To the Honorable the State Board of Education:

The Board of Managers have the honor to render the following report:
 

A noticeable improvement is shown in attendance, and the regular work of the school has become more effective through the system and method with which all studies are now carried on.

The Museum has been open free to the public from 2 to 5 P.M., daily, throughout the past year, with the exception of Thanksgiving day, Christmas day, and the Forth of July. The attendance has been over 14,000. The students have also had the benefit of using the rooms for the purpose of study during school hours.

The collection of autotypes illustrating the history of the Art of Painting has been much studied and enjoyed.

There have been a number of large and important casts and several valuable paintings added to the collection during the year, as well as many attractive loans.

In the Mechanical Department, the work proving too much for one man, Mr. James W. Cutler was employed as instructor in algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, while Mr. W.W. Estes gave his whole attention to machine design and engineering.

The instruction, in design this year was based on a series of lectures--those on Elementary Design and the Orders by Mr. Stacy Tolman, and those on Applied Design by Mr. Theodore H. Pond. Each lecture was followed with class work. The plan succeeded, as the prize composition at the end of the course bore witness.

The designs in clay in Mr. Kohlhagen's class have exceeded expectations and show the possibilities in this line with earnest students under careful instruction.

The drawing rooms have been greatly improved during the year by changes to the windows and skylights.

A most important addition to the school will be the proposed extension in the rear for a fireproof picture and sculpture gallery.

This building is being carefully designed on the most modern principles, and on account of its protection against fire, and its perfect lighting, is expected to be the centre of all the importsnt exhibitions in this locality.

A most encouraging sign of the growing importance of the school is the demand upon it for designs by parties not connected with the school, but who recognize the quality of the work now being done there.

A most interesting competition for designs for a cash register was lately held for prizes offered by the manufacturers.

The State of Rhode Island has asked for designs for a monument to be erected in memory of John Waterman at Valley Forge and to commemorate the past of the State in the Revolution.

The Jewelers' Association is greatly aiding the school in its progress of improvement, especially by its frequent social meetings and course of lectures, and plainly shows the growint strength of the school, and the interest in it of those who have received benefits from it.

Respectfully submitted,

PROVIDENCE, DEC. 31, 1895.

The statistics of the year are as follows;
 

The number of girls received at the School in 1895 was eighteen. In 1894 the number was 34, while in 1893 it was only twelve. So the numbers vary from year to year without apparent cause. Eight were sentenced for being idle and disorderly persons, three for being lewd and wanton, two for vagrancy, two for truancey, and one for assault. The ages were: one, eight years; two, nine; one, thirteen; five, fourteen; one, fifteen; six, sixteen; one, seventeen; and one, ninteen (age stated in court, seventeen.)

Sixteen of the girls were released on probation to go to their own homes or to live with other families. It is gratifying to be able to report that only two of the sixteen have been returned to the school. Mr. Nutting, the religious instructor of the Institutions, has continued, as before, to examine the homes of applicants for girls before action is taken by the Board, and also, so far as he has been able to do so, to visit the girls of the school who have been placed in families. The Board have authorized the employment of an officer whose duty will be to give more time and attention to this work at both the schools than Mr. Nutting with his many duties has been able to give. The proposition so to amend the law that no child over sixteen years old could be sentenced to the Reform School would be of best benefit to the Oak Lawn School, as has been explained in previous reports.

The expenses of the year were as follows:
 

Mrs. M. F. Hopkins,

Superintendent.

The number of boys in the school at the close of 1895 was 265, an increase of twenty-three during the year. The daily average during the year was 249. The number received in 1895 (196) was but six larger than in 1894, but the number discharged in 1894 (173) was twenty-three smaller than 1895. It would appear then that the increase in the number in the school at the close of 1895 was due more largely to a smaller number of discharges during the year than to the increased number of admissions.

