9Th to 16Th Annual Report of the Lyman and Industrial Schools
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PUBLIC DOCUMENT .... .... No. 18. TWELFTH ANNUAL REPORT THE TRUSTEES Lyman and Industrial Schools (Formerly known as Trustees ok the State Primary and Reform Schools), FOR THE Year ending November 30,' 1906. BOSTON : WRIGHT A POTTER PRINTING CO., STATE PRINTERS, 18 Post Office SQUARE. 1907. Approved by The Statf Board of Publication- CONTENTS PAGE Trustees' Report on Lyman School, 6 Trustees' Report on State Industrial School, 16 Appendix A, Report of Treasurer and Receiver-General on Trust Funds, 23 Appendix B, Report of Officers of the Lyman School: — Report of Superintendent, 33 Report of Superintendent of Lyman School Probationers, .... 42 Report of Physician, 56 Statistics concerning Boys, 57 Financial Statement 67 Farm Account, 71 Valuation of Property, 72 List of Salaried Officers, 74 Statistical Form for State Institutions, 76 Appendix C, Report of Officers of the State Industrial School : — Report of Superintendent, 81 Report of Physician, 88 Report of Oculist and Aurist, 90 Report of Superintendent of Industrial School Probationers, .... 92 Statistics concerning Girls, 99 Financial Statement, 119 Farm Account, 123 Valuation of Property, 124 List of Salaried Officers 125 List of Volunteer Visitors 127 Statistical Form for State Institutions, 128 Commcrctoealtb of glassaclnisflis, Lyman and Industrial Schools. TRUSTEES. M. H. WALKER, Westborough, Chairman. ELIZABETH G. EVANS, Boston, Secretary. M. J. SULLIVAN, Chicopee. SUSAN C. LYMAN, Waltham. JAMES W. McDONALD, Marlborough. GEORGE H. CARLETON, Haverhill. CHARLES G. WASHBURN, Worcester. HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS. THEODORE F. CHAPIN, Superintendent of Lyman School THOMAS II . AYER, Visiting Physician of Lyman School. « WALTER A. WHEELER, Superintendent of Lyman School Probationers. FANNIE F. MORSE, Superintendent of State Industrial School. CLARA P. FITZGERALD, Visiting Physician of State Industrial School. MARY W. DEWSON, Superintendent of Industrial School Probationers. €ammanbsza\t\} af IpassaxJMSttts. TRUSTEES' REPORT. To Ills Excellency the Governor and the Honorable Council. The trustees of the Lyman and Industrial Schools respectlully present the following report for the fourteen months ending Nov. 30, 190(), for the two reform schools under their control. M. H. WALKER. M. J. SULLIVAN. ELIZABETH G. EVANS. SUSAN C. LYMAN. james w. Mcdonald. GEORGE H. CARLETON. CHARLES G. WASHBURN. TRUSTEES' REPORT LYMAN SCHOOL. [Dec. LYMAN SCHOOL FOR BOYS AT WESTBOROUGH. The Lyman School receives boys under fifteen years of age who are committed to its care by the courts. About one- quarter are complained of by their parents for stubbornness, but this term is little more than a phrase, used in many cases for those with the very hardest record. This illustrates the fact that the technical offence for which a boy is sentenced has little significance, but is the occasion rather than the cause of his commitment. Of all the boys alike it is true that they have gotten beyond parental control, and are growing up out of joint if not definitely at war with the necessary requirements of social order. Self-control and a due regard for the rights of others is the lesson which the Lyman School is required to teach. Fortunately, the school is invested by the law with the authority of a guardian over its ward, and this authority ex- tends throughout the ward's minority. Dealing with the boys thus through a long term of years, the methods employed vary radically, according to a boy's condi- tion. Children twelve years old or less, whose chief need is a good home, are cared for in an outlying department in Berlin, seven miles distant from the main institution, and are soon reinstated in the community as boarders in selected families. Boys of thirteen and upward, and younger ones who have been tried and failed under the family treatment, are given a period of systematic education at Westborough, the length of deten- tion depending upon a marking system which may keep a boy as short a time as ten months, and as long as three or even four years. (See Table 9, page 63.) When a boy leaves the school, be his stay there long or short, and whether or no upon his discharge he returns at once to his own people or is placed out with others, all alike remain under the school's supervision and are liable to be recalled for bad conduct until they pass beyond the State's authority at the age of twenty-one. Of the 1,005 boys under the care of the school 1 on Dec. 1, 1906, 327 1 Boys who are in reformatory or other institutions, in the army or navy, out of the State, or whose whereabouts are unknown, are not included in these figures, but they are accounted for in Table 3, on pages 58 and 59. 