SOME-MODERN IDEAS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 68, 17 September 1930, Page 15

SOME-MODERN IDEAS

HELPING THE DELINQUENT

Many people who are interested in the treatment of delinquency in New Zealand would have- been glad to hear what Miss Edna Munro had to tell at a recent meeting of'her recent visits to American and Canadian centres, where this important matter receives special attention. ' ■ . One centre she .visited- was arranged on the cottage system with eight houses, each with fifty girl residents. There were delightful grounds around, which compared .with those at Oxford and Cambridge, surrounding the Old World colleges.. The leaders of houses ■were chosen for personality, and each girl was trained.to her.utmost capacity for tho thing she liked and for which she showed' theihost capacity. Each had a separate room, and the girls were allowed to decorate them in. the colours and styles they liked' best, being taught how to do all the work properly themsolves. There was .'a ' '.shop,'' and there they could choose their chintzes, etc., which were properly mad© up. / Another matter mentioned^ which caused a ripple of surprised amusement from the audience, but which was commented on favourably by Dr; Gray afterwards, was that a "beauty parlour is part-of this school. " "Highly qualified instruction," said Miss Munro, "is given to certain girls, who show a taste for the work, and they practise-.on the inmates of the houses, with tho.result that all have delightfully 'waved' bobs and shingles, manicured finger nails arid hands, and generally, a well-kept look about them. This apparently makes for cleanliness andv self-respect, and the girls do not easily drift into ugly carelessness afterwards. Tho training given at the school is so good, that, out of many hundreds of applicants, four of the girls from the school were among the chosen for the positions in the parlours of New York." In a school for boys run on thj same lines,' the boys built completely, in all details, a brick bungalow of the latest modern style, being supervised by experts in all varieties of work.

Tho object of all this, said Miss Munro, was to ensure that the time and money expended on the young people was not wasted by half mcasurcß, but that they were completely equipped to earn a good living when they left their, institutions. . No uniforms wero used, but choice of clothing was giveiu ■