How many of us really know what is best for us? Certainly not the “runaway” youth from the safety of the Hocking Hills of the former Boys’ Industrial School pictured above. You will note that neither of his two feet are on the ground – he was airborne to be sure! Perhaps his cottage parents were a bit stricter than he thought they should have been. Perhaps the English class dealing with gerunds, split infinitives and dangling participles finally got to him. Or perhaps the barber school’s teacher, Mr. Tharp, got to him when he went in for his regular haircut and that tiny piece of straw was stuck through the floppy part of his ear, you know where you’re not supposed to have an “earring”. Taking hold of that piece of straw, Mr. Tharp had said, “I could take this out right now or you could later; but if its there when you come in again I will take it out.” You see, boys at the B.I.S. were not allowed to wear any earrings or other adornment on their body so they would substitute a short piece of straw. Regulations and sameness in an institution are part of the discipline.

Talk about a logjam of the mind. Runaway to what? Since my wife and I were brought to the reality that, whether we knew it or not, we were going to write another book – the pendulum of duty and opportunity knocks few times sometimes – we have been made aware of little incidents like the above story of a piece of straw being “just one little thing” boys on the hill used to see how far they could “push the envelope” before they earned enough demerits to prolong their stay in the reform school. We see this all around us whether it’s at home, at school, at the job or in the neighborhood. It never stops.

When I was in high school there were two or three boys who thought a “Don Eagle” haircut would be neat. (To the unaware, Don Eagle was a wrestler of that era whose hair cut looked a bit like an Indian coiffure – a big streak of hair about three inches wide from the brow, trimmed backwards to a point about level with the ears.) Well, those boys did get to school that day but not for long. Discipline was a reality in the late 1940’s and it did not take long for The Principal to coral those boys into the office and eject them from the school building before all the other boys (maybe 600 or more!!) got nerve enough to visit their barber! Strange how time unravels things; a few decades later, one of those boys became an employee at the Boys’ Industrial School. I’m sure he got a hair cut with a little less flair by that time.

Logjam of the mind? Just as the runaway boy thought he knew best and he was “goin’ home”, many people think their solutions to the problems of the world, as they see them, are the best. On another occasion, one of the boys on the hill confided with one of the employees, “When I get home I’m going to be just like my Dad”. The good thoughts turned sour when the employee learned this boy’s Dad was in the Ohio State Penitentiary. No serious counsel could change that boy’s log jammed mind.

In years gone by how many times did youngsters freely open their mouths to the “spoonful of poison” their mother was ready to dump into their mouths to un-constipate their body? How much fun is it to “do exercises” to improve a physical malady? How much fun is it to push away that extra piece of pie to stay on a needed weight losing diet? What about avoiding that crave for a cigarette, or maybe even a swig of a mind-strangling brew?

It really doesn’t matter whether our war with discipline is a tiny piece of straw instead of a real earring or a mind-destroying drink of an alcoholic beverage. Or perhaps those between meal snacks that we know add to the girth of our stomach. You don’t have to be confined with several hundred other young men to find a logjam exists in our minds. Whatever your problem, there is an answer if only you will honestly consider it. To the earnest seeker, the Bible contains the most reliable reference books for preparing our hearts to be good parents, obedient children or the most successful person in town. Logjam in your life? Let God have a chance to present a different solution for you.

THE WORDWRIGHT - Copyrighted 2007 - Bill Venrick

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(Fourth in the series…)

WHAT’S LIFE LIKE?

It is certain that this question bounces off the wall according to the person or persons asked, “What’s life like?” This series of facts and anecdotes from a unique reform school hidden away in the ravines and hills near Lancaster, Ohio, conjures up thoughts, questions and sometimes criticisms about how the boys were treated at the reform school that set records that deserved the national recognition achieved in just a few short years after its founding in 1856. The dream which was more like a gleam in Charles Reemelin’s eyes when he left France to come back to Ohio loaded with ideas was to be proven the most successful in the United States.

Before going into more details and perhaps more comments “from the boys” I want to share a poem by Gladys LeGrand. Behind every word and line writers put to paper is a story, sometimes a book, that never gets published and maybe never seen except by some visitor to a dusty, cobweb adorned room that itself has vanished from home plans. The attic used to be the place you stored winter clothes and some furniture you wanted to put away and maybe a few old books or albums you want to “work on later”.

