The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1933-08-17

Home School Opens New
.Vistas for the Discouraged
Continued rrom Page one
that is safe from feminine inroads,
since women can't do the work."
A little distance from the school
is the farm itself, to which the
older girls go in groups, staying
two weeks at a time and support
of its residents, community where
health and education are complex
problems and where the material
upon which these elements of social
adoption must be imposed ranges
widely, including the subnormal
girl of 10 years or less, the unmar-
ried mother and her babe, the girl
who had believed that putting her
name to a check might prsvide a
simple way of getting the finery she
Graves, and many others. These
girls constitute 300 individual and
distinct problems, each to be shell
tered and protected the while she
is aided mentally, morally and phys
ically-a problem present each of
the "a hours of every day.
Into each cottage, under the in
innate and personal care of ma
tron, goes a maximum of 80 girls,
these to live under conditions as
normal as the maron can make
them while recognizing that need
of restraint and rigid adherence
to rules are as necessary as food
and clothing. Here the girls do the
work under able supervision, each
one continuing a task, be it clean
ing or kitchen work, cooking or
laundry, until she can do it accep-
tably and in a reasonable length OF
time.
by a careful system of card
checking no girl is kept at a task
longer than is required for her to
learn it, this in fairness to her,
since she must stay at the school
until her guardian, the state board
of control, is convinced she has
received sufficient training in sew
eral things to make her self-sup-
porting.
Just as thorough is the training
in those subjects taught in the class
rooms of the school. Carrying high
school credits are courses in COM
mercial training, home economies
and sewing. Also the eighth grade
work entities the girl finishing it
to enter any high school in the
state.
Also the girls have opportunity
for piano lessons, simple voice cul-
ture, and singing in junior and SEN
ior choruses. Among the assisting
in all the work of the farm under
supervision of the farmers wife
and the field matrons. Again not
to be credited by many parents is
the fact that girls frequently re-
quest to go to the farm, ask to be
allowed. to return there, so that it
has become, necessary to rotate
groups, mention my two weeks va
cation at the farm" when they write
home Here supplies for the school
are raised, food for stock is grown,
and included in the staff are farm
hands required to do work too
heavy for girls, all in an effort to
cut down the amount of money re-
quired from the state and to supply
employment for inmates.
When a girl leaves the school
she is supplied with two print
dresses for work and neat silk
sdress for street wear, all made by
herself or her mates, a new coat,
hat, shoes and hose. It Is in these
s"going-out outfits" that matrons
show their kindness, and many a
j girl who came to the school in tat
/, tiers leaves it in a neat dress made
of the material and by the pattern
she has chosen, and with the other
things so selected that they add to
its becomingness. So much for
woman's understanding of what
clothes mean when one must set
out to conquer a world that Is none
too welcoming! %
: After a girl is given employment
it is assumed she will be self-sup-
porting and her salary becomes her
own, with her parole visitor helping
her to save one-fourth of it, If pos
sible, for use after she has reached
the age of 81 and is automatically
released from the states guardian
ship.
Yes, all this does "cost the state
something" AS a matter of record
it costs a maximum of $3.50 per girl
annually. Not much when one con-
siders the cost of reasing and edu-
eating a daughter; Considerable
when it is compared, as a legislator
compared it, to the cost in the
states insane hospitals.
When 1 looked into the faces Of
these girls assembled to see a
group of their mates get their 9th
grade diplomas; when visited with
them as they sat about small home
like tables eating their ample meals
of simple nourishing food; when
saw the mother of newborn babe
in her hospital bed and realized
that she was receiving care and
personal attention for the first time
in her IT years; when saw the
girls, tired and dirty but srinning
as they came in from work in the
gardens, and then saw the same
group, bathed and dressed and fed,
sitting with their matron on the
lawn watching a gorgeous sunset;
when saw these and other things
as have seen them on two init
mate visits to the school, it has
seemed to me that the state is not
doing so badly for these girls.
Society has progressed until it
has caught a. glimmer of truth
about these unfortunates, has come
to feel that their misfortune is