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 THE WAYWARD CHILD
 
 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 A Study of the Causes of Crime 
 
 By 
 
 HANNAH KENT SCHOFF 
 
 President of the National CongresB of Mothers and Parent Teacher Associations. 
 
 President of the Philadelphia Juvenile Court and Probation Association, 
 
 Collaborator in the Home Education Division of the United 
 
 States Bureau of Education and Editor of 
 
 The Child Welfare Magazine 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH SERIES 
 Edited by M. V. O'SHEA 
 
 Professor of Education, The University of Wisconsin 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright 1915 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Compant 
 
 PRCaS OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH d CO. 
 
 BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
 
 BROOKLYN. N. Y.
 
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 HV 
 
 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 We are being told frequently these days by persons 
 \J, of high authority that crime is constantly becoming a 
 more serious problem in American life. Recently sev- 
 eral investigators have made alarming statements to 
 the effect that juvenile delinquency is steadily increas- 
 ing in this country. Many persons are placing the 
 blame for this unhappy condition of affairs on the 
 
 V school; others are saying that the home is at fault; 
 
 ^ while still others are claiming that social conditions are 
 mainly responsible for the development of the youth- 
 ful criminal. Apparently all these people are in ear- 
 
 ^ nest in their efforts to determine the factors whicH 
 K lead the young into a criminal career ; but most of the 
 
 ^ discussion of this subject which one reads in our day 
 
 <^ is based on a study of the matter from the outside, 
 as it were. The sociologist discusses the question from 
 
 \> the standpoint of the general principles of social or- 
 ganization and social activity. The minister treats the 
 
 ^ problems involved from the view-point of religion, 
 while the psychologist views them from his special 
 standpoint. Comparatively few of those who write 
 on this theme have actually studied criminals at first 
 hand and learned from them the story of their lives, 
 for the purpose of ascertaining what they themselves 
 think were the factors which turned them into evil 
 paths. There have been some helpful "confessions" 
 of criminals, and these have given a glimpse of the 
 
 t3v>4>ljiCf'
 
 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 early life of the authors and have indicated at what 
 point they were deflected into ways of crime. But 
 these "confessions" have not been numerous, although 
 students of human nature have appreciated that a great 
 amount of valuable information could be secured from 
 an offender if he could be induced to make a frank 
 statement of his own experiences, and give his opinion 
 as to ways and means of training the young so that 
 they would be able to repress evil tendencies. 
 
 The author of The Wayward Child has adopted the 
 method of getting directly from criminals the story of 
 their lives for the purpose of finding out what condi- 
 tions led to their downfall. She secured from a large 
 number of men and women in jails and prisons 
 throughout the country frank statements of their early 
 careers. Her correspondents were evidently genuinely 
 interested in the questions which were asked them. 
 They desired to tell truthfully the experiences which 
 had led them into conflict with the law, and in a great 
 many cases they pointed out with clearness and ear- 
 nestness what ought to be done with young people in 
 order to save them from a criminal life. Mrs. Schoff 
 supplemented her questionnaire by direct visits to a 
 good many prisoners. She gained their confidence, 
 and learned from them directly what they considered 
 to be the influences which led them into delinquency. 
 Besides, Mrs. Schoff has for many years been presi- 
 dent of the Juvenile Court Association in her native 
 city, and she has studied the careers of a great many
 
 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 young people who have passed through the juvenile 
 court. 
 
 The present volume assembles the results of all these 
 investigations and experiences, and interprets and com- 
 ments on the facts presented. The book is a practical 
 study of the facts and conditions in contemporary 
 American life which lead the young into conflict with 
 the institutions of society. The various suggestions 
 for improvement which the author makes are all based 
 on her concrete material and her actual experience in 
 dealing with young ofifenders. Mrs. Schoff should be 
 considered as a practical rather than a theoretical stu- 
 dent of the psychology and sociology of juvenile crime, 
 and the book will therefore appeal particularly to those 
 who are charged with the immediate care and educa- 
 tion of the young. But it will also be of service to 
 theoretical students, because it will furnish a body of 
 interesting and accurate material illustrating the re- 
 sults on juvenile conduct of all the dominant forces in 
 modern city, village and country life. 
 
 M. V. O'Shea. 
 Madison, Wisconsin.
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 "If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon 
 brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crum- 
 ble into dust; but if we work upon immortal souls, if we 
 imbue them with immortal principles, with the just fear of 
 God and love of fellow men, we engrave on those tablets 
 something which will brighten all eternity." — Daniel Web- 
 ster. 
 
 This book carries a message to those whose interest 
 has not yet been awakened in the work of saving the 
 wayward child. This is not a problem for the few, it 
 is a problem for all, for without help from all some 
 children will always suffer. Because in the past few 
 have known the unfortunate and dangerous conditions 
 many children are laboring under, these conditions 
 have continued longer than would have been possible 
 were it realized what such conditions entail on children 
 and on society at large. A little child has led the 
 writer to an exhaustive study of the causes which are 
 responsible for making wayward children, of the treat- 
 ment provided for them, its effects on them and of the 
 possibility of providing more effective measures for 
 prevention and treatment. 
 
 One morning in May, 1899, the Philadelphia papers 
 gave an account of the arrest and imprisonment of a 
 little girl for setting fire to a house. Her picture was 
 published, and with startling head-lines she was her- 
 alded to the world as "A Prodigy of Crime." Mother- 
 less since she had been two years old, an inmate of an
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 orpHanageand then a drudge in a city boarding-House, 
 with no companionship save that of ignorant servants, 
 there had been Httle opportunity for her to develop 
 any moral responsibility. Friendless she was, arrested, 
 imprisoned, tried in a criminal court and sentenced to 
 a House of Refuge, and only eight years old ! When 
 asked why she had started the fire she frankly said, 
 "To see the fire burn and the engines run." 
 
 Branded as a criminal and sentenced to the compan- 
 ionship of girls guilty of crimes of far greater menace 
 to character, what hope could the future hold for her ? 
 The injustice in the treatment of this poor child led 
 me to the determination to rescue her if possible, and 
 to do for her what I should wish some one to do for 
 my own little girl were she in a similar position — as 
 she might have been had she been motherless and 
 friendless at such a tender age. An interview with the 
 judge and an appeal to be permitted to place the child 
 in a good home that I had secured for her resulted in 
 his granting the request. That child, regarded as 
 such a prodigy of crime, grew up in the home given her 
 by a noble woman. She has been graduated from a 
 normal school, and is now an assistant principal in one 
 of the public schools of Pennsylvania, The same re- 
 sults might be attained with most so-called prodigies 
 of crime if they could be put under the right influences 
 at the time when such influences count. 
 
 When I remonstrated with the judge for sending 
 such a child to a reformatory he said he had no choice 
 in the matter, for there was no other place to send her
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 and they did not want her even there, on account of 
 the character of her offense. Further investigation 
 into the methods of procedure with children only in- 
 tensified the feeling already aroused, that injustice and 
 wrong were being committed in the name of justice. 
 
 Pennsylvania has two houses of refuge, one in the 
 eastern part of the state and one in the western. In 
 addition to these the state has a reformatory at Hunt- 
 ington for boys over fifteen years of age. A law pro- 
 hibits the retention of children in almshouses for more 
 than two months, but the state had provided no other 
 place for helpless children who often, through no 
 fault of their own, were left to the state for care, pro- 
 tection and training. Private charities have stepped in 
 to fill this gap and in many cases they have done good 
 work in saving children, but this work has always been 
 inadequate. 
 
 There were five hundred children ranging from six 
 to sixteen years of age in the Philadelphia County 
 Prison in 1900. There were from two to three hun- 
 dred children passing through the station houses of 
 the city every month, all standing in critical need of 
 intelligent direction and guidance, yet receiving noth- 
 ing. There were children in every county prison 
 throughout Pennsylvania, committed for trifling of- 
 fenses and subjected to influences that could not fail 
 to confirm evil habits. There were over eight hundred 
 children in each reformatory, and no distinction was 
 made as to the children committed there. Waifs, 
 homeless little ones and children accused of serious
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 crimes were indiscriminately sent to the same institu- 
 tion. It was made easy to send them there. The state 
 put a premium on parental irresponsibility and wel- 
 comed all who wished to receive education and support 
 at its expense. 
 
 Any magistrate could commit a child to a reforma- 
 tory on a parent's statement of incorrigibility, and no 
 effort seems to have been made to prove the parent's 
 statement. The child's side of the case was never 
 heard. The result was that step-fathers and step- 
 mothers desiring to be freed from the care of children 
 took this method of throwing on the state the duty that 
 belonged to them, and more than half the children in 
 the House of Refuge were there on account of the 
 complaints of parents. The stigma of having been in 
 a reformatory was thus put unjustly on hundreds of 
 children and the state was subjected to an expense 
 that was totally unwarranted. It was to the advantage 
 of the institution to receive small children, because in 
 working with these they could show a larger percent- 
 age of reform. The cottage system was used, yet with 
 fifty or sixty children in each house and thirty sleeping 
 in one room there could be little resemblance to family 
 life. These reformatories provided excellent educa- 
 tional opportunities, industrial as well as academic, 
 and they provided good food and fresh air in abun- 
 dance. jBut the mingling together of hundreds of boys 
 committed for every kind of crime, with only a distinc-' 
 tion for size and age, made these institutions places 
 where even with the moral stimulus coming from those,
 
 AUTHOP'^ INTRODUCTION 
 
 in cKarge of them, tHe inevitable result to all was a fa- 
 miliarity with crime of every sort.\ 
 
 The reformatory was in Pennsylvania the only place 
 to send children, except the prisons, and some of the 
 best judges sent children to prison, because there they 
 were isolated instead of being associated with other 
 offenders. Their trial was in the criminal court, and 
 in the cages for criminals the boys and girls awaited 
 their turn, listening to things too vile to mention, and 
 receiving lessons in evil never to be forgotten. Dockets 
 were always crowded, and never was there any one to 
 give the busy judge any information that would help 
 him to decide a child's case wisely. Such were the 
 conditions in Pennsylvania in 1900. 
 
 And then it was that, with an inward vow to work 
 unceasingly until something better than this could be 
 devised for unfortunate children, the movement was 
 planned which has resulted in the establishment of the 
 juvenile court and probation system in Pennsylvania 
 and which has influenced its establishment in many 
 other places. 
 
 The first step toward this was a personal investiga- 
 tion of what other states were doing for children. A 
 committee was formed which assisted in the compila- 
 tion of the laws concerning dependent, delinquent and 
 defective children in every state. Through the gen- 
 erosity of the New Century Club and of two of its 
 members this compilation of statutes was published in 
 1900 and widely distributed among those making simi-
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 lar investigations. It was used as a text-book in sev- 
 eral large universities. 
 
 Few states had given thought to protecting the in- 
 terests of childhood. Convict Children was the title of 
 the statutes in some states. The states which stood 
 out in bold relief in child care were Massachusetts and 
 Michigan, while Illinois had just introduced its juve- 
 nile court and probation system. Our investigation led 
 us to the conclusion that Illinois in its juvenile court 
 and probation system had introduced the most valuable 
 and effective method of dealing with unfortunate chil- 
 dren and that this system was the first thing to be de- 
 sired in every state. An interview with the Governor 
 of Pennsylvania and with several political leaders se- 
 cured their hearty support for the movement. The 
 enactment of the laws followed in May, 1901, and was 
 a surprise and shock to those who felt that the old 
 ways were good enough. 
 
 Up to 1899 children were tried in criminal courts 
 throughout the United States and prisons had hun- 
 dreds of child inmates. Thousands of children were 
 arrested every month with no provision for any help 
 to prevent further wrongdoing. The book, Statutes 
 of Every State in the United States Concerning De- 
 pendent and Delinquent Children, became the basis of 
 knowledge of state responsibility for children assumed 
 up to 1900. Further knowledge of the wrongs against 
 children committed in every state impelled the writer 
 to do her part in calling attention to these facts and in 
 awakening public sentiment to demand better methods
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION- 
 
 for child protection. The way has led deeper and 
 deeper into the questions of child life as they are met 
 in home, school and state. Investigation combined 
 with practical work with children has brought to light 
 many facts which bear strongly on the causes which 
 have made courts so busy and prisons so full. 
 
 Through the interest aroused among Pennsylvania 
 men and women when the facts were placed before 
 them Philadelphia became the second American city 
 to establish a juvenile court, and Pennsylvania became 
 the third state to pass laws against placing children in 
 prisons or hearing their cases in a criminal court. This 
 was the first result of the work, and Philadelphia had 
 its first session of the Juvenile Court in June, 1901. 
 
 The supplying of probation officers, for whose salary 
 there was no provision, was the next step. For eight 
 years, with the valuable help of those who had become 
 interested in the cause, the organization of probation 
 work, its extension, support and direction in Philadel- 
 phia devolved upon the writer. During that time over 
 ten thousand cases were observed and carefully 
 studied. Five thousand children were placed on pro- 
 bation, the others being discharged or sent to institu- 
 tions. Weekly meetings with probation officers were 
 held, to consider what could best be done to help the 
 children, before the cases were heard in court. 
 
 The causes of arrest were larceny, running away 
 from home, incorrigibility, vagrancy, assault and ma- 
 licious mischief. Ninety per cent, of those arrested 
 were boys, ten per cent, girls. About half of the chil-
 
 .AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 dren were nanve born. More than half of them were 
 between thirteen and sixteen, about one-third between 
 ten and thirteen and the remainder were under ten 
 years of age. Ninety per cent, were normal children 
 who were bright and who possessed the natural ability 
 of more favored children. About ten per cent, were 
 physically or mentally below normal. In each case 
 there was a thorough investigation as to the home con- 
 ditions and school record of the child as well as into 
 the causes that had led to arrest. The causes of juve- 
 nile delinquency can be summed up in a few words, as, 
 parental ignorance concerning child nurture, bad home 
 conditions, community ignorance and the failure to 
 provide for children's needs. In nearly every case the 
 child is the innocent victim of circumstances over 
 which he has no control. In other words, children 
 appear in juvenile court as the result of conditions 
 outside of themselves but which would bring any child 
 there who might be subjected to them. 
 
 The study of the arrested children in a city of a 
 million and a half inhabitants gives one a broad view 
 of and insight into the conditions which bring children 
 into court. While seeking to give suitable help to each 
 child the writer has also been studying the broader 
 problem, endeavoring to learn all that leads to arrest 
 and why so many children are driven to take the down- 
 ward path. Each year has deepened the conviction 
 that ignorant, injurious, mistaken treatment of chil- 
 dren is the real cause of crime. The writer's experi- 
 ence with ten thousand children is conclusive in its
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 indication that the reason why the prisons are full 
 dates back to the early lives of these men and women 
 whom the world calls criminals. 
 
 As a result of this conviction the writer began to 
 wish that it were possible to get into communication 
 with prison inmates and learn directly from them what 
 were their thoughts and feelings about their early 
 lives and what they considered the causes of their 
 downfall. Theories may or may not be true. They 
 never, at any rate, carry conviction as do the plain 
 facts of actual experience. And it is for this reason 
 that the writer was led more and more to wish to get 
 information directly from prison inmates concerning 
 the causes of crime. 
 
 An opportunity to make just such an investigation 
 into the early life of prison inmates came in 1909. 
 This opportunity came through the writer's receiving 
 an appointment from the Department of State to rep- 
 resent the United States at the Home Education Con- 
 gress in Belgium, and also being appointed by the 
 United States Bureau of Education, chairman of the 
 American Committee on Causes of Crime in Normal 
 Children. The members of the committee were, be- 
 sides the writer, the Honorable Ben B. Lindsey, the 
 Honorable William H. De Lacy, Superintendent Will- 
 iam H. Slotter, Miss Elizabeth A. Atkinson, secretary, 
 with Professor M. V. O'Shea, who was chairman of 
 the American committees making special studies. Let- 
 ters were sent to the wardens of all the penitentiaries, 
 asking whether they would be willing to submit a pre-
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 pared list of sixty-five questions to the inmates, and 
 offering to send as many copies of the questionnaire as 
 should be needed. 
 
 The replies from wardens in fifteen states were 
 favorable, and at their request twenty thousand ques- 
 tionnaires were sent to them. It was felt that the point 
 of view of the men and women who have lived through 
 all that lies back of a prison sentence must have some 
 bearing on any serious study of crime. The questions 
 were asked with the purpose of learning the causes 
 leading to crime, and whether or not the treatment 
 given had served the purpose for which it was in- 
 tended. Space was given for brief life stories of those 
 who replied. Out of twenty thousand questionnaires 
 sent over two thousand replies were received. They 
 came from eight states and were representative in 
 character, and in nearly all cases the desire was indi- 
 cated to cooperate in the purpose for which the com- 
 mittee was making the investigation. The questionnaire 
 contained a statement that the committee was investi- 
 gating the causes which lead boys and girls to offend 
 against the law and enter into lives of crime, with the 
 purpose of protecting the youth of the country and 
 preventing them from following criminal careers. 
 These statements also appeared on each questionnaire 
 and seemed to touch a responsive chord in many 
 hearts: "You can help innocent children by replying 
 truthfully to the questions submitted to you. Your 
 answers will be confidential and your name is not de?
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 sired, Hut the information you may give will help to 
 give boys and girls a better chance." 
 
 One prisoner of thirty v^rote, commenting on these 
 statements: "If by answering these few questions I 
 am able to prevent only one boy or girl from leading 
 a dishonest or criminal life I am well satisfied and 
 would willingly answer a thousand more." Many 
 others expressed the same thought in different ways. 
 
 No one could read the life stories of these erring 
 men and women without arriving at the conclusion 
 that prevention of crime instead of punishment must 
 be the great work of the future. 
 
 The contributing causes lie in home, in church, in 
 school, in city and state. In the years that the writer 
 has been in touch with the so-called incorrigible chil- 
 dren of a great city she has seen many who were re- 
 garded as hopelessly wicked respond to the love and 
 care given them. Grown to manhood and womanhood, 
 leading honest and useful lives, they have proved that 
 they were not incorrigible or hopeless. 
 
 The crime committed has hitherto held the center of 
 the stage. It is more important to learn, however, why 
 it was committed. To guard and properly guide every 
 child in the formative years of life, to prepare him to 
 meet temptations of every kind, but to protect him 
 from meeting them until he is strong enough to resist 
 them — ^this is the constructive work demanded of par- 
 ents, teachers and the state. 
 
 Crime can only be prevented as the causes which 
 contribute to making the criminal are fully understood
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 and removed. The belief that certain people constitutei 
 a criminal class and that society must take their exist- 
 ence for granted and provide for them has hitherto 
 tended to impede any reduction in criminality. 
 
 The child stands in our midst to-day as he did when 
 the Savior placed him there and said, "Suffer the 
 little children to come unto me and forbid them not, 
 for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Concerning 
 the wayward He said, "If a man have an hundred 
 sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not 
 leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the moun- 
 tains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? . . . 
 Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in 
 Heaven that one of these little ones should perish." 
 
 Could there be stronger testimony than that as to 
 the possibilities inherent in every child, or a stronger 
 plea for help for those who go astray? It places be- 
 yond argument the fact that the germs of good are in 
 every child. What has the world done to foster and 
 develop them? Why have so many failed to develop 
 their better selves ? 
 
 Fourteen years of study of these questions, with the 
 information gained in the course of that study, have 
 brought the writer to the conclusion that in saving the 
 wayward child lies the solution of the problem of pre- 
 venting crime. That hitherto crime has increased is 
 the natural result of the treatment of children in the 
 past. The question is one that touches our whole 
 social structure. It is one that can only be settled by 
 the intelligent, united effort of parents, teachers and
 
 AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 the state in the adoption of methods better fitted to 
 
 develop and save children. It is a question that must 
 
 be viewed from many angles to realize the full effect 
 
 on child life. All these angles must be straightened out 
 
 and linked together until, like a circle without a weak 
 
 link or a break, home, church, school and state adopt 
 
 methods and undertake care which will enable every 
 
 child to develop the highest rather than the lowest side 
 
 of his nature. 
 
 H. K. S.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I At the Parting of the Ways 1 
 
 The Wayward Child and Adult Criminality — Way- 
 wardness Remediable — Sympathy Necessary — Spe- 
 cialized Knowledge — Arrests of Children — Imitation 
 — Need for Discernment — Children in Danger — Other 
 Dangers — Cigarettes — Prevention — Children not 
 Criminals — How All Can Help — The First Offense — 
 The Parent's First Duty — Knowledge of Conditions. 
 
 II The Crimes that Fill the Prisons .... 14 
 
 Crime Against Property — Crime, Against the Per- 
 son — Parental Neglect — Released Prisoners — Youth- 
 ful Prisoners — Types of Offenders — Influence of Jails 
 — Evil Contagious — Typical Instances — A Warden's 
 Opinion. 
 
 ■ Ilf^ How Homes Promote Criminality— Parents' Mis- 
 
 takes 26 
 
 Parents' Misunderstanding — Why Children Run 
 Away — Was This Boy a Vagrant? — Drunken Par- 
 ents — Craving for Love — Necessity for Mother- 
 ing — Evenings in the Streets — Home Conditions — 
 Influence of Heredity — Wayward Children Are Nor- 
 mal — More than Half American-Born — Arrested for 
 Stealing — Self-Control — Running Away — Nine- 
 Tenths Are Boys — Children's Reading — School Libra- 
 ries — Reading Courses — The Danger of Impurity — 
 Functions of Life — Inefficient Homes. 
 