The lady who used the pen name, Gladys LeGrand, had lived out life into her nineties. She loved each memory and learned to prize the bad ones whenever she looked back on them. Peggy Baker, who was the real Gladys LeGrand, said she had two claims to fame: She was a writer for Walter Winchell in the 1940’s and a great amount of her poetry was published in journals. “…the only famous one I wrote,” she told her visiting minister, “... it made the New Yorker Magazine, Time, Life and a bunch of others.” Her poem starts out talking about one’s choice in life to have a nice, quiet riding horse to go trotting along with through life – and as she described the kind of quiet horse she wanted, the poem explodes:

“But as I spoke, a stallion, sable and proud,
Broke from the woodland near with his long mane blowing .
He was huge and swift as a storm-driven cloud,
Fierce were his eyes as he galloped, his white teeth showing.

Toward me he ran with fire from his nostrils streaming
Stopped by my trembling side with a snort of thunder.
Round his crimson bridle was graven in letters gleaming
LIFE is my name. Ride me or be trampled under.”

Gladys LeGrand

(Used with permission of Richard A. Wing, from his book,
”The Space Between the Notes”, Copyrighted 1994)
ISBN 0-940882-20-5

Now, if I were to ask, “What is life like?” I might get some different answers. The thousands of young boys, from age 10 to 21, who lived “on the hill” and longed for a little less constrained life or perhaps a lot less complicated life would probably have liked to get a crack at telling their side of the story. It is the aim of my wife and myself as we launch into a full-blown project of writing a history of the Boys’ Industrial School near Lancaster, Ohio, that we can tell some of those stories. Further it is hoped we can enable our readers to see that the ideas, dreams, concepts, principles and philosophies that started the B.I.S. created what turned out to be a Golden Era in the annals of history, more specifically how boys at risk were cared for and challenged from 1856 until 1979. Nearly every one of those boys might well take on Gladys LeGrand’s description of life: ”Ride me or be trampled under.”

In the Booklet of Information, published in 1934, by the Boys’ Industrial School, Printing Dept.,, T. A. Snow, then Superintendent of Schools, wrote: “The present organization of academic training at the institution consists of a junior high school and two elementary schools. The system occupies two separate buildings. The Central School is made up of one junior high and one elementary department; the East School is elementary, organized for the smaller boys whose ages are from ten to thirteen years. The B.I.S. was not just a tool of discipline to “straighten out” boys, occasionally using rather strict measures, but the objective view of the Department of Education that existed is evidence the larger picture of each boy was a matter of concern. The teaching staff in 1934 consisted of fourteen teachers, four of whom are college graduates; the others had at least one to two years of college training. The school enrollment was 600, as follows: First Grade, 5; Second Grade, 7; Third, 14; Fourth, 43; Special, 62; Fifth, 96; Sixth, 115; Seventh, 118; Eighth, 66; Ninth, 43; Commercial 31.

”A boy’s education is a vital objective; therefore, his training in this respect is a matter of much concern and thoughtful supervision. It is considered quite essential then that we attempt to discover his native ability, his intelligence rating, interests, possibilities, aptitudes and his own individual handicap – to understand and to know him early, to know how much and what to expect from him as a student in his academic requirement, analytical, perhaps, to the extent of advising the necessity in certain cases of constant surveillance.” (ibid)

Breaking down the word, REFORM, takes on an entirely new meaning when educational aspects are factored in: re-inform, re-learn, re-place unprofitable or unsuitable habits with better information and profitable lessons for life after he leaves the B.I.S. Discipline is more than administering physical measures, the mind is the first area for true discipline.

Since we have decided to write a history of the institution, this concludes the series on the Boys’ Industrial School near Lancaster, Ohio. Although feature stories about the B.I.S. have been written and published in the newspaper, no book has been written on the subject.

THE WORDWRIGHT
All above Copyrighted by Bill & Jean Venrick, 2007, all rights reserved.

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(This is a break for the B.I.S. series, which will continue in another week or so…)

Providence of the divine kind has played a part in my life so often, to disregard it would be sacrilegious. Such is the case in working up essays to publish on The Wordwright. The last three essays have been relating the workings of the Boys’ Industrial School that was closed in 1979. Anyone who observes our society knows or can make fair assumptions as to why changes are made; and sometimes such changes are not exactly necessary or an improvement. But that is another story.