The new home for the boys described in the last report had been nearly completed at the close of 1894. It was finished during the spring and early summer of the past year and was occupied in July by fifty of the smallest boys. It is called the "Primary Home" and is the third one erected since the removal of the School from Providence in 1882. Only two "homes," as the boys dwellings are called, were provided at the time of the removal and there are now five.

The building for industrial training shops and drill hall was also unfinished when the last report was made. This has been completed, except the foundry, and the building will soon be used for it's intended purposes,-as a drill hall in the upper, and for industrial education in the lower, story. Masons' work and foundry work will be taught here.

The average number of boys employed in the different departments during the year was as follows:
 

The boys of the department of carpentering, with their instructor, finished the woodwork of the new industrial training shops and drill hall, besides doing much repairing about the school and such machine work as was required at the other Institutions, that is, turning; machine-planing, etc. Two of these boys were discharged, having acquired sufficient knowledge of their trade to secure work, and are doing well.

Instruction has been continued, as before, in the blacksmiths' shop in forging; making, dressing and tempering tools for the machine shop; repairing picks and crow-bars; making and repairing chains; turning shoes for horses and oxen and shoeing the horses and oxen used at the school; making and repairing tools for stone work and for the masons, and sharpening stone drills for the other Institutions. Ten boys were discharged from this department during the year, some of them after only a few months of instruction, which is too soon for their own good. Instruction for so short a period can be of little benefit to boys. They should have at least two years' instruction and experience in this department to enable them to obtain work and support themselves at their trades after their discharge.

The boys, twelve in number, who have been learning the masons' trade, were especially proficient and useful during the year. The work done by them includes laying 276 square yards of cement floor in the new "Primary Home" and plastering the walls and window jams of the same, about 200 square yards; building of stone and brick the conduits for the steam pipes; building four manholes for these conduits, also two sewer manholes at the Oak Lawn School; preparing a room in one of the basements of the Asylum for the Insane for the temporary safe-keeping of the dead, besides some repairing at the same institution; and laying a new cement floor and making other improvements in the piggery of their own school. Three pupils were discharged from this department of industrial training in 1895, all of whom were well advanced in the masons' trade, and one was discharged who had served as a masons' tender.

The boys under instruction in the machine shop made a Ross water motor, No. 28, to furnish power for blowing the new organ at the Asylum for the Insane, the drawings for the motor having been kindly furnished free of cost by the Ross Valve Co., of Troy, N.Y.; two five inch and two two-and-one-half-inch expansion joints for the steam pipes in the conduit above mentioned; an emery wheel stand with a twist-drill grinding attachment; and a douche bath for the new "Primary Home." They also made all the tools used by themselves and did a good deal of repairing of machinery and tools for the other institutions as well as for the school. One of the items of work for the school was the repairing and polishing of the two hundred and fifty Quaker muskets of the military battalion. Six boys were graduated from this department well skilled in the mechanists' trade and they are doing well.

The pupils in the engineers' department, so-called, receive instruction and assist in tending the steam boilers, the steam engine, the steam pumps and other apparatus in the boiler and engine rooms. They also learn in a measure the trade of piping, that is, running lines of pipe for conveying steam, water or gas, as the case may be, with the necessary valves , etc. These pupils assist the engineer, too, in making the necessary repairs upon pipes and kindred apparatus throughout the school. No boy was graduated from this department in 1895.

From the printing office has been issued regularly during the year the HOWARD TIMES, the semi-monthly school paper, and all of the job work for the offices of the Board, and other institutions, such as blanks for reports of many kinds, ect., has been done here. The boys of the printing office also set up and printed as in previous years, the last report of the Board of State Charities and Corrections to the General Assembly and are now, as we write, engaged upon this report. Seven boys were discharged from the printing office competent to earn their living as compositors.

In the shoe shop, 2,575 pairs of shoes were repaired during the year; this number included, of course, the repairing of the same pair of shoes several times. Each boy has two pairs of shoes in wear and each week one of these pairs is sent to the shop for inspection and repairs if needed. The boys in this shop repair also harnesses, footballs, and baseballs.

