The National tribune., 1907-07-04

THE NATIONAL TRIB1
will find it's end in the kindling wood or
scrap heap. With the farm work the
boy sees the object of each act required
of him. He knows why he milks the
COW, and ne knows the more carefully
he milks her and tends her the more
milk he will have for the use of himself
and his fellows Each advancing day Of
the season brings new phase of the
work, and with the newness comes add
ed interest. Thru the growing season
he is anxious that the crops which he
is helping cultivate shall be just as well
titled and shall yield just as beautifully
as do the crops of the colonies by which
he is surrounded. The Matching of a
brood of chickens in an incubator is an
event to which all the boys of the col
ony look forward with the greatest in
terest. The advent of calf or colt
is new item which they all are eager
to report to the teacher or the Super
intendent. The trees by which they are
surrounded give them shade. and in the
Autumn give them supplies of hickory
nuts, butternuts and walnuts. The
pigeons that inhabit their barns, the
pheasants that frequent their fields all
furnish healthful, helpful thought and
fill their minds to the exclusion of the
thoughts that formerly occupied them.
School instruction is provided by
teachers who go to each cottage, one
teacher having charge of the school
work at two colonies going to one in
the morning and to the other in the
afternoon.
Other Needful Influences.
Education of itself. Mr.. Briggs de-
clares. cannot develop right character
riph Tho moral
nature must be aroused. stimulated and
fortified against evil, if the individual
is to be anything but a curse to the conf
munity in which he lives.
The boys of each cottage have the use
of books sent out by the State Circulat-
ing Library, and these are changed as
often as it is necessary to keep them
provided with entertaining reading mat
ter.
Mention has already been made of
the presence in each cottage of check
ers dominoes crokinole. authors and
other games that delight the boys and
serve to make the evenings, in their
pleasant sitting room, means of de-
veloping right habits. Who is there
who has been SO fortunate as to have
spent his or her own childhood In Il
comfortable country home, who can for
get the pleasure of an evening around
the home fireside, with books and games
and nuts and apples to speed away the
hours till bed time, which came all too
soon? Such a one cannot fail to recog
nize that in such surroundings there de-
veloped resources within his soul that
make him Independent of his immediate
environment for his sources of happi-
ness. Baseball in Summer, football in
Autumn, coasting in Winter, all afford
ample scope for wholesome sport and
enjoyment, and leave no after taste of
l. sy,%o oh 1C
The religious life Of the boys is to be
carefully looked after in the new insti-
tuition. Appropriations have been Sc
cured from the Legislature and con-
tracts have been let for the erection of
two chapels, one for the Protestant and
the other for the Catholic boys, and
here, as at the city school. chaplains
will devote their time to an endeavor TO
uplift the moral natures of the boys
An assembly hall has also been pro-
jected in which entertainments will be
frequently held for the amusement and
moral elevation of the boys.
On the southern and eastern slope of
a hill has been built beautiful hospi-
tai. costing $4,000.
In conclusion Mr.. Briggs says:
Upon the supervisor and matron of
each colony rests great responsibility.
With them very largely lies the power
to determine the boys stay in the insti-
tuition shall be one of great improve
ment and healthful growth, that shall
send him out better fortified than ever
before to meet life's temptations or un-
improved and therefore weaker. The
personal attachment that has character
lied the relation between So many of
the boys and their supervisor and ma
tron shows the possibility of the work
which these officers may do. 1t is far
from unusual to see tears standing in
the eyes of both matron and boy when
he says good-by as he starts for home,
and the many letters that come pack
to the colony home from the boys who
have left there speak in no uncertain
way of the influence that has entered
into the lives of the writer's.
Repression as reformative measure
is powerless. 1t may serve to curb
strong wills and compel obedience,
while the subject is within the sphere
of action Of the one in authority. but ii
cannot supply the motive nor the desire
for right actions and right living with
out which these two much desired re-
suits can never be attained. 1t is only
when boy lives natural life. where
his impulses have free play to manifest
themselves. and where these impulses
into action are observed by
men and women who have
the boys interest at heart, who when
wrong motives manifest themselves,
kindly and earnestly show the boy
where he is wrong and the result which
must follow from the wrong doing, and
impose tn @enalty for the wrongdoing