Introducing this essay, TROUBLE AHEAD, which is a related story about our “changing society” and seems fitting to slip in between future essays about the B.I.S. I have been a member of the American Amateur Press Association for around twenty years and occasionally fellow members’ works have been shared in this website. Once more I want to give space to two different members whose journals told stories illustrating changes of our culture in regard to morals and integrity. Ken Davis, of Racine Wisconsin, relates an incidence when The American Profile newspaper (insert magazine section) did a series of articles entitled, “Will You Marry Me?” Ken had sent in his own engagement story and reading the final entries, the first story went like this:

”Way back in 1976, I was taking a bath at his apartment when he needed to come in to use the restroom. He told me that the level of comfort we both seemed to have in that moment prompted him to ask me to marry him. So he proposed to me while he was sitting on the toilet and I was in the bathtub.”

Right then and there Ken realized his “simple” story didn’t have a chance — Ken had written about the occasion where he had surreptitiously noticed his fiancé’s ring and, asking to see it closer, he cleverly (so he thought) exchanged an engagement diamond for her costume jewelry and when his fiancé started to put the ring on, she noticed what it was and he proposed to her -- no, Ken’s story did not win the prize.

In our society today where unmarried male and female Seniors are sharing apartments in an attempt to survive the crunch of an economy gone mad and un-married “couples” having babies that may or may not have daddies once the novelty of their arrangements wears off, is it any wonder why we find institutions like the B.I.S. was put to its knees and completely brought down by limp reasoning and trumped up charges? The following essay by another fellow member of the AAPA, Harry Spence, of Norwood, Massachusetts puts the topping on this subject. Compare his conclusions with the incident above and draw your own conclusions.

TROUBLE AHEAD

There are a multitude of problems on the American table, including war, illegal immigration, frenzy about “global warming” and the education of our youth. Among these, I am most concerned with the last: Education.

Ever since the creation of the Department of Education, the education of our young people has declined. Is there a connection? I’m not smart enough to figure that one out, but as the man says, “There’s no such thing as coincidence!”

Another big factor is that our children are taught by persons who are members of a union. In my opinion, unions were established to improve the lot of the working person, through better wages and working conditions, both laudable objectives. Until rather recently, teachers were not members of unions; our schools were better and our kids received an excellent education. Again, coincidence?

A few years ago, I spent some time as a substitute teacher at Norwood High School. It was a sobering experience. I couldn’t believe the utter lack of discipline in the school generally, and in the classroom particularly. The really bright students were culled out of the mob and formed classes. It was a pleasure to have them as they showed interest and were not always trying to find ways to beat the system. Not so with the run-of-the-mill classes. Each student seemed to have one objective: to do the least while submitting the teacher to utter chaos.

I found the teaching community to be complacent relative to the lack of discipline. I can understand that their continuing exposure to chaos in the classroom caused them to channel the problem in order to keep their sanity. My experiences were some years ago; what can it be now. We have Federal funding through programs as “No child Left Behind,” the learning curve does not get better. Mandatory testing is required under this act. What is done is that the teachers teach to the parameters of the test; general education goes by the wayside.

The terrible irony is that the really smart kids give themselves an education. They almost do not need teachers; they will find a way to make it. What about all the others? They are the lost souls. And, their ranks are expanding.

Can you believe there is illiteracy in the United States? Many of the young people in the poorer neighborhoods cannot read or write. How can this happen, you say? Their parents did not support the kids in their schoolwork; they were too tired; they had their own lives to live; the schools were supposed to teach them they didn’t have enough time; they were working two (three) jobs; they didn’t realize.

How about the schools themselves? Push the kids along; graduate them, irrespective of grades; it’s an accomplishment to have them attend school; teacher quality. As noted above, teachers are supported by union philosophy. The leadership believes it’s their responsibility to keep their members employed at high salaries and expensive benefits. Teaching? A secondary responsibility.

Teachers of poor quality are retained because it is impossible to fire them. Kids receive less than inspired teaching. The good teachers lose heart after awhile or they attach themselves to the ‘smart’ kids because they get enjoyment from their enthusiasm. We have the worst of all situations: the ‘smart’ ones need less handholding, but they get extra attention; the ‘dodos’ are ignored — they disturb the equanimity of the teacher.

School budgets are at an all time high and go higher every year. Many towns are finding it difficult, if not impossible, to finance their schools. Much of this comes from the superstructure of a school; the psychologists, guidance counselors, education specialists, maintenance staffs, performing arts specialist, etc.

This is our “Trouble Ahead!”

Thanks, Harry Spence and Ken Davis for some fine tuning on the image of our changing society.

THE WORDWRIGHT

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