THE ORPHAN HOME.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 704, 3 February 1922, Page 5

THE ORPHAN HOME.

DEVELOPMENT AND PROSPECTS. EXTENDING THE BUILDINGS. CARING FOR THE CHILDREN. WORK AT PAPATOETOE. Like many institutions with small beginnings, the Orphan Home finds that a radical change s necessary if it is to be carried on under conditions consistent with the demands of modern sanitary and social science. EARLY PARNELL DAYS. Up to 1908 the sheds in which it was housed in its early PartielL days were still utilised; a stable, removed from St. John’s Colege in these early times to form a dining hall, still served its purpose as such, while old gables and “lean-to’s” built round it, weiie still the kitchen and infants’ dormitory. Two other buildings completed the “Home,” one the schoolroom (repeatedly enlarged), squat, dark and inconvenient; the other the remains of the main dormitories saved from the fire, (temporarily repaired and altered. Signs of the age were in evidence throughout, and the scrupulous cleanliness served to bring the patchwork of continued repair into special prominenc. NEED OF NEW BUILDINGS. That new buildings were required bad long been recognised by the Beard, and a building fund established before the fire broke out, but this calamity rendered immediate action necessary.

Healthy as the site had proved in the past, it could no longer boast of fresh air and open surroundings. ShuE in by villas, part of the ground already taken for the Maori Girls' School, and a further limitation proposed in the succeeding years, it seemed >to the Board unwise to place new buildings in a neighbourhood soon to be thickly populated, and on land to which it appeared impossible to obtain a proper title. PURCHASE GF PAPATOETOE SITE. Having regard to these considerations and the difficulties apparent, the land at Papptoetoe—even then recognised as a most suitable, almost ideal, site —was purchased. Tire form of the buildings was decided on only after careful! inquiries hi New Zealand, Australia, and Great Britain, “BARRACK” SYSTEM DISAPPEARING. In England, the old “barrack” system, under which large numbers of children were gathered into one building, with large dormitories and large common playrooms, was fast disappearing, parjtly from the difficulty of obtaining the requisite amount of fresh air under these condtions, and also from the grave objection ths<& each child obtained too little individual attention.

“COTTAGE” SYSTEM ORIGINATED.

Succeeding |the “barrack” system came the “cottage” system, an attempt to make institutional life more like home life, by placing a limited number of children in each of several detached cottages, under the care of r'' nr -” her personal •influence out of school hours. The greatly increased cost of this system, both in buildings and management, led to its modification in many recent re-arrangements of schools and orphanges which had been built in the form of “pavilions,” each with a dormitory, playroom, and accessories for a limited number of children, and accommodation for the “mother” or “sister” in charge, while the diningroom, school kitchen, store rooms, and quarters for the staff were common for the whole institution. “PAVILION” SYSTEM ADOPTED. This modification of the “cottage” system, known as the “pavilion” system, ithe Board had adopted, and a comprehensive scheme, a part of which has now been built was drawn up. Provision was then made so that as additions were required it would be possble to avoid the inharmonious result so often seen in growing institutions, and incidentally Illustrated during the history of the Home by the many gables and “lean-to’s” referred ..to in the rather uncouth building at Parnell (To be continued).