Copyrighted 2010 by Bill & Jean Venrick

The pictures accompanying this essay show a BIS boy plowing with horses and a BIS boy driving a tractor pulling a hay bailer! A few weeks prior to writing this article found this writer driving through a rural setting and taken back a hundred years or more - there came an Amish young man driving a team of horses pulling some kind of agricultural "distributor" of fertilizer. He was standing up, holding rein on those horses just like farmers did all over our country decades ago, and you could tell by the smile on his face he couldn't have been happier had he been sitting atop a modern John Deere combine. One fact has to be recognized: he knew who he was. This was not the young man trying to "find himself" who in reflection years later laments, "been there, done that".

Some principles and precepts governed the BIS (and FSB) that might be foreign or no less than a light year or two different from our current culture. Is that (all) bad? No, and it should not be all that surprising either. In one of the photographs above it is obvious farm work at the BIS was done just like the rest of farmers at that time--they used horses (or mules). The other photo shows a farm scene where horse-power was supplied by a tractor. But "work" was work in either case, the methods simply coincided with the times. The Amish boy, in the first paragraph, was simply exercising his privilege to work with horses instead of a gasoline-powered tractor.

The following copy from the September issue (Page 14) of The Industrial School Journal, dated 1930 expresses the basic guidelines of the BIS during its 125 year history. Of course, in any organization, whether then or now, all kinds of personalities and individuals are involved and it is a given admission that no supervisor or any other employee claimed perfection but these words sum up the institution's basic purpose and principles:

"Training the boy who has broken the laws of our land in a useful occupation so that he may become a self-reliant, self-sustaining, producing citizen is the objective for which the Boys Industrial School was established by the State of Ohio. To supply a [temporary] home, giving the youngster a [surrogate] father and mother in place of the ones from which he was taken, that he may have parental advice, counsel and care. We are only meeting our obligation to the great state employing us in so far as we faithfully strive to attain that objective in spirit and in deed, failing in that the school should be closed."

No one is so naive to believe that every boy who was sent to the BIS would give an A+ to the facts testifying to the accuracy or fulfillment of this objective but those who often wrote back to the school or to this author, conceded what they received at the BIS (or the FSB) was what they needed. Some were even convinced that the BIS saved their lives! Perspective and introspection can result in truth when given time.

The photos depicting work and education at the BIS may be repulsive to some social groups who believe a child should not be forced to work. Yet within the biblical principles that enabled our nation to grow through faith in our Creator God, it is noted in words and principles: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." (2nd Thessalonians 3:10) But some in our society have taken the stance that it was wrong to make the children raised in orphanages work during previous years. It was common to require the children to work in the fields or the barnyards. Unfortunately, for the most part, those otherwise successful orphanages and children's homes and institutions like the BIS have been forced to close their doors in compliance to these unsettling theories. Work is no disgrace to anyone and to those familiar with the Bible know the Scripture teaches a strong work ethic To those in rural areas of the 19th century (and earlier) there was no alternative - you worked because the milk would not magically appear in bottles on your breakfast table, you worked at shearing sheep because your wool did not magically appear in bundles in your barn, you worked at getting the crops in or they remained useless in the fields. Meat, milk, vegetables and eggs were food on the tables because someone worked. Work, whether it involved adults or children, boys or girls, was a part of life, and continues to this day.

We live in a very casual world and work has been denigrated and our throw-away society has corrupted good things of life. In less than six decades we have seen torn clothes, in need of patches, glorified and made a sign of fashion. Less than fifty years ago if fabrics wore out, mothers patched torn garments. In fact, some mothers were so proficient their patches were nearly invisible. And even patches became a rite of passage for some clothes -- a neat leather patch at the elbows of coats and sweaters was even fashionable. Today clothes that have been tumbled in some kind of "stone washing" are sought out by those who "have to be in style". Some even buy perfectly good jeans and tediously separate the fabric making "designs", regardless how erratic they appear, giving a pretense that their clothes are worn threadbare. Rather, if the truth were known, it is more likely those who intentionally tear the knees out of brand new jeans would have never known what it was to work hard enough to wear holes in their clothes.

True, this is a battle of fads and fancies and a glorification of tattered clothes, but it is also subtle evidence that people are pretenders of the first degree. People just fifty years ago would have been ashamed to go to school or appear in public places with torn clothes. Another reality: many modern moms apparently are clue-less as to how to patch clothes.

Early on, the BIS made it a point that no boy at the BIS (or FSB) would ever have to wear torn clothes. In the Officer's Manual, dated 1924, reads: "Untidy dress induces carelessness and slovenliness in other things." "It is not only necessary that boys be provided with comfortable, tidy and good fitting wearing apparel, but it must be given proper care and situation and kept neat and clean." Rules were rigidly followed and enforced. Appearance was a virtue in the annals of the institution. A barber shop was one of the early additions to the institution and later, as was noted in a previous article, barbering was offered as a career class making it possible for a boy to obtain a license to be a barber when he left the BIS. Within the last dozen years of the institution's existence a move was made to let the boys set some rules much comparable to the "modern" ideas of rearing children was tried. However there was sufficient concern by those in charge of checks and balances that such an idea was too risky when you are dealing with personalities already primed to challenge authority. The last superintendent was brought in to thwart that attempt to change the successful philosophies for over a hundred years. Codification of rules and regulations is inherent to maintaining the necessary discipline, otherwise chaos would reign.

Yes, we are talking about a cultural crisis. And, ultimately, as in any culture throughout history we find confrontations of philosophies have either made or broke those societies. It is a credit to the BIS that for years it upheld respect, honor and responsibility as qualities every boy should attain. And, until the day that the institution was closed in 1979, such virtues were often challenged but steadfast principles were a part of every day life at the BIS, from the soles of their shoes to the top of their heads. One aside case of acquired virtues is about one boy during the last ten years of the school's existence. This boy went with a group to an outing in a nearby city, and as usual all boys came back, "Present and accounted for." The next day that boy "ran away". When the authorities found him he was asked, "If you knew you were going to run away, why did you not run away when you were with the group?" His answer was classic: "I didn't want to give the program (and the school) a bad name."

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