The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-05-19
Trailing Those S15,0 900 Mr. DeBardeeben is Raising For the State Training School for Girls and the
 Heart of the Woman Back of the Plan

1 woman who haS so traVele
 through her joys and sorrows that sh
 has annexed harmony as life note
 called on me and asked me the ques
 tion:
 What do you know about the Stat Training School for Girls out at Eas Lake?'
 Precious little" confessed honestly What is there for me to know?" 1 Enough to write a story about it. be
 cause preparations are being made tt
 raise $15,oo0 to put in proper shape, sui ficieutly large quarters, and comforta bl, | surroundings so that the former effort, 1 to restore the delinquent girls of Ala bama to wholesome and earnest live! ! will not he entirely lost" she said. Wouldn't it te a sort of sex story?' l asked You know, I never writ, stories around sex affairs exclusively anc I don't take much interest in sex talk
 and sex problems and things like that.
 Didn't call it sex story" said my
 amisble and worth while friend gently
 Call it q heart story and send foi
 Mrs. Amigh, the wonderful, splendid
 capable woman who for the past five
 years has done such excellent work out
 there in the little vine covered cottage
 which shelters the girls. Write some
 thing about the heart of the woman bacl,
 of the plan"
 A few days after my conversation with
 my amiable and worth while friend
 phoned to Mrs. Amigh and asked her for an engagement to talk about the work she is doing at the State Training School for Girls
 The gentle, sweet voice over the phone was all indication of the character of the woman I met the next day. for I must tell you right here that dearer truer finer personality I have seldom come in contact with than this woman who five years ago came to Birmingham straight rom lf years work in the Illinois State Training School for Girls, where she es- abolished not only the most excellent in- stitution of it's kind in the United States. but in the entire world,
 At the national convention for Char lties and Correction held in Cleveland five years ago, Mrs. Wilson Searight asked Dr. Hart of the Russell Sage founda- tion fund to suggest somebody who NSt''N NNiilc LO IOii lIiliisIletIl dnu make the State Training School for Girls worth while!
 Dr. liar. suggested Mrs. Amigh: he said to her.
 "Go down to Alabama; they need you; build up their school for them and make it like the school at Geneva, Ill.'
 Sc Mrs Amigh came, and since her term of office as superintendent, 192 girls have been sheltered and mothered at the little school at East Lake, in spite of obstacles which seemed almost insur- lack of equipment, lack of money and lack of everything except Mrs. firm belief in the plan of the scEool and her firm belief in the people of Alabama to take care of the Hitter ate and ignorant girls of this great com 
 Since I've been at the school" Mrs Amigh told me, in her gentle, kindly way, there have been but two girls out of the 192 who are what is gen. erally termed good girls The rest are while not bad-not in the sense we generally use the word bad, but ignor- antly bad. They haven't had a chance. that's all, and the school gives them that chance. They come from the most remote districts throughout the state f'o NSli set2 IS Ill lIOlh lHt 1tdfl oI lHe city. The probate judge, or the judge of the juvenile court. or. any court of record sends them to us. They are the neglected, delinquent members Of so- ,iety in this great state, and what we want to do and what we could do at he school, if we had the equipment, is 70 make good women out of them.''
 Girls are received from the ages of to 1Sa years of age" Mrs. Amigh went on to tell me. "The history of each girl IS investigated; she is counciled and advised and every precaution is taken 70 make her comfortable and happy. The fact that they are happy is proved oy the way they love the school and the way they keep up with the institution after they leave it. Today five girls from the school are married and living good honorable, upright lives; only one has turned out badly. One of the girls lives in Aiken, O., one in Chicago and the rest are here in Alabama" "The girls that are the most difficult 10 work. with,' Mrs. Amigh said, are the feeble minded or subnormal girls. They are often very stubborn and con- trary. and their dispositions very bad. It takes a great deal of time and patience to deal with them. Some of the girls are really very bright, and One girl I can sight who has been in the home for couple of years, was re- gently sent for by her father to go back and take care of the little tots as her mother had died. The girl went and stayed exactly two days, and came back to me saying that she had learned since she had been at the school what decent living and decent working was, and she couldn't stand the filth and lliteracy and misery of her former Two of our girls are now learning trades which they will en- gage in when they leave the school. One is to be a milliner, the other a fit ter in a ready to-wear shop. These girls go into Birmingham every morn ing and return to the school at night"
 What we need so much, and if the state could only be aroused to the in terests of the school Mrs. Amigh said, lis enough money to start school on a farm, where we could build the school on the cottage plan.' That means that every girl would have a room to her self; we could grade the pupils; the older girls could be housed under one roof; the subnormal under another; the little girls under another, and the nor nal under another.
 We want a place large enough to put in machinery to teach the girls sewing, dress making. We want big garden space where they can raise Vegetaples and poultry and all sorts of practical worthwhile things. Tn other words, we
 want to turn out girls who formerly have been liability to the state land make them an asset to the state. We don't want an expensive equipment for
 the school, but comfortable equipment
 where the girls can learn cleanliness, de cency and wholesomeness. Think of ez
 girls, as we now have at the school, housed under one small structure. It is so crowded that it is absolutely uncom-
 fortable and yet withal our girls are good to look at--clean, neat, and happy.