Early next morning the body was found by one of the boys on search duty. The body was taken to Middletown, three miles away, by the coroner’s undertaker. Morning service was postponed. The rest of the morning was given over to bathing and to visits to the boys. The visitors roamed the farm with the boys at will. The day was ideal, and with the remarkably attractive scenery, helped lift the gloom from the little colony. Even death cannot darken very long such a beautiful spring day in Orange County. Dinner came along for a hungry two-score, with spirits still somewhat subdued, but no longer blackened by the shadow of death. To the regular dinner crowd there were added now the wife and child of the officer occupying the farmhouse.
There were three long tables, with benches on either side, all constructed of boards such as were used for building the bunkhouse. The carpet of the dining room was rich green grass, and the ceiling green foliage and blue sky, all gilded with bright warm sunshine. A brisk fresh breeze made electric fans superfluous. Roast beef, gravy, brown baked potatoes, coffee with real milk in plenty, (from the four cows borrowed from another institution) and the most delicious of lemon pies rapidly disappeared.
Soon after dinner a service was held. I confess I was quite curious to see this service, without minister, conducted by “Bob,” separated from his group by the deepest of sectarian differences. At these services occurrences of the week and plans of the coming week are talked over, and a kind of rough-and-ready, heart-to-heart moralizing is done. The subject, this day, was of course the death of their unfortunate comrade. I did not know then, that the most impressive of all funeral services I have ever seen, was to come that afternoon. The boys and instructors (that is what the officers are called) lay in a group on the grass under the shade of tall trees, and Bob sat on a stump. His face showed signs of the deep anxiety and sleeplessness of the last few days. The talk was brief. The boys were asked to meditate over the decease of their friend, and draw their own lessons. One point only was enlarged upon. Some neighboring farmers had criticised the management for continuing to work during the two days following the day of the accident. “If sorrow is heartfelt, it does not require that duty towards the living be sacrificed to empty form in regard to the dead.” Only the words were simpler, more explicit.
The afternoon was spent in gathering flowers to give to the parents of the dead comrade, who were to arrive that afternoon. There was a wreath of white lilacs, and bunches of lilies of the valley, and white wild flowers. When the parents arrived, boys and instructors stood bare-headed in front of the old dilapidated framehouse that had been patched up to serve for the various purposes of the farm, and as a kind of general field headquarters. Some twenty to thirty feet from the house each boy had planted a tree on arbor day. After a few words from Bob, the tree that had been planted by the dead boy was dug up and transplanted to a place of honor. Then amid deep silence, the father spoke to the comrades of his lost son. It is impossible for me to render the simple words in their true effect. He hoped that the death of his son might teach the rest of the boys the same lesson that his life could no longer teach, namely, that the efforts of good men could not fail to save them from evil careers, if they brought but a little good-will towards those that were willing to help them regain their true selves.
Not an eye remained dry, and the instructor who offered the simple closing prayer—in the absence of any minister—could hardly choke down his tears. They had lost their son when he was all but saved from the abyss of crime, by nature and by good men.
Under the stress of such an intense day, following days of hard labor under untoward conditions, I came to understand why Mr. Rosenbluth insisted so much upon the personality of his helpers; why he had spent large sums of his own private funds, to persuade men to leave better paying, often more than twice as renumerative positions, to come to the farm. These men sacrificed money, comfort, even the one day in the week freedom, to spend all their time with the boys, to reform them by sheer force of personality. In labor, in fun, in sorrow they understood and were understood by the boys. They could laugh with them and keep silence with them. I want to congratulate them all: Mr. Rosenbluth and his aids Messrs. Blue, Buck, Ford, Wissner for their remarkable ability to dispense with the pleasure of pleasure-seeking, for the pleasure of service.
The success of the New Hampton Farms as an experiment in reformation lies surely not in its fertile soil, its excellent location, the unprecedented plans for the classification of its future inmates, for the erection of the future buildings. The crops of the farm in this handicapped year may prove economically profitable or disastrous. Individual inmates may escape, or otherwise disgrace the little colony. Many may fall again into temptation, among bad companions, filthy, immoral environments, and their own vicious inclinations. But the farm has already shown that there can be a vastly different spirit between a different type of officers and the same inmates, and that this “spirit can be built up with the institution.”
PSYCHOLOGICAL WORK WITH OFFENDERS FOR THE COURTS
By William Healy, M. D.
Director Psychopathic Institute of the Juvenile Court of Chicago