(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.