The twelve boys under the instruction of the tailoress make up and repair all of the clothing of the boys and the bedding and table linen of both officers and boys.

The trade of painting is one that can not well be taught except as opportunity for its practical application occurs, which is not continuous. The quantity of material that would be required to keep a class in constant practice would cost a good deal of money and the material cannot be used over and over again as in other trades. During the past year, however, there was ample opportunity for the teaching of painting. The Primary Home was painted inside and outside by a class of boys under the direction of one hired painter and the hard oil finish within the building was applied also by them. Besides, some of the smaller boys were made useful in dressing and waxing the floors. A good deal of painting repairs about the buildings also was done by the boys.

The farm and garden work is done by such of the boys as are not large enough, or are otherwise incapacitated, for instruction in the industrial training shops. Five of the larger boys do the work in the barn assisted during the day, but not in early morning or late evening, by several smaller ones.

The following table shows the quantities of farm and garden produce raised at the school by the boys;
 

Two notable events in the history of the school the past year are worthy of record. The first is the part of our school battalion took in the Forth of July parade in the City of Providence, a privilege granted them by consent of the Board of State Charities and Corrections. The invitation had been extended by His Honor the Mayor, Frank F. Olney, and the City Government. The battalion made a fine appearance and was a notable feature in the procession. All along the rout the cadets were cheered and praised for their soldierly bearing. At the end of the five miles' march, His Honor, the Mayor, entertained them in a sumptuous manner with a banquet in Music Hall.

By consent of the Board of State Charities and Corrections also, we were enabled to accept an invitation extended to us by the managers of the State Fair to take space in the Educational Department of their exhibition in the month of September. The space allowed us was sufficient for quite a practical illustration to the many thousands of visitors to that Fair of how the boys are being trained. The work of the schoolroom was illustrated by maps submitted, together with compositions, arithmetical problems, quarterly examination papers, ect. There were boys there each day working at the case, setting type; at the forge, forging hammers, turning shoes, etc; at the machine, learning the lesson of thread-cutting; boys at their carpenters' bench, learning to mitre; brick masons, building piers and foundations for bay windows; with a display of the finished products of their labor in the several departments of the school arranged in glass cases and upon tables in such a way that the people could best see them. It all made a most interesting exhibit, and was commended on every hand. The great interest in our exhibition there was fully manifested by the crowds constantly pressing up to the boys while at their work. The Fair Association have been pleased to award us a very handsome diploma.

During the course of these two events not one single untoward circumstance happened. The cadets without exception conducted themselves in a most soldierly and gentlemanly manner, reflecting credit upon themselves, the school, and the State.

Throughout the year the schools have been in session three hours each day, five days in the week, except two weeks in summer. In the Primary Cottage the small boys have two sessions, one of two hours in the morning and one of three in the afternoon.

The schools are so arranged that in each cottage there are five grades; all boys in a grade are required to cover the same ground each quarter. Quarterly examinations are given, and upon a boy's standing in these examinations, together with his class work, general conduct and military record, depends his time of parole.

We are using the Normal Course in reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic. The highest classes use Information Readers No. III, and for supplementary reading, Harper's Round Table, Youth's Companion, and St. Nicholas. One hour each week is devoted to physiology. The lessons are given by the teacher with special reference to the effect of alcohol, cigarettes and tobacco on the human system. We are using Potter's Elementary and Advanced Geographies. I would recommend that we change Potter's Geographies for Frye's elementary and Complete Geographies. One session each week is devoted to United States History, composition, and talks on civil government and current events.

Many of the boys take much interest in Nature Study, watching eagerly the growth of the plant from the seed, the development of the insect from the chrysalis, or hunting carefully for specimens of rocks and fossils. Each school keeps a record of the weather, temperature, wind, and clouds. The higher classes do considerable work in map drawing. By means of committing to memory short extracts from the best authors, talks on character building, and the study of the writings and lives of eminent men, our teachers try to instill into the boys a love of good books, and higher and nobler ideals of living.

