Tri-Counties Genealogy & History by Joyce M. Tice 1897 Year Book of the New York State Reformatory at Elmira

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Manual Training, at the New York State Reformatory, was introduced in the fall of 1895, not as designed in manual training schools in our cities for general educational purposes, but to meet the needs of men especially defective and classed by themselves from among the general abnormal Reformatory population.

The Courts commit men under the indeterminate sentence system (although maximum sentence is fixed) leaving the period of "Parole" commission to be determined by the Board of Managers. This Board declares that to obtain a parole, men shall have passed successive examinations in Trades-School. Department of Letters, and shall have a sustained period perfect demeanor record for four months preceding their appearance before the Parole Board. When a man has fulfilled the conditions, he is considered fit to be temporarily and experimentally returned to society, the permanence of which release, the man alone decides.

Our crowded condition, fifteen hundred and over, influenced by recent commitments and long term residents, shows that additional reformative measures were necessary to increase parole release. For those whose long residence in our community brought their stay quite up to the maximum commitments, the evident abstract causes were failures in Trades, Department of Letters or Demeanor Markings. For those yet to come a like condition possibly faces them.

It was early discovered that deep physical and moral causes were fundamentals and that the issue must be met on lines operating directly upon the physical sensory organs, and these to be additionally influenced by healthy moral developing activities.

In order to appreciate this Herculean task, it must be realized that we have committed young men who are as weak morally, intellectually and physically as years of evil association and its consequent

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disregard for law and established rights of others can make them. This is accentuated by hereditary degeneracy for several generations, with a total abhorrence for honest labor. They have been sent here as first offenders, not in fact, but because of conviction. It is from this class that the larger part of the inmates come.

The natural law of "like begetting like" does not cease with the individual as he enters the Reformatory.

Habits of thriftlessness, vile characteristics, are not laid down and their opposites taken up as the novice changes his soiled garments for the clean freshness of those supplied the moment he arrives. These habits of dishonesty, slothfulness and licentiousness, which are the distinguishing characteristics of most men committed, follow them for a long period, even when a member of this reformative society, and their commitments begin to lengthen from the day they arrive.

It is for men of this class who do not readily respond to the usual reformatory influences, and whose term of commitment is necessarily continued, that manual training was established.

In this determining upon Manual Training as an agent to assist these defectives, it was wisely founded upon the fact, that habit produces character, and that moral action is but the predication between right and wrong doing; whether this be in a material manner upon plastic organism, in which form and accurate predetermined measurements control, or in that more complex organism the ego, and its relation to society at large.

"The new education is everywhere recognizing the importance of the education of the ‘will’ and to lead the will to express itself in outward habits and customs." This was the theory of Aristotle, Froebel, and Pestolozzi and has come down to us today with magnified importance.

"We acquire the virtues by doing the acts," and when virtuous habits are sequentially maintained, the will automatically spurns, restrains the disposition to depart from the paths of virtue.

Manual Training, in its full development, stands for regularity of fixed purposes, and results, each following in orderly sequences. In this

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manual doing, the doer has at his command the basis of true living, the full opportunity for observing cause and effect, and regulating his habits of thought and expression from a knowledge of fixed principles applied. It has long been a known fact in educational circles that, studious employment, under regulated methods, is the key-note to a liberal education. In fact this is why for years professors have drilled on Greek and Latin verbs, formula upon formula in mathematics, but while that served well, it is inadequate to a full and harmonious development.

The normal man requires intellectual, moral, religious and physical development, and under out present school and college systems this is secured, but the fact comes to us as forcibly that the abnormal man needs the same and to a greater degree.

It is with this knowledge that the General Superintendent and Managers have introduced Manual Training in this Reformatory. Its usefulness as a factor in education has been too well established to enter upon a dissertation on this line here. The duty for us lay in adapting it to meet the needs of the selected defectives. And here it must be realized once for all, that the essential difference between Manual Training in our public school system and the Reformatory system is, first in the classes of society furnishing the subjects, and second the object desired.

In the public schools we have the plastic minds of eager, earnest youth, surrounded by home influences of desirability, with the controlling desire and interest of the parent, to aid the child to a full realization of the necessity for an education. Added to that, the never to be abated interest and natural curiosity of child-life as it watches the development of form, symmetry and use, from crude blocks of wood, clay or compact mass of metals; each assuming new form and use as direct results of the cultivated mind and manual skill of the instructor.

This forms the actual incentive among children to pursue courses in manual training, but in the Reformatory system, this first condition is lacking. Our pupils come from a stratum in society in which the directing, controlling forces of the parent, with the desire for good wholesome education, has never been asserted. The child surrounded by the virtues and vices of society has followed the paths of sin, and

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the important formative period of life, when character, intelligence and industry should have been cultivated, they were not.