 IV Separation of Parents .; . 51 
 
 Children and Divorce — Need for Guardians. 
 
 V Regulation of Occupations for Children ... 61 
 
 Early Experiences — Guardians for Children — 
 Homeless Chilaren — Remedial Legislation — Effect of 
 Legislation — Playgrounds — Habit of Work — Freedom 
 and Initiative — Placing Responsibility — Work Pre- 
 vents Crime.
 
 CONTENTS— (Continued) 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 VI The Homeless Motherless Child . . . . 7i 
 
 Criminals Handicapped — Orphan Asylums — Home 
 Finding — Arrests for Vagrancy — What the State May 
 Do — Protection of Children — Evidence from the 
 Prisons — Mothers Versus Institutions — Need for 
 Mothers — Breaking Up of Families — Mothers' Pen- 
 sions — Administration of Pensions — Murder, the Re- 
 sult — Parent-Teacher Associations. 
 
 VII Boyish Pranks Treated as Crimes Make Crim- 
 
 inals 93 
 
 Turning Points in Life — Serious Results — Entire 
 Lives Wrecked — Moral Disease — Educational Author- 
 / ities. 
 
 / VIII Schools and the Wayward Child .... 106 
 Juvenile Courts — Natural Activities — One Teach- 
 er's Method — Why Children Leave School — Trade 
 Schools — The Teacher and Wayward Children — Pub- 
 lic School-Teachers — Married Women as Teachers — 
 Both Men and Women — Responsibility of the School. 
 
 IX Truancy 121 
 
 Mothers Working Outside — Schools Do Not Inter- 
 est Children — Poverty and Truancy — Truant Officers 
 — Dealing with Truants — Faults Every Teacher Meets 
 — Helpers Needed — Preventing Crime — Young Teach- 
 ers — A Personal Relation — The Child Who Steals — 
 The Child Who Lies — Irregular Attendance — Parents' 
 Cooperation — The Bureau of Education. 
 
 X The Saloon's Part in the Dovi^nfall of Youth . 137 
 
 The Saloon — National Regulation — Governmental 
 Expense — The Saloon or the School — Y. M. C. A. 
 and Y. W. C. A. 
 
 XI The State's Methods in Treatment of Crime . 158 
 
 Criminal Procedure — Minor Offenses — The Minor 
 Courts — The Wayward Girl — Juvenile Offenders — 
 Children in Prisons — Criminal Courts — Prisons — Re- 
 leased Prisoners — Conditions in Prisons — Political 
 Control — Helping Prisoners — Responsibility for 
 Crime — Making New Crimes — Efficiency of the State 
 — City Ordinances.
 
 CONTENTS— (Continued) 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XII Reform Schools as a Part of the Penal System 179 
 
 One Cause of Failure — Indiscriminate Commit- 
 ments — Irresponsible Parents — The Reform School — 
 Large Institutions — The Institution Child. 
 
 XIII The Place and Work of the Juvenile Court . 204 
 
 Chicago's Juvenile Court — Juvenile Court Laws — 
 The Supreme Court — The Dependent Child — The 
 Erring Child — Incorrigible Children — Truants — ^Juve- 
 nile Court Not a Criminal Court in Pennsylvania — A 
 Hospital for Treating Moral Disease — Probation 
 Work — A Juvenile Court — The Next Step Forward — 
 A Juvenile Court Judge — Rural Districts — The Re- 
 quirements — Procedure — Temporary Homes — Board- 
 ing Homes — Probation Work — Training Schools. 
 
 XIV Probation that Will Save Wayward Children 233 
 
 Qualifications Essential to Good Probation Work — 
 Safeguarding the System — Training in Honesty — 
 Dealing with Theft — Parents' and Teachers' Treat- 
 ment of Dishonesty — Hope and Encouragement — 
 Immorality — Other Offenses — The Citizens' Initiative 
 — Personnel of Association — The State Commission 
 — Cooperation of Churches — Mothers' Circles — De- 
 tention Houses. 
 
 XV A Children's Charter for the United States . 257 
 
 No Correlation — Better Opportunities — Child Wel- 
 fare Commissions. 
 
 Index 271
 
 THE WAYWARD CHILD
 
 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 
 
 THE wayward child has been from time im- 
 memorial an anxiety to parents, a problem in 
 the school and an object for discipline and pun- 
 ishment by the state when his offenses became 
 too disturbing to be ignored. 
 
 The Wayward Child and Adult Criminality. — 
 The relation of the wayward child to the whole 
 great problem of crime in society has yet to be 
 realized. When it is proved that from the ranks 
 of children who are to-day standing at the part- 
 ing of the ways our criminals of the future are 
 being recruited, the subject of the wayward child 
 will be regarded as one of deepest concern to the 
 entire nation, i Those who have had little contact 
 with these children often feel that they are fun- 
 damentally different from other children. On the 
 other hand, those who have known thousands of 
 them learn that t.hey possess the same innate pos- 
 sibilities as do more fortunate children-^that they 
 
 1
 
 2 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 are in a condition similar to that of the people 
 who have been classed as lazy and good-for-noth- 
 ing because the hook-worm was sapping their 
 life-blood and depleting their energy, conditions 
 for which these people were not responsible, but 
 which were nevertheless undermining their 
 moral life. In discovering the hook-worm gov- 
 ernment medical experts brought to thousands 
 of our citizens the blessing of health, for the 
 condition was found to be remediable and pre- 
 ventable. 
 
 Waywardness Remediable. — The problem of 
 the wayward erring child is one that exists in 
 every community, yet it, too, is a condition that 
 is largely remediable and preventable. It took 
 years of earnest study to reveal the hook-worm 
 as a cause of low vitality and lack of initiative 
 and energy. Infinitely more subtle is that spirit 
 which gives life and power to the human body, 
 and the intelligent comprehension of all that de- 
 presses or inspires it is correspondingly more dif- 
 ficult — but this may be accomplished, so that the 
 obstacles which obstruct the spirit's normal 
 growth and development can be seen and re- 
 moved. 
 
 Sympathy Necessary. — In dealing with way- 
 ward children it is often necessary to combine 
 the wisdom of the skilled physician with the wis- 
 dom of those who have given most effective 
 study to the development of the soul and heart
 
 AT THE PARTING OF THE .WAYS 3 
 
 in childhood. Physically one may be developed 
 to great perfection, yet unless the spirit's guiding 
 power is true and balanced, life will fall short of 
 its best possibilities. Who are the persons best 
 fitted to learn about this? It is a question of the 
 child's inner life, of the motives and influences 
 which have led to evil, of the race tendencies 
 which are peculiar to different stages of youth. 
 Only those with sympathy and understanding of 
 the childish heart and mind can get at the real 
 causes and touch the inner life and give that in- 
 spiring help which will tide a child over a crisis 
 in life and set him on the upward path. Only 
 those can be of use who believe in the possibili- 
 ties of children, who have real faith in them, 
 when the question of childhood's needs is at 
 issue. 
 
 Specialized Knowledge. — When a crisis comes 
 in a serious illness the physician most skilled in 
 treatment of that special disease is called in as a 
 matter of course. When a valuable watch needs 
 repairing we do not take it to a blacksmith, for 
 it requires more delicate handling than he can 
 give it. When a child, a youth or a man goes 
 wrong he, too, faces a serious crisis in life; he, 
 too, needs nicely adjusted treatment — the treat- 
 ment of one who understands human frailty, who 
 condemns wrongdoing, but who also is filled 
 with sympathy and can show the wrongdoer a 
 better way of life. The world has learned that it
 
 4 THE WAYWARD. CHILD. 
 
 can not afford to neglect yellow fever or small- 
 pox or tuberculosis. It has learned that these 
 diseases are preventable; and when they do ap- 
 pear it has learned how to treat them and so elim- 
 inate the wasting plagues of past centuries. The 
 world has yet to learn that ignoring or improp- 
 erly treating what have been considered trifling 
 offenses of children are the greatest contributing 
 causes for the increasing work of courts and 
 prisons. 
 
 Arrests of Children. — ^The arrest of three hun- 
 dred children a month in a single city, multiplied 
 by a proportional number in other cities, is a 
 matter of serious moment to those children and 
 to the nation. Who have been the specialists 
 dealing with such cases, diagnosing and treating 
 them? These children stand at a critical point in 
 their lives. It is the parting of the ways for most 
 of them — the place and time when one sees the 
 beginnings of a criminal career for many of them. 
 It is a time when prevention is still possible, 
 when we may thus check the ever-increasing tide 
 of unfortunate humanity flooding into courts, 
 only to be passed on for months or years to 
 houses of correction, reformatories and prisons. 
 
 Imitation. — For the careless eye there is noth- 
 ing to indicate the future of these children. So 
 gradual is tlie descent, so few are the safeguards, 
 that only when the child is at the very verge of 
 the precipice has society noticed his danger.
 
 AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 5 
 
 Some men and women who have passed through' 
 the fire of temptation which besets youth are ear- 
 nestly pointing out the dangers against which 
 youth should be protected, and because many of 
 these are behind prison bars their plea for in- 
 nocent children is not less sincere or earnest. No 
 stronger statement of the fact that many children 
 take their first downward step in imitation of 
 those whom they regard as ideals of manliness 
 could well be found than Mr. Jack London's John 
 Barleycorn. This is a book which has distinct 
 psychological value for those who are studying 
 the problems of wayward children. Not until 
 manhood was set forth the real reason for the 
 boy's intoxication at seven years of age. If only 
 the reason could have been understood at the 
 time, what years dominated by low standards 
 of manliness would have been saved for better 
 things ! Mr. Jack London has written a valuable 
 book for those who would understand some of the 
 causes which are making many boys like the 
 hero of John Barleycorn, who of course is a real, 
 not a fictitious, character. 
 
 Need for Discernment. — The faults and mis- 
 deeds of little children require the most intelli- 
 gent treatment. To the fact that this has not 
 been given is due much of adult disorder and 
 crime. In the development of a life, events which 
 seem trifling may have a deep influence. To dis- 
 tinguish what is trivial from what is important
 
 6 THE .WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 requires discernment and knowledge, and these 
 are rare because child nurture is only beginning 
 to be thought of as a science of the greatest value 
 to humanity. It is this because the very quality 
 and character of the human race depend on it, to 
 which all other things are subservient. 
 
 Children in Danger. — Who, then, are some of 
 the children who are standing at the parting of 
 the ways, needing a guiding hand, skilled coun- 
 sel, effective inspiration? The little boy who 
 plays truant is not a criminal, but he has taken to 
 dangerous ways. He deceives and disobeys his 
 parents and is thrown with the chance compan- 
 ions of the street. He needs all the help that 
 can be given him, but that help, to be effective, 
 must touch his own heart and put within him the 
 desire to be obedient and reliable as well as to 
 go to school. No lasting benefit will come from 
 any other treatment. 
 
 The former disregard of truancy has been re- 
 placed by an elaborate system of treatment. Spe- 
 cialists in child nature and child nurture are ur- 
 gently needed for effective work in this field, as 
 much as specialists are needed for the treatment 
 of physical ailments. Such specialists can only 
 be trained by years of sympathetic living with 
 children and study of them. 
 
 Other Dangers. — Parents who permit their 
 children to stay on the streets after dark, know- 
 ing nothing of their companions or temptations.
 
 AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 7 
 
 are primarily responsible for many arrests of 
 children and for grave dangers to them from 
 which they should be protected. The curfew 
 law has been devised to meet this menace to chil- 
 dren, but the only efifective way to shield them 
 from the dangers of street life at night In village 
 or city is the universal education of parents as to 
 making the home a center for the evening life of 
 boys and girls, providing them with companions 
 and innocent pleasures there. Parents who leave 
 their doors unlocked for boys or girls to come 
 home when they choose have been the cause of 
 the arrest of many children. The children who 
 are sent to pick coal off railroad tracks and who 
 go a step farther and knock It off from a train are 
 in need of attention and help. The sense of mine 
 and thine needs training. Railroad officials have 
 many of these children arrested and urge that 
 they be "put away." They want to be relieved 
 of the trouble they have been given, and they 
 should be, but the child is, without question, the 
 most important consideration. He is at the part- 
 ing of the ways. Is any one thinking of his wel- 
 fare or is punishment for the offense the main 
 question at Issue? It Is not always the latter 
 now, but until recently it was reform school or 
 prison for these boys. 
 
 Cigarettes. — The victims of the cigarette habit 
 are in danger of joining the ranks of the crimi- 
 nals, for the habit controls them, and its under-
 
 8 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 mining effect on character is known to those who 
 have given attention to the subject. These chil- 
 dren need protection from themselves. The child 
 himself must be influenced and trained, for laws 
 can be of no use without the added safeguard of 
 self-control. Is this a trifle? Not when one 
 knows its results. 
 
 The disobedient, uncontrolled, lawless child 
 has within him qualities which, unless they are 
 checked, must lead surely downward. They can 
 be checked, but only before they have become 
 fixed habits. 
 
 The child whose mind is filled with impure 
 thoughts is in serious danger as regards both 
 himself and society. He needs the help of one 
 who can lead him to clean wholesome ideals of 
 life. He has gained his view-point from the asso- 
 ciations and influences about him. He can be 
 saved by sympathetic interest and companion- 
 ship if these are given before it is too late. It is 
 important to himself and to the world that he re- 
 ceive the care he needs, and that it be given in 
 the right way. 
 
 Prevention. — Causes no more serious than 
 these just enumerated are the beginnings which, 
 if ignored or unwisely treated, lead many into 
 criminal lives. Care, encouragement, treatment 
 and help at this period have greater results than 
 at any other time in life. In nine cases out of 
 ten it is possible with such care to check crime
 
 AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 9 
 
 effectively at its source. If during the impres- 
 sionable years of child life all were guarded and 
 guided with intelligent sympathy and insight into 
 child nature there would be few who would 
 choose the path of crime. It is just here that one 
 finds the ways dividing. It is here that whole 
 lives can be transformed by the man or woman 
 who, through delicate, sympathetic, patient, 
 friendly, loving touch, can reach the hearts and 
 souls of children. 
 
 Children Not Criminals. — A wide experience 
 with children who have been considered the very 
 worst that a large city can furnish has proved 
 conclusively to me that children called burglars, 
 thieves, incorrigibles, truants and runaways are 
 not hopeless criminals, nor are they in their 
 make-up dififerent from children in happier cir- 
 cumstances. They are the victims of conditions 
 for which they are not responsible. They need 
 all the help, all the sympathy and thoughtful 
 treatment that can be given them. No expense 
 is too great, no work is too hard, that will turn 
 erring feet toward the upward path. The dirty, 
 ragged, rough, unattractive bit of humanity 
 whom no one seems to love is one of God's lit- 
 tle ones of whom He said: *Tt is not the will 
 of your Father in Heaven that one of these little 
 ones shall perish." He gave the children to our 
 special keeping. It is His work we do when 
 we strive to help them to live according to His
 
 10 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 laws. It Is with His spirit of infinite patience 
 and love that we must work for them if we ex- 
 pect to accomplish the work He has committed 
 to us, that of so guiding and guarding His little 
 ones in their weakness and when their falter- 
 ing steps lead them astray that each one may 
 become a jewel in His kingdom. With the recog- 
 nition that a divine trust has been committed 
 to us for doing a work that will count to all 
 eternity, the labor for childhood assumes an im- 
 portance beyond all else. Can the parents 
 blessed with children whose lives are good for- 
 get those other little ones who are less fortu- 
 nate but are no less children of the Heavenly 
 Father? Does not their very helplessness and 
 misery and wrongdoing constitute an appeal to 
 every unselfish heart for such help that they 
 may live up to their highest possibilities? 
 
 How All Can Help. — ^There are many ways 
 in which all can give help. Every father and 
 mother can and should try to do something for 
 the "bad boy" of the neighborhood — what they 
 would wish to have done for their own boy were 
 he in the same condition. No child should ever 
 be designated "bad" or "wicked." An act may 
 be so designated, but to brand children in such 
 a way causes irreparable harm and takes away 
 a valid incentive for doing right. It grates on 
 the ear of any one who knows children to hear 
 them called "criminals" and "incorrigibles."
 
 AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 11 
 
 Such terms are not applicable to children, be- 
 cause they indicate a fixed condition, whereas in 
 children the character is in a formative state 
 and susceptible to change. 
 
 The First Offense. — A child's or a youth's 
 first offense is a danger-signal which if disre- 
 garded may bring serious consequences. Par- 
 ents have not realized where these apparently 
 trivial transgressions usually lead. Many admit 
 that they are unable to cope with their children 
 and eagerly seek to turn the responsibility over 
 to other hands. The children who are standing 
 at the parting of the ways in thousands of homes 
 to-day are normal children, only needing the 
 tender guidance and care which parents can best 
 give them. Care and moral education would 
 surely be given by conscientious parents if only 
 they realized the result of neglect at this crucial 
 time. Morally neglected children are not pe- 
 culiar to any class. 
 
 The Parent's First Duty.— The father so ab- 
 sorbed in business that he has no time to devote 
 to the training of his children, and the mother 
 so occupied with housekeeping and social duties 
 that she does not attempt to know where her 
 children are or what they are doing — these are 
 guilty of parental neglect in worse degree than 
 the mother who must leave her children to earn 
 a livelihood. To them suddenly there comes a 
 sad awakening. The child has found compan-
 
 12 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 ions and influences never dreamed of by his par- 
 ents. It was not his fault that he found them. 
 In the most impressionable period of life, at 
 a time when careful parents would provide safe 
 occupation and amusement for their children, 
 careless parents let them run loose. When care- 
 ful parents would learn where their child was, 
 careless parents are satisfied if he comes to meals 
 and is in at bedtime. Of the world outside into 
 which the children go and of the acquaintances 
 made there no parent can afford to be ignorant. 
 The powers of evil are there to tempt them and 
 to lead them downward. In the pursuit of 
 pleasure boys or girls are innocently led into 
 places from which their parents might have 
 guarded them. It is time parents knew all the 
 temptations that organized forces of evil place 
 before youth in street, school, shop or college. 
 Parents must combat these organized forces 
 which seek to ruin youth. The children can not 
 do it; their characters are still unformed; but 
 parents should aid children in forming charac- 
 ter and in keeping them from temptation until 
 they are old enough to resist it. 
 
 Knowledge of Conditions. — Parents can never 
 do their full duty for their own children until 
 they inform themselves of outside conditions af- 
 fecting all children, until they make it their busi- 
 ness to see that all children have proper treat- 
 ment and proper protection. Only when sym-
 
 AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 13 
 
 pathetic, individual and intelligent guidance of 
 each child standing at a critical place In life Is 
 provided will the world see a diminution In 
 crime. In helping these children at this particu- 
 lar time to a true ideal toward which they should 
 shape their lives the greatest possible service 
 can be rendered them. This Ideal can be no 
 weak, namby-pamby affair — it must be vital, full 
 of red blood, pointing the way to a real goal 
 ahead. Race tendencies must be understood. 
 The spirit of comradeship and the spirit of ad- 
 venture can not be crushed, but these can be 
 guided Into constructive and useful channels in- 
 stead of being allowed to drift into destructive 
 and evil ones. 
 
 Is this a dream or a vision? "In the image of 
 God created He them." To keep this untar- 
 nished, to direct them ever upward, is the great 
 purpose of life..
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE CRIMES THAT FILL THE PRISONS 
 
 MEN, women and children who are serving 
 sentences in prison are there for burglary, 
 fighting, assault and battery, vagrancy, bigamy, 
 shooting dice, rape, receiving stolen goods, hom- 
 icide, murder, embezzlement, disorderly conduct, 
 trespassing, deserting from the army, carrying 
 concealed weapons, non-support, highway rob- 
 bery, larceny, gambling, forgery, arson, man- 
 slaughter, drunkenness, felony, adultery, abduc- 
 tion, passing counterfeit money, riding a bicycle 
 on a sidewalk, stealing rides on trains. 
 
 Crime Against Property. — Crime against prop- 
 erty, or in other words the violation of the com- 
 mandment, "Thou shalt not steal," brings more 
 than half of our prison inmates into their sad 
 predicament. Whether called petit larceny, 
 grand larceny, receiving stolen goods, picking 
 pockets, embezzlement, burglary, highway rob- 
 bery or forgery, the desire to get what belongs 
 to others is the motive, and while the law has 
 given many names to the offense it is in each 
 case a violation of the command, *'Thou shalt 
 not steal," and the simple term that covers all 
 
 14
 
 CRIMES THAT FILL PRISONS 15 
 
 varieties is stealing-. More than half the work of 
 every criminal court consists in the prosecution 
 of thefts of one sort or another, while half of 
 the space necessary in prisons and reform 
 schools and half the cost of their maintenance 
 can be attributed to dishonesty. 
 
 Crime Against the Person. — ^The remaining 
 crimes are against the person and are even more 
 serious. Manslaughter, homicide and murder, 
 seduction, bigamy and adultery are crimes which 
 give the courts half their business and the pris- 
 ons half their inmates. Liquor is responsible 
 for a large proportion of these crimes. Most 
 murders are not premeditated, but are the re- 
 sult of liquor and consequent loss of self-control. 
 
 The causes of crime given by prison inmates 
 are: No work — need of money; bad company 
 — drink; brutal fathers; domestic troubles; bad 
 books and cigarettes; too much money; fast 
 women; gambling; boyish pranks; hunger — • 
 lack of home training, parental neglect ; institu- 
 tion life in childhood; instruction in stealing by 
 older people ; cocaine and other drugs. 
 