1906.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 18. 7 were in the main branch at Westborough, 18 were in the Berlin department, 55 were at board, 79 were placed Avith farmers, 440 were with their own people, and 86 others, all over eighteen years of age, were "for themselves," as the phrase goes, some of these working in shops or factories, but most of them employed upon farms. Of the 226 new boys received from the courts, 1 was only eight years of age, 5 were nine years of age, 13 were ten, 24 were eleven, 37 were twelve, and 146 were between thirteen and fifteen. At the Westborough branch of the institution the boys are divided into ten cottage groups ; but they come together in graded classes at the central schoolhouse, and in manual training classes, for physical drill, instruction in singing, band practice, etc. The leading idea of the educational system is industrial, as against the purely academic method. The manual dexterity which underlies all trades is taught to some extent to every boy, and over two-thirds of the school are carried along in advanced manual training classes, in printing, shoemaking, carpentry, painting or bricklaying, etc. The effort is to so arrange work which is essential to the running of the institution that it shall contribute to the intellectual and moral development of the boys employed therein. Four hours of work (manual training classes being included under this head) and four and one-half hours in the schoolroom is the usual day's program; but some 40 <>dd boys over sixteen years of age (most of them returned mers) work eight hours a day and attend school only in the evening. Pages 35-37 of the superintendent's report details as to the instruction and the occupations of the The difficulty of runaways [g one which must be met in every m school which is not a prison, [n the effort to hold boys by their own volition, to touch the inner springs of action, loyalty prizes are given out to households which have been free lor a given time from runaways; and honor classes win special prh including going oil' the grounds for an excursion and \ isits to their own people. The boys set much store upon s; but, notwithstanding, within the fourl months under record no less than 39 different boys absconded, :> several of them escaping two or more time-, and l others sue- in getting off the grounds, but were returned before 8 TRUSTEES' REPORT LYMAN SCHOOL. [Dec. nightfall. Every runaway is a serious source of demoraliza- tion. Recognizing this, one can only fall back upon the broad position that freedom rightly used is so great a good that its abuse by the minority must be put up with. Indeed, the very boys who were runaways in the days of their first homesick- ness, or in a moment of waywardness or discouragement, often settle down later and are the ones to profit most by the school's opportunities. The Berlin cottage is so wholly disconnected with the parent institution that neither the boys themselves nor the community of which they later become members identify them with the boys from Westborough. This is an advantage which it is hard to overestimate. The group in the cottage at any one time is so small, and the contact with their three caretakers so intimate, that there is little need for rules and regulations. Unmannerly little urchins, who have apparently never obeyed in their lives before, they show themselves quickly responsive to influences which would seem to be every child's birthright. Several hours a day of rough-and-tumble play allow uproarious spirits to find their legitimate expression. At night the grown folks take part in the games where fair play has been so little practised. After a stay of a few months, the majority are judged fit to be boarded out, thereafter to attend the district school and be treated in all respects like other boys in the community. Half of them, to be sure, eventually fall back into lawless ways, either in their boarding places or later when they go back to their own people, and are recalled to West- borough to receive the benefit of its systematic training. The other half are reinstated in the community with no further training than that which suffices for the normal child in any good home. 1 The following is a letter which was received from one of these little boarders : — Mar. 6, 1906. Dear Mrs. Dudley : — I have been intending to write to you be- fore, but I go to school every day and what spare time I have I put on my lessons. School will close the nineth of this month, and I ex- 1 The cost of the whole Berlin outfit, land, house and furnishings included, was only $8,500, and its running expenses are very little larger than if it were located upon the grounds at Westborough. In all, 469 boys have been received at Berlin since the estab- lishment was opened eleven years ago.