TABLE 83.—Pupils to a teacher and per capita expenditure in schools for feeble-minded children, for 1856-87.

a Pupils of institutions not reporting expenditure excluded in making the computations contained in the column.

b One institution.

The disproportionately large per capita here ($751) results from including the cost of site and erecting buildings, etc., of the California school.

d Omitting the pupils of the California institution, as well as those in institutions not reporting ex. penditure.

Of the 5 schools established since the Report of 1882-83, those founded severally in the States of Massachusetts, Maryland, and Michigan are private, while the schools in Nebraska and California, respectively, are State institutions. The seeming inconsistency of refusing to make computations in which the number of the “teachers and other employés" is a factor, in the case of the blind, and yet making that very computation here, is to be explained thus, quoting the language of the superintendent of the Ohio Institution in the thirtieth annual report of that school: "They [the pupils of the year] came to this Institution as to a school possessing means for their training and development not attainable elsewhere. It is therefore an asylum and hospital, as well as a temporary home and school." It would seem, therefore, difficult to distinguish in such an institution between the functions of the teacher and those of the physician or nurse, both characters perhaps being united in the same person; to avoid the possible inclusion of domestics,-cooks, chamber maids, gardeners, and the like,-who have nothing to do with the personal care of the children, the query hereafter will be "teachers and assistants."

TABLE 84.-Statistics of institutions for the feeble-minded for 1886-87; from replies to inquiries by the United States Bureau of Education.

IV.-REFORM SCHOOLS.

I. GENERAL REMARKS.

New institution.-The only new institution for the year under review that the Office has record of is the Burnham Industrial Farm, Canaan Four Corners, N. Y., an institution founded on the theory in practice at the celebrated Rauhes Haus, at Hamburg, and the agricultural modification of it that exists at Mettray, near Tours. Its object is to receive bad but corrigible boys, to awaken in them a desire for respectability, to provide situations for them where industry will be rewarded, and, finally, to guard them from relapsing into old courses. This school is established on advanced lines. It is in the country, surrounded by a splendid farm, has the cottage system of construction, the family sysiem of government, and an unobjectionable name; and to these high and generally recognized advantages the authorities would add freedom from the vexations arising from depending on public funds and from "questions of political control and religious interference, that have perplexed the several institutions that have been founded more or less upon these [its] ideas."

*

Classification of pupils.-One of the most important elements, if not the most important, in reformatory education, is the removal of the offender from the influence of criminal associates. If all the youths detained were equally bad, or if the shades of their criminality varied within narrow limits, there would be little danger of contamination in congregating them. Experience and statistics testify that no such equality exists. In a paper read before the National Prison Association, Superintendent Gower, of the Reform School at Lansing, Mich., says: "A great majority of boys who come under our care are not by nature bad. They have been deprived of those influences which a good home supplies. Could they have been placed in good homes at the time they are sent to us, most of them would have been saved to society without the intervention of the institution." The reformatory at Lansing is conducted on the open system, but Superintendent Caldwell, of the House of Refuge, Louisville, Ky., an advocate of the enclosed plan, speaks to the same effect: "It seems to me a fair estimate to include in these two classes [those detained, who require care rather than reformation, and the small proportion of physical, moral, and intellectual imbeciles'] 75 per cent. of reform-school children." Turning now to the domain of statistics which the interesting and valuable table of the New York House of Refuge permits, it appears that for the decade ending September 30, 18-6, 48 per cent. of the whole number of commitments to it were for crime, the other 52 per cent. for vagrancy, disorderly conduct, and the like. But it must not be supposed that the 48 per cent. were hardened criminals. In working the ratio the Office was compelled to include the number committed for petty larceny, though of such Superintendent Hite, of the Ohio institution, says: "It is a lamentable and notorious fact that guardians and even parents have had their children arrested for the most trivial offences There are at the present time boys serving out long sentences for taking articles valued at 25 cents, for jumping on a railroad train while in motion, taking a small amount of scrap-iron and the commissions of other petty larcenies of similar insignificance." In Great Britain this distinction is made and met by the establishment of two classes of schools: reformatory schools for the better training of juvenile convicted offenders; industrial schools for vagrant and neglected children and children not convicted of theft. In the ab sence of such provision here the cottage system of construction is thought to be a substitute, as each cottage has its own play ground, and in many instances its own school and place of work; indeed, at the Ohio Industrial School 150 little boys under twelve are placed in a cottage half a mile from the 10 other buildings of the school, and never see the older boys except in marching to or from religious services on Sunday.