 A study of the crimes for which all the vast 
 machinery of arrest, prosecution and punish- 
 ment is maintained shows that its necessity 
 would rapidly decrease were it possible to give 
 to youth the desire and purpose to be honest, 
 to teach self-control, to impart pure standards 
 of life, and to abolish liquor.
 
 16 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 Parental Neglect. — Prevention lies far back of 
 the day when the youth is brought before the 
 bar of justice. No external measures will count 
 unless it is possible to put into the hearts of 
 children the desire to do right and patiently 
 teach them how to do it. The parents' omis- 
 sion of instilling into the child the fundamental 
 principles of life is the chief cause of crime in 
 later years as revealed in the life-stories of 
 prison inmates. 
 
 Released Prisoners. — Nearly all who are in 
 prison for their first term express the determina- 
 tion not to be there again. Nearly all who have 
 served several terms state that they tried to do 
 right when released after the first term, but the 
 obstacles were too great. Persecution and sur- 
 veillance by the police are given as reasons for 
 second imprisonment. "If more were trusted 
 more would reform," says one inmate. Others 
 say: "After release I was picked up on suspi- 
 cion"; and "the greatest difficulty met is the 
 stain of being once imprisoned." "Could not get 
 work on account of previous prison term," is the 
 testimony of many. "A jail reference is no 
 good," says one, "we turn to drink and back we 
 go." "No work, no money, no friends, no 
 trade," is the fourfold reason given by numbers 
 who are serving second or third terms. The re- 
 leased prisoner, unless he has friends to whom 
 he can go, has very little chance for establishing
 
 CRIMES THAT FILL PRISONS 17 
 
 himself. The five or ten dollars given to him 
 on release are soon gone and unless he has 
 strength of mind enough to starve rather than 
 steal he is often forced to do the latter to sus- 
 tain life. 
 
 Youthful Prisoners. — Who are these released 
 prisoners of a single term? Most of them are 
 youths who have been guilty of a serious fault, 
 who have suffered for it and who need help to 
 reestablish themselves. The state for its own 
 protection should devise some plan for such re- 
 establishment. The belief that prison inmates 
 are principally of foreign birth is not correct. 
 It is from among American citizens that the 
 prisons draw their largest quota of inmates. 
 The suspended sentence and probation would, 
 under proper administration, reduce the com- 
 mitments to prisons by nearly one-half. It is 
 probable that most of those benefiting- by sus- 
 pended sentence and probation would be saved 
 from becoming involuntary professional crim- 
 inals. The prompt trial of every offender would 
 save many who now wait weeks and months in 
 jail before the courts reach their cases. These 
 weeks and months of prison association have 
 often led to making criminals out of those who 
 originally might be innocent. 
 
 Types of Offenders. — A young man of twenty- 
 seven serving a prison sentence of seven years 
 had wanted to go to a circus. At that time he
 
 18 THE .WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 was sixteen. He had no money and so stole 
 junk, which he sold. He was arrested and put 
 in the county jail for six months while he 
 awaited trial. "There," he writes, 'T heard all 
 kinds of crimes planned, also how to do certain 
 jobs. I got my first start as a criminal there." 
 
 Another youth of twenty-four serving a sec- 
 ond term in prison says: "There are two ways 
 of making a criminal — by letting him go and by 
 imprisonment. I am a criminal because I was 
 thrown among criminals during my imprison- 
 ment, whose whole talk was of crime and crim- 
 inals. I became imbued with these things, and 
 can truthfully say that had I not been sent to 
 prison for my first offense I would never have 
 broken the law again. My reputation was taken, 
 so what was the use of trying to do right?" 
 
 These are typical instances of the experiences 
 which have been the lot of many youths. 
 
 Influence of Jails. — The need for a place sep- 
 arate from convicted prisoners for those who 
 are awaiting trial is one that should not be over- 
 looked. Attention to this matter would help in 
 preventing the making of criminals by taking 
 away influences and acquaintances which are 
 specially dangerous for first offenders. Six 
 months may be an exceptionally long period for- 
 one to await trial, but little children have been 
 detained as witnesses for that length of time. 
 The law's delays are often a serious handicap
 
 CRIMES THAT FILL PRISONS 19 
 
 to the future of those who are deprived of lib- 
 erty. And the welfare of the youth in prison is 
 synonymous with the welfare of the entire com- 
 munity. 
 
 Evil Contagious. — In the eyes of the law all 
 prisoners are innocent until proved guilty. To 
 subject these untried prisoners to all the asso- 
 ciations and conditions pertaining to those who 
 have been sentenced is a prolific cause of in- 
 creasing the ranks of criminals. Witnesses are 
 often kept in prison unless they are able to 
 guarantee their appearance in court when want- 
 ed. The untried prisoner, the prisoners sen- 
 tenced for five, ten or thirty days, those serving 
 longer sentences — all alike are subjected to the 
 same surroundings and treatment. When it is 
 realized that evil is as contagious as smallpox, 
 and that it is as serious a detriment to the world, 
 greater care will surely be taken to guard those 
 who are in the clutches of the law from all harm- 
 ful associations and possibilities of contamina- 
 tion. 
 
 Typical Instances. — One youth of twenty-two 
 years states that he has read over a thousand 
 books since he was sixteen, covering many sub- 
 jects. His parents died early and after their 
 death he was sent to a protectory. Later he 
 was returned to the protectory on account of 
 crime. After release he was alone in the world 
 with no home, no friends and no money. He
 
 20 JHE .WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 stole and was sent to prison for six years. He 
 says: "I have read Judge Ben B, Lindsey's 
 Beast and the Jungle. The secret of achieve- 
 ment is to get the child offenders before they 
 enter any home or reform school. One kind 
 word is better than spending a thousand years 
 in the Christian hell as a punishment. Ah! 
 Judge Lindsey, my only desire is that I might 
 have met a man like you years ago — life would 
 have been different." 
 
 An American youth of twenty-three writes: 
 "I was arrested for stealing when I was eight 
 years old. I submit that if somebody had placed 
 before me for an example some one who had 
 good moral courage and I could have associated 
 in his or her company frequently it would have 
 overcome my evil inclinations. I was sent to the 
 reformatory for five years then, and am sen- 
 tenced to prison for five years now." 
 
 This boy makes an appeal which indicates the 
 fundamental need of most children who do 
 wrong. The spectacle of what constitutes real 
 manhood is something that wayward boys may 
 never have had the good fortune to meet. 
 
 Another youth twenty years old writes: "If 
 it wasn't for the reformatory I wouldn't be in 
 prison now. I have heard and read much 
 about the reformation of criminals and I want 
 to say that there is only one way to go about it, 
 and that way is shown by the Honorable Ben
 
 .CRIMES THAT FILL PRISONS 21 
 
 B. Lindsey." This boy had the habit of read- 
 ing "every book" he could "lay hands on." He 
 had a good home, but was allowed to spend his 
 evenings on street corners and in saloons, and 
 at the age of nine years he was arrested for 
 "assault" because he was fighting with another 
 boy. This led to his being sent to a reforma- 
 tory for eighteen months. 
 
 A Warden's Opinion. — Robert J. McKenty, 
 who has been Warden of the Eastern Peniten- 
 tiary (Pennsylvania) for five years and who be- 
 fore that was Superintendent of a House of Cor- 
 rection, Director of the Department of Public 
 Safety (Pennsylvania) and a member of the po- 
 lice force, has had a wider experience with crime 
 than falls to the lot of most men. His belief 
 in the possibilities of these outcasts of society 
 has never faltered. He says: "I have dealt with 
 some criminals in my time and I have sent some 
 to the gallows, but even those who went to the 
 gallows went there without an ill feeling in their 
 hearts for me. I have always done my duty, but 
 I have never found it necessary to do it viciously. 
 
 "If you look at the other fellow from an out- 
 side point of view you may never learn to un- 
 derstand him and may have little sympathy for 
 him. But if you put yourself in his place it is 
 different. There are lots of things you can un- 
 derstand then. 
 
 "Sentiment? Well, it is a pretty old senti-
 
 22 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 ment to do unto others as you would have them 
 do to you. Nothing radically new about that, is 
 there? That's all I am trying to do here. When 
 I figure out what I would like them to do to 
 me if I were in their place I have no trouble in 
 figuring out what I ought to do for them, and I 
 guess I have had as much to do with prisoners 
 as any of them have. 
 
 "A whole lot depends on whose foot the shoe 
 is on. I have noticed some of these fellows who 
 speak about sentiment do not object so much 
 to it when it works their way. When some 
 one near them — brother, sister, son or daughter 
 — or some one dear to them comes into this in- 
 stitution, or any other institution like it, they 
 don't say they have no use for sentiment and 
 that nothing can be done to save these people 
 and that it is no use trying. Oh, no, their point 
 of view changes at once. Then they say there 
 is use, that something can be done for that one 
 case of their own, that it can be done and must 
 be done. They grasp quickly enough then at 
 sentimentalism or any other *ism' that comes 
 to hand. 
 
 "But remember that everybody in here is dear 
 to somebody who thinks there is some use in 
 trying, and that something ought to be done to 
 save the one dear to them. And isn't it worth 
 while trying, even if we save only one single
 
 CRIMES THAT FILL PRISONS 23 
 
 one of the whole lot? Any human life is always 
 worth saving if it can be done. At a big fire, 
 with a human life endangered in the flames, do 
 we stop to consider whether or not the life is 
 worth while, whether or not the man is of some 
 account, brainy, talented, refined or cultured? 
 Of course not. It is a life ; that's all. And some- 
 body rushes in, at the danger of his own life, 
 and saves the man. And the rescuer is a hero, 
 no matter what kind of man's life he has saved. 
 He saved a life, and that's enough. That's all 
 we are trying" to do here — save lives, not crush 
 them. 
 
 "Sentiment, is it? Well, look at it from the 
 business point of view: I used to work in the 
 gas works before I entered the police service, 
 and in those days we had all kinds of trouble in 
 getting rid of our by-products, coal-tar and the 
 other products that we thought were worthless. 
 We threw them into the sewers and into the 
 river then — threw them away to get rid of them. 
 It was just ignorance that made us do that in 
 the old days. We know now that some of those 
 by-products we used to throw away were more 
 valuable than the gas we made. You don't find 
 any gas companies throwing away their by- 
 products now. 
 
 "Well, lawbreakers are the by-products of hu- 
 manity. What are we going to do with them —
 
 24 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 throw them away or get the best out of them 
 we can? Get the best out of them we can, of 
 course. Reclaim them, refine them, get out of 
 the by-products all we can. That is good busi- 
 ness economy in penitentiaries as well as in gas 
 companies. What benefit is it to society to shut 
 a man up for two, three or four years at great 
 expense and then send him out into society again 
 worse than he was when he entered the peni- 
 tentiary? If society is ever to get any benefit 
 from its vast and expensive penal system it must 
 come through reclamation work. And, believe 
 me, humanity's by-product has just as valuable 
 material concealed in it as the by-product of the 
 gas companies. It is well worth reclaiming. The 
 trouble with a large percentage of people in here 
 is merely that they got a wrong start. Coal-tar 
 never had a square deal as long as we merely 
 dumped it in the sewers. It took somebody to 
 pick coal-tar up and analyze it to find out how 
 valuable it was. Lawbreakers never got a square 
 deal by merely being hustled from one jail to an- 
 other. You've got to take them up and analyze 
 them to find out what is in them and then give 
 them a new start. 
 
 "Now, where is that work to be done? Out 
 in the street? Down in the slums? Or isn't it 
 rather to be done in here while these men are 
 confined? I am satisfied that my system works 
 out and that it pays."
 
 CRIMES THAT FILL PRISONS 25 
 
 PRISON INMATES STATE CAUSES OF THEIR 
 CONDITIONS. 
 
 German, twenty-three: "Having no friends 
 and not being able to obtain work I was forced 
 to beg or starve. If there were no gambHng 
 houses in New York where one can stay day 
 or night I would not be here to-day. Not hav- 
 ing my parents here and having made acquaint- 
 ance with many crooks have helped to bring me 
 where I am." 
 
 Austrian, twenty-six: "Poor, hungry; no 
 friends to give me advice. If I had known how 
 to speak English when I came to this country 
 it would have helped me." 
 
 American, twenty-eight: "Hungry and out of 
 work. Committed highway robbery and was 
 sent to prison." 
 
 American, eighteen: "Left home at nine. 
 Was in orphan asylum. Out of work and stole. 
 If I had had employment and a home and par- 
 ents to advise me it would have helped me." 
 
 An American, aged twenty-seven, was out of 
 work and wanted money, and so stole. He says: 
 "To have steady work would be the greatest 
 help to live an honest life."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HOW HOMES PROMOTE CRIMINALITY PARENTS^ 
 
 MISTAKES 
 
 A SMALL boy was brought into court by his 
 father and mother. He was so small the 
 judge could barely see him as he stood behind 
 the bar of the court room. ^^Judge," said the 
 mother, "I want you to send Tom to the reform 
 school. I can't do anything with him. He runs 
 away all the time." 
 
 Parents' Misunderstanding. — The judge looked 
 at the large woman who so frankly confessed 
 her inability to cope with the mite of humanity 
 before her. He looked at the father, who also 
 asserted that the boy was beyond their control. 
 Then he said: "I'm not going to commit any 
 eight-year-old child to the reform school. You 
 will have to find some way to take care of your 
 boy. Perhaps the probation officer can help you 
 find the reason why the boy will not stay at 
 home." 
 
 A gentle-faced woman stepped forward and 
 said: "Your Honor, I have talked much with 
 Tom in the last few days. He says, *My father 
 and mother don't love me. They scold me all 
 
 26
 
 PARENTS' MISTAKES 27 
 
 the time. They only love my little sister.' Judge, 
 I think if the boy's father and mother would 
 show more love for Tom, and would encourage 
 him more instead of finding fault with him all 
 the time he would not want to run away." 
 
 Through kindly sympathetic questioning the 
 probation officer had discovered the childish rea- 
 son which made the boy leave home ; he wished 
 for the love and sympathy lavished on his baby 
 sister. He only knew that for him instead there 
 was scolding and faultfinding and even whip- 
 ping. Real love probably lay back of the fault- 
 finding of this boy's parents, but by scolding him 
 and at the same time withholding all expression 
 of love they lost the strongest lever one can have 
 in guiding children. 
 
 The judge said : ''Take your boy home. Let 
 him see that you care for him, make home happy 
 for him, and see if you can't keep him at home." 
 
 With the promised help of the probation offi- 
 cer, who had won the confidence of the child, 
 he was taken home. 
 
 This instance is typical of many. It is im- 
 possible to deal intelligently or effectively with 
 any child unless first the child is understood and 
 the reasons for his conduct are learned. The 
 reasons once discovered, some remedy may then 
 be found. 
 
 Why Children Run Away. — One of the most 
 common causes of runaway children and so-
 
 28 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 called incorrigibles lies in the belief children 
 come to have that they are not loved and that 
 no one cares for them. Fear of their parents soon 
 results from this. Finally w^hen after angry 
 scoldings and repeated assertions of the child's 
 w^ickedness the mother op^iily 4eclares, "I can 
 do nothing with Tom," she has built up between 
 herself and her child a wall of separation which 
 rises higher and higher as the years pass. Even 
 in good homes with really loving parents this 
 lack of confidence, arising from the parents' fail- 
 ure to express their love, has been the cause of 
 making many wayward children. The baby boy 
 who is used to petting and love comes with time 
 to the awkward period when everything he does 
 seems to inconvenience some one. He craves 
 love still — he starves without it, though not for 
 worlds would he admit this ; and when he hears 
 on all sides constant assertions of his badness 
 he loses theMncentive to try to do right and de- 
 cides that he i;night as well live up to his repu- 
 tation. A certain man holding a high position 
 in the world, and who had always had a good 
 home, has said that he was twenty-four years 
 old before he knew that his father loved him. 
 Doubtless the same thing is true in the cases of 
 a great many people. It is impossible to drive 
 children into goodness; only through love can 
 they be led step by step; only through the
 
 PARENTS' MISTAKES 29 
 
 knowledge that correction comes from love can 
 it ever count for anything-. 
 
 Was This Boy a Vagrant? — A boy typical of 
 many v^ho are arrested was found by the police 
 sleeping beside a barrel in a vacant lot. This 
 was not the first time he had been found doing 
 the same thing. The policeman thought the boy 
 should be classed as a vagrant and asked that he 
 be sent to a reform school. 
 
 "Why do you run away from home?" asked 
 the judge. 
 
 "My mxOther is dead and my father and I live 
 in one room. He comes home drunk sometimes, 
 and then he beats me and kicks me out. How 
 can I help sleeping out? I don't want to go to 
 a reform school. I want to take care of my- 
 self." 
 
 The judge did not agree with the policeman 
 that the boy was a vagrant. A home was found 
 for him and also work which would enable him 
 to pay his board. Friendly help and sympathy 
 were given, and instead of becoming an expense 
 to the state this boy was rescued and set on his 
 own feet. 
 
 In this case also a good reason was found for 
 the boy's misdemeanor. Would not an older 
 person have done the same thing in a similar sit- 
 uation? A great many boys are arrested as va- 
 grants because they are found sleeping out, ap-
 
 30 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 parently homeless or runaways. In each case 
 the only way to give real help is to discover the 
 cause, by winning the child's confidence to learn 
 from him why he is sleeping out and living as a 
 vagrant. With many of these boys some offense 
 has been committed on account of which they 
 dread punishment and so are afraid to go home. 
 
 Drunken Parents. — The number of children 
 who are forced to leave home because of 
 drunken parents mounts up into thousands 
 every year. These children are thrust on the 
 world without friends, without love, without 
 care. Some of them drift into institutions, some 
 drift into a life of vagrancy. No one can look 
 over the answers of prison inmates concerning 
 their early lives without being struck by the 
 large proportion of these men and women who 
 were deprived in childhood of parental love and 
 care. It is from these unloved children that 
 crime receives its largest number of recruits. 
 Neglected and without any personal touch of 
 human affection in their lives, it is but natural 
 that they become a menace to society. 
 
 Craving for Love. — One man in prison whose 
 mother died when he was seven writes i^-^'^If I 
 could have kept my mother until I was grown 
 it would have helped me most to live an honest 
 life." Every child, indeed, has need of the love 
 and patient guidance of a good mother, one who
 
 PARENTS' MISTAKES 31 
 
 can show her love and yet with firmness correct 
 her child's faults. 
 
 A prisoner who has served many terms, when 
 asked about his early life and the beginning of 
 his wrongdoing, wrote : "If my mother had 
 lived, if I had had some one to love when little 
 — I received enpugh corporal punishment to sub- 
 due a dozen boys; — things would have been dif- 
 ferent. My guardian meant well, but he showed 
 no love; there was iki one to tell troubles to; 
 he was a godly man, btit too severe. He in- 
 spired fear, and fear is a b^d ^*^^^*i^t^o^ ^^^ ^^' 
 ture happiness." >. 
 
 Again we see here the cause which sends 
 many children on the downward path, severity 
 which repels and does not correct, strictness un^- 
 tempered by love, or at all events by the expres- 
 sion of any love. Many who are prison inmates 
 give such statements as these when asked about 
 their early lives: "Parents divorced"; "Mother 
 died when I was six months old"; "Mother died 
 when I was seven"; "Never had a home or went 
 to school"; "Drinking father, mother out work- 
 ing"; "Father died, mother was employed out- 
 side." Is it a child's fault that his parents have 
 died, that they drink? Is it a child's fault that 
 he is left homeless and unprotected? Proper 
 care given in early years would in nearly every 
 case have made the lives of these prisoners use-
 
 32 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 ful and honorable. It is not enough to punish 
 children for vagrancy by condemning them to 
 institutions. Such children need, more than 
 food and clothing, inspiration toward good liv- 
 ing. They need the personal touch of good men 
 and women with love in their hearts, a need im- 
 possible of complete satisfaction in an institution 
 where hundreds are massed together. Homes 
 there are which are childless and lonely, but 
 there has been no connecting link between the 
 lonely homes and the lonely children. Homes 
 there are where the children have grown and 
 gone out into the world, where places might be 
 found for homeless ones, but there has been no 
 connecting link between the two. Society de- 
 crees that these destitute children shall have all 
 conveniences and comforts, good food and a 
 good education — but good mothers and fathers 
 are left out. In institutions personal knowledge 
 of the heart-life of each child is manifestly Im- 
 possible. With all the rest the very thing that 
 the child craves — personal love, personal confi- 
 dence — can not be given, and the results of such 
 a system do not save the children. 
 
 Necessity for Mothering. — The physical ne- 
 cessity for the love and mothering of babies has 
 been proved. In large infant asylums where a 
 dozen or more babies have been bathed, fed and 
 well cared for physically by a single nurse the 
 death rate has been so large that managers have
 
 PARENTS' MISTAKES 33 
 
 made the experiment of boarding out the babies, 
 putting each one in the hands of a good motherly 
 woman. Wherever this has been tried the 
 change has been magical. The death rate has 
 decreased by many per cent. The babies pined 
 for mothering which they could not get in an 
 institution, but they thrived in homes of the sim- 
 plest kind where there was a mother's care. 
 
 The necessity for love and personal interest 
 is equally as great for moral as for physical de- 
 velopment. Is there not love and sympathy suf- 
 ficient in the world to give the children who are 
 victims of broken or wrecked homes the per- 
 sonal interest and care which will save them? 
 