The child grew, approaching the threshold of manhood, without the acquisition of these forces which make one a desirable and useful member of society; and so the power of the state isolates for treatment, those whose training by parents have been neglected. Then we get, not a child immediately susceptible to corrective influences, but a being with the form of a man with desires and habits of a lower organism.

Our Manual Training system then is based upon a psychological fact, viz,. "That every important part of the body, of those which are under control of the will, there is a region of the brain by which they are controlled, and these are what are known as "centers" in the brain. For insurance, there is one part of the brain which absolutely controls the muscles of the right arm and if that part is diseased or be destroyed in any way the power of using the arm is absolutely lost; so that if a certain part of the brain is capable of controlling the motions and activities of a certain part of the body, it is possible by cultivating the actions of that part of the body to produce better condition of affairs in the brain."

Having that fact and material which can be moulded at will under guidance of the trained hand, we begin our work of reclamation among the pupils, irresponsive to the usual reformatory measures designed for their restoration to society.

We have as agents:

1^st. MANUAL PROCESSES

2^nd. PHYSICAL TRAINING

3^rd MILITARY DISCIPLINE

Manual Processes: By this we mean the selection of special subjects which are calculated to meet and overcome the special defects in particular groups of men, using materials in paper, wood, metal and clay operated upon with tools, the use of which does not simply develop tool-skill, for that is not the object; but that by the usage of these material agents, from correct models or outlines made specially to illustrate a principle in mathematics or moral law, a force may be set in motion which shall act upon the mind, brain and body to produce healthy beneficial thought and action. Keep up this training manually, with new interest and expectation on the part of the

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pupil, and habits of concentration, discrimination and decision are formed of concentration, discrimination and decision are formed which lead to increased mental and moral enlargement. The correct teaching of manual processes leads to tool-skill, but if that be all, the object of its introduction into courses designed to meet particular defects of pupils segregated because of specific abnormalities, then it is lost sight of and the results are not what we start out to obtain. There must be a mental quickening, a moral expression exhibited by clearer conceptions, and by well regulated habits. It is by such results we test the efficiency of our work. Not general tool-skill, for that is the work of the Trades-School.

Physical Training: Our entire enrollment of pupils spend one and one-half hours each day in the gymnasium. The same basal group divisions are followed by baths, are prescribed and taught to meet the particular group defect. No form of athletics is tolerated which simply gives pleasurable sensations, there must be a definite relationship between the gymnastic effort and the object desired in particular groups of pupils.

In "Group I" (Mathematical Defectives) the gymnastic effort of swinging dumb-bells and clubs is not left to the petulancy of the individual, but is performed in regular time, guided by a particular note at intervals on the piano or at command, and thus alertness, quickened perception and prompt execution is secured. In out-door games each pupil is required to lay out to a standard size, courts for hand and football, tennis etc., also measure the jumps with a small unit, say two feet, the final results of which is some multiple of the unit. All such exercises tend to develop appreciation for the mathematical as well as keeping the body in healthy action.

In "Group 2" (Self-Control Defectives) the United States Army and Navy "Setting Up" exercises are used, in which the regularity of movement and duration of particular performances are the principles. The act of lifting one’s body through space from ring to ring, sixteen or eighteen feet above the floor level, or of engaging in hand or football, where intense rivalry is induced by chances of advantage over a competitor, with the muscular force employed brought into play or at rest at command, is regulated, and good natured faces and healthy nerve actions succeed the grim determined excited ones of a moment ago. It is under such conditions we develop "Self-Control"

through athletic performances.

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"Group 3" (General Mental Quickening). Wherever there is regular muscular movement there is increased muscular activities, that is, activity within definite limits controlled by the brain. In weak-minded persons, or those of limited mental capacities through normally sane, these physical harmonics are undeveloped, and so, instead of erect carriage, easy graceful movements, we have the awkward, shambling, ungraceful form, operated and controlled through the undeveloped brain. Exercises for such include calisthenics, dumb-bell, long pole climbing, and chest weights and frequent baths. These develop the physical, and this physical growth and expansion, in reaching the approach to a "David," has its reflective development in Mental Training and culture. This is mental quickening through physical performance.

Military Discipline: The entire prison population is enrolled in Military organization, the regular daily movements of squads for any purposes whatever, is under the command of an officer who may rank from Major to Sergeant, each responsible to the regimental Colonel for the order, time and presence of each man. One of these majors is detailed in charge of the discipline in the Manual School, having as aids citizen captains and inmate lieutenants who are responsible to him during the school hours, and who act as monitors in regulating the groups. The classes change their places each ninety minutes, going from one part of the building to another, to meet the instructor in the subjects for that time period.

