Records 45 



strike, from a town some distance away, and declared that he 

 would come on foot to the school reunion if unable to get there 

 in any other way. Another from Canada complained that he 

 had not heard from the superintendent for some time, and 

 reminded him for how much his letters counted to a person 

 all alone in the world. 



Another, who was in the army, describes how he has 

 bragged about his school to the rest of his comrades (many of 

 them Industrial School boys) ; how none of them had enjoyed 

 such good times as he had done, and how much they wished 

 that they had been brought up in such a splendid school. 



It seems difficult to realise that the feeling displayed by 

 many of these boys for their old school a school whose name 

 is, I suppose, associated in the minds of respectable working- 

 class people with sorrow and disgrace was in its way as 

 ardent and as keen as that of the upper or middle-class boy 

 for any one of the famous public schools of England. 



One feels that if much depends upon the personality of the 

 head of a public school, this must much more be the case with 

 this little provincial reformatory, whose scholars are already 

 marked out as victims of a bad environment or a bad heredity, 

 and who now know no other home. 



The terms " on licence " or " licensed " which will be found 

 in these records refer to boys let out before the age of 16, 

 when their term expires. During this period they may be 

 recalled at any time by the superintendent should their con- 

 duct be unsatisfactory. There is a working boys' home in 

 connection with the school, in which many of these boys live. 



