The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-02-07

Ogden, was one of rare interest to the
Woman'S club. The paper was unusu-
ally able and exhaustive. The facts
in relation to the subject were stated
in a plain, fearless way, leaving no
doubt in the minds of the hearers that
the Ogden reform school presented u
striking contrast 10 the ideal indus.
trial school and the ideal reformatory
methods, which were fully reviewed by
Mrs. Breeder.
= The paper opened with an historical
sketch of the school from its estao-
lishment by an act of the legislature
in 1885, to the present time. Less than
200 girls and boys have been inmates
of the school since it's establishment,
while at the present time there are
but about Is boys and three girls con-
fined therein. However, this does not
represent the number who normally
belong in the institution, inasmuch as
the failure of the school to reform it's
inmates has deferred judges from COM
hitting youths and children to the
| school
/ Several factors have operated to de-
! crease the efficiency of the school. In
the past the removal of officers of the
institution for political reasons has not
| been fortunate. Then no trained teach
er or officer skilled in reformatory
work has ever been employed in the
school, so that the instruction and in
fluences brought to bear upon the in
mates have fallen far short of what
ought to have been accomplished; so
| far short, indeed, that it has been said
that there have been practically no
reclamatiOns of the boys or girls from
| former lives of sin or incorrigibility.
! The transportation of the sexes has
| been another factor in the failure of
the school to overcome the tendency
| to crime in the young.
! In the opinion of Mrs. Breeder, this
bad condition of affairs in the school
has not been due to q lack of good
laws for its conduct, but to the fact
that these laws have not been carried
out. For instance, the law passed by
the legislature of 1896 provided for a
department for manual training in
which a trade should be taught to
each inmate of the school to enable
him, upon leaving the school, to earn
an honest livelihood. No steps have
BEEN taken by the trustees to carry
out this and other sections of the law,
much to the detriment of the children,
who have no steady occupation short
of a little housework for the girls and
very little gardening for the boys.
There is, moreover, a lack in all de-
partments of apparatus and appli-
ances suitable for the training and ed
ucation of the children.
Ine expense per capita Tor the main
tenance of the school is large enough,
as the speaker said, to keep the in
mates at the Reed hotel, but is not
expended in the training and moral
Improvement of the inmates.
What is much needed is an appro-
priation to carry out the existing laws,
that is to hire skilled teachers, TO es-
tablish a manual training department,
to provide appliances for teaching the
trades to the inmates, etc.
The governor, in his recent message
to the legislature in his list of appro-
priations recommended, neglected the
reform school altogether, perhaps out
of encouragement, but all right-minded
people will admit that it would prove
truer economy to suppress crime or
the tendency to crime in its incipi-
ency than to convict and care for adult
criminals. The sum expended on those
young in evil and crime would be
vastly less and would accomplish in
finitely greater results.
Mrs. Breeder was urged to allow her
paper to be printed in full in the daily
papers, but declined, feeling her pur-
pose had been accomplished in its
presentation before the club.
The next topic will be presented on
Tuesday next by Mrs. a. M. Bradley,
the subject being Municipal and Com
munity Administration in Switzer-
land" The meeting will be open to the
public at 2 o'clock in the city and
county building.