arrangement is made for the same reason as that of locating the cottages at quite a distance from each other. It gives opportunity for a more complete segregation of the family groups, the members of which have been carefully selected as to their age, their inclination and needs, and their degree of delinquency.

The contract between the Board of Children's Guardians and the Board of Education, which has been in force since 1905, was renewed for another period of three years.

What is Needed to Complete The New Institution. All the delinquent boys are in their new home, but the institution is by no means completed.

Bellefontaine Farms with 250 boys is without a hospital. The erection of a hospital is an absolute necessity and the city should make provision for it at once. Boys who become so ill that they require hospital care and treatment must be transferred to the City Hospital at a distance of seventeen miles. In case of epidemic diseases, the institution has no means to isolate those afflicted and to check the spreading of the epidemic. There are no facilities for performing operations, such as may become necessary in a large institution. The health of the boys entrusted to our care is our first and most important consideration.

Bellefontaine Farms should be provided with a shop building. The boys are given the best opportunities for agricultural work— to learn farm and garden work; but not all the boys can become farmers. We give all the boys the best school training, but this is not enough. We must give them a training in some useful remunerative occupation, which will enable the boys when released to find their place in the world and which will fortify them against the temptations of idleness and vagrancy. Unless we do this, our work is but half done and the institution fails to fulfil the purpose for which it is established. The building should contain shops for such trades as carpentering, shoe making, tailoring, plumbing, painting, blacksmithing, baking, etc.

The institution needs an assembly hall. It cannot give proper opportunities for religious exercises, of which boys should, under no circumstances, be deprived. It cannot arrange for such entertainments and recreational exercises as should be given boys in any institution, because there is no place in which they can assemble. The building should contain a gymnasium, a library, and manual training shops, which are now temporarily housed in the basement of one of the cottages.

The Superintendent's residence should be built. At present the Superintendent occupies the home erected for his assistant, and the latter lives in the former residence of the Superintendent in the old institution. Every morning and every evening he has to travel twenty miles to get to and from his work, because there is no place for him and his family at the Farms.

Roads should be built to connect all cottages with each other and the utility buildings.

These are the most necessary additions and improvements for which provision should be made at the earliest possible time.

The Municipal Bond Issue Committee had asked for the sum of $156,000 for Bellefontaine Farms, but unfortunately the voters of the City did not give the proposition the necessary majority. It failed of passage by two per cent of the number of votes required.

Care of the Delinquent Girls. There are no girls at Bellefontaine Farms. Fortunately the number of delinquent girls committed to the Industrial School was always very small compared with that of the boys. When, two years ago, the so-called Girls' Building in the old institution in which the dependent children and the delinquent girls were housed was condemned and vacated, the number of the latter had dwindled down to fourteen. The older of these girls were sent to the Girls Industrial Home at Chillicothe, Mo., where they should have been sent originally. Some of the younger girls were placed in private institutions and the others were paroled and released. Since then, however, the number of delinquent girls has shown a considerable increase.

The City has no means of caring for its younger delinquent girls except in private institutions. As soon as the institution at Bellefontaine Farms is completed, steps will have to be taken to establish a parental school for girls similar to that for the boys.

Feeble-Minded Children. Our city has no proper facilities to care for the many Feeble Minded who for lack of a suitable environment, are housed in the City Sanitarium. They should be transferred to the Colony for the Feeble Minded, at Marshall, Missouri. It is the State's duty to provide and care for them, but the State institution has room for only 600 inmates, while the most conservative estimates place the number in Missouri needing such care at three thousand. The Superintendent of the Sanitarium does all he possibly can for these inmates, but an overcrowded institution for insane people is not the place for Feeble Minded children. They cannot even receive such school training as can be given children of this class, because, while the Board of Education is

ready to send the teachers who are able and willing to undertake the work, no vacant space can be found for school rooms. This deplorable condition should be remedied by enlarging the institution at Marshall.

THE BOYS' TRAINING CLASSES.

In former years the Boys' Classes had a very small membership at the opening of the new term. It seemed difficult to get the boys who had been assigned to the classes to return and quite a number of them had to be rounded up by the attendance officers. It is most gratifying that at the beginning of the past term, almost all the pupils, with the exception of those who had become 14 years old and had gone to work and those who had been retransferred to their home schools, were in their seats on the first day. This shows that the four schools are now fulfilling the purpose for which they were established, that of reclaiming these boys by adapting the course of learning to their needs, aptitudes and desires, that through their strong influence the teachers have succeeded in making the boys find themselves and realize what the school is doing for them.