 Evenings in the Streets. — One man thirty- 
 seven years old, in prison for the third time, says 
 that he had good parents but that they let him 
 spend his evenings in the streets. He was often 
 a truant and he used cigarettes from his ninth 
 year. At twelve he was guilty of stealing fruit 
 and then he kept on stealing other things. He 
 says : "To bring children up rightly parents 
 should insist on their studying at home. They 
 should be kept home evenings unless accom- 
 panied by their parents. Have them avoid ciga- 
 rettes." 
 
 An Englishman tells of his having been a tru- 
 ant at eleven. At nineteen he was a thief. He 
 writes: "I was sent to a reformatory for five 
 years, where I learned more about stealing and 
 
 ^
 
 34 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 vice than in all my prison terms. The dread of 
 being punished by the cane was the main cause 
 of my playing truant. In those days a boy was 
 beaten with the cane for very little cause." 
 
 Home Conditions. — A careful study of the ten 
 thousand children who in a period of eight years 
 passed through the Juvenile Court of Philadel- 
 phia has shown that the presence of these chil- 
 dren in the court was due in a large proportion 
 of the cases to conditions of home life unfavor- 
 able to wholesome development. The testimony 
 of prison inmates in eight states has only con- 
 firmed the impression that in the majority of 
 cases the home has been to a large degree re- 
 sponsible for shaping lives in a direction favor- 
 able to crime. 
 
 To understand those influences in the home 
 which contribute to the development of the 
 criminal is of primary importance in saving way- 
 ward children and preventing the making of 
 criminals. To make all parents understand that 
 it is through their inefficiency that the ranks of 
 the criminals gain their largest number of re- 
 cruits is the next step toward saving wayward 
 children and preventing crime. To show what 
 constructive work must be done in the home and 
 to give parents the chance to learn how to do it 
 is the third step necessary for the saving of way- 
 ward children, -
 
 PARENTS' MISTAKES 35; 
 
 Influence of Heredity. — The theory of Lom- 
 broso that criminals were born and not made has 
 discouraged effort to help erring- humanity and 
 has tended to relieve society of the sense of re- 
 sponsibility for crime. When carried back to 
 William the Conqueror each child has, accord- 
 ing to President G. Stanley Hall, eight billion 
 ancestors. From so many as eight billion an- 
 cestors each child nmst certainly have a very 
 mixed heredity, and w^e may be encouraged 
 about the matter even more by remembering 
 that man was created in the image and likeness 
 of God and that consequently there must be 
 some good in every one. Belief in the possibili- 
 ties of childhood is happily replacing the gloomy 
 theories of Lombroso. We are asking ourselves 
 nowadays how to develop the child physically, 
 morally and mentally, and thus prevent crime, 
 rather than how to care for and punish wayward 
 children and adult criminals. 
 
 Wayward Children Are Normal. — Nine-tenths 
 of the ten thousand children whose cases form 
 the basis for this investigation of causes contrib- 
 utory to crime were normal children. This 
 shows how small a factor the abnormal child 
 was among the many who were arrested and 
 brought before the court. It emphasizes the 
 fact that there were causes outside the children's 
 own personalities that led them into the clutches
 
 36 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 of the law. It also emphasizes the fact that, as 
 so many were normal children, it should have 
 been possible in the home to give them the in- 
 fluences and training which would have saved 
 them from the offenses for which they had to 
 face the court. 
 
 More Than Half American-Bom. — More than 
 half of these ten thousand children were Ameri- 
 can-born. This fact should serve to refute the 
 oft-repeated theory that our subjects of crim- 
 inal tendencies are largely drawn from the for- 
 eign element. The division between Protestants 
 and Catholics was about even. These facts 
 place a greater responsibility on the American 
 home, for the reason that the child of foreign 
 parents suffers under handicaps that do not so 
 often confront the American child. Many of the 
 people newly arrived in the United States are 
 subjected to the bad influences of congested dis- 
 tricts, and they must live the unsettled life of 
 newcomers who have as yet gained no knowl- 
 edge of the customs of their new country or of 
 its language. These conditions are suf^ciently 
 prejudicial to orderly home life, and yet the num- 
 ber of foreign children appearing in the courts 
 was not so large as of American ones. 
 
 Arrested for Stealing. — More than half of the 
 children in the juvenile court during eight years 
 were there for stealing. No one could listen to 
 the stories of theft of every sort told by these
 
 PARENTS' MISTAKES 2>7 
 
 children without reaching- the conclusion that 
 honesty does not come without constructive par- 
 ental teaching. Comparatively few parents real- 
 ize this. They take it for granted that such a 
 fundamental quality comes naturally. The facts 
 do not bear out such an assumption. The sense 
 of mine and thine is one that must be cultivated. 
 A baby will take whatever pleases his fancy — 
 and no one expects anything else. If this practise 
 is to be stopped the baby must be taught that 
 there are things he can not have. Parents are 
 usually much distressed when they find their 
 children taking things that are not their own. 
 With breaking hearts they fancy their children 
 are wicked, when in reality often they them- 
 selves have failed to show them that these hab- 
 its of babyhood can not be continued as they 
 grow older. Parents thus take too much for 
 granted, and by their fault of omission their chil- 
 dren naturally get into trouble. Dishonesty in 
 childhood in many cases is simply the continu- 
 ance of the baby's practise of taking whatever 
 pleases his fancy without knowledge or thought 
 of any other side of the question save the per- 
 sonal wish to be gratified. 
 
 Self-Control. — The cause which ranked next to 
 dishonesty in bringing children into court was 
 lack of self-control. An ungovernable temper, 
 the cigarette habit, the liquor habit and the 
 drug habit followed closely after stealing. 
 
 30S660
 
 38 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 There may seem to be no relation between the 
 little child who throws himself on the floor in 
 a temper because he can not have what he 
 wishes and the man who is a drunkard or a 
 murderer or a seducer. The fact is, however, 
 that the latter are a legitimate and logical de- 
 velopment from the child who has never been 
 taught self-control. And this is a quality which 
 the home alone can develop. 
 
 Men who are serving life sentences for mur- 
 der in the past allowed their appetite for drink 
 to control them, and from this murder followed. 
 Many of these are young men who in a youth- 
 ful spree blighted their whole lives. There is 
 no limit to the dangers which beset the path 
 of those who have not learned self-control. 
 When some terrible crime is committed the real 
 cause too often lies in parental neglect to cul- 
 tivate from childhood the power of self-control. 
 Without this early training there is no home 
 to which such a sorrow may not come. It is a 
 matter that concerns every parent and every 
 family. There are many prison inmates to-day 
 who will tell one that they had loving parents 
 who would say they had done everything for 
 their children. As far as they know this may 
 be true, but there can be no doubt that crime 
 will not decrease until parents learn that the 
 fundamental work of the home lies in so incul-
 
 PARENTS' MISTAKES 39 
 
 eating in their children the laws of life that 
 these will become an integral part of charac- 
 ter. This can not be done without the careful 
 study and practise of the methods which are 
 effective, with at the same time avoidance of 
 those which are fatal to real strength and 
 growth. 
 
 About half of the children appearing before 
 the court were addicted to the use of ciga- 
 rettes when very young. The taste for ciga- 
 rettes is of course not a natural one. In most 
 cases children think that smoking them is a 
 manly thing, and before parents know of it the 
 habit is formed. Laws forbidding the sale of 
 cigarettes to minors can not safeguard children 
 unless parents do their part in showing their 
 deleterious effect on health and character so 
 plainly that children may be prepared to resist 
 forming this habit. 
 
 Running Away. — The children who had run 
 away from home and so were brought into court 
 numbered many hundred among the ten thou- 
 sand whose cases have been studied. Very 
 often the cause of this lay in the love of adven- 
 ture or the reading of sensational books. Other 
 causes lay in the strictness of parents who re- 
 pressed their children's natural desires without 
 providing any safe outlet for them, in unpleas- 
 ant homes where there was drinking and abuse,
 
 40 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 in the fear of a parent's anger after some act 
 of disobedience, in dislike for school and in the 
 desire to earn money. 
 
 A youth of twenty-three years may serve as 
 an example of the way in which the mistakes of 
 others may ruin a life. He tells of having a 
 good home, but says : "My parents were so 
 strict it led me to run away often, which led 
 finally to a juvenile asylum. Never was any 
 good afterward." The first difficulty was the 
 failure of his parents to provide safe pleasures 
 for the boy. He was a chronic truant, never 
 caring to go to school when the weather was 
 fine. He says further: "When I wanted to 
 enjoy myself thoroughly I'd run away. At 
 eighteen I was away from home, down and out, 
 hungry. I broke into a restaurant and was de- 
 tected and sent to a reformatory. I can never 
 forget that my first offense, so small as it was, 
 might have been forgiven. But I was sentenced 
 at eighteen, and at twenty was again sentenced 
 for ten years." 
 
 A Canadian woman of twenty-eight, serving 
 a prison sentence for stealing, writes: "Un- 
 happy homes which cause children to go out 
 into the world alone and unhappy are the great- 
 est cause of so many committing crime. They 
 get discouraged and do not care what becomes 
 of them." 
 
 An American twenty-eight years old who has
 
 PARENTS' MISTAKES 41 
 
 served several terms in prison is another exam- 
 ple of parental mistakes. He attended school 
 irregularly and frequently played truant in 
 baseball season. He never learned any trade, 
 but v^as in turn a newsboy, a bootblack, a mes- 
 senger, and w^hen serving in the last-named ca- 
 pacity he learned to steal. He says: "A trade 
 would have helped me most to lead an honest 
 life. I blame the strait-laced puritanical re- 
 strictions on my childish pleasures for my 
 ruined life. There was too much unadulterated 
 religious teaching and too little wholesome 
 pleasure with children of my own age." 
 
 One prison inmate writes to parents in gen- 
 eral : "Keep young girls away from dance-halls. 
 There is where most of them are led astray. 
 Parents should make children love them in- 
 stead of fearing them. Most boys and girls will 
 tell a falsehood if they fear a whipping in case 
 they tell the truth." 
 
 Nine-Tenths Are Boys. — The fact that nine- 
 tenths of the children brought into court are 
 boys requires investigation as to why they 
 should so greatly outnumber the girls. No par- 
 ent will admit that in infancy and childhood 
 boys show a greater predisposition to wrong- 
 doing. In some way the home is less efficient 
 in meeting the needs of boys than of girls. It 
 is a grave reflection on the home and the com- 
 munity that this is the case. The fault does
 
 42 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 not rest with the boys, but with wrong methods 
 of training and education. No more important 
 study could be made than to trace the causes 
 for this condition and take measures for con- 
 structive work that will enable boys to have a 
 fairer chance than they do now. 
 
 Children's Reading. — The reading of children 
 has such a strong influence on their lives that 
 it is a factor to be considered in every home. 
 Many prison inmates had for tlieir heroes in 
 youth Jesse James, Diamond Dick and Nick 
 Carter. They were interested in criminal news, 
 murders and robberies. Their ideals of char- 
 acter were molded in large degree on lines fur- 
 nished in the figures of those whom they ad- 
 mired as heroes. At the time when their char- 
 acters were being formed they were unfortunate 
 in having no one to place before them a differ- 
 ent ideal of manhood. 
 
 Many of the children who appear in the juve- 
 nile court feel that manliness consists largely 
 of profanity and a loud voice. They have formed 
 their conception of manhood from the types 
 they have known and they shape their own con- 
 duct accordingly. One can not regard too se- 
 riously the need for protecting children from 
 sensational and impure literature. It is one of 
 the great factors causing runaway children, 
 child burglars and the like. The robber's cave 
 in which he deposits his gains has been copied
 
 PARENTS' MISTAKES 43 
 
 in many cities by many boys who have loved 
 the romantic glamour and danger with which 
 such exploits are invested in the stories they 
 read. The love of excitement and sensation 
 is a part of boy nature which must be reckoned 
 with. To attempt repression is useless, but to 
 direct these activities into safe channels is quite 
 easy and invariably successful. The Boy Scout 
 movement is a sensible and practical utilization 
 of the boy's natural tastes, offering him activi- 
 ties that are beneficial and at the same time in- 
 teresting. There is not sufficient opportunity 
 at present for boys and girls to form whole- 
 some tastes in reading, for in few places are 
 interesting and inspiring books available for 
 them. In many towns there are no libraries, 
 and even where libraries exist they are not used 
 by the children who stand in greatest need of 
 them. 
 
 School Libraries. — Every school might per- 
 form a great service in maintaining libraries and 
 reading rooms. State libraries in many states 
 will send a small selection of books to any town 
 desiring them. Graded lists of books suitable 
 for children are also published by the National 
 Congress of Mothers, and with these lists a li- 
 brary may readily be selected. 
 
 Reading Courses. — On account of the impor- 
 tance of furnishing some guidance for the read- 
 ing of boys and girls after they have left school
 
 44 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 the Bureau of Education in Washington has ar- 
 ranged courses of reading for them, and it gives 
 certificates to those who complete its courses. 
 This offers an opportunity for boys and girls 
 to continue their education at home under wise 
 guidance. 
 
 The Danger of Impurity. — Parents should 
 know that temptations to impurity are so con- 
 stantly present that no boy or girl can escape 
 them. Even before the child leaves the shelter 
 of his home obscene literature is often sent him 
 by those who use school catalogues and the like 
 means of procuring the names of children. No 
 home is secure from this menace to children, 
 and yet in many cases the parents know noth- 
 ing of the malign influence that has entered 
 their home. Poison is thus instilled without 
 any parental knowledge of it. And when school 
 and college days are reached temptations are 
 placed before youth in forms of which the aver- 
 age parent never dreams. If on the other hand 
 the child goes into the working world he will 
 there find on every side tempters plying their ne- 
 farious trade of corrupting youth. In such subtle 
 ways are these temptations disguised that the 
 young person's first misstep is often taken unin- 
 tentionally, while the consequent feeling of dis- 
 grace and shame breeds a mood in which the 
 youth merely continues on his downward path.
 
 PARENTS' MISTAKES 45 
 
 Functions of Life. — No parents who have the 
 sHghtest regard for their children's safety can 
 fail to give them careful instruction in regard 
 to the procreative functions, their sacredness 
 and the danger of their abuse. Children must be 
 forewarned of the dangers they may meet, and 
 they should be protected from them trebly, first 
 by instilling in them a high view of these God- 
 given functions, and then by warning them of 
 the consequences of their abuse, and in the third 
 place by telling them of the forms in which 
 temptation may come to them. Parents should 
 familiarize themselves with the revelations made 
 by such organizations as the United States Im- 
 migration Commission in order better to pro- 
 tect their children from this most insidious and 
 carefully cloaked of evils. 
 
 Youth in all its freshness and innocence is 
 daily subjected to lures from which every true 
 man or woman must recoil in wonder and hor- 
 ror at there being those in human form who 
 would seek to spread such destruction. If chil- 
 dren have to encounter these destructive foes, 
 parents must not remain ignorant of their ex- 
 istence. They can not be ignored ; the children 
 must be prepared for them and helped to avoid 
 or resist them. It is often the first step that 
 counts most toward following permanently the 
 downward path. To prevent this first step from
 
 46 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 being taken every parent must be informed of 
 all that lies in wait to prey on youth. It is 
 not necessary to paint a dark or gloomy picture 
 of life ; emphasis on the bright and noble side 
 of humanity is better, and also sets up a worthy 
 goal for endeavor. The motive for a pure life 
 is a better one if it consists of a love of good- 
 ness rather than the fear of evil. 
 
 Inefficient Homes. — Parental ignorance of 
 the temptations laid in the path of children is 
 largely accountable for the failure to guard 
 against them. It can not be emphasized too 
 strongly that no home is secure from these at- 
 tacks on the life, health and character of the 
 children. It is evil influences in childhood that 
 cause waywardness and lead on to every phase 
 of inefficiency and crime. The home filled with 
 love, in which parents are guided by wisdom 
 and a definite purpose, will do more than all else 
 to keep children in the right path. When the 
 home fails the children are in real danger. The 
 effort to strengthen weak homes, helping par- 
 ents to realize their responsibility and teaching 
 them how to meet it efficiently, is one of the 
 most important measures in the prevention of 
 waywardness. Help along these lines is univer- 
 sally needed and must be given to parents no 
 matter where they are. The plan of the Na- 
 tional Congress of Mothers of forming a parent- 
 teacher association in every school and church
 
 PARENTS' MISTAKES 47 
 
 for the study of child nurture and the general 
 needs of children is a most practical method 
 of reaching all parents. In this way a great op- 
 portunity is afforded for safeguarding youth 
 through parental study of conditions affecting 
 children, the child's nature and the methods that 
 will bring out the best there is in children. 
 
 PRISON INMATES BLAME HOME CONDITIONS FOR 
 THEIR CONDITION. 
 
 An American who was sentenced to twenty 
 years in prison for a murder committed at the 
 age of twenty-two tells of having had an un- 
 natural mother who was accessory to the murder 
 of her father. He says in addition: 'T had no 
 trade, and saloons and dives were my only places 
 of recreation. I needed steady employment and 
 some encouragement to keep it." 
 
 A negro, aged fifty, states that his parents 
 were slaves. He writes:" "Mother was sold and 
 gave me away. No schooling, no home. Began 
 picking cotton at seven. I was a messenger boy 
 for thieves and gamblers. I used liquor. Neg- 
 lect and abuse drove me to larceny. I have 
 served four terms in prison, though I have not 
 been a criminal at heart." 
 
 An American, aged forty, writes: "A good 
 home would have helped me to an honest life." 
 This prisoner's mother died when he was four-
 
 48 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 teen. He had little education, served for a time 
 as a messenger boy, and spent nine months in an 
 orphan asylum. He was first arrested for be- 
 ing drunk. 
 
 American, thirty-seven: "I think my father 
 was too strict in his discipline, as he created 
 fear in my heart instead of love. Many parents 
 are too handy with the rod. They arouse fear 
 in a child, so that when he does wrong he is 
 afraid to go home and so starts his evil ways 
 by staying away from home at night until his 
 older pals go home. After a while he begins 
 staying out all night." 
 
 German, fifty-one: "My parents disliked me 
 and never showed me any love or kindness. My 
 own people are the cause of my troubles. If a 
 man were given a chance to earn something 
 while in prison to put by for the day he is dis- 
 charged it would save many from coming back. 
 We should be given a chance to help ourselves," 
 
 A youth of twenty-four tells of beginning to 
 smoke cigarettes at eight years. He says: *T 
 was put out of the house one night when my 
 father was drunk. I trace my being in prison 
 now from that." 
 
 American, twenty-one: "I had a drinking 
 father and my mother often worked outside the 
 house. I attended school a1)out half the time. 
 I was always interested in criminal news. I was 
 a newsboy and a messenger boy. I learned to
 
 PARENTS' MISTAKES 49 
 
 use liquor, and it was the cause of all my trou- 
 bles. I was arrested at fourteen for stealing. 
 I consider the causes rum, tobacco and bad lit- 
 erature." 
 
 American, forty-one: "I had no schooling, 
 and I read Jesse James and such other books 
 not fit for boys. I can only say that while sa- 
 loons and the liquor traffic thrive throughout this 
 country, and people do not take a different atti- 
 tude toward the man who has fallen and give 
 him a chance, crime can not be lessened." 
 
 American, twenty-one: *T was always inter- 
 ested in criminal news and stories. I spent my 
 evenings in the street. I was a newsboy and 
 bootblack. Liquor and girls were the causes 
 of my downfall. I was sent to a reformatory 
 at fourteen. It made me worse. I am now in 
 prison from one to fourteen years." 
 
 American, twenty-seven: "My mother died 
 when I was five. Afterward there was a step- 
 mother. I read dime novels, and especially liked 
 Diamond Dick, Nick Carter and Old Sleuth. 
 I did not attend school regularly and began 
 work at eleven. I seldom went to church or 
 Sunday-school. I used liquor and cigarettes, 
 and committed larceny at twenty. Was sent 
 to a reformatory for three years. The influence 
 there was disastrous. I have since served two 
 terms in the state prison. I need friends and 
 money."
 
 50 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 American, eighteen: "My father died and my 
 mother had employment outside the house. I 
 read dime novels, Buffalo Bill, Diamond Dick 
 and Nick Carter being my favorites. I was al- 
 ways interested in murders and robberies. I 
 was arrested for arson at fifteen and was sent to 
 prison for five years." 
 
 American, twenty-three : "I attended school 
 irregularly. I read Jesse James, Nick Carter 
 and Diamond Dick, and these were my favorite 
 characters. I used liquor and cigarettes. I 
 committed larceny at fourteen, and this was 
 caused by dime novels. I was sent to a reform- 
 atory for fourteen months and the influence 
 was not beneficial. I am now in prison for eight 
 years. If I had my life to live over again I 
 would not smoke cigarettes or read dime 
 novels."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SEPARATION OF PARENTS 
 
 WHEN parents separate from each other 
 the most tragic thing about the proceed- 
 ing is the destiny of their children when these 
 are bereft of nurture and guidance. The ideal 
 of a true home filled with love, as well as all 
 those influences on character which come only 
 from real home life — these are taken away from 
 the children when parents separate. From 
 many stories of the early life of prison inmates 
 the effect of the separation of parents is clearly 
 shown. It is one of the large contributory fac- 
 tors in making wayward children. 
 
