Lancaster in Rotarian Magazine: Boys Home 1922

From the April 1922 Rotarian magazine:

An Experiment in Youth Building
By MARTIN M. HARNISH

The "personal touch" is being emphasized in this Rotary Home for underprivileged boys, supported by the Rotary Club of Lancaster, Pa.  Mr. and Mrs. Harry Martzall, "dad" and "mother" to the boys are seen standing in the back row.

The writer is a member of the Rotary Club of Lancaster, Pa., with the classification of attorney-at-law.

FOLLOWING close upon the settlement of Philadelphia and vicinity by William Penn and the Quakers came the so-called Plain Sects. Some of these earliest inland settlers found refuge in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Moving westward from Philadelphia they came into the rich limestone valleys of Lancaster County where they settled, toiled, prospered and lived their simple faith, generation after generation-even to this day. They have transformed these rolling acres into one vast garden wonderful to behold. Naturally, owing to the character of the early settlers, Lancaster County is conservative. Innovations come slowly in this old community. Therefore, when about three years ago the Lancaster Rotary Club suggested a local boys' home for the city's junior delinquents, it met with little encouragement, and no support from the county officials

Lancaster County, like every other county, had its delinquent boys. These boys were arrested and thrown into station house or jail, pending trial, where their association and environment was well suited to foster and strengthen their criminal tendencies. After their hearing or sentence, they were sent to some large state institution, where chiefly through stern discipline and fear they were to be made into good boys, or they were sent back to their old environment with the court's stern admonition that a reappearance would mean a severe punishment. Not a very hopeful outlook for the boy, you will agree, yet it is to a great degree the general method of protecting society from youthful malefactors. The Lancaster Rotary Club felt that delinquent boys were not getting a square deal. The local authorities were consulted and the following suggestions offered: A detention home for those awaiting trial, a permanent county home for the small boys sentenced, and a delinquent officer to look after the boys discharged or on parole.

THIS rather radical innovation entailing additional expense to the county was rejected by the conservative county officials. However, the need was urgent, so the Lancaster Rotary Club, feeling that here was an opportunity for the practical application of Rotary ideals, bought a home, equipped it and procured a man and wife as superintendents to manage it–all without outside aid, financial or otherwise. Then the court was again appealed to. "We have provided a home, send us the delinquent boys; we want to help them and the community." While at first the court and public officials were skeptical and committed boys to the "Home" with some hesitancy, today we have the enthusiastic support of all.

The property purchased was a large home conveniently located on the edge of the city. It has a few acres of ground which the boys farm and where they raise many of their vegetables. The home has been fitted up to accommodate about twenty-five boys and is filled to capacity all of the time. The age limit is about sixteen years. Boys are committed for indefinite periods, and their stay is almost wholly determined by the superintendent. When he considers that the boy's behavior warrants his dismissal, he applies to the court, and the boy is usually excused. If he has no home to go to, the superintendent gets him a home on a farm, or procures work for him in some store or factory. As a rule the superintendent is appointed by the court as probation officer to keep in touch with the boy ; this he does most religiously. At the present time he has about fifty boys on probation, and he makes it a point to visit every boy at least once a month, thus keeping tab on each one's behavior and showing a personal interest in each one of his former proteges.

THE discipline in the Home is simple, firm, and direct. The greatest degree of freedom possible is given the boys. There is no uniformity of clothing required, and there are no hard and fixed rules. Deception is despised, and every boy is taught first, last, and all the time, to be square and honest. The superintendent and his wife live and work among their boys. Rising hour is about 5:30 a.m., except Monday morning, wash day, when it is a little earlier so that the boys can help to get out the washing before going to school. Upon rising, each boy washes and dresses himself, makes his bed, assists in cleaning up his room and the rest of the house, helps at breakfast, and at such other work as may be found about the Home. The boys also attend to all the permanent improvements so far as possible. During school season they are sent to the neighborhood schools, those coming from the city going to the city schools, and those coming from the county going to the county schools. Sunday morning each boy goes to the Sunday school of his own religious faith. Through the cooperation of the Sunday school and public school teachers, each boy brings home a daily report signed by his teacher, showing his attendance and behavior. Bad behavior in school or in the Home means a curtailment of the boy's privileges and amusements, and if he gets too bad, he is confined to a room on simple diet which soon brings him around to his senses.

FOR  example:  A  short  time  ago  a  small  colored  boy  was committed to the Home for larceny, incorrigibility and other offenses. He defied discipline. He was put into the prison room and defiantly  said  he  could  live  on  bread  and  water  which  was promptly made his diet. He held out bravely for a few days, getting a glowing report each meal of the good things the other boys were having. With Sunday came a good chicken dinner, which was too much for little "Snowball" and the superintendent found him a weeping, penitent little boy, promising that he would be good if he was given his freedom so he could get his share of "dat chicken." The sequel to this story–like dozens of others that might be narrated about the boys in the Home–is that little "Snowball" has kept his promise and is today one of the best boys.

