Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1875-02-11
TIE INDUSTRLAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
At HALLOWELL.

after children without family or whose pare MT
are in prison. Those whom he persuades, ar,
placed in special schools, where instead of pests
they become useful members of society. A
stranger visiting Sweden, asked a Swedish gen
tleman whether the care of the children pickec
up in the streets and highways was not costly
The answer was Eyes, it is costly, but not dear
we Swedes are not rich enough to let child grow
up in ignorance, misery and crime, to become at
terward scourge to society as well as to himself.
/ There is whole volume Of fact and philosophy in
that curt reply Have all the experience of the
ages and the boosted discoveries of modern
science found out any thing better than the good
old proye,b: Train up child in the way he
should go:"
In connection with this subject of dvertins un-
fortunate children from the paths to crime and
misery, ask for little space in the Journal. 1t
is now just fifty years since the first American
reformatory-the New York House of Refuge
was opened. 1t grew out of the efforts made by
Edward Livingston and other enlightened philan-
thropsts, to train the young in cities to life OF
honest industry. Soon after similar reformatory
was opened in Boston and another in Philadel-
phia Now more than half the States in the
| Union have reformatories for youth-principally
for boys. The re.ult is that not far from 10 per
cent. of these Ieformatory pupils become useful
and worthy members Of society.
| Prerentire institutions are Of later date, and
are even far moro promising in their results. Six
or eight devoted exclusively to the care and
training of girls, are in successful operation in
the United States. The distinction between Re-
| r 7 J.. II, tbot Erat
are more directly for correction or punishment,
and the latter for prevention. No boy can be
committed to the Reform Scnool at Cape Eliza
beth unless convicted Of some positive offense
punishable by fine or Imprisonment. On the
other hand an industrial school is for destitute
and vagrant children found begging or wandering
without visible means Of subsistence or proper
guardianship. 1t is for the saving Of young per-
sons from lives of deness, vice, crime and suffer-
| ing toward which they are tending. 1t takes and
shelters them before they become criminals. 1t
is too apparent to be denied that the saving of this
class of children from becoming criminals and
outcasts is the highest public economy, for it cuts
off copious source Of adult crime, and contrib
utes in no small measure towards stopping the
ncessant and large drain upon the material wealth
and moral health of the State. Prisons and
criminals are exceedingly costly.
| The results of the reformatory and industrial
schools wherever they have been established have
been very decided and encouraging. In England,
where the first reformatory and industrial schools
were established in 1854, so per cent. and upward
of the inmates have turned out well. I quote
from a recent official report from that country,
the following remarkable result:
| sin the year 1856, when these schools began to
be in more active operation, the number of juve-
nile Offenders iboys and girls under l6 years. COM
was 1881 in 1853, when the system had spread
| and taken root the number sank to ,622; and in
1870 in spite Of the very large increase of popu-
| lation, and especially Of the population OF the
most numerous recruits, the number Of young Of
tenders committed to prisons was but 9,99S, the
number Of adult commitments having advanced
from SO, 655, in 1856, to 1925 in lS70,-50 per
cent"
| These are facts which it would be well worth
| the while of all of our thoughtful citizens and
Legislators to ponder. 1t is to be remarked that
even the more criminal institutions in England
| the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS giving place to industrial
| Schools less criminal class of institutions.
Facts prove that the GA reformatories in that
country remained stationary ten years. while the
industrial schools more than doubled in number
during the same period; in 1861 there were Al,
and so have been established since. Thus the
latter are absolutely tending toward doing away
with the necessity of the former. In 1870 tae
total number Of young offenders under sentence
in reformatories in England, was 1862, and Of
children in industrial schools S,78S. Both classes
Of institutions together reclaim from 10 to so per
cent Of their inmates, converting them into good
and useful members os society. These facts are
suggestive and valuable to the rejecting and
philanthropic. Our own State of Maine can
profit much from them, if II heeds the lesson they
| teach.
The Industrial School for Girls at IIallowell is
the grand and happy result of efforts put forth by
benevolent persons for q noble purpose. Its pri-
NAL object is to train up in christian home girls
| who by their surroundings and circumstances are
almost to be led astray, and utterly lost in the
| world which their young feet have barely begun
| to walk The purpose is to save these girls to
themselves, to society and to humanity, and it
opens with great promise of success in the good
| work.
|
| means be deemed experimental in this country.
Similar schools for the training of girls only have
been in successful operation in Massachusetts, since
1856, in Connecticut, in Maryland since 1868, in
New Jersey since 1870, in Vermont, Ohio, and
| other States. Where these schools admit both
boys and girls, as in Rhode Island the per cent.
reclaimed saved to society is about 60 per cent.
| The Ilalowell school is modelled-somewhat
after the one at Middletown, Conn. ,-substanti
| ly as follows
l. Its proper subjects vciousy inclined girls
between the ages of seven and fifteen years. They
are not simply orphans, or the neglected and f,un-
ding, nor yet they those who, as a class have
| fully entered upon course of vice and crime.
They are rather neglected and abandoned chill
dren, thrown out, from whatever cause, upon the
wide world, friendess, ignorant and under the de-
PRAYING and debasng influences Of abject poverty
and vicious associations. Many of them are
wholly or in part orphans; more are the children
of drunkards and criminals-of abandonment and
prostitution; most of them are paupers, beggars,
Migrants, petty thieves, and a few have taken
their first lessons in crime Children uncontrol-