 An American, aged thirty-three, in telling of 
 his childhood says : "My parents were divorced 
 when I was a small boy. I worked as a mes- 
 senger boy, and principally for mischief I stole 
 at the age of thirteen. I was sent to a reforma- 
 tory for two years and ten months. The in- 
 fluence was the reverse of beneficial. If I had 
 been discharged with a reprimand instead of be- 
 ing committed to a reform school I would not 
 be here now. In my opinion a reformatory or 
 
 51
 
 52 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 protectory is nothing more than a school of 
 crime, as in thinking over all those whose ac- 
 quaintance I made while an inmate of a reform 
 school I can not recall one who reformed, and I 
 believe sixty per cent, of the prisoners here are 
 graduates of one or another of those institu- 
 tions, I was forsaken by all and have spent 
 three terms in prison." 
 
 Children and Divorce. — The handicaps were 
 too great for a small boy to overcome. It would 
 seem that the court which granted divorce to 
 this boy's parents should have taken the boy 
 into consideration and required that provision 
 be made in some way for his care and educa- 
 tion. To grant divorces without providing that 
 good care be taken of the children has proved 
 a great wrong to them and a menace to the 
 state. No one who sits day after day observing 
 the cases in the juvenile courts can remain blind 
 to the fact that many children are there on ac- 
 count of the separation or divorce of their par- 
 ents. 
 
 In the case just cited the occupation of mes- 
 senger boy was an unfortunate one, as it is but 
 little removed from street life and affords no 
 opportunity for home influence. The treatment 
 given in consequence of the child's first theft 
 proved disastrous. Probably the court sent the 
 boy to the reformatory by way of punishment, 
 though it is possible that the intention may have
 
 SEPARATION OF PARENTS 53 
 
 been to save him from street life. Whichever 
 the reason was, however, the acquaintances 
 made there served only as an additional handi- 
 cap to the boy, and through the lessons there 
 learned from other erring boys the step from 
 reformatory to prison was made a short one. 
 
 Need for Guardians. — When a child is for- 
 saken by both father and mother there should 
 be some way of continuing for him, while it can 
 be effective, the home training which every child 
 needs. Separations and divorces are so numer- 
 ous that the problem of taking care of the chil- 
 dren of these parents is a serious one. It would 
 at least seem wise if courts appointed guardians 
 for such children, these guardians being com- 
 pelled to furnish reports at regular intervals 
 concerning the children's welfare. 
 
 A prisoner serving a long term writes: "My 
 parents were divorced when I was three years 
 old. My mother died when I was ten. My sis- 
 ter went to an orphan asylum and I went out on 
 the streets. Bad companions and the lack of 
 home influence led me to purse-snatching at 
 thirteen. I was arrested and treated as a hard- 
 ened criminal. No kindness was shown me. 
 Having been forced to associate with criminals 
 when I was a boy, I naturally drifted into crime. 
 I think the only way to save a boy is to 
 treat him as a boy, not as a man. If the judges 
 would remember that a boy is only a boy there
 
 54 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 would be fewer criminals. And so at twenty- 
 nine I am in prison." 
 
 This man is the logical result of unfortunate 
 conditions in childhood for which he was in no 
 way responsible. If crime is to be prevented 
 measures should be taken to obviate such 
 wrongs to childhood. This man might have 
 had a different life had the court appointed a 
 guardian for him when the divorce was granted 
 to his parents. 
 
 An American, thirty-six years old and serv- 
 ing a prison sentence, says: "1 had a drinking 
 father and my parents separated when I was a 
 year old. I had little schooling and had to work. 
 I learned to drink and at nineteen I was ar- 
 rested and sent to prison for four years. Kind- 
 ness and a chance to earn an honest living 
 would have helped me. No one would believe 
 me sincere or help me to get work." 
 
 In this case the 3xar-old child was the real 
 sufferer from the separation of his parents. What 
 chance is there for a little child, deprived in this 
 manner of his home life and home training, un- 
 less provision is made for him to receive these in 
 some other way? Society pays dearly for its 
 neglect of these little ones, but the suffering en- 
 tailed on the one whose life is ruined is far more 
 serious. A guardian was surely needed in this 
 instance, but thirty-five years ago even less was 
 done to save children than now.
 
 SEPARATION OF PARENTS 55 
 
 An American of thirty years, who is now 
 serving a life term in prison, says that he be- 
 lieves his loveless, homeless childhood was the 
 cause of his downfall. He writes: "My parents 
 separated when I was one year old. My mother 
 had to work outside, and died when I was five. 
 I was put into an orphanage when one year old. 
 I am in prison for murder caused by liquor. I 
 am satisfied if I had had a good home with some 
 one to love me when I was a child I could tell 
 a different story." 
 
 Longing for love and a home is shown by a 
 very great many of the unfortunate men and 
 women in prison. It must indeed be recognized 
 as one of the greatest needs of childhood. Or- 
 phanages can not fill this need. No one can look 
 into the faces of the hundreds of children in the 
 best kept orphanages without seeing on them 
 an expression far different from that of the child 
 who enjoys individual interest in him, love and 
 care. 
 
 An American aged thirty-four says: "My 
 parents separated when I was seven. My 
 mother worked out after that. My parents com- 
 mitted a crime in being divorced, I think. When 
 out of work and drunk I stole an overcoat at 
 eighteen and was sent to the penitentiary. If I 
 had been given a chance after my first trouble, 
 instead of being cast among criminals, I would 
 not be to-day a convict and have spent my best
 
 56 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 days in prison, an outcast and a broken-hearted 
 man." 
 
 When a seven-year-old boy is left alone be- 
 cause his mother is forced to earn her bread he 
 necessarily suffers from a lack of the care and 
 guidance which every child needs. Further- 
 more, the sending of this boy to the penitentiary 
 for his first offense, committed w^hile he was 
 under the influence of liquor, was unquestion- 
 ably another strong factor in making him a 
 criminal. There are more efifiicient ways of sav- 
 ing erring boys of eighteen than sending them 
 to the penitentiary. This boy should have been 
 put under probation and should have been 
 placed where good influences would be thrown 
 uround him. In a prison this is impossible. 
 Stealing an overcoat and drinking are grave 
 faults, but not grave enough to require the ruin 
 of an entire life, which is the usual result of a 
 sentence to a penitentiary. 
 
 A Dane serving a long term in prison writes: 
 "My parents separated before I was a year old. 
 I had no one to advise me as to what was right. 
 I had little schooling. Bad company got me 
 into trouble." 
 
 An American, thirty years old and in prison, 
 attributes his misfortunes to his experiences in 
 childhood, and says: "My parents were di- 
 yorced and I was sent to a reformatory at thir-
 
 SEPARATION OF PARENTS 57 
 
 teen because I had no home. It taught me to 
 be crooked." 
 
 Until very recently reformatories were used 
 for homeless or erring children without any dis- 
 crimination. This has proved disastrous in 
 many cases. The practise still obtains at the 
 present time, merely because it is often the 
 easiest thing to do. Some states have passed 
 laws against sending homeless children to re- 
 formatories, but when no other place is open 
 and the court knows no one who will find a suit- 
 able place for a child, he often is sent to one 
 of these institutions. Thus an innocent child 
 is obliged to associate with those who are 
 versed in many phases of crime, and it is im- 
 possible to estimate the number of children 
 whose lives have been ruined in this way. There 
 is great need for adequate provision by the 
 state for the care and education of homeless 
 children in families where they may have nor- 
 mal home life. 
 
 A Norwegian twenty-four years old, and serv- 
 ing a long term for manslaughter committed 
 while he was intoxicated, writes : "My parents 
 separated when I was a baby. I had no home 
 left." 
 
 An American of twenty-two, looking back on 
 his earliest downward steps, says: "My father 
 and mother separated when I was nine years old.
 
 SS THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 I had no discipline owing to my father's absence 
 and my mother's inability. I stole and was sent 
 to a reformatory for nine months. The influ- 
 ence was bad. I stole again and was sent to 
 prison." 
 
 Another prison inmate writes: "I am an 
 American thirty-one years old. My parents 
 were separated when I was ten years old. Evil 
 companions instructed me in the art of picking 
 pockets, and at seventeen, when in want of 
 money, I tried it. I have had three terms in 
 prison." 
 
 A prisoner forty-four years old says: "My 
 parents drank, and separated when I was three. 
 I never had a home and never went to school. 
 I was sent to a reformatory when I was nine- 
 teen. It surely was my ruin. If I had ever had 
 a home I would have been different. I always 
 longed for one." 
 
 Still another prisoner writes: "My parents 
 were divorced when I was fourteen. I had little 
 schooling, no home and no friends. I was ar- 
 rested for stealing and sent to a reformatory 
 for three years. I had no work when I got out, 
 no home, and I had to steal again." 
 
 In the cases of all these men neglected child- 
 hood through parental desertion was the be- 
 ginning of their downfall. Their experiences 
 should prove the need for an appointed guardian 
 for every child placed in a similar position.
 
 SEPARATION OF PARENTS 59 
 
 A young man of twenty-four in telling of his 
 early life writes: "My parents separated when 
 I was nine. I was arrested for vagrancy be- 
 cause I had no home and was sent to a reforma- 
 tory. There I learned to steal. There's where 
 a youth gets in with a bad lot and learns to 
 steal." 
 
 This is but another instance of the mistaken 
 treatment of a homeless child. Vagrancy is not 
 a crime, but a misfortune which requires a dif- 
 ferent remedy than arrest. Authorities should 
 not be allowed to arrest children because they 
 are homeless. They should be brought into 
 court on petition for their care. The reform 
 school as a substitute for the home proves to 
 be merely a school of crime, and it gives the 
 child for friends those whom he should never 
 know. Under such a system a child's whole 
 future is in the hands of the court, and the sys- 
 tem has served to wreck many lives. 
 
 A prison inmate twenty years of age writes: 
 "My parents were divorced when I was five. 
 I had no home and was sent to a reform school 
 at fourteen. When I came out I was shunned 
 by society on account of having been in the 
 reform school. I could get nothing to do — so 
 I am in prison now." 
 
 The need for a friendly helping hand to estab- 
 lish youths after their discharge from a reform 
 school is brought out by the statements of many
 
 60 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 prisoners. They find it a great handicap in 
 trying to obtain employment to have been in 
 one of these institutions. 
 
 Certainly instances sufficient have been given 
 to show clearly that definite provision should 
 be made for the care and protection of children 
 when their parents separate or are divorced. 
 Remanding a child to the care of either parent 
 does not insure the child's having proper care. 
 In most cases he will not. The child and the 
 state, it will be admitted, both have some rights 
 that must be considered. Both can best be pro- 
 tected by the appointment of a guardian to look 
 after the child, see that he receives proper care 
 and report concerning him to the proper court 
 at regular intervals. Children of divorced or 
 separated parents are precluded from enjoying 
 normal conditions, and they must be protected 
 unless both child and state are to reap the bit- 
 ter fruit of neglect. 
 
 Parents who have any conception of the han- 
 dicap they thereby place on their children will, 
 unless they be very selfish, think many times 
 before breaking up the home into which they 
 have brought helpless little children who by 
 every right should have their care and love.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 REGULATION OF OCCUPATIONS FOR CHILDREN 
 
 THE subject of the regulation of occupations 
 for children has received much attention 
 during the last decade. Previous to that there 
 was no concerted, thoughtful effort to study the 
 relation of a child's work to his future character 
 and strength as a citizen. When in England 
 at the time of the Boer War it was found that 
 few men came up to the physical standard re- 
 quired for enlistment in the army there was im- 
 mediate inquiry into the causes of such a state 
 of affairs. The relation of the employments 
 and occupations of youth to health had become 
 of serious moment to Great Britain's future as 
 a nation. 
 
 The United States has also come to a realiza- 
 tion of the fact that the occupations and em- 
 ployments of youth have a direct bearing on 
 health and character and are, in consequence, a 
 matter for government study, inspection and 
 regulation. 
 
 Some kind of work for children, even in their 
 earliest childhood, is necessary if good habits are 
 
 61
 
 (>2 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 to be formed. Whether the home be rich or 
 poor the child is deprived of proper training if 
 he never has work to do. But since all work 
 has a direct bearing on health and character, 
 work outside the home requires strict regula- 
 tion. This also has much to do with the pre- 
 vention of crime. 
 
 Early Experiences. — Many boys, without edu- 
 cation or friends, who have been thrown on their 
 own resources, have taken up some street trade, 
 such as that of messenger boy, newsboy or boot- 
 black. We may take as an instance of the re- 
 sult of this an American of twenty-seven now 
 serving his second term in prison. He began 
 work at seven, having no friends and no one to 
 advise him. He got into bad company and at 
 seventeen he was arrested for burglary. Is 
 there anywhere a child of seven who is capable 
 of self-support and self-direction? The neglect 
 of such cases as this one has proved costly to 
 the state and has wrecked many lives. 
 
 Here is another instance of neglect by the 
 community. An American youth tells of being 
 left an orphan at two years of age. He was in 
 an orphanage until his eighth year, when he be- 
 gan work as a newsboy and bootblack. He 
 never went to school. At eleven years of age 
 he was arrested for petty larceny and sent to 
 jail for ninety days. The friends he made and 
 the lessons he learned in jail at the most im-
 
 REGULATION OF. OCCUPATIONS 63 
 
 pressionable period of his life became the direct- 
 ing forces in his subsequent activities. The com- 
 munity in which there was such neglect and ill- 
 considered treatment of a child is responsible 
 for his having become a criminal. The result 
 was the logical consequence of the child's early- 
 life. Until within the last ten years children 
 could be found in nearly every jail, sent there 
 by some magistrate, and learning there the les- 
 sons that prison inmates can give. Even now 
 this condition has only been partially remedied. 
 
 Guardians for Children. — The state must take 
 cognizance of the fact that there are always 
 children who have no proper guardian. In these 
 cases the state must become their guardian, pro- 
 viding for their physical and moral welfare as 
 carefully as a good parent. Whatever the cost 
 it will prove an economy in every way. What 
 has hitherto been saved through neglect has 
 been more than made up by the costs of crim- 
 inal prosecution and punishment. 
 
 Homeless Children. — Men and women who 
 are leading criminal lives are always on the 
 watch for homeless children. Many children 
 brought into the juvenile courts for stealing have 
 been taught the trade by men and women who 
 employ them and direct them. Others help 
 burglars by climbing into places too small for 
 a grown person to enter and opening the way 
 for them. Dishonest junk dealers encourage
 
 64 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 children to steal brass and lead pipe for which 
 they pay them. Red-light districts welcome the 
 uncared-for child and use him as a messenger 
 or in other ways, while he at the same time be- 
 comes familiar with all the practises of the den- 
 izens of that quarter. Unless the neglect of 
 these children ceases and is supplanted by effi- 
 cient methods of caring for them crime will 
 always continue to have its bands of youthful 
 pupils who after a few years' apprenticeship are 
 well versed in the practises of those who live by 
 preying on society. 
 
 Remedial Legislation. — The whole effect of 
 remedial legislation when put into action re- 
 quires the most careful study. It does not al- 
 ways work out as those who plan it expect it 
 to. Broad knowledge and penetrating insight 
 are both necessary in planning such legislation, 
 and a large view of the situation to be relieved 
 in all its aspects is vital to a consideration of 
 the probable effect of any projected law. 
 
 In recent years the exploitation of children in 
 occupations dangerous to life and health has 
 very properly aroused sympathy and indigna- 
 tion. Earnest work has been done to safeguard 
 youth. While the results have been important, 
 it needs to be remembered that laws too ex- 
 treme and rigid hold out possibilities of injury 
 to the children as serious as overwork. When 
 laws require that no child under fourteen en-
 
 REGULATION OF OCCUPATIONS 65 
 
 gage in any work other than domestic or agri- 
 cultural a grave danger confronts the city boys. 
 
 Effect of Legislation. — For the town and city 
 boy there is no agricultural work and little do- 
 mestic work. The result is compulsory idleness 
 for three months in the year in the cases of most 
 city boys. Every one who has the slightest un- 
 derstanding of the nature of boys knows that 
 activity is a necessity of their being, and that if 
 they are not occupied in useful ways they will 
 soon find things to do which bring them up 
 against the law. During school vacations one 
 may walk about the streets of any city and see 
 gangs of boys from ten to fourteen roaming the 
 streets without purpose or direction. The homes 
 of these children are small, their parents know 
 no vacation nor have they the means to send 
 their children to the country, nor can they give 
 them spending money with which to gratify 
 their taste for candy, moving-picture shows or 
 other childish pleasures. 
 
 The children, on the other hand, can not work 
 without breaking the law. They can not earn 
 money to gratify their wishes. What remains 
 for them but mischief, which they find in many 
 forms? They see an empty house. What eas- 
 ier than to enter it and steal the brass it con- 
 tains, for which they can get a few pennies from 
 a junk dealer? Or they will rob slot machines, 
 or in countless other ways will they find means
 
 '66 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 for injuring themselves and tlieir community. 
 It is not inherent mischievousness that brings on 
 these things. If employment that would occupy 
 their thoughts and hands were given these boys 
 they would find no time or inclination for their 
 raids on property. 
 
 It is useless to expect that boys can be idle 
 and quiet for weeks at a time. Unless some 
 kind of work is permitted children twelve to 
 fourteen years old they will continually be fur- 
 nishing recruits to the ranks of the criminals. 
 It might as well be recognized, also, that work 
 is the only salvation for the boy to whom school 
 makes no appeal. 
 
 When the state regulates so much of the lives 
 of children that their parents can not longer di- 
 rect their activities, no dangerous loopholes 
 should be left in the regulations which are en- 
 forced. The state assumes a great responsibility 
 when it denies the right of individual choice. 
 When the right of securing work is denied to 
 children the state will sooner or later find it 
 necessary to provide for them work that is con- 
 sidered both suitable and favorable. Manual- 
 training schools of various kinds, open all the 
 year and with rules governing attendance, will 
 be found necessary to take the place of the work 
 which children are now forbidden to do. 
 
 Developing Manliness. — No one who comes 
 into actual contact with boys can doubt that
 
 REGULATION OF OCCUPATIONS 6/ 
 
 the trade school, or suitable work in which 
 money may be earned, develops manliness and 
 the sense of responsibility as nothing else will. 
 This conviction is only strengthened by acquaint- 
 ance with so-called wayward boys. Strong men 
 are made from the boys who have had to over- 
 come obstacles and who have thus grown strong 
 through actual achievement. To give children 
 no responsibility or possibility of other work 
 than their school activities before they are four- 
 teen is to handicap their entire future. 
 
 Playgrounds. — The establishment of play- 
 grounds in cities has been beneficial, but it will 
 be many years before they are sufficient in num- 
 ber to be accessible to all the children. Even if 
 there were a playground for every child, how- 
 ever, this would not be sufficient. Work and 
 play must alternate, for either alone is bad. The 
 boys who are roaming the streets in hundreds of 
 towns and cities are just natural boys filled with 
 the love of fun, with energy unlimited, which 
 must have some outlet. Their energy needs 
 only direction into safe channels. 
 
 When laws prevent this, however, and when 
 conditions favor an unwholesome outlet, a state 
 of affairs arises which constitutes a menace both 
 to the boys and to the whole community. When 
 a boy has had nothing to do until he is four- 
 teen he has developed a strong bent toward idle- 
 ness and loafing. It is difficult to induce many
 
 68 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 boys to work after such a preliminary course in 
 idleness. Indeed, one can not begin too early 
 to instil the idea that every one is created to 
 be useful, nor can one begin too early to place 
 responsibility on children. 
 
 Habit of Work. — The habit of regular work 
 and the importance of doing the work well must 
 be instilled into children from the earliest pos- 
 sible moment for their own happiness and their 
 future success. With each year the child should 
 become a more responsible person. Nothing 
 will make a child happier than to have respon- 
 sibility and to feel that he is trusted and needed. 
 Some of the most successful of probation offi- 
 cers have realized this and have enlisted the 
 help of older children on probation in caring for 
 younger ones, and have placed responsibility on 
 them in various other ways. 
 
 There is a happy medium in the matter of 
 work which both parents and the state must rec- 
 ognize if they would prevent the making of 
 wayward children. No one would desire to put 
 a man's work on a child or to make a drudge 
 of him. But on the other hand one can not 
 safely leave him without responsibility or work 
 until he is fourteen, thereby losing some of the 
 most valuable years, when the child is most im- 
 pressionable, for the formation of habits. No 
 satisfactory solution of this problem has yet been 
 evolved. Careful study of all legislation bear-
 
 REGULATION OF. OCCUPATIONS 69 
 
 ing on children is necessary. Compulsory edu- 
 cation laws should precede child labor laws. The 
 opportunities for wholesome work for children 
 should be investigated in every community. 
 Constructive rather than prohibitive policies are 
 needed to safeguard the children, and it must 
 be remembered that the question of what chil- 
 dren may do is as important for consideration as 
 what they may not do. 
 
 Freedom and Initiative. — An attempt to force 
 every child into one groove must have serious 
 effects on character. Conditions of life vary so 
 greatly that what is best for one person may not 
 be best for another. Initiative and the ability 
 to do what circumstances require are highly im- 
 portant elements of strong character. Prohibi- 
 tive measures that take away possibilities of in- 
 dividual freedom must produce conditions worse 
 than those they are designed to remedy. If leg- 
 islation is to be helpful some opportunity for 
 discrimination must be allowed those entrusted 
 with administrative power. 
 
