The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1915-11-04

prone to think in terms of years ago, when
the estate institution" meant prison atmos-
phere, regulation hours, uniform, white
washed walls and, frequently, barred win
dows. So that the Minnesota Home School
for Girls, situated at Sank Centre. is a reve-
lation for those who have not kept abreast
with the thought of the times regarding the
care of people, who for variety of reasons,
require special restrictions special teaching
and special guidance.
Some First Impressions of the
Home School.
To visit the home is to experience var
iety of sensations-With establishment up
permost until one grasps the motive which
permeates the whole. The school is situated
in the midst of it's farm lands, 100 acres ly-
ing about mile from the town ITSELF The
drive to the school takes one through the
farm, past broad fields of grain and vegeta-
bles, young fruit trees, and dairy barn and
herd that are among the finest in the state;
then by several cottages, with white curtains
futtering in the afternoon sunlight, and the
merry voices of girls at work or play furnish
ing a perfect accompaniment to the sights
and scents Of a perfect June afternoon; up
the sweep of driveway to the administration
building where one is welcomed by the gra-
cious gentlewoman whose broad vision, SYM
patty and understanding has evolved the
plan under which more than 200 girls are
cared for each year.
Mrs Fannie French Morse, superintendent
of the Home School for Girls, came to Mime
sofa five years ago, when the state officials
decided to move the girls school from Red
Wing For ten years head of the Massa-
chussetts training school for girls, Mrs.
Morse heard the call of the new country, and
her New England blood responded to the Wis
ion of opportunity in a new field. Back of
Mrs Morse has been board, the members
of which have been wise enough to recognize
the caliber of the woman they had secured to
head the school, and that has given her alb
solute freedom in working out her plans.
This is one of the reasons that the school at
Sank Centre is not "show school," all plans
revolve around the problem of giving the
greatest help in the shortest time to the
girls who must return to face the world as
Independent economic factors.
The New Viewpoint of The
Delinquent Girl
eve are what we are" is the opinion of
this woman, who deals with hundreds of girls
each year, because we have, or have not,
had the chance to be greatly different. Back
of the sheltered girl or woman lie years of
self-control, of ideaism, of impulses toward
Ex,irr
where the law and proprieties are cultivated,
where lapses from them bring punishment
and where rewards are dependent upon their
observation.
Back of the delinquent girl lies the very
opposite of all the social machinery which
has developed the controlled, gentle, good
woman. Her inheritance, in the main, comes
from generations of shiftlessness of indul-
gence, of unrestrained emotions By her in
heritance she is condemned to grow up in
society of the same character, one where
practically everybody is but half developed,
mentally and morally What chance has a
girl in such environment? What would
have been if had been in her place? is the
only fair question to ask yourself when con-
sidering the case of the delinquent girl.
"Slowly, very slowly, we have come to rec
.ognize the futility of the workhouse, of fines
and prison, of contempt and ostracism. Still
more slowly are we coming to see the utter
Injustice of these measures in dealing with
the delinquent girl or woman, and that there
are in all of us the same possibilities for good
or evil What we are depends on what, in us,
has been given an opportunity to develope"
This is the plan, the working motive, back