Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-02-11
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY II, 1888.
SUPPRESSION OF AMERICAN YOUTH.


 Frank Holland, aged IA years, was yes terday consigned by the Police Court judge to the State Reform School to remain there until he is 21 years old, ''unless sooner discharged or hired as apprentice" and he shall not be ''retained after the super intendent shall have reported him fully reformed Frank Holland eat his breakfast in the reformatory institution this morning, and had it net been for his age a companiol named Hollywood would be there with him. Hollywood is 16 years old and does not come within the statute. He had worked | in the shop and had saved a few dollars, and, in company with young Holland went to New York. Seen together there was not any apparent difference in their ages. They applied to the Home for the Friendless for shelter and were taken in. They gave correct names, but prevaricated in telling the superintend- ent that they had no parents. Hollywood secured work in restaurant, and Holland was employed about the institution, but
  position in the West, when Hollywood's brother sought them out and returned them to this city, where Giles Potter was wait ing to appear against the younger of the two The offense of which Holland had been guilty was truancy. He had been brought before the court once and judg ment was suspended, and repetition of that act brought the law down upon him in full force ,and he was sent to Meriden.
 This method of reforming the American youth is all wrong and was never intended by the framers of the Constitution The taking of young man of IA years who has been guilty of no worse misdemeanor than fleeing from a desolate home and drunken father to seek his living by honest labor, is not the way to reform American youth, and the reformatory institution that opens it's doors and receives him is mockery and sham. It should be called ''An Institution for the Suppression of American Youth," and should be maintained by the men who are responsible for law and the hirelings who hunt down and crush the vigor and am- bition in American boys. Young Holland might have gone out into the world and grown up an honest, industrious young man, with money and property when he is 21. But the law reaches out it's arm and with an iron and indiscriminating blow shatters the vigorous and resolute young man, and places him in a so-called reform atory institution to be instructed in relig- ion and morality.
 Holland was not a vicious or ignor- ant boy. He had reached the age when few boys 20 years ago were kept in school, and it is presumed that in his early boy hood he had been as obedient and as at tentive as most boys. He is motherless, his fathers habits such that his home is worse than no home at all The sur roundings of this young man were such that he naturally preferred to shift for him. self and with this determination he set out for New York, ,and if he had been let alone he would have been West in a short time earning and honest ivelehood instead o1 an inmate of reformatory institution, surrounded by vicious and wicked boys.
 What young Holland did to merit such pun .shment, what he did to be thus check ked in his efforts to make a man o1 him self, it is hard to comprehend. Il would seem that this was case where justice should have been tempered ant encouragement held out to energetic. c.boy hood. Many boys have been guilty O. worse misdemeanors than young Holland and have grown up to be prosperous mel and useful citizens. We are pleased to not many improvements in the State Reform School brought about by the cottage sys tenn, but until the truant and incorrig ibl boys are entirely isolated from those O. vicious habits the institution will fall shor of attaining the object for which it i maintained. The discipline of the institu tion may be good thing for boys. It ma. mo id their characters and fit them for
 useful life, but the boundless West, tn great farms and the thriving cities an, towns, where the American youth can liv unrestrained, develop his brain and mus cle, is more conducive to prosp rity an good citizenship than several years 0 tra ming in reformatory institution tha does not reform.
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