Two societies doing important work in other lines are strongly interested in educational preventive work—the New York Probation Association and the Church Mission of Help. Both make special appeal to churches, to societies, and to clubs of women. The Probation Association organizes among working girls protective leagues, fourteen of which leagues have been started. Their main purpose is to secure the help of girls in protecting other girls. They endeavor to raise the tone of conversation in places where girls assemble and work. Lectures on sex hygiene are given, wholesome recreation is encouraged, and higher ideals of life cultivated. The Church Mission of Help organizes bands of women, principally in Episcopal churches, to study the needs of wayward girls and to give help as they are able. Both of these societies encourage parents, guardians, and girls in need to come to them for advice and help, thus making their work more personal.
The foregoing direct agencies mainly exert their preventive influence on the public en masse. The more definite and concrete examples of preventive work appear in the work of homes which concern themselves with individuals in distress. They take girls, some of them very young girls, who are subject to bad influences, who are incorrigible, or who for various reasons find difficulty in their home life. Of such homes there are several. Those reaching the larger numbers are represented by the Children’s Department of the House of Mercy and the House of the Good Shepherd. For colored girls the work on the larger scale is done by the Howard Orphan Asylum, which maintains a house at Kings Park, Long Island. The smaller homes, of which there are at least six in New York, deal more personally with the individual girl. Their capacity ranges from 25 to 75. Of this type is the Free Home for Young Girls, managed by an incorporated association of church women. The inmates, mostly sent by guardians and friends, are from eleven to seventeen years of age. A real home life is maintained. Most of the girls attend the public schools. All are taught sewing, simple cooking, laundry work, and housework. They remain two or three years and are sent out to friends or to situations with approved surroundings. In Brooklyn the Training School and Home for Young Girls cares for and trains girls by a method similar to that of the Free Home. Two of these homes are partly preventive and partly reformative—the House of the Holy Family and the Washington Square Home. The first named is conducted by the Association for Befriending Young Girls, under the immediate charge of the Sisters of the Divine Compassion, and cares for 75 young girls, mostly Roman Catholics. Instruction in ordinary school branches is given. Physical exercises, manual training, and domestic science are taught. Special attention is given to the matter of amusements; religious as well as friendly care is provided. Provision is made for all girls leaving the home. Correspondence with Sisters and visits to the home are encouraged. This home cared for 177 girls in 1912.
The Washington Square Home is a non-sectarian institution. It provides a home for indefinite periods for girls who have erred or who are in danger of so doing. They come voluntarily to the home. Twenty-seven can be accommodated and the home is usually full. Of the 64 received in 1912, fifty were Protestants, 12 Roman Catholics, and 2 Hebrews. The average age of the girls is 18. Instruction in housework, laundry, and plain sewing is given. Girls are kept as long as necessary to train for self-support.
All these homes maintain good discipline and friendly relations. The girls usually go out equipped to live and with a strong appreciation of what has been done for them. Unfortunately their facilities are very limited in consequence of the meager resources. Usually from three to eight girls occupy a room when, as a matter of principle, each girl should be given her own cubicle. Moreover, the capacity is far below what is required.[315] Even as it is, valuable preventive results have been accomplished in case of those girls who have been reached.
(b) REFORMATIVE WORK
The border line between preventive and reformative work is in theory definite and clear; in practice, as illustrated by institutions, it is rather hazy. These institutions and homes endeavor to help women who have actually yielded to temptation or to force of circumstances.
They are susceptible of division along several lines. Some are small, under religious or private control, and for the most part reach the less demoralized class. There are also larger establishments, which receive both girls committed by the court and girls who enter voluntarily. Among the former may be mentioned the Margaret Strachan Home, the Midnight Mission and St. Michael’s Home, and the New Shelter for Young Women, quite recently opened.
The Margaret Strachan Home cares for 24 girls temporarily. They come voluntarily, through doctors and mission friends, remain from one to six months, receive certain training under religious influences, and are sent out to maternity hospitals or to friends. There were 80 girls in the home in 1911, most of them under twenty years of age. For twenty-nine years this home has been conducted under the management of an association of religious women. The Wayside Home in Brooklyn provides a home for friendless girls and serves as a reformatory for Protestant young girls in Kings County. It emphasizes home care and practical training.
The St. Michael’s Home is at Mamaroneck. It is operated under the Protestant Episcopal Church by the Sisters of St. John the Baptist. It cares for 60 girls at a time, most of them for the space of two years. Instruction in school branches and in housework and home-making is given. Girls come through parents and guardians, a few by commitment. Many of them are discovered by the missionary visitor. They go out to proper places equipped for usefulness.
Of the larger institutions there are four,—the House of the Good Shepherd, the House of Mercy, the New York Magdalen Benevolent Society and the Ozanam Home for Friendless Women. All of these receive wayward women of all kinds, and the House of the Good Shepherd and the House of Mercy receive little girls from dangerous surroundings. While they do not seek for committed cases, such are accepted. The Magdalen Society is the oldest home of this kind, having been founded in 1833.