The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1901-12-05
Mitchellvllle Industrial School.

sin connection with the recent criti-
cisms of the board of control,' said
Judge g. s. Robinson, of the board, to-.
day, zone serious injustice has been
done to the girls of the Mitchellville
industrial school. They have been re.
ferred to as of the White Chapel level.
Such a criticism or comment is unjusti-
fable and is calculated to do material
injury to the girls in that institution,
who do not deserve to be so classed and
who may be discouraged by reflection
of that character. Certainly the news
paper which started that idea was care
less, if free from malice, for its reference
to these girls as of the White Chapel
stripe will injure them and the work of
the institution in considerable degree.
1t is absolutely unjust. During the riot
at that institution two or three years
ago some of the girls who escaped were
found in White Chapel in Des Moines,
it is true. Probably girls from that in
stitution may be led into lives of shame,
occasionally, as girls in other walks of
life are. But to class the whole of the
population of the school, as women of
that character, is serious matter. For
a year and a half there has not been an
effort to escape from the school on the
part of any girl. The girls who are
there now behave themselves in every
way. The work of strengthening their
characters, teaching them knowledge
which will enable them to earn living,
inspiring them to higher ideals, is pro-
crossing with commendable rapidity
and to the satisfaction of the board and
the officers. 1t is most unfortunate
that when the work is going along SO
nicely, careless or worse reflection is
made unjustly as deterrent influence.
Moreover the allusion is slanderous
because many girls sent to the Mitchell
VILE industrial school have no more
business there than they have in prison.
The board is cognizant of cases in which
whole families of girls have been rail.
roaded' into that institution by parents
who wished to be rid of them; recall
the case of mother who wished to re-
marry and whose children seemed to
her an incumbrance. She had them all
sent to the school. These children are
as innocent as any child could be and
to class them as of the White Chapel
leyel is wrong. You understand that
in Iowa the counties pay for the care of
>6pe children who are sent from them to
the Soldiers Orphans Home at Daven-
port, while the whole state pays for the
maintenance of the Mitchellville and
Eldora industrial schools. Therefore,
when it is possible, it is cheaper for the
counties, they reckon, to send children
to the industrial rather than to the
orphans institution. And it ia done.
1t is not strange thate hearing these
children charged with being outcasts
because they are merely unfortunate,
makes one indignant.
The board of control is teaching the
girls at the Mitchellville institution that
they are as good as any one in the
world as long as they do right. In the
pursuance of the plan Of encouragement
to do right, as an incentive and influence
to arouse pride in right-doing and ap.
probation of the value of good charac-
ter and worthy ambition, the board
bought mortar board caps for the girls.
The influence has been excellent. The
board feels justified in doing everything
that it is possible to do to dignity the
lives of the girls at the school and it
deplores any effort to drag them down,
to degrade them in their own eyes, and
to trample upon their feelings and re-
buke their ambition to do right. "-Des
Moines cor. IN Hawkeye.
Worth 500 to you to cure child or adult
| OF ihcontlnenca Of water during sleep.
lGAntI. . 1lS0tio'' sfopS IL iumcdiotely