Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1890 — CARING FOR ORPHANS. [ARTICLE]

CARING FOR ORPHANS.

Secretary Johnson, of the Board of State Charities, returned Monday from a visit of several days to the soldiers’ and sailors’ orphan’s home at Knightstown. He says the new superintendent, Mr. Harris, is very efficient, and that the institution under his management is in splendid shape. When Mr. Harris took hold there were fifty-five children in what is known as the “scald-head department.” These little fellows were neglected, and little if any attention was paid to them. Their condition grew worse and they came to regard themselves as lepers. Afflicted as they were with ring-worm they were barred from association with the other children, dressed poorly and given no care to speak of by the two women in charge of that department. Superintendent Harris, upon assuming the management of the institution, took hold of this growing blot on its fair fame, and discharging the two women in charge replaced them with two others who gave the poor children such care that to-day there is no such departand all except five or six of the children are completely well, and these few will soon be entirely cured. The new superintendent’s efficiency has been demonstrated in other ways. He has established a system of supplying the institution with everything needed through a storekeeper. This is in vogue in all the other institutions, and should have been adopted long ago at Knightstown. As a result everything must be procured on a requisition from the storekeeper and the economy of the system will prove its value. At the same time the children fare precisely as well, if not better than they always did. Of the three new double cottages for the accommodation of 180 children, two are completed and occupied. The Woman’s Relief Corps raised more than S3OO and-furnished the rooms above the dining-room so that the servants have much better quarters than formerly. During the few months in which Superintendent Harris has been in charge he has certainly accomplished great good, as well as effected a saving in the expenses of the institution.