Reynolds House: A Hostel for Maladjusted School-Leavers

HAT archaic, residuary "s" in hostel might be said to represent whateVer it is that distinguishes such an establishment from the s-less hotel. We run hostels do well to examine ln?se distinguishing features with very S^eat care, because it is the provision ot them, rather than of basic hotel reciuirements, that justifies our existence. The basic hotel requirements we must provide too, but everyone knows what they are; any discussion of "!?stels must concern itself primarily Wlt" those intangible, imponderable ^rvices that are represented by that ? ? And these services will presum-7~ly differ somewhat according to the *Pe of person for whom the hostel Sets ?ut to cater. Articular type Reynolds House, the hostel at pre-cent under consideration, aims at Bering for a very particular type of Person; they are boys who have just .jrj* schools for maladjusted children. however, does not define them ompigteiy We do not suppose that in e relatively free life of a hostel "^e, in the nature of things, we have httle control of each boy's total en-r?nment, we can hope to succeed where the school, with its complete control of the environment for most of the year, has failed. Even the best of the schools have, from time to time, the odd boy who has remained with them until school leaving age rather because no one knew what else to do with him (and because of that well-known hope-cherishing capacity of the human breast), than because he is really getting anywhere. Such boys are a serious problem, but they are not a problem we in the hostel can hope to solve, so we restrict ourselves to boys who have made a satisfactory measure of progress towards stability. Not all such boys, however, need the services of a hostel?we are concerned with that proportion of such boys as would, so far as can be seen, be in danger of relapse if they were to return to their own unsatisfactory homes, or who have no homes to which to return. There is a further condition of acceptance that we lay down?we expect that normally the boy will come straight from school. Headmasters know which of their boys are likely to need our services, and there is nothing to be gained by allowing such boys to go home and relapse before taking