Daily Kennebec Journal

TRUSTEES' REPORT
The Industrial School For Girls at Hallowell Should Be a Life Saving Station—Needs of the School.

TRUSTEES WILL ASK LEGISLATURE FOR GOOD SUM.

The annual report of the trustees of the Industrial School for Girls at Hallowell, says that the school may assume two quite different characteristics. It may become a mere institution or it may become what is known as a life saving station. An institution is the easiest thing to see, the report says, and is the ideal usually held before the public mind but the life saving station seeks all the good points of cleanliness and good order which the institution spirit requires, and goes much farther, regarding a hundred girls as a hundred individuals, from different homes, with different possibilities and requiring perhaps a different course of treatment. The trustees say that they and the principal are bent on developing the higher and better class of school.

This is the first report of the trustees since the school became a public institution and the fact lends additional interest. Miss Harriet A. Leayitt, the new principal, who assumed control, in January, 1900, did not seek to make any radical changes but has studied the problem of child saving in order to find the course most appropriate to the conditions in Maine. The trustees speak in complimentary terms of the work she has accomplished.

In referring to the fire of May 24, when Erskine hall was burned, the report notes that the insurance amounted to $11,075, which has been paid, $6,657.50 into the treasury of the school and $4,997.50 into the general treasury of the State. This latter sum become available for rebuilding only on appropriation by the next Legislature.

Thirty-two girls were made homeless, and within three weeks 25 girls, 15 under 12 years of age, were placed out in private homes at board. The price of board is so moderate, $1.50 per week, that the expense of the State for the care of the girls is but slightly increased.

The estate, valued at about $10,000, consists of 35 acres of land. The buildings consist of Baker hall, erected in 1895, accommodating the principal, its officers and 30 girls; Flagg-Dummer hall, rebuilt in 1880, and sheltering its officers and 31 girls. The farmhouse was examined the past summer by an experienced builder and pronounced unsuitable for further repairing. Yet it has been rendered in part habitable and is now occupied by the farmer and his family. The stable is small and old, accommodates one horse and four cows, and is not worth repairing.

Nine persons are at present in the employ of the board of trustees, a principal, two matrons, two school teachers, two assistant matrons, a farmer, a treasurer and a steward. The trustees have inaugurated a system of registration and record to show at a glance the status of each girl in the school, her antecedents, her commitment, and her record while in the school.

The girls are taught housework in all its branches. The day begins with the kitchen girls at 5 A. M. All the girls are called at 6:30 A. M. After breakfast rooms and halls are attended to and then for the rest of the forenoon the girls are at work in the kitchen, the laundry or the sewing room until dinner at 12 o'clock.

A half hour of recreation follows dinner, and then for an hour the sewing room claims attention. This is from 1 to 2 o'clock. The time from 2 until 2:45 the girls spend in their rooms preparing for school. The school session is from 3 to 4:45 P. M. Then comes supper; after that recreation and to bed at 9:30 P. M.

Of the 75 girls in the school 6 are in the two halls. 11 are out on board, 44 are working for their board and 16 are receiving wages.

A bank account is opened for the girls who earn money and all sums above what is needed for clothing are deposited in the Hallowell Savings Bank to their credit. The deposit books are surrendered to the girls when they become of age or are discharged from the school. There are now 53 depositors representing an aggregate deposit of $112.

The trustees mean to ask the Legislature to make a good sized appropriation for the needs of the school, which they claim are many, among them being a new building to replace Erskine hall, for which they estimate $4500 added to the insurance will be sufficient, six cows, a horse, sleigh and harness, and garden implements, requiring $1000, and additional help requiring about $500. The trustees assert that these needs are most pressing.