and partly because it closed a cavity menacing to her health. She came to Boston alone, but it was unwise to let her go to the dental school unattended. This meant many trips for the visitor, but it was only humane. The girl, very likely, would never have come to the school but for her discouragement at being different from others. Sometimes a girl is so anxious about a sick mother or a wayward brother or sister that she cannot settle down until we plan for them. In cases of need we arrange for a girl to send money home, so that she will feel responsible and helpful. Sometimes a visitor may take a girl home to a funeral, or, as the reward of months of effort, for a day's visit. This brings the visitor closer to the girl and her people. She may find some aunt or cousin who can give the girl the home and care she needs. The girl's relatives are usually a source of difficulty, but occasionally a real help,—a big factor in any case. The daughters are potential wage-earners, and the poorer and more ignorant the parents the harder it is for them to believe that the girl, who seems at the school so healthy, well behaved and well intentioned, would not be the same at home. The experience of the family whose daughter does come home before she is really strong enough to withstand the old temptations under spasmodically strict and loose parental guidance is, unfortunately, no lesson to any other mother or father. Parents constantly visit the office. We look them up as soon as possible after the girl goes to the school, and later, when she is ready to come out. Of course, if they are well-meaning people our aim is to get their daughter back to them as soon as she is ready. Last year 55 girls were in their homes or with relatives. Here the visitor's greater experience in finding work, her knowledge of trade training, classes, clubs at the settlements and the other resources of the community are helpful. The lax, unwise home control, while the girl is experiencing the greater freedom and danger lying in factory work and unoccupied evenings and Sundays in the old environment, makes a friend most necessary. The mother needs and wants counsel even more than an employer. This year there were 9 older girls who had no suitable home and who were working at some trade, like dressmaking. For them we found boarding places. Some girls can get along in the freedom of a philanthropic boarding house, like Brooke House; others need more care and are put in private families. For instance, one girl, who was very fortunately situated, lived with a mother and daughter, the latter being musical. Our girl took lessons and practised on the piano evenings. The girls shared the sitting room in the entertainment of their young men friends. Another girl, beginning as a saleswoman, earned her board and lodging in a family of three by being in the house evenings with the child whenever the parents wished to go out. To find such places takes much effort and time. When the girl marries, it might be imagined that the visitor's period of vital service was over. Sometimes it is, but often the proverbially difficult first year of married life brings the girl back to her visitor for advice, encouragement or, perhaps, for congratulation. When I see a very young man lurking bashfully in our entry I know that he has found the girl who was a problem to her parents and to us a problem to him. The head of a large and splendidly effective placing-out society said to me that the two classes which absorb most of a visitor's time are older wayward girls and infants. We combine both in our unmarried mothers. There are few of them, considering that sexual vice is our strongest enemy, but they make a special demand on the visitor. A baby does not preclude a happy future for the mother. Mother love and a strong interest will often hold the girl when everything else has failed. The only time we begrudge is that spent on the girls who are on the border line of feeble-mindedness. No doubt there are many like them in their own homes with parents capable of safeguarding them. Our girls come from homes where this is not the case. Placed out, only eternal vigilance can protect them. They thrive and are happy under the well-ordered routine of an institution, but they are unable to cope with the irregularity and responsibility of family life. At twenty-one they are still unfitted to fend for themselves. Failure, illegitimate children and the corruption of young men will be their portion. Docile, affectionate, willing and able to do the same thing over and over, it would be but another step in the State's far-sighted policy to gather these poor unfortunates into communities, where they would be almost self-supporting. The most pronounced cases are sent to the School for the Feeble-minded at Waverley, but there are still others in our care whom we cannot help, and who take an undue proportion of our time. Each visitor has a group of girls who are her responsibility until they are twenty-one. She knows the home of each girl, the family, the story of the early days, the opinion of other people, and the societies which have tried to help her, what our school has done and how she has responded to it, her physical condition, her life on probation step by step, her young men friends, her ambitions, hopes and fears, her weakness and her strength. She is bound close to the girl by a great common interest, the success of that girl's life. With her finger on the pulse she can often forestall crises; she should know the right moment for the experiment of going home or starting a trade. With this nearness, which means having the girl always on her mind, the visitor's aim is to develop the self-reliance of her charge, and to establish her in a real corner of her own in the world, where she will be just like other people. In the statistical tables (pages 99-119) the facts concerning every girl under twenty-one years are recorded. The work of our office during the past year, exclusive of volunteer assistance, is outlined in the following statement: 16 Boarding places found for working girls or maternity cases, Girls committed to School for Feeble-minded and to insane asylums, . Runaways hunted, Runaways found, not counting those found by police, Parents, relatives, lovers and husbands seen, Girls, applicants for girls, and others visited but out, 37 5 55 times. 33 724 times. 87 482 131 2,285 times. 152 661 6 . $6,153 42 2,048 61 $387 25 789 93 507 51 292 23 1,967 92 1 Of the $793.90 spent for board, $453.21 was for maternity cases, and $340.69 for others. 2 Of the $800.68 spent for hospitals, medicine, etc., $308.95 was for maternity cases, and $492.73 for others. 98 PHYSICIAN'S REPORT INDUST'L SCHOOL. [Dec. PHYSICIAN'S REPORT. To the Trustees of the Lyman and Industrial Schools. Since I took charge of the medical work at the Lancaster State Industrial School, in January, the general health of the girls has been very good. Although there have been a large number of ailments, there have been but few cases of serious illness, and none but what has terminated favorably. All cases of sickness at the Lancaster School are first seen by the nurse, and those requiring special attention are reported All new commitments and most of the returned girls have been taken to the hospital, and there given what attention they needed before being placed at a house. to me. The eye, ear, nose and throat work has been done by Dr. D. F. O'Connor of Worcester. All new commitments, and such of the others as needed, have been examined by him, and errors of refraction, as well as diseases of these organs, have received proper attention. The teeth of the girls have been admirably cared for by Dr. E. T. Fox of Clinton, and I believe that not only the personal appearance but the general health has been bettered by the cleaning, filling and straightening which he has done. Respectfully submitted, C. C. BECKLEY. |