It is also gratifying that a larger number of boys could be returned to their home schools than ever before. For the first time a boy graduated from one of the centers, the Bryan Hill Boys' Class.

One of the measures that have been productive of greater interest in and a better attitude to the school is the participation of the boys in the government of the school. The centers are organized into Welfare Associations, committees of which take care of the rooms, books, apparatus, the yard and school gardens, see that they are kept in proper shape, and help each other to exercise the right conduct and attitude. This practical, ethical and civic training has shown very good results.

As the reports of the teachers show the boys who have gone to work are doing well. The teachers keep in touch with them after they have left school, help in finding suitable work for them, ascertain how they succeed and continue to advise and encourage them.

THE SCHOOL IN THE HOUSE OF DETENTION.

A third room was opened in the school during the past term. As stated in my last year's report, the membership of the institution consists of white and negro children, of boys and girls of all ages ranging from 6-18 years, representing all the grades of the

Elementary schools and even of the high school, of feeble-minded, borderline cases, slow and backward, normal and unusually bright children. 918 children were sent to the institution, some of whom remained but a day or two, while some were kept in the Detention Home for weeks and months. The daily attendance at the school varies from 40-90 pupils.

While it is hardly possible to give the kind of attention and care that boys and girls of this class should have, and to effect a proper grouping of the many, heterogeneous types, the opening of the third room has at least enabled us to separate the older girls, of whom there is always quite a number, from the older boys. This is absolutely necessary. Most of these older girls have been brought into the Juvenile Court because of immoral conduct and should not be in the same room with older delinquent boys.

The three teachers exert the very best influence upon the inmates, and their good work is highly appreciated by the authorities of the institution. Unfortunately, the children are not given proper educational opportunities after the school sessions. I deplored in my last year's report that, after they leave the schoolroom, they are under the supervision of attendants who simply perform police duty and keep the inmates out of mischief, and that there is not even a sufficient number of them to do that well. This condition has not improved during the past term. However, assurance is given that next year competent persons will be secured who can and will get into the right touch with the boys and girls in the afternoon and evening and see that the fine influence of the school room is continued on Saturdays and Sundays by giving them proper employment and entertainment.

Opportunities for outdoor recreation and bodily recreation still remain inadequate. Nothing has been done to put the fine playground on the roof in such a shape that it can be used to advantage.

THE EDUCATIONAL MUSEUM.

At the close of last year I reported that the Museum had been placed in a position to render more efficient service to the schools because of the purchase of a second automobile truck, the publication of a new catalogue and, what was most important, the supply of a large amount of duplicates for circulation. But as extensive as these additions of illustrative material were, they were not sufficient to honor all of the increasing demands of the schools. There were many complaints from the teachers that not all of their orders were filled, that much material which they needed for the illustra

tion of certain features of school work could not be had, because many schools wanted it at the same time and there was not enough of it to supply all of them.

During the past term this material has again been greatly increased. Moreover, the checking and repair work in the institution has been reorganized and perfected to such an extent that practically all collections returned on any day are ready for the next delivery by 5 P. M. on the same day. The result is that during the past year 9,902 more collections could be sent out than during the previous year. In spite of the greatly increased demands, 80% of all the material ordered was furnished the schools. Most gratifying was the fact that 98% of the articles, needed and ordered more than any others, could be furnished.

It will never be possible to supply the schools with all the material which the teachers would like to have to lend life and reality to certain phases of their work. Of some of the materials frequently ordered there are but a few specimens which were procured from foreign exhibits at the great expositions. It is almost impossible to secure duplicates of them. Other articles are too bulky or too fragile to be transported day after day. They must remain in the Museum and must be seen and studied there. During the past year many classes with their teachers have come to the institution to make use of such material.

It is rather strange that a comparatively small number of people in our city know that St. Louis has a school museum, that this institution has a most complete equipment, and that it is the only institution of its kind in the world which supplies regularly and systematically all the schools of the city with the means to illustrate what they teach through objects from all parts of the world and pictorial illustrations. What has been done to make the people of our city better acquainted with the aims and the work of the museum is shown by the report of the Curator.

As to our two latest additions to the scope of illustrative material, the motion picture films and musical and literary records. for the graphophone, I gave a detailed report last year. They are becoming more popular from year to year. Almost all our films which represent scenes from nature, historical events and industrial conditions were donated by the Ford Motor Co. Other industrial establishments are preparing films illustrating the processes and results of their work and some of these firms, among them the United States Rubber Co., have offered us their films as soon as they are ready. I hope to see our stock of 117 films considerably increased next year.