Once in three months a blank is sent to each boy released from the school on probation, whose term of sentence has not expired. The purpose of doing this will be readily learned from a copy of the blank.

________________________________________________________________________

1. Present Post Office Address?

City or Village_________________________Street_____________________________________

2. How have you been employed during the past quarter?

3. Have you been regular in attendance at Church or Sabbath School during the quarter?

4. Have you been careful regarding your habits and associates?

5. Are you satisfied and contented with your home and your present occupation?

6. Remarks::
 

Signature__________________________

Please have your parents, guardians, employer, pastor, or priest, make a statement below concerning your report and your record for the past three months.

Signature_____________________________

Return this report to James H. Eastman, Supt. Sockanosset School, Howard, R.I.

______________________________________________________________________________________

The statistics for the year are as follows:
 

The average numbers in the school were:
 

JAMES H. EASTMAN,

Superintendent.

To the State Board of Education:

GENTLEMEN:--The board of Control of the State Home and School have the honor to report the following for the year of 1895.

The year has been eventful for increased work, both thorough and successful, adding valuable experience to increased care and control.

We were glad to begin the year with a new cottage, a very complete house, through modest in cost, designed for the home of thirty of the smallest boys. In vacating an old and small building for the new one we were able to renovate and put in good condition a building we may sometime use as a hospital, should such a necessity occur. Fortunately another year has passed without sickness, no children's ailments having prevailed, a fact we are grateful for, it is so unusual where so many children are gathered for both home and school-life. The healthfulness of this large farm and country area is supplemented, most carefully, with bathing facilities, and good food.

The three schools have been governed most efficiently by Misses M. C. Cotter, M. N. Chapman, and L. E. Burnham. The work has been persistent, and always given proof in excellent results. At no time has the grading been so well defined, The smallest children receiving the best of primary course, and such Kindergarten teaching as one person can combine with it. The family has kept to an average of one hundred and eighteen children during the year, divided about as usual 93 boys and 25 girls. Thirty-nine children have come to the Home, from all sources, and 59 gone from it during the year. Six were sent to Sockanosset, and Oaklawn Schools, for reasons which would insure advantages to them and to us. A few were returned to their parents, and the majority placed in private homes. The moral and material conditions of this Home are steadily improving. The supervision by its very efficient officers, Mr. and Mrs. Robert B. Risk, is careful and all around thorough. The evidences are always apparent of a kindly relation, with happiness among the cottage mothers and their children. It is the aim to lessen the Institutional ruts and bring in the cheerful interests of home and family life, as much as possible.

The advantages of the location of this Home are more and more in evidence. The wide fields for out-door life insure good health, and without the interruptions of sickness the school work is steadily productive of its purpose. Such opportunity as we can afford to boys for farm work, under an experienced farmer is helpful to them, if not fully educative. Perhaps a system of teaching in farm and trades' work, is one especially needed here. Such farming as we do pursue is profitable to the extent of supplies to the family, with some cash sales besides, which are turned in to the State treasury.

Very important repairs, in relaying steam and gas pipes, painting buildings, &c., have called heavily upon our funds, and for another year the care of the property and the maintaining a large family will require an appropriation of twenty thousand dollars, which the Bord of Control voted December 11th, to ask the General Assembly to set apart for its work for the ensuing year.

The greater difficulties of the work begin when we place children in private homes. We may become experts in this duty, but not until people, as a whole, attain a greater tolerance and a better purpose in caring for both the dependent and the delinquent child.

We must repeat our assurance of a year ago:-"This Board of Control is not satisfied to receive dependent children of the State into its Home and School, to clothe and feed, merely, and then send them out into life, indiscriminately." We know we are in charge of future citizens; we are equipping them as well as we can with intelligence, in mind and heart, and we are also seeking the proper home relations which will enlarge and develop our beginnings.

