THE BOYS' TRAINING FARM.

Shannon News, 3 February 1925, Page 3

THE BOYS' TRAINING FARM.

ITS FUNCTION AND OBJECTIVE. ONLY THREE. PER CENT. OF FAILURES. (From, the. Levin .Chronicle.) "To take the youthful delinquent at his most impressionable age and instead of punishing him, which would set a premium on Crime, to seek to build up in the boy a sense of responsibility; by rational treatment to remove from liis mind a tendency to look upon himself as at war with society, and after a disciplinary period, to give the youth—often the victim of circumstance —a further chance to make good." This was liqw: Mr J. O'Donoghue summed up the objects of the Boys' Training Farm (of which he is manager) to an enquiring "Chronicle" representative, recently. SCOPE OF THE WORK.

The average number of boys at this institution, Mr O'Donoghue continued was about 80, but this number gave no indication of the work such a place is doing. The nuniber of admissions 10 this one institution last year was roughly 226. The eighty who are in residence are made up of three classes—(l) Those, who /have been commit-

ted to the institution by the Juvenile Court for some offence; (2) those who have, after a disciplinary period at the Farm, failed to make good when sent out to work; and (3)—although the second class is largely recruited from this—t-he feeble-minaed whose laiJure to make good, is directly attributable tq their defective intelligence. These latter are part of a wider problem which is at present seriously exercising the minds of the authorities.

The scope oi the. work, lie proceeded, might be gauged from the admissions—/here were 200 odd boys who had showed a disposition towards criminality. They might either be abandoned to their fate, when in all probability the greater number of them would drift into a life of crime, or by the institution of a sympathetic system of reclamation, an attempt might be made to save them; to society. To" punish w;ould be easy, to send a youth guilty of a lapse, to herd with criminals would be the easiest way of dealing with the case—the line of least resistance—but it would inevitably result in confirming them in their criminality. Society fortunately had acquired a better knowledge oi -criminal sociology, and H was n'o-w generally recognised that there were other causes than a natural criminal instinct which \yere responsible for a criminal lapse. Amongst these, lack of adequate control, from whatever cause, and the whole incidence of what may be called environment play an important part. To punish as a criminal, a youth who has .-'alien through such circumstances., would be obviously a peryertion of justice. Many of these boys are above, the average in intelligence and have In them the makings of useful citizens; to give them a. bias in this direction at this, the impressionable age, is. the object of the Weraroa institution. i "EDUCATION AND DISCIPLINE.

Boys, Mr O'Donoghue went on, tame to the Farm from the age of nine years, and were accommodated from tnai age. up to 21 years if necessary. That there were approximately only o per cent, of cases since tiie starting of the Farm, where boys have failed iu make good before, this age, is. the justification of the scheme. The younger boys are in most; oases the iuoorrigibles from other institutions. A Magistrate may commit an offender of this age to' such a place as the Wauganui Receiving Home, "and provided lie behaves himself reasonably, this ends his connection with houses of correction. There are always, however, a certain number of boys, who from one reason or another, are not amenable to discipline, and these are the boys who are sent to Weraroa. It is u'[ be clearly understood that Uiese boys are not necessarily 7 either subnormal.' or naturally predisposed to criminality, but they have temperaments, which require peculiar treatment. s VMPATIIETIC UNDERSTANDING NECESSARY. Often it is merely that they possess spirits which refuse to.submit to arbitrary discipline, and it is here that scope ior a sympathetic understanding and knowledge qf. psychaiqgy becomes invaluable. To. feel that they are understood, and to be treated, as rational human beings is often the "basis of reclamation.

