The following year the report showed but eight inmates, of whom three were soldiers' orphans, one of them being a lame boy over fourteen and not entitled to state aid. It was urged that the home be used for destitute children,1 but as the appeal for funds met with no response, the school was closed in the spring of 1875. Thus ended the experience of Connecticut with what was really a state home for soldiers' orphans. This subject of soldiers' orphans leads naturally to our last topic, laws relating to minors. 9. PROTECTION OF MINORS The most important events were the establishment of the State Reform School, in Meriden, for boys, and the Industrial School for Girls, in Middletown. While they were primarily reformatories for the care of incipient criminals, their inmates were not limited to these, and hence the schools call for notice. STATE REFORM SCHOOL For A joint select committee reported to the legislature in 1850 that about 80 boys under 16 were annually committed to county jails, while many escaped punishment because there was no better place than jails for them. these reasons the committee recommended the establishment of a reform school. Owing to the state of the treasury and the fact that the proposal was an innovation, their bill was not acted upon until the following year, when it was passed. The state appropriations of $15,000 were not to be paid until $10,000 had been subscribed. The school was opened March 1, 1854, and many laws affecting it 1 Rep., 1874. 2 Rep., 1875. 1851, c. 46; cf. Rep., 1850, 1853. • P. A., 1852, pp. 73. 74; 1851, c. 46, §§ 11, 12. were passed during the twenty years before the revision of 1875. By this revision the government of the school was vested in a board of eight trustees, one from each county, appointed by the senate for four years, two retiring annually. Vacancies were filled by the general assembly, or by the governor during a recess. The trustees were to adopt rules for the school, and also 1 provide instruction in religion, morality, and useful knowledge, and in some regular course of labor for the inmates; bind them out, discharge, or remand them; appoint and remove at pleasure a superintendent, not 2 of their number, and other officers; prescribe their duties and compensation; . . . and annually report under oath, . . . the condition and rules of the school.3 The superintendent acted as treasurer and was to give a bond to the state for not less than $5,000.* A boy under sixteen, convicted of any offense punishable by imprisonment, not for life, except refractory apprentices and vagrants, might be sentenced in the alternative to the reform school or to such imprisonment; except that no justice of the peace might sentence any boy to the school under ten years of age, nor unless upon the recommendation, at the time, of a majority of the selectmen of the town. Boys under ten might be admitted with the approval of the trustees for not less than nine months. Commitments to the school were for terms not longer than during minority or less than nine months, unless sooner discharged, and a discharge meant a release from all penalties and disabilities created by the sentence." The boys were kept in the school until discharged, bound 2 Not in original law. 3 1875, 92, §§ 2, 3. 1 New, by 1875. 4 1875, 93, § 5. Ibid., §§ 6, 8. out, for not longer than the term of commitment, or remanded to prison. Any two trustees, in the absence of the others, if they thought it inexpedient to receive a boy, or if he proved incorrigible, or his continuance in the school was found to be prejudicial to its interests, might order him committed elsewhere under the alternative sentence.1 The cost of supporting boys, at the rate of $2 a week, was paid quarterly by the state, upon the allowance of the comptroller.2 Parents or guardians might indenture a child or ward to the school, in the manner prescribed by law, upon uniform terms agreed upon with the trustees, the expense to be paid quarterly in advance. If the expenses were not paid, the trustees might sue on the agreement. Every such indentured child was on a par with the other inmates in regard to "supervision, medical treatment, support, education, . . . regulations, employment, and restraint." In accordance with acts of 1871 and 1874 equal privileges were granted clergymen of all religious denominations to impart religious instruction to the inmates of the reform school and also of the industrial school for girls, under such regulations as might be prescribed by the governing boards for the giving of moral and religious instruction to the inmates who belonged to the several denominations." The penalty for aiding the escape of a minor committed to the reform or industrial schools was a fine of not less than $50 or more than $100, or imprisonment for not more than sixty days.' 11875, 93, §7; 98, § 2. 2 Ibid., 93. § 9. Before 1856, c. 80, by order of the judge of the superior court of the county. Ibid., 98, §§ 3, 4. ♦ C. 122. C. 31. 1875, 98, § 1. 1875, 507, § 6. This was passed in 1870 (c. 36, § 6) but then applied only to the industrial school. In a few respects the original law differed from this. Until it was discovered that of the first 150 boys sentenced to the school from 32 towns, 41 were committed for vagrancy and 35 for stubbornness,' the exception regarding commitments was not imposed. This was done in 1855,2 by an act which forbade sending to the school stubborn children, refractory apprentices, and vagrants. It is interesting to note in passing that these had to go to the workhouse or jail, from the contamination of which the more serious offenders were saved. As just noted, the revision of 1875 excluded the second and third of these classes. One reason for the exclusion was undoubtedly the fact that of these 150 first inmates, 64 had previously been arrested or been in places of detention. From contact with such, the excluded persons were to be saved by sending them into worse surroundings! 5 4 6 Changes were made also in the method of support. The act of 1851, like that of 1875, made the state responsible. When it was learned in 1857 that the school was already costing nine times as much as the state paupers, and taking more than a third of the appropriations for benevolent purposes, the assembly placed the support upon the cities or towns from which the boys were committed. The result was that in 1860 there were but 81 boys in the school," whereas in 1855 there had been 139; and that, too, in spite of the enactment in 1859' of the law permitting the indenture of minors to the school. Under the law of 1857 the selectmen of one town refused to have a boy convicted of petty larceny sent to the school, and he spent fourteen 8 Rep., 1855, pp. 52, 53. 1 Rep., 1855. 2 C. 104; cf. 1851, c. 46, § 4. 6 1857, c. 58, §§ 4, 5. 7 Rep., 1860. 8 Rep., 1855. ⚫ C. 79. days in jail,' suffering the disgrace of imprisonment and losing the possibly reforming influence of the school. To correct such evils as this, the state in 1860 once more assumed the responsibility. The allowance for board, limited to $1 a week in 1851, was made $1.50 in 1861 and $2 in 1865." Another section of the mischievous law of 1857 was beneficial. It made the minimum sentence nine months instead of ninety days,' and forbade the commitment to the school of boys under ten. This was later modified to permit the commitment to the school of boys under ten, who would otherwise be sent to jail or prison," and to permit the trustees also to admit boys below this age." The report for the year ending in March, 1875, stated that since the beginning 2,291 boys had been committed to the school, of whom 296 were then inmates. One hundred and fifty-five had been received during the preceding year, of whom 4 were boarders, 10 had been returned to the school, and 141 had been committed.10 INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS The Industrial School for Girls was incorporated in 1868 and opened in 1870. A commission of three had been appointed in 1866" to report as to the desirability of establishing a state institution for abandoned young women and a reform or industrial school for unfortunate, vicious, or vagrant girls. The report was against the former and in favor of the latter. There were stated to be no fewer than 150 such girls in Hartford and New Haven.12 As |