The majority who apply for children desire service--work without pay--not for parentage or education, as children of their own but as a spoke in the wheel of family economy. Many times such applicants are too poor to so increase the family, and give besides what justly belongs to a boy or girl in the formative years of life. Such applicants "need not apply;" we must do abetter by dependent children. Worded as carefully as our Indenture contract is, we must hesitate to risk mortgaging a child's future to pay for his present in food and clothes. If we shun the mercenary call, which would take children for work and no pay (and no play, either, as we have discovered,) we seek more earnestly the benevolent purpose of respectable people, who will interest themselves in the all-around education and care of the child; in farming if he prefers it; in a trade if he is better suited to it; and certainly in the months of schooling we insist upon. A girl can learn needlework as well as scrubbing, and when compelled to earn her living she can make a bonnet or a dress for herself, and gain day by day, in self-respecting independence.

We are looking for true parents of these children, foster parents, 'tis true, and especially for the smallest children. We urge people to begin with a five or six year old boy or girl, it so often means the renewing of the power of Love in the home; parents often need it, but the child far more. Loveless childhood is a vacuum that should be filled. Kind people with good motives toward children we want to meet. Applicants come to us so generally for the larger boys and girls , we realize the loss in opportunity, for it is next to certainty that the smaller child can be easier won and molded, and the bonds of his hereditary more surely broken by the environments of love, and a firm and honest appeal

This Board is increasing its knowledge of private homes through the visits of its Secretary. A child rarely goes to a home before his visit and acquaintanceship with both the man and wife. The difficulties attending "placing-out" children are all on a line with its responsibility towards living parents. There may be one or more (rarely both) living and we do not prefer to alienate a child from its kin if there is any likelihood of its proper repossession. The child is sometimes the one bond needed to keep the home and parents in a course of thrift and respectability. And, surely, if parental love prevails it is proof of the presence of a saving grace which society at large must have, to insure the sanctity and purity of all home-life where people are joined "for better or worse."

No happier experience comes to us during the year than when the mother or father is able to reclaim the two or three children which the State has cared for kindly until the cloud has lifted, when work is plenty, or the drink is dropped forever, and there is a home again for all, both comfortable and happy.

The efficiency of our control of this Home we mean shall come from personal visits, and acquaintance with its highest needs. And with the increasing ties created by placing children in private homes comes also the responsibility of knowing the average life of the homes. This duty we are assuming, more and more, but the State needs at least two authorized and well paid agents to visit towns and cities where its dependent children are living, and report what is wrong and objectionable in the home, or its surroundings. A man and woman could best do this work, for the "two sides" to everything one often sees better than the other.

The State has provided a wise benevolence for dependent children, and this Board is constantly made aware of the fact, that for every pure and honest boy and girl we rear, the State is saved much additional pauperism and vice, and the community gains a soul, which is a help and a stimulus to many more.

Respectfully submitted.

HENRY A. STEARNS, Chairman
JAMES G. VOSE,
BELLE H. MATTESON,
MAUDE D. EATON,
FREDERICK W. EASTON,
ALICE R. WOLF,
WM. T. CRANDELL, Secretary.

PROVIDENCE, R. I. Dec. 31, 1895

Note. The Board hereby acknowledges, gratefully, the very generous gifts from the Sunday School of the Union Congregational Church of Providence, and the boxes of toys, &c., from the Bliss Manufacturing Company of Pawtucket.

These contributions insured the larger happiness for the children's Christmas, and this happiness was the truest gratitude we could offer.

To the Board of Control:

GENTLEMEN AND LADIES:--I have the honor to present the Eleventh Annual Report of the State Home and School for the year ending December 31, 1895.

The following is the list of the officers and emplayees:
 

R. B. RISK, Superintendent.

The above account agrees with the books as kept at my office.

WM. T. CRANDELL,

Secretary of the Board.

WM. T. CRANDELL,

Secretary of Board of Control.

December 31, 1895.

Transcribers notes: All spelling and punctuation are as in the original book.

Transcribed by Sally Jaquet Roberts
Proof read by Danyelle and Hayzel Bowen

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