THE REFORM SCHOOL
I entered the reform school when a few months over sixteen years of
age. The following twenty-eight months in this institution marked the
crucial period of my life. The things that I found in the school,
the environment, the indiscriminate mixture of the boys, regardless
of their ages or evident depravity--all these steered me toward the
rocks of a wretched career. I entered the school not altogether bad,
and there was still a possible chance of making me see the error of my
way. I was at the impressionable age, and I believe, as I look back,
that proper association, coupled with a correct method of teaching,
would have molded my career into a different channel. If I had found
sympathy and understanding in the teachers, if I had been given the
opportunity of mixing with boys knowing _less_ about crime than I did;
if I had found an honest desire on the part of the teachers to bring
about reform, then my later life might have been different. I found
none of these things. There were certain of the officials who had the
qualifications needed, but they were of minor importance in the life of
the institution and didn’t count.
The school was situated in the center of the State, about thirty miles
from the scene of my former activities. Consisting of about a dozen
buildings, they made an impressive sight as one viewed them from their
front. There was no wall about its boundaries, nothing but the level
expanse of cultivated fields.
It was an afternoon of an early autumn as I alighted from the
conveyance which had brought the guard and me from the station. The
first impression I received on viewing the collection of buildings
was that of a student looking for the first time on the school which
is to be his Alma Mater. Had not the judge told me that here I would
find friends and an education to fit me for the later life? The fact
that I had been convicted of a criminal offense made no difference in
these impressions. I was like a curious student, anxious to know what
the years would bring, and what possibilities the institution held. I
entered the office conducted by my guard. He removed my shackles and I
stood before the head of the institution. He greeted me kindly, gave me
some words of advice and turned me over to one of the clerks.
Just a word here about the superintendent: he was a man nearing,
I suppose, his sixtieth year. He had held his position for ten or
twelve years, and to all intents and purposes was an ideal man for
the head of such an institution. In all my dealings with him I found
him an honorable and square man. In after months he used the lash on
me several times, and always because he thought the offense warranted
it, but never in a brutal manner. His great fault lay in not giving
the institution his personal supervision, as he should have done.
This duty he left to the assistant superintendent, satisfying the
conscience of duty done by an occasional round of the cottages
and shops. Punishments he delegated usually to the same assistant
superintendent. The law said and directed, I have since informed
myself, that only the superintendent had this power. This assistant
superintendent was a man of the Brockway type, a cold, cruel specimen
of a man, a martinet rather than a disciplinarian. All the wrongs ever
complained of there were traceable to him--of him more anon.
The institution was run on the cottage system. There were several
cottages--eight, I believe, in all--scattered about the grounds,
sheltering a group of from forty to seventy boys in each. These
collections of boys in groups were called families. It was the aim of
the officials so to group the inmates that each family would include
boys of nearly the same age. This method was soon found impractical,
and at the time I entered there was as much as eight years difference
in the ages of the boys making up the family to which I was assigned.
This grouping has been one of the vicious faults of the reform-school
systems of this country, and still exists in some of the schools of the
present day.
I also found that some of the boys were grouped regardless of type or
character. I found dependents, boys absolutely guiltless of crime,
whose only fault lay in the unfortunate fact that they had lost
their parents, mingling and coming into daily contact with boys of a
naturally depraved nature. You can imagine what five years of this
association would mean to such boys. These are no isolated instances.
In the school at the time when I was there I know there were at least
a hundred committed because of lack of homes, and these boys, through
no fault of their own, were thrown by the State into an environment
of degeneracy and crime. Is it surprising that the majority chose the
underworld for a living?
I have read a lot about the percentage of reformations some of the
reform schools of this country are making yearly. To be frank, I doubt
it. I very much doubt the accuracy of the statistics. Seventy-five
per cent of the professional crooks of the country are reform-school
graduates. In my belief it is a natural evolution.