When a pupil desires some tool or material to properly pursue the outline under consideration, he must first get permission from the officer to move, or to call the instructor’s attention to his wants. This act is performed by raising his hand and holding it until recognized. By this manner the entire disciplinary regulation and its enforcement becomes a potent force in controlling the irregular movements of the large number of defectives, whose movement individually or collectively must be from an authoritative and responsible source.

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As previously stated, the "Parole" regulation requires"

a) A knowledge of a trade sufficiently to compete in outside life with average mechanic or professional and by competitive labor prove an ability to sustain one’s self in communities.

b) Faculty to use the elements of mathematics taught in the "Set" classification of the pupil, which may be from "notation" through "percentage," also language and compositions so as to construct and use easily sentences spoken or written.

c) Regulating ones habits so as to prove the capacity to associate unrestrictedly in society, join in its liberties without endangering our social fabric.

Those who fulfill these conditions are released; those who do not must be more earnestly labored with.

The Superintendent selects these irresponsive, disordered members of our reformatory society for specific treatment in the manual training department, making groupings as follows:

Composed of those who regularly fail in arithmetic, failures beginning in "Set 10," Kindergarten and in all intermediate sets to "Set I" in which "percentage" is the subject.

When the pupils are assigned a division into sections of twenty-five is made, upon the basis of mathematical deficiency, that is, those in correlated sets in the Department of Letters, say from Evening Kindergarten to Set 9, Set 8, to Set 5, Set 4 to Set 1. Subjects are selected for such in which mathematical propositions especially enter, both in tool processes and mental training. These are taught with the object of aiding such men to know the combinations and use of numbers.

The Subjects are:
 

First Term 17 weeks,	Mechanical Drawing, Sloyd, Athletics and Calisthenics,
35 hours per week,	Clay Modeling and Mental Arithmetic.
Second Term 17 weeks,	Mechanical Drawing, Sloyd, Athletics and Calisthenics,
35 hours per week,	Card Board Construction and Mental Arithmetic.
Third Term 17 weeks	Mechanical Drawing, Sloyd, Athletics and Calisthenics,
35 hours per week.	Wood-Turning and Mental Arithmetic.

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GROUP II. 200 PUPILS—ASSIGNED FOR DEVELOPMENT

Composed of those who are for the most part devoid of moral tone; those who fight, swear, assault officers, are licentious and generally irresponsive to the usual reformatory measures selected for their reclamation to society. To this class belong some of the most intellectual in the Reformatory, but this intellectuality as a result of weak character, runs riot. They are like a powerful steam-engine with full steam on with no governing apparatus—lots of energy, but uncontrolled—is destructive force instead of constructive.

These are divided into sections of twenty-five each, according to their mental capabilities, with subjects as follows:
 

First Term 17 weeks,	Athletics and Calisthenics, Geometric construction involving  intersection of solids, etc., Wood-Turning, Pattern-Making,
35 hours per week.	Mechanical Drawing and Sloyd.
Second Term 17 weeks,	Athletics and Calisthenics, Wood-Carving, Clay Modeling,
35 hours per week.	Sloyd and Mechanical Drawing.
Third Term 17 weeks,	Athletics and Calisthenics, Chipping and Filing, Moulding,
35 hours per week.	Mechanical Drawing and Sloyd.

Note—One section of these "Control" defectives is composed of pupils who are also defective in arithmetic, and these have additionally to the Control subjects, Mental Arithmetic for one and one-half hours per day.

Composed of men who are among the lowest intellectual and physical order in prison society,--men in whom hereditary influences for generations back of their existence has left them a legacy of diseased bodies, disordered weak brains.

These fail especially in Department of Letters and Trades; are tractable enough in most cases to earn first grade rating if demeanor alone determined the social standing, but the repeated failures to pass in Letters and Trades results in social depression, with tenure of commitment prolonged.

Subjects as follows:
 

First Term 17 weeks,	Athletics and Calisthenics, Freehand Drawing from solids and
35 hours per week	Familiar objects. Elementary Sloyd, Clay Modeling, Mental
	Arithmetic and Sentence building.

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Second Term 17 weeks,	Sloyd Free-Hand Drawing, Wood Carving, Mental Arithmetic and
35 hours per week.	Calisthenics.
Third Term 17 weeks,	Sloyd. Free-hand Drawing, Wood Turning, Athletics and Mental
35 hours per week.	Arithmetic.

In the report as submitted in November, 1896, the maximum enrollment was 117 pupils in Manual Training with ten instructors. In January, 1897, our equipment was increased giving facilities for 225 pupils, employing twenty inmate instructors who have been trained for special work in specific subjects.

