stone, and water, that abundant supplies of these might be obtained without too much expense and labor; and it should be located on a soil that is rich, and that would yield the greatest possible variety of products. Our nearest railroad point now is about fourteen miles distant, and our nearest trading-points are Mt. Pleasant, sixteen miles distant, Fort Madison, twenty five miles, and Burlington and Keokuk, thirty-five miles. To all these points the roads are quite rough, and during a great portion of the year very disagreeable. We now have to haul building-stone four miles, wood six miles, and coal ten miles. To do all the hauling necessary for a Reform School, located amid all these unfavorable surroundings, must occasion a very heavy wear on teams and wagons, and cause much additional expense in the way of hired help. Our farm here contains one thousand four hundred and forty acres, of rich, prairie soil, and is much larger than we will ever be able to cultivate profitably. In order to make it most available in the support of the School, we will have to turn the greater share of our attention to the raising of small grains and live stock, which pursuits are not best adapted to the labor of boys. A smaller tract of land, say three hundred acres, situated near some good market, and cultivated principally in small fruits and vegetables, would yield a much greater income, and the labor would be mnch more suitable to boys. AMENDMENTS. We deem it important that certain amendmemts should be made to the law organizing "a State Reform School for juvenile offenders." In the first place, boys over sixteen years of age, who have been guilty of crimes worthy of the penitentiary, should be excluded, unless they be sent under an alternate sentence to the penitentiary, conditioned upon their good behavior here. We think that boys, under eighteen years of age, should be admitted with such a proviso; it would have a powerfully restraining influence over their conduct. Should a boy, committed under such a sentence, persist in trying to escape, or should he prove unruly or incorrigible, the officers of the institution, or the trustees thereof, should have power to deliver him at once to the custody of the warden of the penitentiary, and there he should endure the penalty according to the alternate sentence. We believe that many wayward boys over sixteen years of age may be reclaimed and induced to become good and honorable men. But as the law of our State now is, the institution is liable to suffer imposition and injury. During the past year, we have been grossly imposed upon by being compelled to receive boys over eighteen years of age. We now have not less than seven boys, who were over that age when they were sent here, and we believe that not less than four of that number were over twenty-one when they came. In the table of ages found herewith, we have made the statement according to the articles of commitment, but many of the boys have admitted that those statements were incorrect, and the appearance of the boys shows them to be so. These older boys are the ones who will ever give us the most trouble. The most of them are averse to labor, either manual or mental. They are disposed to grumble and find fault at having to labor, to study, or to submit to proper discipline. They claim to be boys, yet they possess the heads of old and hardened criminalsheads skilled in vice and crime, and filled with every device to avoid obtaining an honest living by honest industry. Such boys should be sent to a place of greater security than to an open reform school; to a place where they would be compelled to labor without grumbling, and for a season, at least, for the bread and meat they eat. A second amendment should be made to the present law, to protec tthe institution against the admission of idiotic, insane, or badly diseased persons. Other like institutions have such protection either by some discretionary power given to their officers, or by a special enactment of law defining who are proper persons to be admitted. Our law contains no such provision. We are compelled to receive whomsoever the courts may send us, irrespective of age, or of mental or physical condition. We have been compelled to receive, during the past year, two boys badly affected with venereal disease. No boy should be admitted to a reform school while laboring under such loathsome maladies. Two others have entered, who apparently are in the last stages of consumption. Such boys would be much better off at home with kind friends, or in some hospital where medical attendance, proper care and suitable comforts can be had. Should there be committed any boy or girl, afflicted with the itch, contagious sore eyes, or even the small-pox, we would be compelled to receive him, according to the present law. The law should be so amended as to require every boy or girl, committed to the Institution, to be examined by some physician in good standing, who shall certify as to the health, constitution, and soundness of intellect of each person so examined; and no officer of the School should be permitted to receive any boy or girl without such certificate; and no boy or girl should be committed to the school, who has any cutaneous, contagious, or loathsome disease, or who has a strong predisposition to scrofula or consumption, or who has not sufficient mental ability to acquire the elements of a commonschool education. There is also a defect in the administration of the law to which the attention of public officers should be called. Too many boys are permitted to lie in jails for weeks and months, awaiting the session of some regular court, before they can have a trial and be committed to the Reform School. The law contemplates no such delay. Any boy under eighteen years of age, apprehended for any crime, other than murder, should be tried before a magistrate, and, if convicted, should be forthwith sent with all the evidence in the case, to a judge of some court of record, who has power to determine at once, without regular court, or jury, whether said boy is a fit subject for the Reform School. The sooner a boy is committed to the School after it is known that he is a fit subject therefor, the better it is for him. Nothing can be more demoralizing to a boy than to compel him to lie monh after month in a filthy jail with corrupt and hardened criminals. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We hereby return our most grateful acknowledgments to all ministers and friends who have so kindly addressed the school, and encouraged us in our arduous labor; also to Mr. William Kittle, of Salem, for gratuitous use of sitting-room and dining-tables on the 3d of July last, and to the publishers of the following newspapers and periodicals for copies gratuitously furnished the school since the 1st of January last: |