No Bad Boys

The first time Floyd Starr heard the word adoption, he was a little boy and its meaning had to be explained to him. The idea appealed to him. As he grew older, he decided that some day he would adopt some children (though he had a wife and two kids of his own). In 1913, with $60,000 he had inherited, he bought 40 acres of rocky land just outside Albion, Mich, and opened the Starr Commonwealth school. The entrance requirements were the reverse of most prep schools': he wanted no boys of good reputation.

While his first building was being put up, Starr and his first two pupils slept in a hayloft near by. Soon he was getting 1,000 applicants a year. Most were sent by judges, after being tried for such crimes as robbery, assault, attempted murder and rape. The rest were problem boys whose parents could no longer handle them.

Past Forgotten. Floyd Starr's thesis has since become a rallying cry: "We believe there is no such thing as a bad boy." In the first interview with a new boy, Starr likes to talk about anything but what has brought the boy there. "You're a big fellow," he is apt to say. "Ever play basketball? We have a fine team, but we need a center." The boys have work to do, but never as punishment (the only punishment is loss of vacation). Once a new pupil was assigned the job of sweeping the stairs and defiantly spread mud on them instead. Starr polished the stairs himself. Then he congratulated the boy, in front of everyone, for cleaning the stairs so well. That did the trick.

Future Comfortable. Through the sale of special Christmas seals, Starr takes in $100,000 a year, which pays most of the school's expenses. He bought more land, overlooking a large lake, built ten "cottages" on his campus, furnished them with rugs, books, and pictures. When his school expanded to 150 pupils, he took over five more houses, dotted over the rolling farmland beyond his campus. He hired nine teachers to instruct the boys.

Many of his boys, though in their teens, can hardly read or write when they arrive. That doesn't bother Starr, but he does insist on an I.Q. of at least 90. Most kids stay about two years: Starr believes that it is as bad to stay too long as to leave too soon ("They get over-institutionalized"). He thinks it easier to influence a boy at 17 or 18 than at twelve.

Though usually under court sentence, the boys wear no uniforms and live behind no walls. Between classes, they work on the school farm, sell whatever milk or food they cannot eat or drink themselves (the farm made over $6,000 last year). In the evenings, they listen to music ("Learning to love beauty is essential," says Floyd Starr) or crowd into "Uncle Floyd's" office for popcorn and cider.

Of Floyd Starr's 1,200 alumni, he estimates that 90 to 95% have gone straight. He gets about 1,000 letters a year from them; many are now respected doctors, lawyers, mechanics, farmers. Last week, after 34 years, Floyd Starr was sure that his school was "well out of swaddling clothes." There was just one more thing he wanted to build, and he was busy raising the money to build it--a chapel.

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