The cottage system.-This system of construction, entailing as it does the family system of government, seems to be very popular. We find the board of managers of the House of Refuge at Philadelphia urging the State Legislature to purchase and convert the buildings now occupied by the school into a reformatory for men, in order that an agricultural reform school on the family system may be established with the proceeds, each family to consist of 30 or 40, thus removing "the objectionable feature of the congregate system, where large numbers are confined within high walls and prison-like appliances." At the recently established Burnham Industrial Farm, pupils are placed "in cottages with not more than 15 or 20 under one roof, so that by separation into small families a close personal supervision may be maintained," and the management of the Lyman School for Boys felicitates itself upon the success of a recent change from the congregate to the cottage plan. As to the economy of small buildings the statement of the board of control of the State Industrial Home for Girls, Michigan, is pertinent: "We find the large building, erected as an experiThe Reform School Problem, in Proceedings of National Conference of Charities and Correction, 1886.

ment,

no more economical, much more difficult to manage properly, and less satisfactory in every way than the smaller ones," while the board of trustees of the Maine State Reform School, speaking of the system of cottages there, says that "it does cost more, but it is worth more."

There are various modifications of this system. In some instances each family has its own school and work, while in others there is a general dining-room, and family distinctions do not exist during work or school hours, so as not to interfere with grading; in others a spirit of emulation is evoked, and the family connection is a sign or distinction or the reverse. Perhaps no school on the cottage plan surpasses in wealth of land or buildings the Ohio school, which has a farm of over 1,000 acres, and nine cottages arranged in a semicircle around the main building, in addition to the distant cottage for little boys referred to above.

Results of reformatory training.-As so large a percentage of the inmates of reformatory institutions are not of the criminal class, it would be, quoting the language of Superintendent Caldwell in the address before referred to, disingenuous

to

claim credit for reformation in such cases." When it is said, therefore, that 80 per cent. or 90 per cent. of the pupils who leave an institution are doing well, it must be borne in mind that if all had become respectable members of society, from half to threefourths of them had never seriously, if at all, attacked it. In such cases the institution can claim only that it had received and instructed them when surrounded by every circumstance tending to facilitate an entry on a criminal career. The source of the statistics that are not rough approximations as to the life the former pupil is leading, is the information derived from the reports of the agent of the institution. During the year 1886, 261 boys were discharged from the House of Refuge at Philadelphia, who with those still on the agent's list from previous years made a total of 328, of whom nearly 97 per cent. were located in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. To or about these, 775 letters were written and 723 visits made, and from the information thus obtained the agent estimates that 90 per cent. were doing well-a percentage confirmatory of the estimate of his predecessor. In New Jersey the agent visited 686 of the boys who had left the State institution, and grades them 21 per cent. doing" very well," 56 per cent. "well," 19 per cent. "not well," and 4 per cent. "badly." Besides these, the agent made 325 visits during the year, mainly to ascertain the character of the surroundings of the homes of the boys in the institution, or to have friends secure suitable employment for those ready to go out. It is a part of the duty of the assistant superintendent of the House of Refuge of Cincinnati to report monthly concerning the children paroled or released from that institution. From 1881 to 1886, 1,044 children had been paroled, of whom 240 had been recalled either from the unfitness of the place or pupil, 169 had been dropped on reaching majority, and 82 had been lost sight of or had died. Excluding these, 47 per cent. of the number sent out, in other words considering the 553 that remained out, 97 per cent. are doing well and 3 per cent. badly. In the Nebraska school, of 62 boys and girls who have honorably left the school 6 have been brought back and 2 have relapsed into criminal courses; the others, 87 per cent., have conducted themselves in a creditable manner. In a report asked for by the State Board of Charities and Corrections of Michigan, W. H. Faxon, a county agent of that State, says: "Within the past year I have secured homes for about 30 boys from the reform school at Lansing on leave of absence ; the boys are all doing well." The former practice of visiting children indentured to persons in the neighborhood of New York City has been resumed by the New York House of Refuge, and the information from this source, and from corresponding frequently with masters, parents, and guardians, confirms the superintendent's estimate "that upwards of 80 per cent. of the children are reformed through the instrumentality of this [his] institution." Considering the subsequent career of nearly 2,000 persons who have gone through the course of the Indiana School for Boys, the superintendent says: "The most careful estimates show that nearly 90 per cent. have become good citizens; Of the other 10 per cent. some have done moderately well, and still others have done badly."

