STATE OF NEW YORK

TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

BOARD OF MANAGERS

OF THE

New York State Training School

for Girls

At Hudson, N. Y.

For the Year Ending June 30, 1924

ALBANY

J. B. LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS

BOARD OF MANAGERS

President

WILLIAM L. VISSCHER

Vice-President

ARVIE ELDRED

Secretary

JOSEPH PERLMUTTER

Treasurer

JOHN F. BRENNEN

HELEN MONTAGUE, M. D.

LUTHER EMERICK, M. D.

MARY K. SCOVILL

ANNUAL REPORT

To the Legislature of the State of New York:

July 1, 1924.

The Board of Managers of the New York State Training School for Girls, as required by law, respectfully submits the following report for the year ending June 30, 1924.

There has been no change in the personnel of the Board of Managers during the year.

Regular meetings of the Board have been held each month and there has always been a quorum present for the transaction of business.

July 15, 1923, Mrs. Fannie French Morse assumed the duties of superintendent in the school. The past year has witnessed a very decided change in the policy of the school pertaining to the care and training of the disadvantaged girl committed to the institution.

It has been recognized that the State of New York was far behind in its methods, and care of the disadvantaged and unfortunate. The policy of the State is now a forward looking policy in this respect and the New York State Training School for Girls is taking a leading place in the adoption of modern and progressive ideas for the training and education of the girls.

The superintendent came to the school imbued with an unbounded faith in the possibilities of the disadvantaged girl committed to the care of the school, and has presented to the board modern, progressive ideas for the development of the latent good qualities which every girl possesses.

A study of the characteristics of the individual girl is made and the girl is developed along the line which offers the best prospect for future benefit.

Although the change in the policy of the school has been brief in duration, nevertheless, the Board of Managers believes good results have been obtained.

Not alone in the care and training of the girl while in the school has there been a change in the policy, but also in the after care and supervision of the girl has the policy of the school been changed. The latter method for helping the girl has not yet been fully developed, but this branch of the training is now being carefully considered.

In order that your honorable body and the people of the State may be advised of the work which is being performed in the training school, we are attaching reports which will serve more fully to enlighten and inform your honorable body and also the people of the State upon the care and training of the disadvantaged girl.

To the Board of Managers of the New York State Training School for Girls:

The following report for the month of June is respectfully submitted:

This report marks the close of the first year under the present administration. It has been a year of policies so revised as to have very materially changed the atmosphere and conduct of the Hudson State Training School for Girls. Believing that deprivation of the exercise of self behavior is destructive morally and spiritually, the policies have been those of greater freedom mentally, morally, physically. Recognizing the fact that the purpose of the institution is the training to life, the readjustment back to citizenship has been a constant effort to bring into the life of the institution a movement parallel to that of the community outside the institution. Only through movements natural to life can one train to life. Believing that this disadvantaged, unadjusted, undeveloped girl must find her development, her growth, her adjustment through expression rather than repression, there has been an effort to make for her in the institution those contacts which make for self-expression. Believing that the final necessary force must be that of self-control, there has been emphasized this added freedom and privilege as a medium through which to gain that self-control. There has been stressed the girl as an individual, not the girl as a group or one of a group.

To meet the dual need, that of discipline within the institution and a training to livelihood after the institution, there has been developed a large educational program. A unique phase of this educational program has been our scheme of occupational courses. Supplementing our enlarged freedom of life and interests within the institution has been a gratifying inter-relation which has developed between the institution and our immediate communities. As a gauge of our advanced accomplishment in our educational scheme is the commencement exercise which features the closing of our school year. This was held for the first time in the history of the institution. Exercises typical to such as would be found in our public schools, even in some of our best boarding schools. A graduation program which covered three days. At this time there were presented forty-five diplomas: thirty-four from the grammar grades; eleven from a very adequate commercial department which had been a part of the year's organization.

Our occupational courses up to this time cover the Commercial Department referred to a course which is already sending our girls out into the commercial and business world. Some of our girls have shown very marked aptitude for this work. Signal appreciation and mention has been given us from the Gregg School of Chicago and by the World's Amateur Champion Typist. From the latter came invitation for two of our girls to enter the competitive contests of the coming fall. Already some of our girls from our Commercial Department are holding good positions, one of them receiving $100 a month. At the same time she is extending her commercial training in further study;

A Department in Music, not only in voice training, but piano instruction, the latter is particularly made a corrective force and this, with marked results;

A more extended Course in Dressmaking and Design. Formerly there had been regular training in grade sewing-grades which carried plain dressmaking, but with little thought of the artistic. Today, a girl showing special aptitude for costume design is able to enter a well laid out class in such instruction;

Cooking made more practical than a theoretical instruction by the practical preparation of the three meals a day that a dozen of our teachers being fed in the dining-room attached to the cooking kitchen have demanded;

Instruction which we have termed "Lady Valet" since it teaches the art of the care of a woman's wardrobe. Woman in the business world has created many new callings. This of "Lady Valet" is one. To relieve the business woman of the necessary care of her wardrobe; to afford her the sponged suit, the relined suit; the revamped and renewed suit; the cared-for soiled and frayed gloves; to supply sponging, removal of stains, the "stitch in time"; in fact, to make possible for her the maintenance and renewal of her wardrobe is no mean profession and promises a business of large importance. Many a girl of ours is peculiarly fitted for such work. To her the training is given both theoretically and practically, by lecture and by doing. The wardrobes of the girls and helpers afford the medium through which to be trained.

A course in Beauty Culture which is not only training the special girl, particularly our colored girl, to a calling which is today being standardized and given its proper place in the social scheme of things, but which is emphasizing to every girl in the institution, the much needed quality that of finer personal attention and which is affording possibly more than in any other way the opportunity to teach our girls what is suitable in personal appearance; A short course in Hospital Training to "nurse-maidery" or baby-attendant;

course.

A most practical course in Home-Decorative Arts or Interior Decoration. For this course a medium through which to train has been found in our great need of the renewing and beautifying our home cottage interiors. Supremely practical has been made that Great necessities have been met. Much has been accomplished. This course has covered restoring of broken plastered walls; painting and otherwise decorating walls; remodeling and refinishing old furniture; making and placing of window hangings; renewal of table and other household linens. All of this has introduced the girl to a new world of creation. The study of color in the mixing of paints and in the dyeing of old stuff for window hangings, and furniture upholstery; the transformation of cheap and common stuff into not only the useful but the beautifulthe fact that the commonest things about us represent all of this utility and beauty if we can see "pictures in stone" and direct our hands to the doing;