In the spring of 1907, Homer Lane began his work with institutionalized problem boys when he became superintendent of the Boy's Home and d'Arcambal Association in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The program Lane developed at the school was geared toward building the boys' self-respect and self-reliance and toward giving them an opportunity to practice self-restraint through self-government. Lane regarded the school not as an institution but as a community of individuals forming a commonwealth, with a constitution serving as a compact between them. This paper traces the development of the institution, later called the Ford Republic and now known as the Boys Republic, both as an educational facility and as an organization. Gradual changes in the educational theories and practices of subsequent superintendents are described and analyzed, including the school's movement away from a self-governing family and work-training facility to a residential treatment facility. Sections in this paper discuss: (1) the genesis of Lane's idea of self-government; (2) the post-Lane years at the Boys Republic; (3) the contemporary organizational treatment philosophy; and (4) a comparative analysis between Lane's Boys Republic and A. S. Neill's "Summerhill" (Great Britain). A comparative analysis also is made of the characteristics of the school as it was originally conceived by Homer Lane and its present organizational and philosophic characteristics. (JD)