CIRCULARS OF INFORMATION OF THE BUREAU OF EDUCATION. No. 6-1875. STATEMENTS RELATING TO REFORMATORY, CHARITABLE, WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1875. CONTENTS. Letter of the Commissioner of Education to the Secretary of the Interior Reformatory schools; (for index, by States, of the names of the institutions em- Page. LETTER. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D. C., July 3, 1875. SIR: The accompanying pages contain the information collected by this Office respecting the orphan, reformatory, and charitable schools of the United States. While some of these schools are supported by States and cities, most of them are private charities. The work was undertaken at the request of officers of many of these schools who found themselves unable to procure the information they desired respecting the experience of others, and yet found that such information would be of great service to them in the prosecution of their work. So little of a permanent or satisfactory character has heretofore been published in an available form, and the statements published were found to vary so much in their scope and character, that, in order to render this publication most useful and authentic, from personal observation, it was determined to put the collection of the material into the hands of a qualified person. Mrs. S. A. Martha Canfield* was selected for this purpose, and this account is prepared by her. She has visited two hundred and forty-eight of the schools and charities mentioned in this pamphlet, personally inspecting their regulations, arrangements, work, and supervision. Reformatory schools began in this country in 1825, under the name of houses of refuge; later, institutions of this description were called reform-schools, and recently they have been established as industrial schools. These changes of names are significant. In the best institutions of this kind, at the present time, the children are subject to family-discipline, in preference to prison-discipline, and are taught useful trades. The self-respect of the children is thus better preserved and they are better fitted for actual life. Schools for orphans were first established in this country at Charleston, South Carolina, in 1790. The great danger to the children in these institutions is that the routine and seclusion to which they subject their inmates may prove * Mrs. Canfield is the widow of the late Colonel Herman Canfield, Seventy-second Ohio Volunteers, (infantry,) and foundress of the Canfield Home for Colored Orphans at Memphis, Tenn. 341 |