Mr O.'Douoghue instanced a recent case where lie discovered that a hoy,. who had just come, in, vyas going to run away. He questioned the boy, who frankly admitted that such was Ills intention. He had argued the case qut with the boy as between man and man, explaining that if lie ran away he would only he caught and brought back, whilst if ho. stayed on and behaved himself, lie would be placed out at the -earliest possible moment and given a chance to 'become free of the institution. The. Iboy had considered the position for a moment, and then dgcided. "All right," he said, "l'U stick it." Since then lie had given no trouble and. wquld shortly be sent out to work. MENTALITY TESTS. In the case. oj. the younger buys who were received, provision was made for education up to the age of fourteen. There were at present Ai) such boys at the. farm whose education was superintended by Mr E. J. Whyte, a qualified schoolmaster. Provided a boy of. tiiis age showed promise lie w.as after six months boarded out, so that Tie might have the 'benefit of an upbringing in rational home surroundings. A number of those at. the Farm at present—the greater proportion in fact—were boys who had been tried out in this way, but who had 'been sent back as unsuitable. Most of them were mentally .sub-normal. In the case of each boy admitted, the Terman version of the Binet-Simons intelligence tests were employed to determine his mentality. These tests, which are also employed to some extent in the public schools, fix by means ot a series of questions and answers, the development of the Intelligence of the Individual For, in-

stance, if a youth fails to answer a series of questions which experience lias taught are within the capacity of the average 10-year-old child, then' the inference is that the mentality of the person tested is below that of a child of that age. A number of test-sheets produced showed results from .46 normal, to well above the average intelligence.'

OLOEI! BOYS TAUGHT FARMING. Boys .above Hie age of fourteen are put tu work on the Farm, which has an area of about ZiQ acres, and on which .some fifty odd cows are milked. Here an. insight is given into every phase oif dairy-farming and cropping, and the boys, if thought suitable, are sent out fn a few months' time to work with farmers. In all cases where a. farmer applies for a boy, inquiries, are made by the Probation Officer as to the suitability of the home which the. boy would be introduced into, only applications ""from people who. would be expected to have a good influence on the ibovs beingconsidered. EVery one Qf these boys sent out does not immediately make good; many are re-admitted tQ the Farm time after time, but save in the case of the sub-normal the percentage of absolute failures is, as has been stated, less than 3 per cent. It is from amongst this 3 per cent, of failures, boys, who are returned to the Farm time and again as unsuitable, that the runaways occur.

DISCIPLINE WITHOUT RESTRAINT.

"Whilst very regrettable," Mr O'Donoghue said, "tihat these runaways should take place, it must be emphasised that such occurrences are the natural outcome of the system. They are the seamy side of a very fine fabric which is being woven, not without, great difficulty, but which, has resulted to date in saving hundreds oi i'oung fellows from a. life of crime. One of the principles of the system is that itiere shall be no restraint. Save that the boys' clothes are locked away at night, there is notihing to prevent any hoy waiting his opportunity, and slipping away at aiiy time, day or night. The bonds w.ith which it is sought to keep them, for their own good, are moral ones. It is sought to impress - on the boys, that it is for their own good that they should remain quietly, and (behave themselves properly, during their connection with the institution, and s.q earn their freedom as early as: possible. SYSTEM AN ASSURED SUCCESS. That the principle is succeeding, a visit to; the faun will assure the most casual inquirer. Boys are sent, unattended, from one part of the farm toi another in the pursuit of their various avocations.. Whilst they are never at any time free from supervision, being even attended by one of the staff, during their amusements, H will be easily understood that on a large farm, and with a limited staff, the supervision is. by no means' so strict as to be galling. The boys are trusted to a certain degree with a view to developing in them, a sense of responsibility, and the small, percentage of failures niereiy emphasises the general success of the system. Amusements are not. neglected; football and cricket are played in season, whilst a swimming bath is at the present time the chief attraction. Food is plentiful, a,5 the healthy well-fed appearance of the boys testifies, and the result of the open-air lite is visible in their bronzed, faces and sturdy frames.

If is a splendid work which is being done so unostentatiously that it practically escapes the knowledge of the average citizen of Levin. The Boys' Training Fa|rm is a factory where the misfits Qf society are remodelled, ajid with infinite patience tried over time and again, until they fit into the machine. The inspiration of such a scheme is one of the just boasts of a code of criminal jurisdiction open to criticism in many ways, and the furtherance of the work in every w.ay possible is a, work in whtch every person in the community should "be proud to join in as far as circumstance will permit.