During the past year the members of this committee have visited the institution individually, and the member from the Seventh district has visited the institution at various intervals. The inspector of State institutions of the State Board of Charities has frequently inspected the institution and its several departments. POPULATION. The census on November 1, 1901, was as follows: During the past year no notable changes have occurred in the lines of instruction and discipline followed in this institution. The system which has worked so satisfactorily for the past few years, has continued to yield corresponding results. No important changes have been made in the buildings or grounds of the institution, since many necessary changes in such direction are held in abeyance pending its prospective removal from the city to the country. The necessity for such a change becomes daily more apparent, and we feel that the time has arrived when such a transfer must be made in the interest of those for whom the institution was established. Modifications of lines of instruction, the addition of new and the discontinuance of some of the older methods are all dependent upon a change of the institution to a location where an ampler tract of land and freedom from the embarrassments of city surroundings will permit of their establishment and development. It is incumbent, therefore, upon the legislature of 1902, to make the necessary provision for such change. Another urgent reason for this departure, is found in the combination, in a single institution, of a boys' and girls' department, an association which has been shown by experience to be an incompatible one under a single reformatory administration. The proposed removal of the institution to a new site, will, with the added facilities now available by the opening of the institution at Bedford, provide for the proper care of the girls now in the State Industrial School. This institution has been visited and inspected during the past year by members of this Committee, individually, and inspected at intervals by the special inspector of the Board for State Institutions. All parts of the institution in such visits and inspection have been carefully examined. |