Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/16

2 abode, proper parental care, or guardianship, or sufficient means of subsistence, or who for other cause is a wanderer through streets and alleys, and other public places, or who lives with, or frequents the company of, or consorts with, reputed thieves or other vicious persons, or who is found in a house of ill-fame or in a poorhouse"—such child may be committed to an industrial school for girls. A petition must be presented to the county court by a reputable citizen who has been a resident of the county for a year; the parents or guardians of the child must be notified in due time of the proceedings about to be instituted, and the case must be tried before a jury of six persons, the judge assigning counsel where none is otherwise provided; and if the jury find that the child is a dependent, and that the other material facts, alleged in the petition, are true, the judge may commit said child to an industrial school for girls, "to be in such school kept and maintained until she arrives at the age of eighteen, unless sooner discharged by the governor or the court." The court must see that every girl so committed is provided with the necessary clothing, either by her parents or guardians, or by the county, and the county must contribute $10 a month toward the tuition, maintenance, and care of the child while she is in the school. The officers of the school must provide for the instruction of the child in domestic arts, and the ordinary branches of an English education, and may place her in some good home or bind her out as an apprentice to learn a trade, under the law of 1874 regulating apprentices, or allow her to be adopted by a responsible person.

The subsidy paid by the counties to industrial schools under this act is condemned by certain authorities, (1) because "the tendency of subsidized institutions is more and more to lean on the state," and this causes patrons to give less liberally toward their support, and (2) "the tendency of such subsidies is to tempt the favored institutions to keep youths year after year for the revenue it brings from the government." Furthermore, where the state supports it ought to control, in order that a detailed account of the expenditures of funds may be obtained ; but this is not true of the schools organized under this act.