county jail is very apt to continue on into the city and into the jail there, and mayhap even worse. Mr. I. G. Phelps Stokes, of New York, read the following statement with relation to the work of the Berkshire Industrial Farm, which had been prepared by Mr. Charlton T. Lewis, of the Prison Association, who was unable to be present: THE BERKSHIRE INDUSTRIAL FARM. It is not so widely known as it should be that there is in Columbia county, on the western slope of the Berkshire Hills, an institution of extraordinary promise for the reformation of delinquent boys. The Berkshire Industrial Farm owns several hundred acres of land, partly forest, very beautifully situated and perfectly healthful, which was given for this purpose by Mr. Frederick G. Burnham, and the charter obtained from the State of New York authorizes it to assume the custody of boys consigned to it by judicial order or by the authority of parents and guardians. After years of experiment on a comparatively small scale, the Farm has reached conclusions, on all the essential points of management, which are not likely to undergo material change. It is conducted on the lines of the famous Rauhe Haus near Hamburg, in Germany, and the family of eighty boys now gathered in it is a beautiful sight. The rapid suppression of vicious tendencies, the formation of habits of industry, the spirit of attachment to the Farm and to its managers, the general hearty acceptance of its rigid discipline, the large measure of success in bringing moral and religious influences to bear, are extremely gratifying to visitors. The Farm is supported entirely by voluntary contributions, and its capacity is limited only by the extent to which these will enable it to accept new inmates. Its officers and trustees respectfully solicit of all who are interested in such charities a careful scrutiny of their aims, methods and current results. Mr. MORNAY WILLIAMS.-I want to say, as representing here an institution, that I am in very hearty sympathy with, and that I think those who are interested in institutions ought to be in sympathy with, the juvenile court and juvenile probation. I think that there is, perhaps, a mistaken idea that managers of institutions are so enamored of their own work and their own form of institution that they are not only afraid of criticism, but that they are also afraid of any new departure which may seem to militate in any way against their work. For myself, I want to say that if I believed that I was engaged in a work that needed to fear criticism, I should cease to engage in it; that I expect criticism, and that the work in which I happen to be engaged has been criticised and criticised severely. This is not necessarily a calamity. As far as the criticism is just, I am glad of it; as far as it is not just, let the work speak for itself. I wish to say, however, that it seems to me that the adoption, which I hope will come soon, both of the juvenile court and of juvenile probation in this city, will not entirely do away with the necessity for institutions. That has been admitted by the writer of the very able paper to which we have listened. The institution must supply the disciplinary measures necessary in certain cases, but the discipline should be so supplied that the child does not become institutionalized. The suggestion was made by the writer of the paper that there was no institution which kept children for a very short time. Now, I want to say that the institution which I happen to represent has children for very much too short a time. We have some children for only three days and others for ten days, and, as Mr. Folks said, that kind of work is not worth doing; but the average period is only eighteen months at the longest, and we are quite prepared to take children for a few months. We believe, however, that the point of the institutional care is this: There are some homes which unmake the children, and a child coming from such a home ought to have the opportunity of careful drill and training, and then a new home be found for him, and that cannot be done effectually without some sort of disciplinary training in the first instance. May I be permitted, sir, just to add this one other word? It has been suggested by the last speaker that there is already, in this State, in the Berkshire Farm, a community on the cottage plan. It is with very great pleasure that the institution which I represent here is looking forward to the building, on a site that it has recently purchased (275 acres in Westchester county), of an institution to be conducted entirely on the cottage-home plan; and our hope is that we shall receive not more than twenty boys and not more than fifteen girls in a family. We do not expect to start with an institution of the size of that we have to-day, but to start on such a scale that we shall be able to conduct the work on the high grade that we think it ought to occupy; and we shall hail every movement toward the amelioration of the evils of the large cities, which press more heavily on childhood than on any other age of life, as one to be welcomed by us. We believe in the juvenile We believe in juvenile probation. We also believe in the institution. court. Mr. Samuel D. Levy, President of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society, New York, presented and read a paper on "Placing Out Children." PLACING OUT CHILDREN. I propose to-day to examine the methods existing in this city and State of dealing with the wards of the State, from three to sixteen years old, and to place before you a statement of the results so far as I have been able to ascertain them, and to submit my views so far as I am able to formulate them. It will readily be admitted that the future of any community. depends on the training of its future citizens. "The whole world depends on the breath of the little children in the schools" is the striking and fanciful way in which the Talmud puts this truth. Unless we train up a healthy generation to succeed us - healthy in physique, morale and intelligence - we are preparing the destruction of the State, when the helm shall slip from our own nerveless grasp. Religion and humanity alike demand careful attention to the wants of guardianless children. Far more insistent are the dictates of polity and good citizenship in this direction. Usually the claims of the "wards of the State" are put from the charitable and kindly point of view only, and results are too often measured from the purely sentimental and humane standpoints. But the really final test is that of the statesman. Up to about twenty-five years ago, our methods of dealing with the "wards of the State" were condemnable from every standpoint. Hon. William P. Letchworth tells us, as a signal proof of dangerously faulty methods, of a family in apparently good circumstances who were in the habit of obtaining nearly grown-up girls from one of our poorhouses, in such numbers and under such conditions that a justifiable suspicion was aroused that "for mercenary ends, these homeless girls were consigned to the worst possible fate." That such a thing was possible, even only in one instance, was in itself proof that a change of method was necessary. But there were many other reasons which impelled our citizens to demand a complete change. In 1875, then, a new method was adopted, one with which you are all familiar. The children of the State were either put into large institutions, provided, furnished and managed by private charitable people, and watchfully supervised by the State and by the city, which paid a capitation allowance; or they were "placed out," that is, handed over to the care of families who were willing to receive and take the parental place to children without demanding pay. Both these methods have been in existence, then, for twenty-five years and upward, and both must be pronounced, so far as can be ascertained, to be more or less successful. To a certain extent, also, these methods provide New York State with a double system of dealing with its child-wards, which, in many ways, is superior to any existing anywhere else. This conclusion will, possibly, be warmly questioned by many in this room and elsewhere. It is understood that there are reservations and limitations to my statement. On the whole, however, I believe it to be true. I find from the last report of our State Board of Charities that in 1899 there were 18,590 wards of the State cared for in New York city, and 44,956 in the whole State. These figures do not include the inmates of reformatories, maternity, foundling and infant asylums. I find also from the same source that the children "placed out " within the State in 1899, by special private agencies, were: By the Brooklyn Children's Aid Society 70 124 247 34 And the same institutions "placed out" beyond the State a total of 187 children in the same year — making a grand total of 669 placed out in this State in 1899 by these particular institutions. I can find no publication which tells me how many children. in all have been placed out by these associations since their foundation - a very grave defect in our published returns. |