Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-01-26
JUVENILE REFORM.
THE GIRLS AND BOYS AID SOCIETY
OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Rational Method Of Retaining Way
ward and Neglected Children to Paths
of Usefulness and Honor.

youths OF the State and turning them TO
she paths of virtue and good citizenship,
has written the following
The Boys and Girls Aid Society, whose
exceedingly limited and unpretending
Home is located at IS Clementina street,
San Francisco, has in the most thorough
manner solved the question how shall we
save to good citizenship our orphan, ne
elected and hayward children? and being
deeply impressed with the fact that this is
the most vital issue of the present time,
and that the whole people of the State
should be made fully acquainted with the
plan of this admirable organization, we pro-
pose in the present article 10 give a clear
and concise explanation OF its method,
which has proved the most pronounced and
eminent reformatOry success Of the West,
its grand work during the past twenty
months having no parallel, either in this or
any other country. First OF al. it bases
its action upon the great fundamental fact
that the well ordered home and family con-
stitute the distinguishing mark between
civilization on the one hand, and barbarism
on the other, and that to this source, and
this alone, must we look for all youthful
reformation.
1t is opposed, first and last. to the
wretched, imbecle, institutional idea,
which during the past forty years has cost
the people OF America millions Of dollars,
and resulted in harvest of criminals so
large that the combined resources of every
prison in the land, stretched to the utmost
tension, is not adequate to contain them.
Retormatory and so-called Industrial
Schools have had their day, and most
terrible and fearfully expensive one 1t has
been, intelligent people everywhere having
become fully alive to the fact that such
places are, in most cases, nothing more
nor less than dens of iniquity, nurseries of
crime, ard hot-beds OF the most loathsome
and revolving practices, in which childrea
are practically educated to finally gravi-
tate, first to the Jail or House Of Correc-
ton, next the State Prison, and last of all
lin many cases., to an ignominious end
upon the gallows.
In view of all this, which is as suscepti-
BILE of demonstration as the fact that twice
two make four, is it not humiliating to
think that we have been spending millions
OF dollars annually during the past forty
years for the purpose Of reform, when We
were in fact fitting IN the most practical
manner possible our hayward youth for
every species of crime, and sowing the
seed that has since produced harvest OF
criminals, unprecedented in the annals of
civilization, and all this. the direct result
Of the Institutional Method, or absence OF
method:
" Homes Versus Institutions has its
origin IN Divinity itself, and for this best
&C III 1xr fai- ha
fundamental principle of the Boys and
Girls Aid Society, whose method, like
everything else in nature that is truly use.
ful, is pre-. eminently simple, the results IN
proportion being greater and less expensive
than those Of any other reformatory organ
ization that ever existed, every detail hsv-
ing been brought right down to the most
economic basis.
To explain more fully, it costs the soci-
ETY. to take boy or girl, feed, clothe and
discipline either, and finally place him or
her III a well.ordered home, there to re-
main (still under the society's oversight
until Of age, and then to go forth fitted to
assume the duties of life, the compare
lively Insignificant sum of 81 80. These
are the exact figures as shown by the rec
ords of the society kept during the past
twenty months. The expense fer food has
been so low that the officers of the society
have actually felt a great reluctance to
state the amount which is only cents
per capita per day, and which also includes
both fuel and light, the children, too, being
better fed than those of any institution we
know OF, and this the result of bed rock
management, Of the employment of no IN
necessary help whatever and IN this con.
neclion We will state that 4 Superintend-
ent, Assistant and Matcon constitute the
whole paid force, these three persons per-
! forming every duty, aided only by the as
sistance Of such boys and girls as can be
made available, there being on an average
sixty at its Hom3.
Let the reader take the record of re-
formatory institutions in general, and see
! what the amount per capita has been. 1t
has cost the State of California about seven
hundred and fifty dollars to educate and
/ qualify for the business of robbery, muir
der and arson, the average of its well
trained graduates during the past twenty
years, the truth of which assertion can be
seen at a glance by reference TO its State
and municipal reports Seven dollars and
| fifty cents to place boy or girl in good
I
| for the duties of life by the true methods
ordained by the Supreme Being, and seven
hundred and fifty dollars to make a red,
handed criminal out of either by the &C.
cursed system, acts and tricks, invented
and presided over by Satan. Is it not
! time that the fathers and mothers OF the
children of this generation looked this
most vital matter squarely in the face, and
will not and should not every charitably
| disposed man and woman in this fair land
| in our own beautiful California, come at
| once to the rescue and help with money,
material, word and deed, this noble organ
| ization, that during the short period Of
! twenty months, has rescued from the very
/ Jaws of utter ruin, seven hundred of our
! boys and girls, and placed them in happy
well regulated homes where, as the records
show, there are but two OF the number
placed outside of San Francisco, that are
not doing well, that are not fairly on the
! high road 20 true sovereign independence,
Is not this mighty result, and where is
! the heart that doeE not swell or the eye
! that will not moisten at the thought of the
| good that might be accomplished Of the
glorious achievements in store for this
| grandest and truest of all reformatory
societies in America with that notable ex-
ception, the Cniliren's Aid Society of New
York if it can only be supported by the
great public of the State? What pursuit
can possibly be more exalted than that of
saving our boys and girls, and how can
money be so well expended? How could
dying man or woman make a bequest
more acceptable to Him who said, Suffer
little children to come unto Me, or per-
form deed that the very Angel of God
would more quickly record to his or her
eternal credit, than by leaving something
tangible behind for this worthy society
We hear of gifts to this educational insti-
tuition and that, which in the aggregate
amount to millions hundreds OF thou
sands of dollars given for cold, soulless
ststuary, to stand at the entrances of halls
of learning, and be as coldly gazed upon by
the casual visitor, while here are thou
sands upon thousands of living statues,
made in the image of the Creator, who
possess immortal souls, and will not the
rich and charitably disposed think of them,
and with their money aid the extension of
this glorious work The $3.50 900 paid Tor
some cold marble group would constitute a
fund sufficiently large to produce an IN
come, which would literally regenerate the
State, and carry comfort to many bleeding
mothers heart, now driven to utter des-
3 L.,