In October, 1897 our equipment was further increased to accommodate additionally 225 pupils, making a total capacity for Manual Training Instruction 450 with forty inmate instructors, graduates of the Manual Training School and three citizen instructors.

Not having classes on Saturday, that day of each week is employed in giving instruction to inmate instructors in the theory and practice of Manual Training and its applications to Reformatory needs.

GROUP I, SUMMARY A.

Total number of pupils enrolled 129

(a) Those withdrawn for cause within three months 5 or 3.88%

(b) Those too recently assigned for records to show 66 or 51.16%

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Those passing intermittently, showing slight improvement 9 or 6.98%

Those graduated 34 or 26.35%

Total 129 or 100.00%

Group I. Summary B.

Note—Items a and b are eliminated in Summary B or cause stated
Total number of actual pupils	58
Those passing intermittently, showing slight improvement	9 or 15.52%
Those showing no improvement	15 or 25.86%
Those graduated	34 or 58.65%
Totals 58 or 100.00%

Group II. Summary A.

Total enrollment	236
(a) Those withdrawn for cause within two months		10 or 4.24%
(b) Those too recently assigned to show		119 or 50.44%
Those unimproved, length of assignment by months, prior to October 30, 1897:
3 & 4 months		4 or 1.69%
5 months		9 or 3.81%
6 months		3 or 1.27%
8 months		2 or 0.85%
9 months		4 or 1.69%
10 months		1 or 0.42%
11 months		9 or 3.81%
12 months		2 or 0.85%
14 months		5 or 2.12%
15 months		3 or 1.27%
19 months		2 or 0.35%
22 months		4 or 1.69%
Those—unimproved—assigned for the year and in attendance, save when drawn out for Third Grade treatment		6 or 2.54%
Those showing slight improvement		19 or 8.05%
Those showing steady improvement but not sufficient to graduate		9 or 3.81%
Those graduated, average—7 months 21 days		25 or 10.59%
Those assigned to Section 4, for Self-control and deficient in arithmetic, passing regularly		3 or 1.27%
Those passing irregularly		15 or 6.35%

Group II. Summary B.

Note—Items a and b in Summary a are eliminated in Summary B for cause stated.
Total number of actual pupils	107
Those unimproved, showing length of assignment by months, prior to October 30, 1897:
4 months		4 or 3.74%
5 months		9 or 8.41%
6 months		3 or 2.80%
8 months		2 or 1.87%
9 months		4 or 3.74%
10 months		1 or 0.93%
11 months		9 or 8.41%
12 months		2 or 1.87%
14 months		5 or 4.67%
15 months		3 or 2.80%
19 months		2 or 1.87%
22 months		4 or 3.74%

 
 
 

MANUAL TRAINING DEPARTMENT 75

Those unimproved and assigned for the year—and in attendance save when drawn out for third Grade treatment	6 or 5.61%
Those showing slight improvement	19 or 17.76%
Those showing steady improvement but not sufficient to warrant graduation	9 or 8.41%
Those graduated	25 or 23.26%
Those assigned to Section 4 for Self-control and deficient in arithmetic, passing regularly	3 or 2.80%
Those in the same passing irregularly	15 or 14.02%

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Those who pass in trade school only	2 or 5.56%
Those remaining	34 or 94.44%
Total	36 or 100.00%

Those having shown no improvement	26 or 72.22%
Those remaining	10 or 27.78%
Total	36 or 100.00%

Group III, Summary A.

Total number of pupils enrolled 120
(a) Those withdrawn within three months for cause	16 or 13.33%
(b) Those too recently assigned for record to show	53 or 44.17%
Those graduated	15 or 12.50%
Those passing occasionally in all branches	20 or 16.67%
Those passing occasionally in language and trade-school	5 or 4.17%
Those passing occasionally in arithmetic and trade-school	8 or 6.67%
Those passing in language only	3 or 2.50%
Those passing in arithmetic only	1 or 0.83%
Those passing in trade-school only	2 or 1.67%
Those showing no improvement	26 or 21.67%

Group III, Summary B.

Note—Items a and b in Summary A are eliminated in Summary B  for cause shown.

Total number of actual pupils 51
Those graduated	15 or 29.41%
Those passing occasionally in all branches	20 or 39.21%
Those passing in language and trade-school	5 or 9.80%
Those passing in arithmetic and trade-school	8 or 15.69%
Those passing in language only	3 or 5.88%
Those passing in arithmetic only	1 or 1.96%
Those passing in trade-school only	2 or 3.92%
Those showing no improvement	26 or 50.98%

MANUAL TRAINING DEPARTMENT 79