Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/666

 646 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

I. THE CHICAGO REFORM SCHOOL.

This was the first reform school founded in Illinois. It was established in 1855 under an ordinance of the city of Chicago, and was located five miles south of the (then) city on the lake- shore, in what is now Hyde Park. It received delinquents, dependents, and truants. It was, of course, organized on the " congregate plan." Its discipline was parental in its nature, the law of kindness being the fundamental rule. The superintendent often received the punishment due to some offending inmate. The school was classified, and a child upon entering was placed in the middle grade, so that he might rise or fall according to his merits or demerits. Pupil government was introduced and a police system was established among the boys, which worked quite satisfactorily. But the school was a prison, as the super- intendent himself admitted. It had bars and bolts, a high in- closure, and cells. Fortunately, in 1856 the buildings were destroyed by fire, and the boys had to be housed temporarily in an old packing-house. The management was forced to allow more liberty to the boys than had hitherto been granted, and the result was that very few even attempted to escape, and most of these few returned voluntarily to the school. When, therefore, the school was rebuilt, its plan of construction was entirely changed.

Most of the boys were committed by the police courts of the city for one year only, an evil which the superintendent at once recognized and protested against, urging that bad habits of long standing could not be rooted out in a year's time, and insisting that the boy should be committed during his minority.

The boys attended school from 7 to 9 A. M., and from 5 to 7 p. M. The rest of the time they spent in manual labor in the shops or the garden. The value of manual training and trade instruction in reform work was at once demonstrated and most heartily indorsed by the board of managers and the superin- tendent.

As already intimated, when the school was rebuilt, in 1856, "the cottage plan" was partially adopted, "a family building" to accommodate forty boys being erected. The results were so