The Portland daily press., 1882-11-29
Thursday, Nov. sOlh, a. n, 1889,
The Reform School Investigation.

W Investigate tu6 management OF the Maine
Reform School for Boys were submitted yes
terday to The Governor and Council. and
are published in the PRESS this morning.
The members of the Commission, Messrs.
William E. Gould, Thomas H. Haskell and
Frederick Fox, each drew up report.
While the conclusions arrived at by them
are In substance the same, and the recon-
mendations made are much alike, each COM
missioner has pursued distinct line of in
vestlgation, giving attention to those merits
or faults in the system or management of
the School which most interested him. These
different roads lead to the same point: A
change of system is recommended, and
some fault is found width the management
of the school. THE three reports will be read
with interest, and the fairness and accuracy
of them will be generally admitted.
The commissioners are of opinion that
the School has departed widely from the
intention of those who founded it. They
might have gons further and said that no
serious attempt to fulfill that intention has
ever been made. The Legislative commit
tee that advised its creation thought it
would present "the State in her true rela-
ton of parent seeking out her erring chill
dren, and laying aside the stern severity of
justice whilst struggling for their reform.
By it the State will come forward and act as
1t ought to do the part of wise and consid-
crate father, and subject them to the discip-
line of good schools; teach them habits of
industry, and remove them from the tempt
ations and COMMUNICATIONS of vicious exam
pies; educate and train them to useful
trades and employments, and thereby give
the means of acquiring personal independ-
ence: by it, it is designed that those who
may be sent to it shall find rather refuge
from danger, than prison for punishment;
that It shall neither wear the name, nor
breed the moral miasma of prison, but fit
its inmates for the honorable duties of life
and restore them back to society to meet and
share its rewards" The School has not,
since its foundation, been conducted in ac-
cordance with this idea. 1t has been pun
itory institution, avowedly so conducted
with the approval of the people of the State.
The rigor of discipline has been lessened
from time to time, and the management of
the institution has steadily improved. But
1t has always been ga prison for punish
ment," and to it have been committed
youths guilty of manslaughter, arson, and
other high crimes These criminals have
been housed with boys accused of nothing
more grave than truancy or vagrancy, and
the result has too often been that the clev-
erer and more audacious and more depraved
of the inmates have become the educators
of the others. Instead gof a school for re.
formation it has become school for de-
formation. The commission suggest re-
turn to the purp oses of its founders, and in
cline to favor the cottage system. Each of
them insists that the hardened criminals
shall be isolated from the petty offenders;
that the worst boys shall be either sent to
the State Prison or, if confined within the
limits of the School, be entirely barred from
communication with the more innocent and
susceptible pupils. They also advise that
the boys be taught useful trades so as to fit
them ''for the honorable duties of life and
restore them back to society to meet and
share its rewards" They think that all the
trustees are not near enough to the School
to give it the attention it requires. The adj
wise and recommendation are sound and
will be faverably considered by the people
OF the State. Doubtless the Legislature
about to meet will place them, in whole or
in part, or the pages of the Statute Book.
Respecting the management of the School,
past and present, the Commissioners have
considerable to say. They find that the
bnildingis neatly kept, the dormitory clean,
the school room in good order, the clothing
suitable, the health of tie boys good, and
the food sufficient. But in the matter of
discipline, of admonition and punish
ment, there is much to- condemn. The
methods OF punishment vary. Sometimes
pudils are ferruled on the hands or the but
thcks; sometimes put on scanty diet; some
times degraded in rank; sometimes SEN
fenced to solitary confinement; sometimes
compelled to work over hours; sometimes
ordered to touch fingers to toes for many
minutes; sometimes kept on their feet the
night long; sometimes dosed with cayenne
on CASTLE soap; sometimes put into iron feU-
tiers. Concerning the first of these punish
ments, ferrnling, we entirely agree with
Commissioner Gould that no bad results
arise from "this ancient and scriptural
practice" We think also that the substi-
tuition of bread and water for richer
meal is not Objectionable not too frequent
ly resorted to or too greatly prolonged. And
Ma NTH l. IL.
deprivation of sleep, the combining of BOYS
in unhealthy rooms or restraining them
from the enjoyment of light and air,
and muscular exercise, or putting them in
irons, are not measures that mike for re-
formation. They should not be permitted
in the Reform School, or any other school
or family. 1t is true that some of these
measures have been practiced by men re-
puted to be "wise and considerable fathers,
and women known to be loving and well-mean
ingmothers. Boys have been sent to bed with
out supper; shut up in dark closets; made
to touch toes to feet; had their mouths
washed with soap because they used pro-
fame or obscene words-and the neighbor
hood has wasted no sympathy upon them.
But at the Reform School these punishments
have sometimes been excessively prolonged,
greatly TO the physical and moral detrimens
OF the scholars, and aggravated by the hasty
or surly temper of some of the assistants.
1t does not appear that the punishments in
general are novel, or invented by the pres
ent management. They have been long in
use. 1t does appear that the severity of dis
cipline has Of late been mitigated. It also
appears that there are some abuses yet 10 be
corrected and some officers, or servants, I'M
Mt fer the places they fill The practices of
starving boy, depriving him of sleep for
night or more, of loading him with irons,
deserve theseverest condemnation.
Tie Commissioners perceive the chief diff
fculty In managing the school; the difficulty
of governing hardened and daring criminals
by the methods that should be applied to
the reformation of boys guilty of petty often
ses. The classes should be widely separa-
ted. That is the lesson of the reports. If
1t If studied as it should be the work of the