The State Reform School

The Board of Control of the State Keform School have made their annual report to the Superintendent of Public Instruction. The following are some of the most interesting features of the report : The great success of the family house has induced the Board to ask from the Legislature an appropriation of ten thousand dollars at its nest session, for the purpose of erecting another house. There is still a balance of the last appropriation unexpendod of $8,188 47. The whole number of boys now in the school is 227. During the past year 109 were admitted and 88 released. Out of the number received 87 were committed for larceny, 8 for vagrancy, 4 for forgery, 7 for assault and battery, 1 for obtaining property on false pretenses, and 2 were returued. Wayne oounty furnishes 14, Kent 9, Saginaw 7 and other.counties from 6 to 1. The average age of those committed was 13 years and 3 1-3 months. Of the whole number thirty-four had lost their father, twenty-five their mother, and four both paren ts; thirty-one had beon arrested for crime; eighteen used intoxicating drinks; forty-SHven had been in jail, and sixty-five had slept out in boxes, sheds, etc. They are mostly employed in the cane shops and cigar shops. The physician reports the health of the institution as excellent ; but two boys have died during the year. The Superintendent makes the following recommendations : 1. The ohanging the law of commitments so as to permit the Board of Control, under proper regulations, to adinit boys without the stain of convictiou, and a record of the same to annoy them in subsequent lite. Parents feeling the necessity of restraint, "ften before the boy becomes amenable to the law for grave offenses actually committed, apply for admission for their children here. Duriiig the past year not less than twenty-five such applications have been made. Many of them would gladly have met part or all the expenses of their support, if they could have been permitted to do so. 2. The change of the law fixing the minimum age of admission at ten years. During the early history of the school the limit was seven years. It occurs frequently that a boy not under proper tutorage or care, becomes wayward and needs restraint. He can only be sent to the county jail or House of Correction, and sometimes he passes more than one such conviction before he is sent here. That at least two years may be taken from the minimum age, and the limits be eight and sixteen. 3. That the limit of detention be changed to eighteen instead of twenty-one. With these changea and improvements the work of the institution will come within the proper scope of such an establishment - more school-like in its operation. The resources from its labor will be somewhat less.