The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1907-02-08
srArE REEoRMAToRIEs.

- meuL OF nlAAc AtctoAA-aNtAA - -
venile offenders. The State could no
n appropriate its money 10 a bette
, cause. Bur the proposition TO estah
lish il in the Herbert Domain" Is I
. cheap proposition" and an nLadvis
ed one. II is a bad idea to put snei
: institutions out of the way. IN some
remote place. where they cannot b
visited. or will not be visited, except
on special occasions; for they al
need watching.
This institution should be near one
OF the small towns or cities of Mid
die Tennessee; in stones throw Of one
of the principal streets or pixies, and
open to visitors all the time. II will not
need and should not have any great
high wall around it, The children, as
a class. win stay there contented
enough if they are treated humanely
and given a square deal; and if new
and then one Of them runs away, what
are the officers for but to catch the
truant and bring him back?
Besides. they need. as they
grow up, to see something
that is going on in the world;
and not to be confined in some remote
recess of the mountain. away from the
world and all knowledge of the world.
Take child at twelve or fifteen years
of age, and keep him until he is twen-
ty-one, hid away in a mountain fast
ness, where he never sees visitors
or strangers; where he sees nothing
and hears nothing but the dull plod-
ding of his masters voice, and at
twenty-one he will be a dullard still,
and an easy mark for the tempter
when he leaves his mountain home
to go out into the world. But take
the same boy, and raise him near the
town, and yet away from the miasma
of the streets of the town; where he
may occasionally hear a Governor or
United States Senator, or some other
capable man make strong speech,
or lecture or address, where he may
now and then see circus parade and |
hear brass band; where the pastors
of the town may visit him, and the !
good women of the town may take an
interest in him, and where he may see
more or less of other boys more for
tunate in parentage and environment |
than he has been, and compete with
them OCCASIONALLY in their sports, and
that same boy will leave that same
home an hundred times better
prepared for the battle of life than
the boy raised in the mountain.
And so we suggest to the spec
ial committee to whom this most i'm
portant measure has been referred, 4
that they should at least leave the ques-
ton Of location open for further con- t
sideration, to be determined by the /
hereafter to be APP
pointed.
And while the State is considering t
he question Of reformatories, why not
establish one for fallen women? The ,
eruelest thing in the world, the most
sin of which Society is &
guilty, is to condemn a young girl to {
IN abandoned life of shame, because,
lerchance, she "loyed not wisely. but '
90 WELL Or because, weak and ignor- t
int, or wild and needless if you please, +
The permits some wicked man to pur- +
uade her to do wrong. And because
If one offense, If she be poor and v
AVE no family backing, she is out S
asst and doomed before her time to b
hell on earth.
Why should the State not try to Il
escue these women? Many of
hem could be saved. The v
tatistics can easily be obtained from d
sseus workers. to prove that And a
he State, now that the conscience of n
he people seems to be awake to all A
God reform, should begin this work il
frst, by passing very stringent laws a
gainst houses of prostitution, and tC
gainst men who patronize such Ii
laces. and keep and sustain these al
omen in their lives of sin and T
hame; and the penalty for any viola CT
on of the law should be heavy fine m
nd Imprisonment for the man, and
Imprisonment In Reformatory for the W
oman; where she may be given some as
,rt of honest work to do, and where SC
lie may be taught that the Christ died ca
n her, and that he refused to tn
,ndemn one of her kind while an
l earth, more than to admon- an
h her to sin no more: and ca
ON whence, after years of probation ar
lie may come back into the world an eli
NEST. selfrespecting woman, despiz-
& her past life but selfrespecting tn
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