The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1915-01-18
REFORM SCHOOL ROASTED
Florida's Neglect of Her Children
Emphasized by Marcus Fagg

When you go into church on Sun
day morning and find all the front
seats occupied you know that there
is some special attraction in the COM
ing service, and when another congre-
cation adjourns its own service and
attends in body you feel doubly
sure of it.
These were the conditions at the
Baptist church yesterday morning
when the pastor and members of the
East Broadway church were present
to listen to the address of Mr.. Marcus
C. Fagg, superintendent of the Child
ren's Home of Jacksonville, and those
who came to be interested and in
structed were certainly not disap-
pointed.
Pastor Stephens in introducing the
speaker emphasized the fact that the
work of the Jacksonville home was
purely undenominational while the
Baptist home at Arcadia and other
similar institutions were naturally
conducted under certain restrictions,
also that while other homes and in
stitutions had their CIRCULAR agents
out visiting churches, clubs and var
ious orders in the interest of their
work, it was very rarely that we had
the pleasure of listening to the active
working head of any of these bodies.
Mr.. Fagg, who is a very earnest
and interesting speaker, said he felt
very highly complimented at the
courtesies shown him, that it was
somewhat a rare occasion when he
was invited to occupy the pulpit of a
church at it's morning service as he
was not preacher, except in the
spirit of Christ's love for little child
rem. He spoke more particularly not
of the work they were doing in the
Jacksonville home for the small chill
dren, but the crying need of similar
work among children somewhat older,
and the terrible conditions prevalent
at the only place in the state where
they were received as inmates.
There were three classes of child
rem totally unprovided for-delin-
quent, defective and crippled child
rem. Several years ago he visited the
Mariana institution and the picture
he drew of it was somewhat awful;
200 boys and girls, white and black,
all housed in one building without a
single effort being made either to re-
form or even to educate them, but
from association and neglect every
thing tended to lead them into life
of crime and viciousness.
Since that time the girls have been
removed but as no other provision
was made for them by the state, their
condition was worse when turned
loose on the world than when confin-
ed within the walls of the Marianne
prison. While boys who were let out
found it almost impossible to make
anything of themselves, as they HAD
been taught nothing useful and there
was stigma on their names that
they could not live down. He found
a boy of seven years sent up by some
judge on the east coast for vagrancy
and sentenced for IA years. If ht
served his time he would be turned
loose without any industrial trainins
or having learned one single thing by
which he could earn a living.
!, And while there was little or moth
ing in the way of education or useful
ness, neither was there anything o.
a clean social character about tn,
place, not a musical instrument or /;
song book in the whole place, and tn,
speaker told very pathetic story O.
little fellow who was taken out ant
for the first time heard singing by
lot of Sunday school children.
In speaking of the defective child
rem of the state he told of boys ant
girls who were feeble-minded, som
very slightly, and others who suffere,
from epileptic fits, yet there was n
place in the state of Florida wher
they could be cared for but the in
| sane asylum at Chattahoochee.
This, said the speaker, was a.
wrong for under different condition
many of these could be permanent
cured. He advocated a law by tn
legislature prohibiting marriage be
tween parties one or both of whor
are victims of epilepsy or are feeble
minded, and he told of a couple VIII
had married while thus afflicted an