Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1898-05-11
SPARTA'S WAITS.
Burnett" Spends Day with the
Children at the State School.
BEGINS In THE BURYING GROUND.

Childen Taken from Shattered Homes and
Placed in Good Families as Soon IS Pos
s.b:e-The Bright Ones Taken Flint
supply Not Equal to the Dcmand-Tho
Colt &c System-Do Single Women
Make the Dast Matrons?
Madison, Wis, May ga child's
grave is always a sad, pretty sight. 1t
looks so peaceful amid its setting of
green; or, perhaps, the snow covers it
with a mantle of ermine, about which
the winters wind losses up graceful
wreaths and garlands and coronets and
a thousand symbols Of innocence and
triumph and they fall on the little
mound like tributes tossed over the bat
Elements of paradise by the angels,
who guard our little ones, living or
dead.
But If the grave of a loved child be
Enthusiastically nurtured from it's
birth, caressed and shielded from rude
alarms-how infinitely sad the group of
thirteen boys and girls who lie in the
burying ground at the state Public
School, at SPARTAN official title for
the home established by the bounty of
eA1S Stotc Aoi plletISy IilOlueIltSS DOyS,
girl babies whose fathers go drink mad
when the wife dies; little ones abused
by step-parents, and almost incredible,
children abandoned by both parents
but only when the mother has been be-
deViled by rum, or has lest her mind be-
fore the heart failed her.
FriendIess Children, Not Bad.
Sparta is not the rendezvous of bad
boys superintendent Merica keeps
them at Waukesha, which institution /
shall visit later. Dependent and ne
elected children are sent to Sparta
They range from to IA years when
committed and they are put in homes
just as fast as possible. The school was
opened in 1886, since which time $780,
GOO have been spent on it. Last year
the running expenses were $46,C00. A
total of 1850 children have passed
through the school. They are sent there
by the county judges, and behind each
case Is shattered family. Thirteen
cases were recently transferred to the
new school for imbeciles at Chippewa
Falls. The school was crowded last
year, there being over 800 children. The
demand for children for indenture or
adoption was not brisk enough So Mr.
Heg of the board of control advertised,
and since that happy idea there are not
children enough to go round. There are
fifty applications for children that can
not now be filled. One of the cottages
is closed for lack of childr /.
Isn't it beautiful that as fast as
waits are thrown on to the world, kind
hearts and welcome firesides are wait
ing for them, with few quest ons as to
who the children are or from how dark
the mud the lilies of youthful limo
cence spring!
Sparta claims 5000 people. 1t is the
city of ID. F. Jones, the brilliant as
sembly man, and d. w. T. Searles,
who inspects the children every day,
has adopted two of them; a nd Principal
Doty of the high school, which univer-
sity professors say ranks up close to
the top. 1t is the small fruit region,
and next to the SHOOT is 100-acre farm,
wholly given over to berries and cur
rants and little products that make
growers rich if the supply and market
fit each other.
The school is on a farm of 100 acres
dead level, and in the distance are
the bluffs of the Lacrosse valley-and
it is beautiful. Unlike the schools for
the blind and the deaf, no one rooI COW
ers boys and girls, but a series of fine
brick cottages, presiding over each of
which is matron. There is a main
building, which suffered a $1,000 fire
in 1892; a school building, and a new
$4,000 hospital and a quarter of q mile
away are fine farm buildings, where
are fifty hogs and twenty-eight aristo-
cratic COWS. and lots of calves, and a
big prizetaking bull, who is 8 years
old. A boy told me they would soon
take him to the Slaughter house yon-
der" and laughed at me for a city ig
noramus because / thought one hit be-
tween the eyes would lay him low.
All Want IA Handsome Child.
Two-thirds of the pupils are girls.
They stay until some home takes them
which may be a week or a number of
years. But if they are not placed"
by the time the boys are 16 and the
girls IS, they are sent back to their re-
spective counties, perhaps to enter the
poorhouse. The expected happens. The
attractive children are promptly taken.
Some mother who has lost her own baby
pounces down on some diInpled baby
girl or handsome boy; or Some parents
who have no children decide the house
is too quiet, and send in an order for
a blue-eyed lad or golden-haired girl;
or some farmer thinks he can use a boy
to do handy work; or some family with
a lot of boys decides that a girl could
make herself useful. The unattractive
ones, slow, perhaps, or endowed with
a temper, remain In the school. In most
cases the adopting parties do not see
the children until they arrive on the
train. Some of the children have been
in two or TIN ee homes on trial and re-
turned. Parents put up with all sorts
of shortcomings in their own children,
but many of them want perfect HUI
manity from Sparta or they don't want
any.
There are three agents on the road all
the time. Two of them are gentlemen
Messrs. Bailey and Brandt-and a lady,
Miss Jeardean, q sister of the arbitra-
ton commissioner of the state. The last
named has had many years experience
in the Taylor Orphan school at Racine,
and a gentler, more cultivated, mother
ly woman never dried an orphans tears
or stood with courageous tact and in
sight between a child and it's oppres-
sors, for it can readily be imagined that
evil motives dictate some of the calls
for children. Homes want them for
the hardest kind of work, and cruelty
yelled with hypocrisy holds out invit-
ing arms. Even vice seeks to pray on
these who have no friends but the COM
monwealth.
1t is the business of these agents to
place the children. A call for a child
comes to the school. One of the agents
visits the home. He Cor she) talks with
the parties, examines into their fnanc-
cial standing; asks the neighbors and
teachers and pastors as to their NOR
ais and kindlness. If the environment
is unfavorable the application is de-
clined. If the home promises to be
good one, the child Is taken there
There is in Wisconsin a children's aid
society, a private philanthropy, which
does this same work of finding homes
for friendless children, and q grand
work it Is doing. 1t has no building,
but makes close connection between the
broken home and the new home. Agent
Woodmansee can be found en- train
most any time with baby in his arms,
milk bottle. paregoric and all. When
he goes marching down the corridors of
eternity there will be such a din of