 The issuance of work certificates to children 
 by school authorities is valuable ; and the school 
 authorities are best able to do this on account of 
 their close knowledge of the children. Some de- 
 gree of liberty could safely be given them in 
 this matter. Laws specifying what children may 
 not do should be supplemented by laws provid- 
 ing occupations in which they may engage.
 
 ;q jhe wayward child 
 
 Many parents who wish their children to have 
 some employment in vacation time and out of 
 school hours are convinced that this is beneficial 
 for their children and wish it on that account 
 alone. Some freedom should be given these con- 
 scientious parents in regard to finding employ- 
 ment for their children. In order to protect chil- 
 dren whose parents wish to use them for their 
 own benefit it is hardly just to put obstacles in 
 the way of parents who are earnestly watching 
 the special needs of their children from day to 
 day. 
 
 Placing Responsibility. — ^To be useful is the 
 law of life, while to be idle is to court danger for 
 child or man. Most children are destined to 
 have to earn their living, and since it is in child- 
 hood and youth that our habits are formed it 
 seems obvious that this lesson should be learned 
 as early as possible. There are many good par- 
 ents who are amply able, if necessary, to sup- 
 port their children in idleness, but who see seri- 
 ous disadvantages in such a course. There are 
 other parents who, though able to support their 
 children entirely until they are fourteen or six- 
 teen, could give them advantages otherwise im- 
 possible if the children themselves could help in 
 earning money. The majority of parents will 
 sacrifice themselves for their children. The ma- 
 jority of parents may be trusted to decide what 
 is best for them. Such parents are seriously 
 handicapped by; prohibitive laws in regard to
 
 REGULATION OF OCCUPATIONS 71 
 
 child labor. Many of them conscientiously be- 
 lieve that it is easier for children to begin work 
 gradually than to be forced into it suddenly. 
 
 There are children whose only salvation seems 
 to be in the line of practical work of some kind. 
 Children can only be dealt with successfully 
 when their individual characteristics are studied. 
 Parents and teachers may safely be given some 
 liberty and discretion in meeting their needs. In 
 the case of the wayward child such discretion is 
 a necessity. 
 
 Many of the inmates of prisons, in reviewing 
 their lives and giving what they regard as causes 
 which led them to criminality, lay special stress 
 on idleness and the lack of work. An Ameri- 
 can, twenty-nine years old, who has served time 
 in both a reformatory and a prison and who was 
 often a truant in youth, says that "the cause of 
 so many young men being in prison is idleness, 
 which is the foundation of most of their crimes." 
 
 A German, twenty-nine years old, who was 
 brought up in luxury, is educated and possesses 
 a college degree, who has traveled extensively, 
 and who is now serving a term in prison for vio- 
 lation of game laws, has said: "I honestly believe 
 that if I had been given a practical education in- 
 stead of an academic one I would have been bet- 
 ter able to strive with the practical, every-day 
 conditions of humdrum life. May this be a help 
 to others." 
 
 Another prison inmate, who is well educated
 
 12 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 but has no trade, writes: "Idleness goes first 
 in my downfall and drink follows. I am thirty- 
 four years old and was born in New York. I 
 supported my mother from the time I was sev- 
 enteen years old, as she was a widow. I went to 
 school irregularly. I was fond of the water, but 
 had no money to buy a boat. I was arrested at 
 ten for stealing a small boat and was sent to a 
 reformatory for five years. I am now in prison 
 for twelve years. Good playgrounds and free 
 trade schools would keep the kids off the streets 
 and out of mischief and would help keep their 
 minds on their work." 
 
 An American prisoner, thirty years of age, 
 says, in urging that children be taught to work: 
 "I was never taught to work and could not do 
 anything. I was the youngest and had my own 
 way until my mother died." 
 
 Work Prevents Crime. — There can be no 
 question but that the education of children in 
 the habit of useful work has a direct bearing on 
 the problem of crime. To carry the prohibition 
 of work to an extreme will increase the number 
 of those who will lead criminal lives. Warden 
 McKenty, of the Eastern Penitentiary, Pennsyl- 
 vania, has had many years of experience with 
 the men and women classed as criminals and he 
 says: "Work is the best preventive of crime, 
 and if all men were taught trades and trained 
 in industry from childhood it would cut down 
 crime fifty per cent."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE HOMELESS MOTHERLESS CHILD 
 
 THE treatment and care of children bereft of 
 home deserves more serious consideration 
 than the subject has yet had. For the protec- 
 tion both of the children and the state more 
 efficient methods of dealing with them must be 
 evolved. The child whose home has been de- 
 stroyed by drink, the separation of his parents 
 or the death of either or both of them is placed 
 in a position which in many cases has resulted 
 in a criminal life. 
 
 Criminals Handicapped. — In investigations 
 into the causes contributing to juvenile delin- 
 quency it has been shown that two-thirds of our 
 prison inmates began life under the handicap of 
 no home training, no mothering, little love and 
 no preparation for meeting life's temptations. 
 Two-thirds of those we call criminals were in 
 childhood homeless or worse. Is not this the 
 strongest kind of evidence of the danger of neg- 
 lecting or improperly treating children who have 
 such possibilities for evil, but who also, it must 
 be remembered, have equal possibilities for 
 good ? 
 
 73
 
 74 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 The state has spent far more on the prosecu- 
 tion of these people and their support in prison 
 than it would have cost to give them the best 
 possible care in childhood. The care of such 
 children has hitherto been left principally in pri- 
 vate hands, though the matter is obviously of 
 the greatest importance to the state as well as 
 to the children themselves. 
 
 Orphan Asylums. — Institutions for the care of 
 orphans and half-orphans have been founded by 
 charitable people wherever such people have 
 chosen to place them. There has been no at- 
 tempt to learn how great is the need for such 
 institutions nor to see that all children are cared 
 for. There has been no educational supervision 
 of such institutions. Where state appropriations 
 are given them there may be official visits at in- 
 tervals, but these are necessarily superficial. 
 
 Directors of the poor find such homes as they 
 can for orphans, but they are unable to provide 
 adequate supervision of the homes and children 
 after placement. 
 
 Home Finding Societies founded by charita- 
 ble people have done some good work, but have 
 been limited in their ability to cover the need. 
 
 Home Finding. — In places where the state has 
 assumed the duty of finding homes there is still 
 much to do to bring the system up to a standard 
 which will place the state's child on an equal 
 footing with other children. Those whom the
 
 THE HOMELESS CHILD 75 
 
 state adopts should not be looked down on or 
 treated with less regard than children who have 
 parents. The care of homeless children is too 
 important not to be provided for by state regu- 
 lation of the most far-reaching kind. There 
 should be no loopholes for neglect, as there al- 
 ways are when any activity is left to the volun- 
 tary effort of individuals. 
 
 The provision of shelter, food and clothing is 
 not sufficient. Those who receive no more than 
 that are deprived of a fundamental need of child- 
 hood. It is mothering that every child should 
 have. Personal interest and personal care are 
 essential. 
 
 Arrests for Vagrancy. — The state has Inflicted 
 a great wrong on children in the arrest of home- 
 less ones for vagrancy and in committing them 
 to reform schools and prisons for having no 
 homes. From the ranks of children so treated 
 come many of our deserting husbands who have 
 never known what home life is and who have no 
 conception of its duties. 
 
 Whether the children who are deprived of 
 home life shall enter the ranks of criminals or 
 whether they shall receive such care as will make 
 them good citizens is the question every state 
 must face. These children are a source of dan- 
 ger to society and an expense to the state if 
 they are neglected or merely housed and fed. 
 They are not responsible for their own condi-
 
 76 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 tion; they are helpless and homeless, but if left 
 alone do not long continue so. They some- 
 times come from good families, for in American 
 life changes are rapid and the wheel of fortune 
 makes many revolutions. 
 
 What the State May Do. — What should the 
 state do for these children? It can do much to 
 prevent children from having drinking parents. 
 It can refuse to license saloons or the sale of 
 liquor. The continuance of this menace to child- 
 hood rests entirely w^ith the control of the state. 
 If the state so decrees it can eliminate the drink- 
 ing parent, and in so doing it w^ill save thousands 
 of children from conditions v^hich make crim- 
 inals of them. If licenses for the sale of liquor 
 were refused and its manufacture regulated the 
 drinking parent would become obsolete. In the 
 cases of those parents who now have the habit, 
 treatment should be given which would cure 
 them, instead of short imprisonments. The 
 state should also provide means of caring for the 
 children of drinking parents, so that they need 
 not suffer as they do now. 
 
 The state can protect orphans by the estab- 
 lishment of a Home Finding Department under 
 state control. Lists should be made of every 
 family in the state willing to adopt a child and 
 of every good home where a child would be 
 taken at the state's expense. Every known fact 
 concerning a child's parentage should be re-
 
 THE HOMELESS CHILD 17 
 
 corded, and there should be supervision of chil- 
 dren wherever they are placed. There are pri- 
 vate homes sufficient to take care of all home- 
 less children, if only proper effort were made 
 to find them. Institutions should only be used 
 for temporary purposes. 
 
 The Juvenile Court in Pennsylvania has the 
 option of placing children with families instead 
 of in institutions, and in such a case the county 
 pays to the family the same amount that would 
 be paid in an institution. This, of course, is not 
 sufficient, but it is one step toward recognition 
 of the possibility of finding family homes for or- 
 phans. Some states have already gone further 
 in this direction by establishing mothers' pen- 
 sions, which enable children to have a mother's 
 care when, through poverty, or the death or de- 
 sertion of their father, they would otherwise be 
 deprived of it. 
 
 In the cases of the children of divorced par- 
 ents, the state should insure the protection of 
 those who are thus deprived of the influence of 
 a good home. The causes that have made di- 
 vorce so prevalent should be studied in order 
 that they may be removed and this menace to 
 children be minimized as much as possible. Uni- 
 form legislation concerning marriage and di- 
 vorce is greatly needed, but preceding that there 
 should be adequate education of youth in the 
 right ideals of marriage and the home. The neg-
 
 78 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 lect of education in this vital subject has contrib- 
 uted to the making of many unsuitable marriages 
 which have resulted in separation or divorce. 
 
 Homes are the foundation of society. If the 
 making of homes is to be successful they must 
 be founded in the proper spirit and with full 
 realization of the responsibilities and duties in- 
 volved. 
 
 Protection of Children. — To prevent our hav- 
 ing wayward children, homeless children must 
 have adequate protection, care and guidance. It 
 should be the state's duty to afford these chil- 
 dren care as nearly as possible similar to that 
 which they would receive from a good father and 
 mother. If this end is to be achieved the state 
 must assume the responsibility of caring for or- 
 phans instead of leaving the matter to the spo- 
 radic efforts of private individuals. 
 
 A prison inmate thirty years old, who was left 
 an orphan at five and sent to an orphanage and 
 who is now imprisoned for murder, writes: "I 
 am satisfied if I had had a good home with some 
 one to love me when I was a child I could tell 
 a different story." 
 
 The real reason for the criminal lives of two- 
 thirds of our prison inmates lies in the fact that 
 they were homeless as children. They were 
 not abnormal, they did not have inborn criminal 
 tendencies, but no good seeds were planted in 
 their youthful minds and, as will always happen
 
 THE HOMELESS CHILD 79 
 
 in such a case, weeds sprang up instead. Deter- 
 mined, well organized, systematic effort should 
 be made by every state to prevent the homeless 
 children of to-day from meeting the same fate 
 that overtook those of a generation ago. And 
 always it must be remembered that the dividing 
 line between the homeless and the wayward child 
 is almost invisible. 
 
 Evidence from the Prisons. — Out of three 
 hundred and ninety-five inmates in the Eastern 
 Penitentiary in Pennsylvania one hundred and 
 sixty-three were found to be orphans or half- 
 orphans, thirteen were children of divorced par- 
 ents, fifteen were illegitimate children, sixty-one 
 had drinking parents, so that out of the three 
 hundred and ninety-five, two hundred and fifty- 
 two were in childhood deprived of normal par- 
 ental influence and home life. 
 
 From seven hundred and ninety-four inmates 
 in the Minnesota Penitentiary three hundred 
 and ten were orphans or half-orphans, fifty-five 
 were children of divorced parents and three hun- 
 dred and nine had drinking parents, so that out 
 of seven hundred and ninety-four, six hundred 
 and seventy-four were in childhood without any 
 normal home life. 
 
 From one hundred and seventy-four inmates 
 in the Illinois Penitentiary seventy-nine were 
 orphans or half-orphans, eighteen were children 
 of divorced parents, fifty-five had drinking par-
 
 80 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 ents and four were illegitimate. Thus one hun- 
 dred and fifty-six prisoners out of one hundred 
 and seventy-four had in childhood no normal 
 home life. 
 
 From fifteen inmates in a Texas prison five 
 were orphans or half-orphans, two were children 
 of divorced parents and three had drinking par- 
 ents, so that exactly two-thirds of them had been 
 deprived of normal home life in childhood. 
 
 Out of six hundred and fifty-six inmates in 
 the Auburn and Clinton Prisons in New York 
 three hundred and six were orphans or half- 
 orphans, forty-six had divorced parents, two 
 hundred and five had drinking parents and six 
 were illegitimate, which makes a total of five 
 hundred and sixty-three who in childhood en- 
 joyed no normal home life. 
 
 Thus out of a total of two thousand and thirty- 
 four prisoners sixteen hundred and fifty-five 
 were either homeless or deprived of parental 
 care in their childhood. Could more convincing 
 testimony be given as to the value and necessity 
 of this influence and guidance to every child? 
 
 Mothers Versus Institutions. — The greatest 
 men of every age have testified that they owed 
 everything to their mothers. The personal care 
 of a loving and wise mother is the greatest need 
 of every child. No benefit can compare with it. 
 The mother and father are God's institutions and 
 for that reason alone would be necessary for the
 
 THE HOMELESS CHILD 81 
 
 child whom He has put under their care. If 
 mothers and fathers fail, then their children fail 
 also. The foundations of life are weakened when 
 mothers and fathers are relieved of their duty 
 and other agencies substituted. 
 
 It is not the elaborateness of a home but the 
 character of the parents which makes it good 
 or bad. Mothers are the natural guardians of 
 infancy and childhood. A child's own mother 
 comes first, but if he is deprived of his own 
 mother the next best thing is the care of some 
 other motherly woman. Many childless women 
 have mothers' hearts and longings though their 
 arms are empty. 
 
 Need for Mothers. — The recognition that 
 mothers are the greatest need for every child 
 is gradually changing the old methods of car- 
 ing for orphan and half-orphan children. When 
 the death, desertion or imprisonment of a father 
 forces his wife to assume the duties of a bread- 
 winner she necessarily has to sacrifice her activ- 
 ities as mother and home-maker. Her children 
 thus are left without care or guidance during 
 the greater part of the day. Out of two thou- 
 sand and thirty-four prison inmates four hundred 
 and seventy-six were found to have had mothers 
 who had to support the family. One-fourth of 
 these prisoners had to be deprived of a mother's 
 care because their mothers had to earn their liv- 
 ing. These were God's children as fully as are
 
 82 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 more fortunate ones; these were also future cit- 
 izens of the state, whose welfare as such should 
 be of the greatest importance. 
 
 Breaking Up o£ Families. — Mothers fully qual- 
 ified to bring up their children well have had to 
 see them placed in different institutions while 
 they worked to contribute scantily to their sup- 
 port. Mothers whose deepest wish has been to 
 care for their children have had to endure see- 
 ing them forcibly removed and their homes 
 broken up, because while these mothers worked 
 their children had become truants or committed 
 offenses resulting from lack of parental care. 
 Liberal bequests from charitable people desiring 
 to help children have made possible many insti- 
 tutions for them. No bequests have been made 
 to help mothers maintain homes for their own 
 children, except in occasional instances where 
 allowances are temporarily given mothers by 
 charitable organizations. 
 
 Mothers' Pensions. — Mother and pauper are 
 not words that it should be possible to apply to 
 the same person. A mother is the servant of 
 God and of the state, bearing and rearing the 
 future citizens of both the earthly and the heav- 
 enly kingdoms. Her function is more important 
 than that of the soldier who saves the state — 
 she insures its continuance and its quality. 
 Mothers should be honored above all others, not 
 sentimentall}^ in song or poem, but in actual fact.
 
 THE HOMELESS CHILD 83 
 
 Mothers must sooner or later be accorded the 
 place they alone can fill in the councils of the 
 home, church, school and state; and mothers, 
 whether rich or poor, must be given protection 
 sufficient to enable them to perform their God- 
 given duties to their children. 
 
 When we recognize the need for pensioning 
 soldiers, teachers, municipal employees, who 
 have rendered long and faithful service, we 
 ought surely also to recognize the need for pen- 
 sioning needy mothers, remembering that they 
 render the greatest service to the state. Such 
 pensions are available only for mothers who are 
 proper guardians of their children. They are 
 not given in the guise of charity — which no self- 
 respecting mother could be happy in accepting — 
 but because the child's future is of the utmost 
 importance to the state, and because the mother's 
 value is recognized in the matter of shaping and 
 giving direction to the child's future. 
 
 Even if mothers' pensions involved a large ex- 
 penditure they would be worth all they might 
 cost, on account of the consequent saving in 
 prosecutions and care of men and women who 
 are leading criminal lives as a result of having 
 been deprived of parental care in their youth. 
 As a matter of fact in Kansas City it has proved 
 more economical to give mothers an allowance 
 for the care of their children than to support 
 them in institutions.
 
 84 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 Administration o£ Pensions. — The mother's 
 allowance is a more accurate name for this sys- 
 tem than mothers' pensions, because in this case 
 it is money paid over for service being rendered, 
 whereas a pension is paid for service that has 
 already been rendered. The administration of 
 the system should not be connected w^ith any 
 state or local board of charity or any charitable 
 agency. In some states it has been placed under 
 the control of juvenile courts or common pleas 
 courts. In Pennsylvania the entire management 
 is given to seven trustees in each county, all 
 women, and appointed by the governor. The 
 state then gives to each county for pensions an 
 amount equal to that appropriated by the county 
 itself for the same purpose. Not over three 
 thousand dollars may be spent on administra- 
 tion, and annual reports must be made to the 
 governor. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that In Inaugurating 
 mothers' pensions no mistakes will be made. 
 This new method, however, is founded on com- 
 mon sense and its successful evolution can only 
 be a question of time. It will remove anxiety 
 from many homes — from homes where women 
 can scarce gather enough together for daily 
 needs, where fathers with unending toil are un- 
 able to provide for the maintenance of their fam- 
 ilies in case sickness or death should keep them 
 from work.
 
 THE HOMELESS CHILD 85 
 
 The laws concerning mothers' pensions pro- 
 vide that women receiving an allowance from 
 the state may not be employed outside the home. 
 This will serve to prevent truancy and crimes 
 formerly committed during a mother's necessary 
 absence from the home. This method proceeds 
 from a recognition that the mother is more val- 
 uable as the guardian and guide of her child 
 than she is when she is merely earning money 
 for his support. It also involves recognition of 
 the fact that child nurture is the primary func- 
 tion of every mother. 
 
 In Chicago, where the system has been in use 
 for some time, the estimated financial saving is 
 four dollars and seventy-five cents the month on 
 each child. But even if this method involved a 
 larger expenditure than the old one it would still 
 be worth the cost. 
 
 When the state assumes the financial support 
 of the children it is possible to require of the 
 mothers helped the best care they are able to 
 give. Doubtless many mothers will ask for help 
 who do not measure up to the highest standards 
 of motherhood, but if they possess the essential 
 qualities of a good mother ways will be found 
 of giving them substantial help in home-making 
 and efficient child nurture. 
 
 Murder, the Result. — A mother of three chil- 
 dren, one of whom committed murder, tells in 
 these words the story of her child's life and the
 
 86 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 reasons for his downfall: "J^^hn's father went 
 away when he was three years old. I was left 
 with three children, two of whom worked and 
 helped to pay household expenses. If I had 
 stayed at home to care for John our table would 
 have been bare. I did what any other mother 
 would have done; I went to work. Any old job 
 that paid me a few dollars weekly was welcome. 
 The boy grew up as best he could. I got break- 
 fast at daybreak, then went to my work, and re- 
 turned home to get supper and wash the dishes. 
 When he arrived at the proper age, John 
 shunned schools. He said boys made fun of him 
 because he was backward. I encouraged him 
 but he dodged the schoolroom. And then came 
 street-corner acquaintances, boys he would not 
 have met had I been able to remain at home and 
 give him a mother's care. I was heart-broken 
 when a policeman stopped me on the street one 
 morning and told me my boy had been arrested. 
 My boy was fifteen years old in March, 1910, and 
 in the following March he was sentenced to the 
 workhouse. He served two years and two 
 months there. He had broken into the store- 
 rooms of a hardware company and stolen a re- 
 volver and a box of cartridges. I pleaded with 
 the judge to send my boy to an industrial school 
 where he would be with lads of his age. The 
 answer was a sentence of two years and six 
 months in the workhouse. His companions there
 
 THE HOMELESS CHILD 87 
 
 were murderers, robbers, hardened criminals of 
 every type. These men were associated with 
 him in the tailor shop and in the yard. When 
 his sentence expired he was a different boy. I 
 believe he could have been a good boy if he 
 could have had a mother's care and if he had 
 not been forced into association with criminals." 
 
 Could there be a stronger plea for financial 
 help for such mothers as this one, so as to allow 
 of their being with their children? The prac- 
 tise of sentencing youths to association with 
 criminals is a crime against them and against 
 society which must cease as soon as its terrible 
 consequences are fully understood. The punish- 
 ment of this boy's theft by sentencing him to 
 prison did not prevent further stealing but only 
 gave him enforced lessons in greater criminality. 
 There are thousands of cases similar in every 
 way to this one. 
 
