The Baraboo news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1884-1911, 1910-03-31
WORK At THE
COUNTY FARM
SUPERINTENDENT c. CHRiSTEN-
SEN TELLS OF ADVANC EMENT
BEING MADE

tenSen OF the county farm at the corn
meeting held in Baraboo Saturday,
March 10, 1910:
81 shall speak to you today about
the most important department under
our county government, the most inn
portant, if not in financial, at least i'm
a humanitarian sense, your county
farm.
IL is regrettable fact that The pub
lie at large do not take the interest it
ought to in the county farm.
The popular notion that the county
farm is merely custodial establish
ment should be discarded.
The taxpayers in general are aware
that there is an institution called the
county farm, but little or no interest is
evinced except by those having rela-
tives or friends confined to our care.
1t is thought by many that an in
stitution like ours is house of gloom,
while as matter of fact, in the majori-
ty of cases of mental arrangement
there is more sorrow and actual suffer-
ing in the home than in the institu-
tion.
| County farm, insane asylum, county
asylum and poorhouse when mention
ed, causes the average citizen to ex-
perience a creeping sensation. The
name should be changed to county
hospital. The old ideas of madhouses
still exist and they would be gradually
forgotten by change of name. There
are numerous reasons why change of
name would be beneficial and there
are none that | know for retaining the
outgrown title.
1t is great privilege to live in this
age instead of a few hundred years ago
when insanity was regarded as the
work of satan, and the poor unfortu-
mates were tortured, hanged OF burned
It the stake. We now regard the
mentally afflicted as invalids and not
as criminals.
1t is no more disgraceful for a man
to become insane than for your neigh
Dor to make call on the dentist for
the purpose of having a decayed tooth
extracted or consulting surgeon for
the purpose of having his appendix re-
moved; an operation, you will remem-
Der became quite popular few years
since, Notwithstanding these evident
facts. A man, " no has at one time
been insane, is Stunned, and often be-
comes the object of ridicule.
More than mere perfunctory per-
formance of duty is required by those
who would successfully care for the
mentally afflicted.
The constant effort of every official
of our institution is directed to the cad
that anxious relatives and friends, who
are far away, may be thoroughly as
sured that everything that can be
done is being done to promote the well
fare and comfort of those they love,
and kindness, sympathy and honest
interest in those committed to our
care is part of our daily labor.
What do we understand, or mean
when we say, caring for the insane?
That, my friends, is question that
would be hard to answer, for you must
determine that to fit each individual
case, and in order to do so, you must
know something, or rather you must
understand this special work.
We have been thought, and many
believe that it was a curse when it
was curse when it was decreed that
man should eat his bread
by the sweat of his brow
Personal observation has con-
vinced me that this is a deceptive doc
trine for well regulated occupation is
the best tonic forthe mentally un5all-
anced, as we'll as for those who are
not so considered, providing you can
induce them to take the medicine. If
you want mischief and lot of it, just
permit given number of people 70 re-
main idle for short time and you
will obtain the desired result.
Reeducating the Insane.
The Sauk county farm today enjoys
the distinction of being the only
county institution in the state of Wis
consin and that means in the Union,
in-as-much as Wisconsin is the only
state in the Union using the county
system in the care of its insane) who
has adopted fixed policy for the re
education of the insane. One state
Institution, the state hospital at Men
dota, inaugurated this work at the
same time we did.
The reeducation of the insane, my