The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-07-23
.REFORMATORY FOR.
 NEW YORK ARABS Experiment Which is Being Watched With Interest MODEL VILLAGE FOR BOYS Youngsters From Crowded Tenements Are Being Made Into Useful Citi-
 zens-Content With Their
 Home on the Hudson.
MODEL VILLAGE FOR BOYS

New York, July 22.-Settlement house workers, free doctors, city missionaries and other friends of the poor have been watching with interest an experiment which has been in progress for several months near this city and which has been SO successful that it can be, perhaps, no longer called an experiment. When the trustees of the New York Juvenile asylum placed 300 gamins from the slums in model village which has been ca | ''reformatory without fence," many supposed that the youngsters. to quote the poet, would
 Fold their tents like he Arabs
 And as silently steal way"
 But these street Arabs, although not so much as a strand or barbed wire stands as a physical barrier between them and the outside world, show little disposi- ton to return to the roise and the glare and the excitement of the Bowery and it's surrounding streets which are only twenty miles away.
 The trustees of the asylum determined to build for their wards as attractive a village as the architects could plan and to conduct 1t in as liberal a way as the care of several hundred boys of any walk III lllo WOuiu uOl restraint, was to be tle method of deal Ing with the youngsters, who, for the most part, had come from the unwhole- some surroundings of the slum districts of Americas greatest city, many being committed to the care of the asylum by the police courts.
 Of course, the sudden change from the old asylum buildings, where escape was not so easy, proved toU -reat a tempta- Farxf nf fhA ua., cta,e nd in all twelve have ventured out into the great world. Of these two were promptly returned by their parents, and another little chap was found in the vicinity a day or so after his disappearances. Very hungry and bedraggled. he was brought back to his dinner and then his appe- title satisfied, began to feel more like the hero he had expected to be. But he soon discovered that in some mysterious way he was never able to tell the story of his adventures to the admiring audi ence he had dread of. The teachers saw to it that the adventure fell flat and its hero appeared in the light of nothing more enviable than a very foolish little boy.
 This is the modern idea of discipline that marks a long step fordward in the battle against poverty and crime In our great cities and has driven out the train ing schools for criminals formerly desig- mated with unconscious irony as 1uve- nile reformatories The visitor to the little colony on the summit of the long ridge just above Dobbs ferry sees little to remind him of the fact that the great majority of the villages population are not voluntary residents. No turnkeys guard the approaches and for nearly it's whole extent the farm of 2S5 acres in the midst of which the asylum stands Is perfectly open to the surrounding coun- fry. Were it not for their plain, we'll worn uniforms and heavy shoes the 3oo boys who may be seen any bright day plaving baseball on the improvised dia- monds that dot the strans between the village green and its fringe of cottages dominated by big school house might easily be mistaken for the pupils or soms private boarding school
 After All. 1t is much as a boarding school that the asylum is run. The boys, the au- thorities say, are fin need of intelligent sv,nnathy more than Of rules and regu- iations. The persistent rebef can be trans- formed to the state reformatory on Ram dalps island if he fails to respond to tha no1icy of Kindness, but to most of the youngsters sympathy Is too much or a novelty to be scorned. Those or the in- stitution's wards who are not committed to It's care as petty offenders against the laws have been sent there by the courts as to temporary relufo ilohi "'e'cN''N homes until new and satisfactory homes can be found for them. .ow complete is the ignorance of these youngsters of everything outside the narrow range of s1urn experience can hardly be realized exceut by those to whose Tot has fallen the responsibilitv fofS fresh afr excursions.
 Hey Missus!" shouted new arrival to the wife of the superintendent on his first day at the village. "Do you get breakfast, dinner and supper here just as you do in the city?"
 Ii is not long. however. before the boys make themselves quite at home in their new surroundings. Already fifteen cot- taees have been completed for their liv- ing quarters. and as soon rs more homes are ready the number of boys will be in- creased from the 300 10 which present sccomnnods tions are limited.
 There are school and several indus-