The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-10
THE BOYS
At the Industrial School at East
 Lake.


 The youthful inmates of the reform school are for the most part from the pen ttentiary, the mines, lumber camps and siums and at the present time they rep resent the following counties: Montgom- cry, Mobile, Jefferson, Cullman. EtoHah, Madison, Morgan, Shelby, Greene. Dallas, Marion, Colbert. St. Clair, Tuscaloosa and Barbour. They spend about half their time in the school room acquiring a good plain. solid ground work in English and the other half either on the farm or in one of the workshops laying the founda- tion for some useful trade.
 They print letter heads, envelopes, cir culars, programs, etc, and publish a small bimonthly magazine Gas Is the custom in all reform schools) which has been much praised by other school magazines. They mend all their shoes, make new ones and repair and make harness-an by hand and in a thoroughly workmanlike manner; they raise field and garden stuff for the home table and provender for the live stock; gather and can or jelly all the available wild fruit, the farm orchard be- | ing still too young to bear; they cook and | clean house and perform other domestic duties; clean and keep in order the farm ! barn; and take care of the live stock They picked cotton for neighbor and bought cutlery for the school one year and handsome hall clock the next; they have made numerous shelves and doors | and cupboards as we'll as tables for the dining room, and they have built small greenhouse, a large OuJnOuSe ana an en- zine house; excavated a coal cellar. for the walls of which they gathered stones | from all over the farm, and cleaned out and walled around with stones their beau tiful spring making of it a most pictur- | esque spot; they have also cleaned out numerous ditches. built bridges and arr bors and put up miles of rail fences. They work hard and play hard and are. taken | as a whole, a healthy, happy, promising set of boys. The school is only three years old. and the boys have been inmates for varying length of time within that | limit.
 |. To quote the excellent superintendent: When the new conner arrives he Is car ried to the bath room, given a gooN- scrub ping, new suit of clothes and told that he is a new boy. His old offenses are live up to his new obligations Is pathetic, showing clearly that 1t is formation and not reformation that these wayward chil- dren need" These boys come to the school saturated with bad habits, un- healthy and idle, ignorant and apathetic They leave 1t with goodly store of moral principles, mentally and physically alert, gives the school its bad boys and .the school returns to the State promising young men who are more than likely to The following little articles are some of many that were written for the Vice President of the Board of Directors. Each boy selected, his own subject. no ques- tions were answered and no help given; none ot the papers were corrected or cop fed or doctored in any way. Some were written by boys who could not spell a word or write even a single letter when admitted to the school anywhere from six months to two years ago. In clmost every case the handwriting was quite leg ible and the work neat.
 Vlce-President, A. B. I. $. Saving Wood.
 One cold morning MT. Griffin told some boys to go with MT. Meltono out to the hill side side to. get some wood. For it was in the first part of the winter | and we were now to the place where we l were to saw their were ten boys. Four boys to saw two boys to split the wood two boys carry the wood two boys to pile it in the wagon.
 lode.
 We must go home now cone Mye,,9 on boys.
 Making Hills for Watermelons. The first thing We did was to rake the ground over to get the stones out. Then we took the hoes and made the hills. Then with rake we put the hills in shape to | seeds and put two and three in a hill. And when the seeds began to sprout the weeds commenced to grow around the down. That finises the watermelon patch until they get ripe. Frank -.
 Tumbling.
 Some of our boys are very good acro- bats. we have a sprlnging board and a mat to turn on, some can turn a uand | spring. and some can walk on their hands and some of us turn clearlights some times. that is run and jump up in the air and turn over and catch on our feet We get to tumble before dinner and supper, we take the mat to the play ground during our play time and turn while the other boys are playing marbles | or horseshoeS.
 | We get some boys down on their knees and see how many We can jump and turn | handspring over.
 | Mir. Embree. our instructor in the print ing department is a very good acrobat and | he teaches us how to turn some new | thing almost every week. He has taught l several of the small boys to turn a hand. spring, some of the boys get good fal sometimes but it does not hurt them as they hit on the mat. We fill the maj about twice a month and then we have | good time gathering pine straw in the grove near our school. l hope to oe a | good acrobat Someday.
 Raymond -.
 Our New Building.
 Our new building is progressing verV ! fast and will soon be completed Tht building will be brick veneered with 2 slate roof. The basement will have tho following rooms: Play room. office fur lu.4 Ew