1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Reformatory School

REFORMATORY SCHOOL, an institution for the industrial training of juvenile offenders, in which they are lodged, clothed and fed, as well as taught. They are to be distinguished from “industrial schools,” which are institutions for potential and not actual delinquents. To reformatory schools in England are sent juveniles up to the age of sixteen who have been convicted of an offence punishable with penal servitude or imprisonment. The order is made by the court before which they are tried; the limit of detention is the age of nineteen. Reformatory schools are regulated by the Children Act 1908, which repealed the Reformatory Schools Act 1866, as amended by acts of 1872, 1874, 1891, 1893, 1899 and 1901. See further Juvenile Offenders.