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22 ABBOTT'S MONTHLY for JANUARY, 1931 rain and assistant principal, upon whose shoulders rests the vast amount of detail work and office routine incidental to the operation of the school. The boy is then given his equipment of three shirts, three pairs of overalls, heavy underwear and stockings, a lumber jacket, stocking cap and heavy duty shoes. In addition, he receives a cadet military uniform and becomes a member of a drill team. His daily routine is now started and he attends school three hours in the morning and works at his trade three hours in the afternoon, with a recreation period of forty minutes in each session to break the monotony. He has his breakfast at seven o'clock, diner at eleven-thirty, and supper at five-thirty. After supper, he can go to the "Gym" or stay in the cottage and read. The cottages, twenty-six in number and bearing presidential names, accommodate thirty-six to forty boys. Coolidge cottage will be ready for occupancy next summer. Each cottage is in charge of a man and his wife, who are called the house father and house mother and a cheerful family atmosphere prevails. The cottages are all fire-proof and of two stories with a high basement, which serves as locker-room and drill room for the boys. Ample toilet facilities and shower baths are provided and "rings" around the neck are strictly taboo. The woodwork, side walls and floors are kept immaculate and the boys all wear moccasins while in the cottage. The rooms are well lighted and heated, comfortable chairs and settees adorn the reading room, large supplies of books and magazines are available, and a late model radio furnishes the evening's musical entertainment. [[image]] The Husky Champion Football Team. [[image]] Photos by Phelps Main Avenue Looking North from the Administration building with Boys' Cottages in Background. [[image]] Construction Work on New Vocational Building. Being Build Entirely by Boys at the School. In the dining room are five tables of 8 places each, with a sixth table set for the house officers. The kitchen and all cooking utensils are clean and sanitary and the food wholesome and plentiful. The sleeping room on the second floor is a model of cleanliness, each boy making up his own bed and placing the room in order before going down to breakfast. All cottages and buildings are heated from a central heating plant, and the water supply comes from two artesian wells, one fourteen, the other twenty-two hundred feet deep. All activities proceed with systematic regularity and seldom admit of variation. The boys pass from building to building in close military formation led by a captain, and do not break ranks until the building is entered. A typical weekly program might be summarized as follows: Monday evening, gymnasium, including basketball, boxing, etc., or a lecture in the chapel. Tuesday: rehearsal for Wednesday night's entertainment. Wednesday: assembly in the Chapel with stage singing, comedy sketches, individual stunts and instrumental music. Thursday: military drill in cottages. Friday: motion pictures in chapel. Saturday: rest, recreation and genera clean-up. Sunday: Catholic and Protestant services in the morning, and a special service at one o'clock by visiting ministers from Chicago. THE crowning achievement of the St. Charles School for Boys, and the pet project of Mr. Elliott, is the erection of the mammoth vocational school which will house the many trades now being taught in various buildings. the site is 130 by 180 feet, the foundation has been laid and construction is being pushed vigorously. An appropriation of $50,000 was made by the State for the building, the estimate cost of which would be $100,000 if contracts were bid for in the open market. But in order to keep within the appropriation, work is being done by the boys under the supervision of experts. When completed, the vocational building will bring under one roof the print shop, weaving shop, mending room, machine shop, carpenter shop and other industrial departments. The concrete and cement blocks for the foundation and for the building, as well as the moulds for cornices and columns were all made in the school's workshop. The machine and automobile shop in the new building will be supervised by Instructor Willard Moody, an expert Race mechanic, who has been at the St. Charles School for thirteen years. He extends and receives kind, courteous consideration, and is kept busy looking after the motor driven equipment, including concrete mixers, tractors, motor buses, trucks and automobile of the officials. The new vocational building will strengthen the school's educational program, as shop, farm and classroom work are closely related in order to be of greatest value to the boys. In the classrooms, all grades from the first up to high school are taught so that all may have academic instruction and thereby be able to handle the three "R's" as well as mechanics' tools and farm implements. IT costs the State of Illinois exactly $400,000 a year to maintain the St. Charles School for Boys. this means that with an average enrollment of 800, the State spends $500 on each delinquent boy to keep him in the school for one year in order to save him to society. It is a tremendous task to undertake the supervision of 800 delinquent boys, and indeed, many fathers have their hands full looking after one. But the job must be done, and done efficiently or the entire social fabric will be threatened. Here is where the question of leadership becomes important, and insofar as the St. Charles School for Boys is concerned, the problem is definitely solved in the person of the present managing officer, Otto A. Elliott. As guardian of the boys, Mr. Elliott performs efficiently the manifold duties of parent, teacher and disciplinarian, and the success of the school under his management is a striking testimonial of his ability and leadership. Mr. Elliott is respected and honored by the boys at St. Charles because they see in him a kind, impartial, well-balanced leader. He understands them and their problems, and while he rules with a firm hand, he rules with sympathetic understanding founded upon tact, patience and the Golden rule. The St. Charles School for Boys is the medium through which the State of Illinois is reclaiming its youth, because the State believes, as to most right thinking people, that faith, hope and charity, coupled with compulsory education and strict military discipline, is the only formula that makes respectable citizens out of juvenile delinquents. [[boxed]] WINGS OF ESCAPE Read It in the February Issue of ABBOTT'S MONTHLY A Breath Taking Romance of the Air [/boxed]] 21