Reformatories for men.-Of the two systems of prison discipline that have originated in this country, that known to the French and English investigators sent here to report upon their respective merits as the Auburn or silent system, has, though modified beyond recognition, supplanted the Philadelphia or solitary confinement plan. In practically isolating the criminal, an expedient of Quaker origin, reflection and religious instruction were the reformatory agencies, a course occasionally resulting in madness or suicide, while on the Auburn plan, in its early days at least, no attempt was made at reformation, other than through the deterring effect of a hard life and a continued silence enforced by spontaneous lashing. Sunday instruction in writing was stopped, as it was found that it afforded the prisoners a very easy means of communicating. To these early and now decayed efforts at reform through reflection or intimidation, there has been added, during the last few years, reform by education, founded on the indefinite sentence, the love of liberty, the effects of mental effort, and a trade. There are two institutions in the United States conducted on these principles, though sev

eral others are coming into existence. One, the State Reformatory at Elmira, N. Y., is entering upon its second decade, while the other, the Massachusetts Reformatory, Concord, Mass., has just completed its second year.

In his report for the year 1886 the superintendent of the Detroit House of Correction, which is not a reformatory institution, sums up the experience of 25 years of that institution in the following energetic and unmistakable language: "It must be evident that there is no marked success in the diminution of crime commensurate with the great improvement in the manner of keeping and caring for criminals. This

is clearly shown by the steady growth of an element in the community known as 'incorrigibles,' in whom the practice of short sentences seems to act only as a good opportunity to recuperate energies wasted by debauchery."

The superintendent does not stop here; he gives the figures, and upon these the Office has based some computations. During the 25 years closing with 1886, 40,338 persons were sent to this prison, of whom 15 per cent. had been committed twice, 6 per cent. three times, 12 per cent. over three but under ten times, 3 per cent. ten to twenty times, and 1 per cent. twenty-one to fifty-seven times. After the fortythird commitment the number is only one or two for each step of the notation to fiftyseven. Sixteen per cent were under twenty, 23 per cent. twenty to twenty-five, 18 per cent. twenty-five to thirty; 71 per cent. could both read and write (their facility is not graded), while 6 per cent. said they had had no religious instruction.

If not to rectify, at least to improve, this condition of affairs, has been the mission of the Elmira Reformatory, which is charged with the custody of prisoners committed for the first time, mostly under the Indefinite Sentence Law of 1877, between the ages of 16 and 30. Here in a school of 3 sections closely corresponding to the primary, grammar, and high school divisions of the public schools, the prisoner is lectured to and catechised on political economy, American history, civil government, business ethics, English literature, and physiology in the highest division, numbering 268; is taught arithmetic, composition, and the history of the English language in the intermediate grade, numbering 210; and reading, writing, and arithmetic in the lowest grade, numbering 135. The school ceased to be an experiment after the introduction of history, civil government, and physics, though economies, English literature, and physics are the most successful and lasting studies. Graded instruction in drawing, carpentry, stone-cutting, etc., is given in the evening, while many are employed in commercial manufacture during the day. The inmates are marked according to their diligence in executing their school and other tasks, and according to their conduct. When they have acquired a certain standing they are considered fit to be trusted upon parole, and they are, after each case has been duly considered, provisionally released; the average prison life has been 20.5 months, only 7.8 per cent. remaining over 3 years. Of the 1,476 "indefinites" paroled (.04 per cent. paroled twice and one-half of 1 per cent. three times), 59 per cent. served the probation well and received their release, 7 per cent. are now serving well on parole, in all 66 per cent. known to be doing well. By estimating that one-half of those lost sight of (in all 114) and one-half of those discharged by maximum expiration of sentence (in all 192) and one-third of the 125 sent out of the State have taken to criminal courses, and adding the number of those returned to the prison while on parole and how there, the superintendent finds himself entitled to say that, in all probability, 20 per cent. only have not been reformed by instruction at his institution. The work at the Massachusetts Reformatory is far larger; there is no maximum age limit, and a previously convicted person may be sent to it. This reformatory may be said to have just begun its work.

II-NOTES FROM CATALOGUES AND REPORTS OF INSTITUTIONS.

CALIFORNIA.

City and County Industrial School, San Francisco, Cal.-Ten per cent. of the inmates of this institution were committed to it because of criminal offences, almost all the others owing their commitment to their idle and dissolute life. Twenty per cent. were recommitments; 27 per cent. had lost their fathers, and 14 per cent. were 12 years of age or under. The girls' department of the school is under the Sisters of Mercy. The school consists of 5 classes, in which the common school studies were pursued for 6 hours daily for 240 days, with an average attendance of 63. The boys are taught shoemaking and tailoring.

COLORADO,

State Industrial School of Colorado, Golden, Colo.-Of the 311 inmates admitted since the school was opened in 1881, 29 per cent. had been committed for non-criminal acts; 70 per cent, had been committed for 3 years; 47 per cent, were 12 years of age or un