 Parent-Teacher Associations. — The parent- 
 teacher associations in connection with schools 
 and churches which the National Congress of 
 Mothers has been organizing since 1897 are 
 schools for parents. They may be organized 
 wherever mothers live. The programs outlined 
 for these associations cover all phases of the 
 child's physical, mental and moral development. 
 Helpful books are recommended and parents de- 
 siring special advice may have it. The educa- 
 tional system designed for children has in this
 
 88 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 way been supplemented by an educational sys- 
 tem for parents, fostered by the National Con- 
 gress of Mothers and the United States Bureau 
 of Education. Any parent who desires help may 
 obtain it without cost. 
 
 The mother who receives financial aid may 
 also be given suggestions and help in teaching 
 her children honesty, self-control and other qual- 
 ities which are fundamental to good citizenship. 
 Some state boards of health are already giving 
 valuable instruction to mothers concerning the 
 care of babies. Child welfare commissions with 
 parents' educational bureaus in each state could 
 disseminate other information just as important. 
 
 Methods of the past have been responsible for 
 making criminals. If attention is turned to sav- 
 ing wayward children, crime can be prevented 
 as in no other way, and it will have to be remem- 
 bered that parental care can not safely be left 
 out of the life of any child. 
 
 LACK OF PARENTAL CARE WRITTEN BY PRISON 
 
 INMATES. 
 
 American, twenty-five: "Mother died when I 
 was a year old. Stepmother. Drinking and bad 
 company caused my crime." (Larceny.) 
 
 A Russian, aged fifty-two, who has served five 
 terms in prison, writes: "Never had parents or 
 any one to lielp me."
 
 THE HOMELESS CHILD 89 
 
 American, thirty-one: "Father died when I 
 was seven. Was in orphan asykim. I was sent 
 to a county jail for thirty days when twenty-two, 
 on account of a drunken row. A good home and 
 no Hquor would have helped me." 
 
 American, fifty-five: "I do not remember my 
 parents and never went to school or church. 
 ... I committed murder at fifty-one. I never 
 had any bringing up. That and liquor are the 
 causes of my crime." 
 
 American, thirty-four: "Mother died when I 
 was seven. I was brought up in an orphan asy- 
 lum. Liquor was the whole cause of my trou- 
 ble. A more cheerful home and a mother would 
 have helped me more than anything else." 
 
 American, forty-seven: "Father died when I 
 was two, mother when I was eight. I did not 
 go to school. My father was a white slave- 
 holder, my mother was colored. I am serving 
 a life sentence." 
 
 American, twenty-four: "My father died when 
 I was nine, my mother when I was sixteen. I 
 began work at eleven. I was arrested at nine- 
 teen for disorderly conduct. . . . When I lost 
 my mother I lost my best friend." 
 
 American, twenty-seven: "I never had any 
 home. If my mother had not died when I was 
 only eight years old I would not be here now." 
 This prisoner began work at six years of age; 
 he never learned any trade.
 
 90 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 American, twenty-one: "My mother died 
 when I was young. I committed larceny at 
 eighteen, caused by my ignorance and my want- 
 ing money to live in luxury. I was sent to prison 
 for three months. I have served three terms. 
 If my mother had lived I would never have seen 
 prison." 
 
 An American of thirty-four tells of being left 
 an orphan at eight, in charge of a charitable so- 
 ciety. He was first arrested at fifteen for at- 
 tempted burglary and was sent to prison. He 
 says : "I have served seven term.s. Institutions 
 are dens of immorality and graft. A helping 
 hand at the right time would have helped me to 
 live an honest life." 
 
 A native of British Guiana, aged thirty-three, 
 who was left an orphan when ten months old, 
 writes: "I never went to school but two years 
 in my life. I was in an almshouse for a time. 
 Necessity caused by my being a gamin was the 
 reason of my first offense. I was sent to a re- 
 formatory when seven or eight. The influence 
 was prejudicial. I have served several terms in 
 prison. It is seldom if ever that a person who 
 has been in prison is allowed to lead an honest 
 life. Police information to employers is one of 
 the main features of trouble for the ex-convict. 
 Reformatories do not ameliorate incipient crim- 
 inals. They make them."
 
 THE HOMELESS CHILD 91 
 
 American, thirty-nine : "My mother died when 
 I was seven. I stole to get more money for 
 the girls. I was caught and sent to a reforma- 
 tory for a year. This was bad for me. Then I 
 stole more. I was sent to prison for four years 
 and then for fifteen years. Only one mother and 
 father out of ten thousand ever tell their chil- 
 dren what is the greatest danger in life. Learned 
 people should spread information as to what is 
 the greatest danger to boys and girls under 
 eighteen. In prison a man learns everything." 
 
 Negro, forty-two: "My mother died when I 
 was seven. My stepmother said she did not 
 like other people's children. I was homeless and 
 friendless and at twenty-two I stole. I was sent 
 to prison for eight months. I do not drink. I 
 have needed work and a helping hand." 
 
 American, twenty-one: "My mother died 
 when I was seven. I learned no trade and stole 
 at eighteen. I was sent to a reformatory for 
 twenty-three months. The influence was bad. 
 Am now in prison for two and a half years. I 
 had no one to advise or restrain me or be kind 
 to me. I was weak and did not know how to 
 say no." 
 
 American, forty: "My father drank, my 
 mother worked out by day. Home was a house 
 of many troubles. I had little education. I was 
 in an orphan asylum for some months. When
 
 92 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 thirty-one I was arrested for assault while drunk 
 and was sent to jail. The place was weakening. 
 Rum was the cause of my downfall." 
 
 American, twenty-three: "My father drank 
 and my mother worked out. I attended school 
 irregularly, and never attended church or Sun- 
 day-school or learned the Lord's Prayer or Ten 
 Commandments. I w^as arrested at fifteen for 
 being drunk. I was sent to prison and have 
 served two terms." 
 
 American, twenty: "My parents drank. My 
 father did not support the family and mother 
 was employed outside the home. When they 
 were there it was not pleasant, for they were 
 drinking, quarreling" and swearing all the time. 
 I spent my evenings on the street and in bad 
 company. I was in an orphan asylum for a 
 while. I stole at fourteen because I had no 
 home, no one to care for me and was in bad 
 company. I was sent to a House of Refuge for 
 nineteen months. The influence was bad. When 
 I got out I had no work, no home or friends 
 and was forced to steal."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BOYISH PRANKS TREATED AS CRIMES MAKE 
 CRIMINALS 
 
 THE instances that will here be cited of 
 the consequences of treating boyish pranks 
 as crimes are actual and typical cases that have 
 come to light in investigation of the causes lead- 
 ing to a criminal life. 
 
 Turning Points in Life. — A twelve-year-old 
 boy in 1848 broke a car window for fun, "just 
 to see if he could hit it." It was a boyish prank 
 which might have caused serious injury, but the 
 boy himself did not realize the gravity of his 
 deed. He was punished by being sent to prison. 
 The influence of his companions there was so 
 bad that it changed his entire life, most of which 
 has been spent in prison. The punishment in- 
 flicted by the court amounted simply to an en- 
 forced education in crime. This man's life was 
 ruined because when he was a mischievous boy 
 and it was possible to save him, no one knew 
 how to go about doing it. In order to "protect" 
 society this child was forced surely into the ranks 
 of professional criminals. 
 
 Commitment to prison at the age of twelve 
 93
 
 94 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 amounts simply to a sentence to become a pro- 
 fessional criminal. No child would be strong 
 enough to become anything else. 
 
 In another case a seven-year-old boy was sent 
 to a reform school for ten years for using liquor 
 and cigarettes. As a result of the influence and 
 associations of the reform school he has served 
 live terms in prison and at thirty years of age 
 looks back on his past as an education for a life 
 of crime. 
 
 Mistakes such as this in the treatment of small 
 boys are too serious in their effects to be al- 
 lowed to continue. Just such mistakes have 
 filled the ranks of the professional criminals of 
 to-day. 
 
 A boy sixteen years of age was arrested for 
 stealing watermelons. The punishment given 
 him was ten years and six months in a reforma- 
 tory. As a result of this he has since served two 
 terms in prison. He says : "If you want to 
 make a criminal put the first offender in a place 
 where they treat him as brutally as I was treated 
 eight or ten years ago." 
 
 Stealing watermelons is not to be encouraged, 
 but the result of the treatment for it in this case 
 was a serious matter for the state. One man 
 who was sent to prison when ten years old says, 
 in pleading for more intelligent treatment of 
 ofifenders: "Don't, for God's sake, send a young 
 boy to prison if you want to reform him. Sus-
 
 BOYISH PRANKS 95. 
 
 pend sentence on him, give him another chance, 
 three or four if necessary, but don't put him away 
 among a lot of hardened criminals." 
 
 A ten-year-old boy was guilty of stealing some 
 fruit. He was arrested and tried in the same 
 manner as if he were a grown man instead of an 
 undersized lad of ten who had no realization of 
 what that boyish prank would lead to. His sen- 
 tence meant that a compulsory education in 
 crime was his punishment for his misdeed. 
 
 An eleven-year-old boy was arrested for steal- 
 ing some peaches from a farmer's wagon. It 
 was the turning point in his life. He was given 
 five years in a reformatory for this trifling mis- 
 deed. Certainly it could have been corrected 
 without ruining his future life. 
 
 Serious Results. — The treatment given this 
 boy was out of proportion to his fault, for it 
 turned his whole life toward criminality. It was 
 a mistake to confine this boy in a prison cell 
 in the first place, and it was a greater mistake 
 to send him to a reformatory for five years. If 
 the magistrate who committed the child to prison 
 had instead talked kindly but seriously with him 
 and had found some good man or woman who 
 would have been a friend and adviser to him, 
 the result would have been very different for 
 the boy. In this case the treatment was pun- 
 ishment for a given offense, not prevention of 
 any further wrongdoing.
 
 96 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 A boy of thirteen, whose favorite books were 
 of the Deadwood Dick and Nick Carter type, 
 was once inspired to imitate the characters he 
 was reading about. He had no idea of the seri- 
 ousness of what he was doing. He was simply 
 living out the stories he read of crime and 
 thieves. Before long he found himself in a peni- 
 tentiary, and he says of that experience : "I 
 learned more about thieving in one year than 
 could be learned out of books in twenty years." 
 Any one possessing insight into boy nature 
 would have directed the life of such a youth into 
 safer channels in a more efficient way than the 
 one that was actually adopted. 
 
 A ten-year-old was arrested for stealing bar- 
 rels for an election bonfire. He was sent to a 
 House of Refuge for eighteen months. He 
 writes : "It ruined me. I have served four terms 
 in prison." 
 
 Instances similar to these have been the be- 
 ginning of a criminal career for many who are 
 now prison inmates. On the other hand, few 
 are the men in honored positions to-day who 
 can not look back on childish deeds fully as seri- 
 ous. A different and a happier fate presided 
 over the latter men, and that is the only dif- 
 ference discoverable. Boys will make mistakes 
 and do wrong, but they are only boys, and in 
 judging them we should remember that they 
 have not reached years of maturity and discre-
 
 BOYISH PRANKS 97 
 
 tion. It would seem that the state erred more 
 seriously than the boys in instances such as 
 those here cited, for it is not unreasonable to 
 think that the state should by all means provide 
 for such cases effective and sensible methods for 
 the prevention of future offenses. In nine cases 
 out of ten no punishment at all for such mis- 
 deeds w^ould show better results in making de- 
 cent citizens than do the punishments actually 
 given. 
 
 Entire Lives Wrecked. — In July, 1913, in New 
 York, two high-school boys of sixteen were con- 
 victed of stealing and were sentenced to serve 
 terms of twenty years in the Elmira Reforma- 
 tory. The boys explained that they had stolen 
 to get sufficient money for a college education. 
 No one can read of sentences like these without 
 rebelling at a system which makes such treat- 
 ment of human beings legal. Stealing is a 
 crime, but wrecking child life is also a crime. 
 These two boys of sixteen were still in the form- 
 ative period of life and it would have yet been 
 possible to make useful citizens of them. They 
 made a misstep, but had they been guilty of 
 manslaughter their punishment could not have 
 been more severe. They committed a crime 
 against property, but their punishment was a 
 crime against immortal souls, for they can never 
 overcome the handicap placed on them. All 
 hope and all desire to improve must disappear
 
 98 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 under such a sentence. When they come out of 
 the reformatory at thirty-six years of age youth 
 will long be past, they will have no friends save 
 lawbreakers of every kind, and rankling in their 
 hearts will be the sense of the injustice and se- 
 verity of such a sentence imposed on mere boys. 
 At thirty-six years of age, with twenty years in 
 a reformatory back of them, without friends or 
 experience in the world of 1933, what future can 
 open out before them but the only life they will 
 know — a life of crime ? 
 
 A man, now in prison, who has spent eight 
 years in a reformatory, says of these institutions: 
 "Reformatories for boys are schools of degen- 
 eracy, vice and crime at present; and the worst 
 boy outside will reach a lower depth when sent 
 to one. No boy under age should be sent to 
 prison for a first offense against property." 
 Hundreds of others write in the same way, tell- 
 ing of the things that are happening to-day to 
 American boys. Perhaps there is no greater 
 need in our country than the removal of all 
 juvenile cases from the courts and the placing 
 of their treatment in the hands of men and 
 women qualified to deal with children in a way 
 that will l)e fair and just. 
 
 Moral Disease. — If the treatment of the 
 physically diseased were placed in the hands of 
 the courts most of the patients would die, be- 
 cause it takes experienced physicians to bring the
 
 BOYISH PRANKS 99 
 
 diseased parts of the human body back to health, 
 The treatment of moral disease requires physi- 
 cians just as experienced if order is to be brought 
 into the lives of boys and girls not yet adjusted 
 to their environment, and most patient, wise and 
 skilful handling is necessary to save these erring 
 ones from things worse than physical death. 
 
 Educational Authorities. — The first step to- 
 ward a better procedure was taken when chil- 
 dren's cases were separated from those of adults 
 in hearings before the courts. The next step 
 should be the entire removal from the courts of 
 the cases of children under sixteen and the plac- 
 ing of them under the jurisdiction of the educa- 
 tional authorities. Our educational system is not 
 now equipped to do such work, but the treat- 
 ment of wayward children is an educational 
 question and should be under educational man- 
 agement. Our educational system has been 
 steadily extending so as to minister to all needs 
 of children outside of the home. The issuance 
 of work certificates to children by school authori- 
 ties is in line with this general movement. 
 
 The time is not far distant when women must 
 share with men in judicial administration and in 
 planning the work to be done for the protection 
 and guidance of children. Already a step has 
 been taken in this direction in Chicago in the 
 appointment of a woman as an assistant judge 
 to handle the cases of girls and women.
 
 100 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 Gradually we are coming to realize the wis- 
 dom of preventive and educational treatment as 
 opposed to mere punishment in the cases of child 
 offenders. The new task is more difBcult and 
 far-reaching' than was the old one of punishment, 
 but no one will deny its supreme value and 
 worth. 
 
 RESULTS OF SENDING BOYS TO PRISON WRITTEN BY 
 
 PRISON INMATES. 
 
 American, twenty-one: "I had a drinking 
 stepfather. At eighteen I had no work and no 
 place to sleep or eat. I broke into a house, for 
 which I was sent to a reformatory. Then I was 
 sent to prison. I don't think any man or boy 
 ought to be sent to prison for his first offense. 
 Give him a chance. Show him his error and 
 help him to lead a better life." 
 
 American, thirty: "Prison is no place to re- 
 form a man, for he gets hard-hearted." 
 
 An American of thirty-seven tells of being 
 sent to prison for drunkenness, his first offense, 
 at twenty. He says: "I think that in sending 
 a youth to prison where he mixes with old of- 
 fenders he is put in the way of learning more 
 wrong in a week than he would in saloons in a 
 year." 
 
 An Englishman of thirty-five tells of being in 
 prison as a result of drink and bad company. He
 
 BOYISH PRANKS 101 
 
 writes: "The worst thing that can be done to a 
 boy is to put him in jail with criminals, to tell 
 him he is bad and to suggest the idea that he is 
 suspected. He thinks that he might as well do 
 wrong as be blamed for it." 
 
 An American of twenty-three tells of having 
 been sent to a reformatory for twenty-three 
 months for his first offense. He writes: "If the 
 police would let a man alone after he has been 
 in trouble once instead of hounding him contin- 
 ually he would have some chance to lead an hon- 
 est life. I am now in prison for two years be- 
 cause of that." 
 
 American, twenty-eight: "I graduated at high 
 school and was a stenographer. I was arrested 
 at twenty-three for forgery caused by drink, bad 
 companions and fast women. I was sent to a 
 reformatory, where the influence was bad. The 
 police kept after me when I was released and 
 arrested me on suspicion." 
 
 A Canadian, thirty-six years of age and well 
 educated, tells of having been arrested at twenty- 
 three for violation of excise laws and of being 
 sent to a reformatory for two and a half years. 
 He says: "The influence was emphatically not 
 beneficial. I have served six terms in prison. 
 Police interference, inability to get work without 
 references and many other causes were difficul- 
 ties I met when released. I also suffered from 
 a lack of funds to carry me over such a period of
 
 102 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 time as It took me to find employment. These 
 were the causes of putting me back in prison 
 more than anything else. Ten dollars do not 
 last long when you have to buy clothes and other 
 necessaries of life after leaving prison." 
 
 A native of Holland, forty-three years old, who 
 is well educated and had a good home in his 
 youth, writes : "I had no work and stole at twen- 
 ty-nine. I was sent to prison for a year and 
 have since served six terms. Time and again I 
 have lost jobs through the police telling my em- 
 ployers I had been convicted of crime, thereby 
 returning me to my former status of idleness 
 which breeds crime. Employment without per- 
 secution would have helped me to live right." 
 
 American, thirty-four: "Because of poor 
 wages I stole at eighteen. I was sent to prison 
 for three years. I tried to live within the law 
 when I got out, but the police hounding me made 
 it impossible. It would have helped me most 
 when I got out to have been given sufficient 
 money and a suit of clothes not stamped with 
 prison. How can a man reform when the police 
 are more than anxious to keep him down, when 
 they say that once a man has been in prison he 
 can never reform, and when they never give him 
 a chance? Ask any man who has served several 
 terms how the police have used him on his dis- 
 charge." 
 
 American, twenty-six: "I had a 'drinking
 
 BOYISH PRANKS 103 
 
 father who died when I was four years old. I 
 attended school regularly. My heart and soul 
 were all in music. I was in an orphan asylum 
 for a time. I was arrested though innocent, and 
 I could not face my people after that. I was 
 sent to prison for two years and six months. I 
 have served four terms. When released I had 
 poor health, no money, a bad appearance and no 
 work. Kind treatment and a chance were what 
 I needed. If a man could be given a double set 
 of clothes, one for working and the other for 
 dress, more money, good work, and be trusted, 
 he would not steal again." 
 
 An Englishman, thirty years old, first arrested 
 at twenty-six for gambling, says : "I think a 
 heart-to-heart talk and suspended sentence 
 would have done more to make a better man of 
 me than all the imprisonment they can ever give 
 me. 
 
 American, thirty-two: "A good wife would 
 have helped me most. Fathers should teach 
 boys not to marry on short courtship and to 
 study their future wives very well, as women 
 cause lots of men and boys to commit crimes." 
 
 An educated American of forty-one who is in 
 prison for murder says : "A vigorous law against 
 home-wreckers, protecting the purity of wives, 
 would obviate one cause of homicides and de- 
 crease their number thirty-five per cent. The 
 remedy lies in prevention and must be sought in
 
 104 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 protected womanhood and the sanctity of mar- 
 riage." 
 
 American, forty-one : "I was innocent of the 
 offense I was arrested for, yet I was held and 
 punished for what I did not do. It drove me to 
 despair. The law made me what I am, and is one 
 of the main causes of youths pursuing a career 
 of crime." 
 
 American, thirty-nine: "I was sent to prison 
 for twenty years for a robbery of which I am 
 innocent." 
 
 American, forty-eight: *'I committed larceny 
 at forty-seven. In the eyes of God there is no 
 difference between the little thief and the big 
 thief, the so-called business man and the poli- 
 tician, even if they have laws enacted to protect 
 them in their crooked work. Their natures are 
 the same, only their thoughts differ." 
 
 Russian, twenty-six: "I was friendless and 
 homeless, without funds and out of work. I 
 stole at twenty-two and am sentenced to ten 
 years in prison. I would suggest how the Ameri- 
 can nation could solve the question of how to 
 keep men away from prison. The first thing a 
 man friendless and homeless needs is a home 
 where he can stay a little while when he is re- 
 leased from prison. Imagine a man five or ten 
 years in prison turned out with only ten dollars! 
 In a few days they usually come back because 
 they are friendless and homeless."
 
