The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-08-21

I
old life and cling to the new, but we
get the satisfaction of knowing that
some of the seed sown will perchance
fall on good ground. We know that
| many go back to their old life But
Kansas has decided to try and save
these women rather than let them drift
to destruction"
remembered what DR.. S. J. Crum-
bine, secretary of the state board of
health, had said to me regarding Mrs.
Perry.
The success of that farm is due to
Mrs Perrys understanding of the
psychology of those women" he told
me- before I visited the farm. That
fact must be the explanation of the
success of a plan which keeps more
than a hundred women prisoners I'm
/ der the states thumb without even
/ barbed wire fence.
On Farm Now, 1OS Women.
There are now 1Os women on the
farm more than half of whom are af-
fected with venereal disease.
/ I'VE place the women in the deten-
! ton home until We are sure they are
physically strong in mind and body,
Mrs. Perry told me. "Our second step
bis to arrange for them duties that will
occupy their minds and bodies About
this time their mistakes are of the
head, and not of the heart. They i'm
prove slowly but surely as we place
| stress on the value of improvement of
| self. When their will power has
| strengthened we begin fitting them for
citizenship.
| Diseased women are given the best
| Of scientific treatment for their all
ment, and no work they are given to
do at the farm interferes with the
| treatment" she told me.
A new brick building at the farm
| is to be the new hospital for treatment
of venereal disease
Girls Raise All Crops.
Industries taught the girls at the
farm are of practical nature. Farm
| ing, sewing, laundering. cooking, home
| nursing, and various household duties
are on the daily program, with girls
| assigned to departments to which they
| are most adapted. 1 was surprised to
| learn that a group of seven or eight
! girls have done practically all the
| crop raising this season at the farm
They did most of the ploughing and
everything else, with the exception OF
a little moving done by a man from
the state prison.
! Twenty acres of field corn in prime
condition is the work of the girls as
also are three acres of kaflr corn,
two acres of maize, ten acres of pota-
toes. nearly ten acres of truck gar
dening, which includes onions, toma-
toes, cabbage. beans, peas, radishes,
cucumbers, sweet corn, turnips, beets,
pumpkins. cantaloupes, watermelons,
peppers, carrots, anu bHcCl
corn. The girls have Faked and stack
| ed twenty tons of red clover hay The
crops are rotated in order to get the
most return from the soil, with such
| successful result that the food yield
has reduced the per capita food esti-
mate for the farm to % cents, the
lowest per capita rate in any state
institution.
In the home making department
general principles of home cooking,
sewing, and laundering are simply
| taught The girls study food values.
canning. preserving, jelly making,
sick diet, and home sanitation and
furnishing After learning the sim
pIest stitches they are allowed to make
| a garment of their own choosing. One
girl who came to the farm, after she
had never learned to sew a stitch wore
| away from the farm a black poplin
dress she had made for herself.
1 visited the home-making depart
ment Monday morning and found the
busy girls wearing white aprons and
caps, that they kept spotlessly launder-
ed. I could not help but notice the
neatness of their work and their in
! terest in it. That morning they made
more than 400 cookies.
Mrs. Perry's Assistants.
Assisting Mrs. Perry at the farm with
the utmost cooperation, are Mrs. NJ.
R. Mize, who is instructor in the home
making department; Mrs. Carrie Z
F1ack, head of the farming depart
structor; Miss Ida Kline. registered
nurse; Miss May Owens, sewing in
structor: and Miss Mary Fitzpatrick.
Miss Frances Reed, matrons. DR.. s.
L. AFFORD is the farm physician.