Admission to the Republic

The George Junior Republic is a Training School for all classes of boys and girls. There are three qualifications which must be met by alt who enter; First, a sound mind—no mental defectives are retained. Second, a sound body—cripples, deformed and sickly children are not accepted because they cannot be expected to meet the strenuous conditions implied and demanded by our motto, "Nothing Without Labor." Third, the candidate must be at least fourteen years of age.

It costs about three hundred dollars a year to support, train school, clothe and physically develop a Citizen. We do not exclude poor children because their parents cannot pay the full amount; we often take such boys and girls free of charge and then try to get the poor authorities of the town they came from to pay us something toward the support of the Citizen. In worthy cases of this kind there is usually some good person who is glad to aid the parents of the candidate in securing the necessary funds to defray at least a part of the burden of his or her support at the Republic. Many times a church society, a social club or other organization undertakes the support of a boy or girl from their vicinity.

Citizens may be received from the overseers of the poor, superintendents of schools, judges of juvenile courts societies, guardians, etc., as well as from parents; but in each and every case applications for admission must be made directly to the General Superintendent of the Republic. No one can be sentenced to the Republic! This is not a criminal institution.^*

The length of time a Citizen remains at the Republic varies from one to three years. Many of our Citizens remain five, six or seven years, Citizens coming to as from the town or county authorities or from a court, are taken for one year, the contracts with such authorities

^* Application and Surrender Blanks will be found else where in this report.

page break being renewable annually. However every parent or guardian from whom we accept a Citizen must sign the surrender blank.^*

Except in a most unusual case, no Citizen leaves the Republic with our approval with less than one full year of training. The brightest boys and girls, under the most favorable circumstances, cannot get the full training in a year. When parents are sensible and ready to co-operate with the forces within the Junior Republic there is seldom failure in the ultimate success of the training upon the life of the Citizen. If the Citizen leaves with our approval the George Junior Republic Association is entirely willing to be judged by the product it sends out.

It often happens, however, that weak and foolish parents seriously interfere with the training of their boy by promises that he may come home in six months, or when school is out or at some other definite period. They are the parents who have begged us most piteously to "save their boy over whom they can exercise no control" The boy has always Inn able to get what he wanted by teasing and by this process he still continues to rule the weak parent: and the parent starts the self-same method with the Republic Authorities. It is almost impossible to help the boy. His parents ruined him lost control of him and publicly acknowledged their failure. But even in the face of these facts the boy is still able to make the parent accede to lus wishes. Time, money and effort are all lost upon this boy until the parent can be eliminated or educated.