly, for the educational effect upon the pupils. The boy who comes to love cleanliness, neatness and order and at the same time cultivates a spirit of kindness and love to animals, has laid a considerable foundation for right character; and the benefit which comes to the shop boy from exactness, precision and thoroughness will come to the farm boy in the perfect care of the horses, cows, calves and pigs and in the absolute and constant cleanliness of their surroundings. If the farm boy is allowed to go dirty and ragged; if the pig pen is foul and the horse stable has a rotten floor; if the garden is weedy and the corn is half tended; if the farm tools are left covered with mud and the farm machinery lies out in the weather, the boy will be left with low ideals and a great opportunity for character building will be lost.

AFTER-CARE-THE STATE AGENCY.

The laws establishing Juvenile Reformatories in most states provide that the children shall continue to be wards of the institution, during their minority. This implies that the child shall continue under the watchcare of the institution after his dismissal. The best

Juvenile Reformatories now recognize the after-care of the child as a duty equally important with his care in the institution. New Jersey, Illinois, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and other states maintain state agents for the express purpose of performing this duty. The agent becomes acquainted with the child and gains his confidence before dismissal, and investigates the child's own home, if he has one, to ascertain whether it is a suitable place for him. If the child has no suitable home of his own, the agent finds a family home and takes the child thereto in order to initiate him in his new surroundings. The agent maintains correspondence with the child and receives reports from the parents or foster parents. If the home proves at any time to be unfit or if the child gets into trouble the agent returns him to the institution for further treatment or for replacement. The relation between the agent and the child is one of confidential friendship.

In Minnesota and Iowa the place of state agent for both boys and girls is filled by a woman and experience has shown that the instinct of chivalry which resides in the bosom of every normal boy becomes a helpful aid to the performance of their work.

THE AGENTS OF THE WORK.

The head of the institutions of the state is the Governor who appoints the Boards of