The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-06-27

row in the Beloit school who sing and
paint and cook and sew and study and
mind as we'll or better than the aver
age class of girls in the high school at
Topeka or any other city in the state.
The Beloit school is not just a deten-
tion house for girls, or a place to keep
them out of mischief or from going
quickly to the bad. Neither is the
school management satisfied with mere
Iy teaching the girls to do certain
things about the house and in the school
room. The girls at this school are
taught to do things we'll to excel in all
the useful branches of domestic sci
ence; to surpass untaught girls in the
kitchen, dining room, dairy, sewing
loom. parlor and garden.
The State Journal correspondent, in
making the northwest tour with the
governor last week spent Saturday af-
tcrnoon at the school. Governor Stubbs
spoke Saturday night at Beloit.
The writer had not the faintest con-
ception of the girls school at Beloit.
Rot the glimmer of an idea of the great
work being done there for girls gone
wrong, girls perverSe and girls unfort-
innate In their home life. The girl. sui
len and unmanageable, who is taken
away to this school like a prisoner, the
reckless girl, the girl from police court,
the girl who never had a good home or
the girl who abused the privileges of a
good home. the girl disheveled, untidy,
unaccomplished in anything but vice,
this girl cannot be recognized as the
same creature after six months at the
Reloit school.
They DO not use corporal punishment
at this school, as is generally suppos-
60, nor do they have bars and walls
and keepers. These things do not
change bad girls into good girls, but
often make them worse. They are kept
there by one who understands; by one
" no wins their respect and then their
love.
The girls work and study there a
good deal like girls in a seminary. They
are cheerful and deft and energetic.
Their strict discipline is only notice.
able in results accomplished. The work
they have done in the school room and
Industrial departments is a revelation.
The pictu1 eS they have painted, the
maps they have drawn, the needle work
bric-a-b brac and score of other prod
ucts of deft feminine fingers are on Cis-
play in the rooms and in workman
ship and beauty astound the visitor
when one thinks of the miracle of such
q product from such a soil. That is
1t is astonishing until the master mind
of the institution explains and demon
strates that all girls in the world are
& good deal alike when understood alike
und managed by kindness tempered by
patience and f1rnneSs.
The bad girl is full of woman's gen.
tleness; the good girl is a daughter of
Eve, and Eve was the mother of the
race.
But to get down to brass tacks and
try to tell something about this school
and it's wonderful work. There are
about two hundred girls kept there at
this time in five buildings. The state
has 290 acres of land in connection
with the school and conducts a farm on
a pretty big scale A man and his
helper do the farm work but the girls
take care of the house and garden and
cook and wash and bake and study
under the direction of their instructors.
The gardens and grounds about the
school are handsomely kept, while in
side the buildings all is neatness aud
order unexcelled and world without
end.
1t is hard to believe that this is a
state industrial school Of the correction
type. The faces Of the girls give the
lie to such a thought. There is alb
solutely nothing about this school to
indicate it's character and name ex
cept the printed letter heads in the su-
perintendent's office. The girls in the
garden Saturday afternoon looked
happy, and so did the girls in the barn
yard feeding the cows and chickens.