T tween two and eight years. Why? Because the mother cannot go out to work with them at home, or, if she wants to marry again, they are in the way. I think one of the dangers of these institutions is the tendency to break up the family relation, by giving parents an opportunity to rid themselves of their children. think a great deal of harm has been done in our work by trying to paint all things in the color of the rose, and make all things bright. I approve of Mr. Letchworth's idea not to have high walls around our institutions. The number of children in the Home Jan. 1, 1877, was 58; number admitted that year, 211; number re-admitted, 124. Many people would say the number of re-admissions was a blot on the work, but it is not so. Perhaps we have an application for a child from an old-fashioned man and wife : we send them a bright young fellow; he is too smart for them, and back comes a letter saying, We don't want your boy.' We take the boy back, and send out instead a slow, plodding boy, and receive an answer that he is a splendid boy.' We sometimes send a boy out five or six times; and such a boy is sometimes the best and most intelligent of them all. We seek to place the right children in the right place." 6 MRS. LOUISE ROCKWOOD WArdner. It was not my intention, when I came to attend this meeting, to make any report. I thought to sit humbly at the feet of wisdom, and gain information from the many savants and eminent philanthropists here assembled. But as I have, since my arrival, received credentials as a delegate from the Woman's Social Science Association of Illinois, and a most earnest request that I should report the progress of our Industrial School for Girls, I improve this opportunity you have so kindly given me, with great diffidence. After hearing Dr. Hoyt's remarks on Tuesday, I felt impelled to say something in regard to the dependent and homeless girls of my own State, and to tell of what we were trying to accomplish for their good. I find, on investigation, that the subject of industrial education for dependent children, particularly for girls, has received comparatively little attention. There had been established, up to 1876, thirty reform and industrial schools in nineteen of the States of the Union, the remaining States and Territories having no such institutions. I find that the slight provision already made for reformation is for boys mainly. Fifteen of these reformatory institutions are for boys only; four for girls only; and eleven for boys, with a small department for girls; and in many of these (as in our own State Reform School), when more space is needed for the boys, the girls are crowded out. In the State of Wisconsin, there was established at Waukesha, in 1860, a fine reform and industrial school for boys and girls. In 1870, more room was wanted for the increasing number of boys, and the girls in the institution, seventy-three in number, were discharged from the school; the understanding being that the legislature would immediately appropriate a sum for the establishment of a similar institution for the dependent and incorrigible girls of the State. Eight years have passed, and the subject has as yet received no attention. I visited the school in Waukesha some time since, and found a magnificent farm of many broad acres, under a very high state of cultivation; eight fine stone buildings, surrounded with beautiful grounds; and five hundred and fifty-three boys receiving the advantages of this excellent industrial school. The State of Wisconsin is appropriating forty thousand dollars every year to the maintenance of this noble charity. Upon inquiring why the girls who had formerly been inmates of this institution had been dismissed and denied the advantages of so good a school, and what had become of them, I was told that it was found impracticable to connect the work of both sexes in one institution, and they were utterly unable to tell me what had become of the girls. Does it take a very vivid imagination to picture the wretched fate of some of them? Soon after the war, the attention of several benevolent ladies of Southern Illinois was drawn to the great need of some effort in this direction, by the difficulty they found in securing a place of refuge, some home or industrial school, for a number of friendless, dependent girls, who came under their care through an orphanasylum whose charter did not permit children over twelve years of age to remain in the institution. The girls were provided with homes as soon as possible after being received into the asylum; but it was not a training or industrial school, and, as the girls mostly came from the very poorest and most undisciplined class of society, they were found unsatisfactory, and were returned again and again. As they reached the age of twelve years, the question arose, What shall be done with them? It became evident then, unless they could be put into some training school, and disciplined, and taught some useful employment, that they were lost. I visited the Reform School then in Chicago, but found that the girls who had been in that institution had been discharged to make room for more boys. T I visited other institutions, both Catholic and Protestant, but found no place for my charge. I went to Wisconsin and Missouri, with similar results. There was not a place under the broad canopy of God's heaven in which to place those poor, uncared-for waifs of society; and to-day five of those innocent little girls are living a life of sin and shame, never to be reclaimed. At the present time the Reform School at Pontiac, Ill., is under the generous patronage of the State, receiving an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars every year for its support; but the dependent, homeless girls of this great Commonwealth have no place of refuge, either endowed by the State (whose wards they should be) or by private charity. It is stated that in the reform schools already established, 6,563 youthful vagrants have been trained for useful citizenship, at a total annual expense of less than one million dollars. Then we find, from an economical view, that, exclusive of the cost of jails, almshouses, station-houses, criminal courts, arrests, trials, and police expenses, the people of the United States are taxed annually fifteen millions for the actual support of 38,000 criminals and 116,000 paupers, allowance being made for all enforced labor by those recipients of the public bounty. Could any argument be stronger in favor of the establishment of industrial and reformatory schools? It is stated that the actual reformation of inmates of well-established reform schools varies from seventy to eighty-five per cent; and the average time required to sever old associations, form correct habits, learn a trade, and go forth useful members of the community, is only two years. The reformation of vagrant girls is generally thought to be hopeless; and they are left to the street, at the mercy of unprincipled and vile men, until they become too troublesome to be endured, when they are arrested, dragged to prison, confined with worse criminals, and again turned out upon the street, more desperate than before. In regard to this matter, the managers of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents, New York, give the experience and observation of forty years, which shows the opposite of this to be the truth. And the Superintendent of the Connecticut Industrial School for Girls says, in his interesting report for 1876, "An impression has prevailed, that the results of industrial and reformatory schools in cases of wayward girls are less satisfactory than of wayward boys; but our brief experience of six years, as well as that of the Massachusetts Industrial School for Girls twenty-two years, has shown that not less than seventy-five per cent of the former inmates of these schools are doing well, and that the great majority will become respectable and useful women." After discovering that there absolutely was no place where we could place the destitute girls of Illinois, a number of us, strong in hope and faith, proceeded to organize an Illinois Industrial School for Girls. We met in June, 1877, and adopted the constitution and by-laws, and to-day are a thoroughly organized and chartered association. Immediately after our organization I wrote to every county clerk and poorhouse in the State, and received replies from about half of them, ascertaining in that manner that there were about six hundred such girls in the poorhouses. Since that time I have visited a number of poorhouses myself, and have found many intelligent little girls, who ought to be in industrial schools. We were invited by Mr. Wines to make statistics of such girls and their condition, and report to the State Board of Charities, which we will do at our next meeting. We have as far as possible taken the plan of the Connecticut Industrial School for the model of our school, as from reports I received from different institutions I found that was probably the most effective plan. We hardly expected to open our school for two or three years yet; but last fall I found the interest throughout the State was so general concerning what we wished to do, that we opened the school last November, with only about fifty dollars in the treasury. We have now twenty-nine girls in our school, and when I left home I had four applications for admission. I have, as yet, failed to find a single person who is not willing to assist when I explain the object of our work; and we have never as yet been without funds. We have secured good homes for four girls already, although our intention is not to provide any with homes until they are fully fitted for it. We make the vice-president of each district responsible for the girls put in homes in their district. The capacity of our institution is about one hundred inmates; we could have had that number from Chicago alone, could we have taken them. Of course we have been under the necessity of the closest economy, and, aside from the salary of the superintendent and matron, the expenses are about seventy dollars per month. We have met with some objections from the members of our State Board of Charities because we did not take both boys and |