The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1907-01-19
REFORMING THE BOY.

The New York Juvenile Asylum,
which for the past fifty years has been
engaged in the work of making self
respecting and law-abiding citizens
out of what are commonly called dad
boys" reports that it costs two
hundred and six dollars a year to
turn one of these street urchins into
a good citizen.
The same pays for his food, cloth
ing, lodging and education, but each
years experience brings forth inn
provements which add to the expense
of conducting the school, therefore the
cost of reformation, like everything
else, is going up.
A few years ago the cost of reform
was less than at present, because poor
err methods We're used, fewer trades
We're taught, less attention paid to
sanitary condition, there being
time when eleven hundred youths
were huddled together under one roof
Now, only twenty boys, and boys of
about the same age, live in one OF the
fifteen comfortable cottages that make
up the little village between Chauncey
and Dobb's Ferry, about twenty miles
from the metropolis.
This improved plan offers better
opportunities for the careful study of
each individual and is no different
from the old method as the pleasant
home is from the dreary county Jail.
The asylum being conducted on a
business like basis, the authorities
can ascertain almost to cent what it
costs to make bad boy into a good
citizen. The greater part of this cost
is contributed by the city as most of
the children are committed by chill
dren's courts of the city, and the
rest is contributed by the many friends
and sympathizers of the bad boy, who
in nine cases out of ten, are boys who
play truant to go swimming or skat-
ing, boys who want to run away from
home and initiate Daniel Boone or
some adventurer of whom they have
read in history or boys with dozens
of other wild notions, which if bred
. in the bone must come out in the
flesh
Now, the question-does it pay?
Compare this cost with the vastly
greater sum paid out each year in
New York fer policemen, court Of
ficers and Jail wardens. Then think
OF the number of once hayward
youngsters, now useful and honorable
men, making the laws of their country,
instead of breaking them and filling
the penitentiaries with criminals.
Besides the authorities have proof to
show that their work is profitable and
can safely say that eighty-fve per cent
OF their boys turn out as they intend
ed. The institution keeps in touch
with their graduates after they leave
the asylum and are constantly receiy-
ing the best reports from them. Not
long ago they received letter from
one of their boys announcing his cleo
ton to the office of county recorder
He also said:
II remember those words of Abra-
ham Lincoln which greeted me in the
assembly room: "Tell the boys of the
New York Juvenile asylum that they
must value justice, truth and human
ity if they wish to become useful and
honorable men, I have often thought
of those words. have tried to live
up to them as Lincoln wished us to
do. | wish the boys who leave the asy-
lum would never forget them. Tell
them to come west"
Their work is extremely profitable
not only because the bows are nolished
up mentally and morally but physical
ly as we'll. A large number of the
boys committed to their care are the
victims of circumstances and come to
the asylum in poor physical condition.
1t is claimed that ninety-four per
cent of the children have defective
teeth, a large proportion suffer from
skin trouble, and great many have
eye and ear troubles. The expert boy
trainer understands the relation of
these ailments to morality and does
not expect a boy to act normally under
the circumstances, so one of his first
experiences at Chauncey is that of be-
ing put in sound physical condition.
When he attains this requirement and
begins to feel like a normal, his