The boys have their time for amusement, including tennis, baseball and other outdoor sports, indoor games and music with phonograph and piano; every week they attend in a body without any person accompanying them, a vaudeville performance at one of the city amusement places, as guests of the manager. To be deprived of this privilege is one of the worst punishments that could happen.

Each boy when he enters the Home is given a bank, and he is encouraged to save the save the small sums of money given him for services at different times. Some of the older boys while committed to the Home, work in the city, usually for some Rotarian, and their earnings are kept for them. The proof that they accumulate funds and spend them wisely, and that they are teaming the spirit of One who said two thousand years ago, "Do unto others," was touchingly illustrated last Christmas morning when the boys, of their own volition, and out of their own little savings, joined together and bought a beautiful rocking-chair for the little daughter of the assistant to the superintendent's wife. It was an act that typifies the spirit which permeates the Home.

I MUST not keep from you longer the real secret of the success of our social experiment, for such we deem it. I feel that a careful examination  of  the  cause  and  effect  may  have  a  deep  and widespread significance. The answer is one word of four letters, the sweetest in the English language–h-o-m-e. We have provided the place, our superintendent and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Martzall, are making the home. They are playing on the most tender chords of the boyish heart they are filling an aching void in the breasts of these wayward boys who with few exceptions have never known a real home. Don't think for  a moment the boys are pampered. Discipline and obedience are firmly enforced. Yet it is nothing short of marvelous how these boys committed to the Home for larceny and other crimes, the worst boys in our community, after a short time become with very few exceptions happy youngsters, willing and eager to serve and obey. To the boys. the superintendent and his wife are known and addressed at a11 times as "Dad" and "Mother,"  perhaps  the first  real  ones  in  spirit  they have  ever known.' And to "Dad" and "Mother" their little flock are not "the boys," or "the inmates," but always in word and action "Our Boys." A visitor to the Home on a winter evening will find them a big, happy family: "Dad" and "Mother" mingling with "their boys," helping them with their lessons, or joining with them in music or games.  If a new arrival "sasses Mother" he is warned by her boys in no uncertain terms that he had better not try it again. And usually one warning is enough.

What of the boys after they leave the Home. Does their good behavior continue when again thrown amid temptation? The answer is that with very few exceptions they go straight, which is an unusual record when you consider that these boys were the very worst boys in the community when committed to the Home. To a great extent this record is due to the fact that the Rotary members and "Dad'. and "Mother" continue to show interest in them, and keep in close touch with their youthful one-time delinquents. The boys love "Dad" and "Mother." Indeed, they are in most instances reluctant to leave the Home. This makes that personal touch and continued interest of the Rotary members and of the superintendent and his wife in "their boys" simple and effective. The boy welcome them not as their oppressors, but as their dearest friends.

IT has been the aim of the Rotary Club to humanize and not to institutionalize the Home.  The "personal touch" is emphasized. A Rotary Home Committee has general has general supervision of the management and finances of the Home, subject, of course to the approval of the Rotary Club. This committee as well as the other members of the club visit the Home \whenever possible, get acquainted with the boys, and show them that they take a real interest in them. During the summer we occasionally have our weekly luncheon at the Home mingling with the boys and always staging a game of baseball between the boys and the club members, at which game the boys always happen to win with much rooting and to their great delight. On these visits the boys assist in entertaining the members, particularly in serving the luncheon, and I have yet to see the first boy who sulked on his job, or who had lo be disciplined for misconduct on these occasions. The boys are not only willing, but eager to show every service and attention. The wives of the Rotarians take a personal interest in the boys, particularly at Christmas time. Each boy sends his letter to Santa Claus, and early Christmas morning the members, their wives and friends, and needless to say, old Santa Claus himself, appear at the Home, to the great glee of the boys. And I may truly add with even deeper significance that the visit is an inspiration and a delight to the others.

THE  extraordinary  results  attained  make  this  institution  of special interest in the field of reform of the small boy. What is being done here can be and no doubt is being done elsewhere. This Home  is  a  practical  working  example,  confirming  what  is becoming  more  and  more  the  accepted  theory  of  the  proper treatment of younger delinquent boys, viz., to keep them in limited numbers, in small units or homes, where those in charge can and will be a "Dad" or a "Mother" to "their boys" and can and do give the boys what their hearts must long for–"a Home." There is not a small boy living who will not respond to this treatment, unless he is weak-minded or a degenerate. Not cold force and compulsion, but love and kind discipline will put any boy on the road to good citizenship. You can't kick a boy into Heaven: what he needs is a lift to get him up.

To sit in our courts and behold the pathetic, distorted faces shrink before stern justice, and then to visit our Rotary Home a few months later and see these same boys with their happy beaming faces, willing to serve and striving to be good: to see these boys go out into the world regenerated, with a will for the right, gives an indescribable thrill to the heart of every Rotarian. He feels that this is one of the greatest investments he has ever made. He knows through sweet experience that the finest work in the world is serving and helping others, and he rests content in the assurance that Rotary principles are practical and can be applied to this, one of the most important phases of that large and vital problem of nation's boyhood.

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