fund, upon approval by the Board of Control, as they alone, in our judgment, are competent to pass upon them. We would recommend further that power be given the Board to permit pupils of the school to be employed in families for wages instead of requiring families to indenture them. This would be desirable in cases of large girls who are returned from homes to the school as many excellent families would employ them, that would not indenture them. As regards the health of the school: In place of a resident, we have employed a non-resident physician of experience living near the school. He visits the school as often as is required. The excellent health of the children, under this rule as compared with the former one justifies us in the belief that the change was a wholesome one. Section 1977 Howells Annotated Statutes, 3d Vol., provides: There shall be received into said School those children who have been declared dependent on the public for support as herein provided, and they shall be retained therein until they are sixteen years of age, unless they shall before that time be sent out as herein provided. While in said School they shall be maintained and educated in the branches usually taught in the common schools; they shall have proper moral and physical training and shall be taught how to labor so far as their age and condition will reasonably permit. The said Board is authorized to return to the counties from which they were sent the following classes of children: First, Those who have become sixteen years of age and who for any reason cannot be placed in or retained in family homes. Second, Those who by reason of vicious habits or incorrigibility cannot be placed in or retained in family homes. Third, Those who in the opinion of said Board, based on the certificate of the physician of said school, are of unsound mind or body, or who have some serious physical disability which prevents their being placed in family homes. Whenever any child shall be ordered by said Board to be returned to its county as herein provided the guardianship of said Board shall cease, and the child shall thereupon again become a charge on the county from which it was sent, and the Superintendent of said School in returning any child to its county shall report in writing to the superintendent of the poor of the proper county, the action of said Board and the reasons therefor. From the above it will be readily seen, that of the large number of children received at the school since its establishment, coming as they do from all conditions in life, that some would obviously be of that class who cannot be placed or retained in family homes. Of the 200 children now at the school (which number has varied but little for several years past), there are by a conservative estimate 40 per cent that should never have been sent to the school, and therefore they must remain there or be returned to the counties from which they were received. When returned to the counties they must under the law be sent to the county superintendents of the poor, who in turn usually send them to their county house. We have not returned as many of this class as a strict adherence to the law would require, and have only returned those whose vicious habits would be injurious to the other children at the school, and those of unsound mind and physical disability. In view of these facts it is plain that were only children of sound mind and of no physical disability admitted to the school, nearly all of them could be placed in good homes, soon after their admission, this would necessarily reduce the number to be kept at the school to at least one-half of the present and usual number maintained there, and would serve the further purpose of restoring the confidence of those seeking children for homes, for every child that has been returned to the school as undesirable, necessarily lessens that confidence. Mr. C. F. Newkirk resigned his position as superintendent a short time prior to our organization. October 7, 1891, Mr. W. H. Wieand was appointed superintendent. All of the officers and employés of the school have devoted themselves with uncommon assiduity to the discharge of their important duties. R. J. FROST, JOHN R. CHAMPION, R. J. WHALEY, ALEXANDER MCMILLAN, |