 BOYISH PRANKS 105 
 
 American, twenty-seven: "I needed most to 
 have a home and not be permitted to run around 
 from place to place. When my father died my 
 brother broke up the home and I was left to 
 hustle for myself with no one to say yes or no 
 or to help me."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SCHOOLS AND THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 n^HE last century witnessed the building of 
 -■• the greatest public school system in the 
 world. Over seventeen million children each 
 year come under its authority for from five to 
 six hours a day, and every child on an average 
 does this for at least eight years of his life. Our 
 schools have the responsibility for nine-tenths 
 of our children under fourteen, and for one-tenth 
 after that. Freedom of choice no longer rests 
 with parents. They must accept the schools 
 and use them, for in most states compulsory ed- 
 ucation laws make it obligatory for all children 
 to attend school. Statistics show that nine- 
 tenths of the children leave school in the ele- 
 mentary grades. These children are unfitted for 
 self-support by work either physical or mental — ' 
 they must necessarily go to swell the ranks of 
 unskilled labor, always a precarious means of 
 livelihood. 
 
 Juvenile Courts. — The children who come into 
 juvenile courts are these same school children, 
 for the jurisdiction of these courts extends only 
 to those under sixteen. No study of wayward 
 
 106
 
 SCHOOLS AND THE CHILD 107 
 
 children would be complete that did not take into 
 account the bearing on this problem of the edu- 
 cational system and its administration, for next 
 to the home the school carries the greatest re- 
 sponsibility in the shaping of children's habits 
 and characters. 
 
 The conclusions deduced from the study of 
 the ten thousand children under observation in 
 juvenile court, as vv^ell as statements made by 
 prison inmates concerning their early life, point 
 the need for certain improvements in the present 
 system of education which, when made, will go 
 far toward preventing the existence of wayward 
 children and also toward leading those who are 
 wayward to the straight path. 
 
 Natural Activities. — One cause which has con- 
 tributed to juvenile delinquency is the repres- 
 sion of children's natural activities and desires 
 which school requirements demand. Children 
 six years old are too young to suffer the con- 
 finement of school. At least two years could be 
 saved were school work so arranged as to con- 
 form to the natural interests of children. Free- 
 dom to move about, to run, to have fresh air, 
 to be a child, to develop individual initiative are 
 what every child should have during the first 
 eight or ten years of life. Education that inter- 
 feres with these primary necessities of child life 
 is injurious. For one thing, it gives the child a 
 dislike for school which often is never overcome.
 
 io8 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 The most elementary improvement would in- 
 volve the better adaptation of courses of study 
 to the age and natural interests of children. This 
 would increase the attractiveness of schools and 
 would hold the children in school for a longer 
 time. 
 
 Incalculable is the suffering inflicted on chil- 
 dren by our schools. Seats of improper height 
 impeding circulation, poor ventilation, rules 
 against moving and speaking — all these are real 
 causes of restiveness and disturbance among 
 children. It is well known by those who have 
 studied the physical life of the child that it is 
 impossible for him to keep still. This being so, 
 activity is a proved necessity of his life. In re- 
 quiring an "order" which in the grown-up's in- 
 terpretation means inactivity, we are requiring 
 an impossibility. There are some teachers who 
 now recognize this and who arrange their work 
 accordingly. 
 
 In the Worcester Normal School there is a 
 principal with a quiet, gentle voice who yet has 
 genuine enthusiasm for her work. For thirty- 
 five years she has devoted her life to teaching 
 children and training teachers. "I am so glad," 
 she says, "as I had to earn my living, that I 
 could do it in a way I love so well." 
 
 One Teacher's Method. — I shall not soon for- 
 get the sight of tliis teacher at her work. The 
 children were standing in a circle about her.
 
 SCHOOLS AND THE CHILD 109 
 
 She had no text-book of any kind but, using 
 the blackboard, she led the boys and girls of 
 the third grade through their number work while 
 a student teacher looked on. So eager and inter- 
 ested were the children that their whole bodies 
 were in motion as they raised their hands to 
 show their readiness to reply. Their ability to 
 add, subtract and divide rapidly was remarkable. 
 
 After their lesson the class was taken into 
 the long hall of the large school building. "Now 
 run the length of the hall and back, and see 
 who can run the most quietly," the teacher said. 
 Off they started, happy and gay, making almost 
 no noise. They came back to the schoolroom 
 with every muscle alive, with minds fresh and 
 active for the next lesson. The lesson in read- 
 ing was given from a book they had never seen, 
 the phonetic m.ethod being used. Each one was 
 asked to read a paragraph, taking a minute to 
 look it over before reading aloud. The expres- 
 sion and accuracy with which these children read 
 — not one of them was over ten years old — could 
 not be excelled by students in schools of elocu- 
 tion. 
 
 After the reading lesson was over the chil- 
 dren were let out for a short recess on their 
 playground, where swings, sand-boxes and the 
 like were provided for them. The children had 
 been so inspired with thoughtfulness for oth- 
 ers that no one used a swing or a sand-box long,
 
 110 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 but passed on to something else so as to give 
 others an opportunity. 
 
 At this school in Worcester initiative and gov- 
 ernment are left to the children. The teacher is 
 there to teach, not to discipline. So strongly 
 has she made this evident to the children that 
 perfect order exists in the schoolroom without 
 apparent effort on her part. The need for activ- 
 ity on the part of the children and their inabil- 
 ity to keep their minds long on one subject have 
 been recognized and the school in consequence 
 is a delight to all the children and a wonder to 
 their parents. The teacher says : "From thirty- 
 five years of teaching combined with deepest 
 love for the children and study of them I have 
 evolved the system I use." More valuable than 
 reading and arithmetic are the lessons in self- 
 control, self-government and consideration for 
 others which these children are learning and us- 
 ing daily. 
 
 Why Children Leave School. — The fact that 
 nine-tenths of our children leave school in the 
 elementary grades is a matter for serious 
 thought, as well as investigation of the changes 
 that may be required to hold the children longer. 
 The exclusion of manual work in the household 
 and mechanical arts from the curricula of the 
 school system is a serious handicap in dealing 
 with the many children who can only be inter- 
 ested in study by seeing its application to prac-
 
 SCHOOLS AND THE CHILD 111 
 
 tical living. Boys whom it was impossible to in- 
 terest in school work and who made no progress 
 in it have been known to leave school, only to 
 learn after a year or two of work that they 
 can not advance far in any business without ed- 
 ucation. Voluntarily have these boys returned 
 to school, seeing now the application to life of 
 their school work. 
 
 The abstract nature of school work, its appar- 
 ently infinite distance from any present interest 
 of the child, has been one of the weak places in 
 our educational system. It should not be neces- 
 sary for children to be wayward or delinquent 
 in order to be given the advantages of the man- 
 ual work which has been found so beneficial in 
 special schools. If work with the hands will cure 
 delinquency why should it not be made a part 
 of the regular school program and so help to 
 prevent it? 
 
 Trade Schools. — There is a wide demand for 
 the establishment of trade schools, vocational 
 and agricultural schools and for the introduc- 
 tion of manual training into every graded school. 
 The provision of opportunity for such training, 
 to serve the needs of those not interested in aca- 
 demic education; will have a great influence in 
 the prevention of crime among children and 
 adults. Something less than a third of the in- 
 mates of penitentiaries ever learned a trade. The 
 child who is trained to do something well has
 
 112 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 a strong safeguard against poverty, and poverty 
 is one of the contributing factors causing crime. 
 The universal introduction of this form of edu- 
 cation into our pubhc school system would ac- 
 complish two things. In the first place, children 
 would then like school and so truancy would de- 
 crease. In the second place, children year by 
 year would be so trained that on leaving school 
 their services would be valuable, and they could 
 command a higher wage than if they had pur- 
 sued a purely academic course of study. In this 
 efficient age if the schools are to hold the chil- 
 dren they must afford opportunity for learning 
 subjects of direct bread-winning value. 
 
 The Teacher and Wayward Children. — The 
 problem of the child who does not keep step in 
 the great educational system devised for all 
 children has met with consideration and treat- 
 ment of various kinds from those who control 
 the schools. Almost absolute authority is vested 
 in the teachers. Discipline may include cor- 
 poral punishment, suspension, expulsion, arrest 
 and charges in court against the child. The thor- 
 oughly efficient teacher maintains discipline 
 without resorting to such measures. The large 
 proportion of teachers, however, are inexperi- 
 enced and new to their work and it is reason- 
 able to suppose that among these there may be 
 errors of judgment on the teacher's side. In 
 such instances it should be possible for the child
 
 SCHOOLS AND THE CHILD 113 
 
 to make his side of the case known. The very 
 children whom one teacher declares completely 
 unmanageable another teacher with a superior 
 knowledge of child nature will find no difficulty 
 whatever in their management. In normal 
 schools in the training of teachers there is great 
 need for emphasis on the importance of a sym- 
 pathetic attitude toward the children. The 
 young pupil teacher should be made to realize 
 the need for great patience and sympathy with 
 children, besides learning methods of teaching 
 and of maintaining order. 
 
 Public School-Teachers. — A very valuable 
 study of the personnel and qualifications of the 
 public school-teachers of the United States has 
 been made by Doctor Lotus D. Coffman, Pro- 
 fessor of Education in the University of Illinois. 
 This study brings out facts which are significant 
 in considering with whom the educational work 
 of the country rests and how it may affect the 
 children. Doctor Coffman says: "One-third of 
 the men who are teaching are under twenty-four 
 years of age ; half of the women teachers are 
 under twenty-four; fifty per cent, of the teaching 
 population have had four or less years' experi- 
 ence ; twenty-five per cent, have had only one 
 year's experience. At least half the teachers of 
 this country are little more than girls and boys. 
 Information of reliable character leads me to con- 
 clude that in most cases the professional motive,
 
 114 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 a desire to consecrate their lives to service 
 through teaching, comes when some great per- 
 sonality has touched their lives and left its indel- 
 ible impress upon them. The situation is ren- 
 dered more complex when we consider the char- 
 acter and amount of training the novices have re- 
 ceived. Three-fifths of the men and two-fifths 
 of the women in rural schools have had less 
 than a high-school education; one-half of the 
 men and one-third of the women in towns, one- 
 fifth of the men and one-sixth of the women in 
 cities, have had less than a high-school educa- 
 tion. The extreme instability of the teaching 
 population is shown in the failure of recruits to 
 remain in teaching. Nearly one^quarter of the 
 entire teaching force leaves it annually. More 
 than three-fourths of all American teachers are 
 the sons and daughters of small farmers and 
 small tradesmen, the annual income of whose 
 parents average less than eight hundred dollars." 
 The fact that at least half of the teachers of 
 this country are little more than boys and girls 
 themselves has a very significant bearing on 
 their methods of dealing with children. It is an 
 attribute of youth to have little patience. The 
 faults which an older person would overlook 
 or quietly correct receive much harsher treat- 
 ment from a youth. There has been nothing in 
 the preparation of most teachers to force home 
 in their minds what it means to a child to be
 
 SCHOOLS AND THE CHILD 115 
 
 branded as wayward or unmanageable. Life has 
 not yet taught these young teachers self-control 
 and patience. If teachers really once understood 
 the importance of sympathy and patience with 
 children many would adopt a new attitude to- 
 ward their work. False ideas of economy have 
 made us give too many children to a single 
 teacher. It is impossible to get at the heart of 
 a pupil and establish with him the personal rela- 
 tionship so essential for real education when a 
 teacher must be responsible for from forty to 
 sixty children. 
 
 A teacher to do good work must possess poise 
 and self-control and must be fresh in mind and 
 body. This is not possible when too much work 
 is required. A tired, overworked teacher affects 
 the entire atmosphere of the school. Unjust 
 punishments and harsh words are the natural 
 result, and this has a most unfavorable effect 
 on the children. 
 
 A young teacher who was discouraged with 
 the care of two very troublesome boys went to 
 the principal of her school and said: "I want 
 you to take those two boys out of my class. I 
 can't do anything with them. They are dirty, 
 ragged and utterly bad." The principal, a wom- 
 an of long experience both as teacher and moth- 
 er, replied: "Certainly I will take the boys out 
 of your class. If you feel as you say, of course 
 you can't do well for them, but there is a great
 
 116 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 deal of good under those rags." The young 
 teacher's heart was touched by the older wom- 
 an's words, and she answered: "Let me try a 
 little longer." Back she went to discover the 
 good in those boys. That she found it was 
 shown two weeks later when she said to the 
 principal : "You were right. 'There is a great 
 deal of good under those rags.' I want to keep 
 them." Would that there might be a principal 
 like that one in every school to help the younger 
 teachers to discover the good! It is always 
 there, though it may be well concealed. 
 
 Married Women as Teachers. — There has 
 been opposition to the employment of married 
 women as teachers. The fact that one-fourth 
 of our entire teaching force, however, leaves the 
 work each year is a strong reason for enlisting 
 a more permanent element. This could probably 
 be done were the salaries of teachers commen- 
 surate with the importance of the work commit- 
 ted to them. There is an art in teaching which 
 does not come without experience and without 
 a real love for teaching and for children. Those 
 who regard the profession merely as a means of 
 livelihood, disliking the work and leaving it as 
 soon as possible, should choose some other pro- 
 fession where the formation of human charac- 
 ter is not involved. Married women whose home 
 cares permit it should be encouraged to enlist in 
 the ranks of teachers. Their broader and longer
 
 SCHOOLS AND THE CHILD 117 
 
 experience of life would have a helpful influence 
 on young teachers just entering the work. The 
 instance already cited where a mother-teacher 
 helped a younger woman to be more patient and 
 sympathetic shows clearly the value of a com- 
 bination of married women with young teachers. 
 Both Men and Women. — One of the most 
 needed changes in the educational system is that 
 of allowing the planning, direction and manage- 
 ment of the system to rest equally on both wom- 
 en and men. No question concerning children 
 can wisely be met unless the point of view of 
 both mother and father is brought to bear on it. 
 Educational boards are usually made up of men 
 whose lives are so crowded with business inter- 
 ests that they can give little study or time to 
 the vital work entrusted to them. President 
 G. Stanley Hall deplores the fact that women 
 teachers exceed men in numbers, but in estimat- 
 ing their usefulness it should be remembered 
 that most of them are but cogs in a great ma- 
 chine built by business men who are neither 
 teachers nor specialists in child nurture, and who 
 as fathers leave to their wives most of the ques- 
 tions relating to the training and education of 
 their own children. Little freedom for individ- 
 uality and initiative is given to the teachers. 
 iWith few exceptions women have had no oppor- 
 tunity for having any voice or responsibility in 
 the making of the system under which the chil-
 
 lis THE .WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 dren of the United States are being educated. 
 They have had no opportunity to put into this 
 system the life-giving principles and methods 
 which their greater experience with children has 
 taught them. Conditions would not be im- 
 proved, however, were our educational system 
 put entirely under the control of women. Men 
 and women both must think and plan and work 
 together on equal ground to bring the schools 
 into such an adjustment with child life as will 
 make each child love his work and be stimulated 
 and inspired to develop individuality and initia- 
 tive. 
 
 Responsibility of the School. — The responsi- 
 bility of the school has increased greatly since 
 the days when its only function was to teach the 
 three R's. With the development of the great- 
 est educational system in the world greatly in- 
 increased responsibilities have devolved on the 
 schools. Practically all children under fourteen 
 are now under their jurisdiction and guidance. 
 More and more, as the children are better under- 
 stood, it is realized that education relates to the 
 whole child. Health and hygiene have already 
 been incorporated as an important responsibility 
 of the school in the most advanced educational 
 centers. How the child may preserve and develop 
 a healthy body is recognized as a matter of edu- 
 cation and is receiving greater attention as its 
 importance is more fully proved.
 
 SCHOOLS AND THE CHILD 119 
 
 It is no longer thought necessary that the 
 misdemeanors and faults of children should nec- 
 essarily be regarded as evidence of incorrigibil- 
 ity and delinquency. No one can be associated 
 with large groups of children without learning 
 that they require three kinds of education, that 
 which will develop the body, that which will 
 develop the mind and that which will develop 
 the spirit as the guiding power of body and 
 mind. Every phase of child development be- 
 longs in the sphere of education, and the full 
 significance of this truth we can not learn too 
 soon. 
 
 There can be no question but that the educa- 
 tional system is better able to meet the needs 
 of children than the correctional or penal sys- 
 tems. The latter are not organized on an edu- 
 cational basis nor with regard to pedagogy or 
 psychology. 
 
 When the juvenile court system was adopted 
 a distinctly new view of children's offenses had 
 spread abroad. Many adjustments have been 
 made to meet this new view of wayward chil- 
 dren. Many more will be made. One of the 
 most necessary is the transference of the care 
 of wayward children to the educational system. 
 
 Educators may well say: "We are able to 
 guide and discipline all the children. We will 
 equip ourselves to do it. We will not be daunted 
 by those who are problems and difficult because
 
 120 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 we know that they are children requiring edu- 
 cation to overcome their waywardness. We are 
 better equipped to meet their needs than any 
 other agency because we know them, because 
 they are with us, and we have had the oppor- 
 tunity to observe and study them, because the 
 study of child development is our work." To 
 bring children into courts for offenses which can 
 be dealt with by the school should become less 
 and less frequent, just in so far as the child's wel- 
 fare is considered first rather than the offense 
 of which he has been guilty.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 TRUANCY 
 
 TRUANCY Is a matter of far greater impor- 
 tance to the community than has ever been 
 realized. The truant is a child whose care needs 
 careful study and the wisest treatment to guide 
 him safely over a critical period in his life. It 
 is impossible to deal with this subject in a whole- 
 sale manner, for each case is an individual prob- 
 lem and requires individual treatment. Thou- 
 sands of children who are truants are brought 
 into juvenile courts each year. Observation and 
 study will bring to light some general reasons, 
 however, why many of them have become tru- 
 ants. 
 
 Mothers Working Outside. — One of the 
 causes making many truants is the necessity in 
 some homes for both the father and mother to 
 be the breadwinners of the family. Children 
 whose parents both leave home before seven 
 o'clock in the morning have no one to send them 
 to school, and no one to direct them during the 
 day. They are too young to be depended on to 
 do what they should. The result is very natural, 
 
 121
 
 122 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 for most children left to themselves prefer play 
 to school. It seems unjust to arrest and fine or 
 imprison parents because their children fail to go 
 to school, when these parents are already heavily 
 handicapped by the necessity of working outside 
 to support their children. Cases of this kind are 
 so large in number that it would seem more prac- 
 tical and sensible to provide a regular visitor 
 who would call each day at the proper time and 
 take the children to school. This would be the 
 best kind of work for a truant ofificer. 
 
 Schools Do Not Interest Children. — Another 
 cause of truancy rests w^ith the school. The tru- 
 ant is often a perfectly normal child who loves 
 freedom and outdoor life better than long hours 
 in a close room where lessons are taught which, 
 so far as he can see, are not related to his own 
 age and its natural interests. In studying the 
 causes of truancy one must look at both sides 
 of the question. There ma}- be good reasons 
 why an active child does not find the school to 
 his liking. The fault may lie not in the child, but 
 in the natural conditions of normal childhood. 
 The methods in use in schools are not always 
 adapted to children, but are employed without 
 sufficient consideration of that vital need in edu- 
 cation. 
 
 If the school system is to be efficient it must 
 be animated by sympathy with and understand- 
 ing of child nature. Lessons must be adapted
 
 TRUANCY 123 
 
 to the age and interests of the child. A too lib- 
 eral use of force and the police system has driven 
 from school many children who could have been 
 won to love it w^ere the school all it should be. 
 
 Poverty and Truancy. — Another cause of tru- 
 ancy is poverty and the consequent lack of suit- 
 able clothing for the children. Pride often pre- 
 vents parents and children from stating this rea- 
 son. Among city children this will always be 
 found to be a very common cause of truancy. 
 It is true that in a small proportion of cases tru- 
 ancy is caused by the indifference of ignorant 
 parents about sending their children to school. 
 For such parents a fine may be justified. For all 
 others there should be a better way of meeting 
 the condition. Most parents are eager to give 
 their children educational advantages, even at 
 great personal sacrifice. 
 
 The time must come, too, when schools will 
 be so equipped to meet the natural interests of 
 children that they will look forward to going 
 to school. When that time comes wayward chil- 
 dren will decrease in number and truancy will 
 become so infrequent that compulsory education 
 laws will be unnecessary. When our school sys- 
 tem becomes truly efficient it will be regarded 
 as the normal duty of the school to deal with 
 wayward children patiently and with loving in- 
 terest until their faults are overcome. Way- 
 wardness is the signal of danger to a human life
 
 124 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 and to society, and punishment will not elim- 
 inate it. Causes must be learned, the coopera- 
 tion of parents enlisted, the child's own interest 
 aroused — and the wisdom of all must be cen- 
 tered on changing the child's view-point, which 
 caused his wrong acts. All this can be done 
 without publicity and without calling in the serv- 
 ices of the police or the courts. It is a matter 
 of right education and school authorities should 
 be better able to decide than any other, agency 
 how best to straighten out the faults. 
 
 Truant Officers. — An expensive system of tru- 
 ant officers has been added to our educational 
 equipment. To these truant officers are en- 
 trusted the duties of rounding up the children, 
 of forcing them to go to school, of seeing that 
 their parents are fined or imprisoned if they do 
 not, and in some places of establishing truant 
 schools for the children wdio do not fit into the 
 regular system. It seems time to inquire where- 
 in the schools are at fault when it is necessary 
 to establish such an expensive system for forcing 
 children to go to them. The best development 
 of a child can never be secured through force. 
 Child nature evidently rebels at the system, and 
 for this there must be some good reason which 
 should be considered and remedied. A friendly 
 sympathetic influence over each child which will 
 stimulate in him the desire to go to school must
 
 TRUANCY 125 
 
 take the place of the present system of punish- 
 ment for not going. 
 
 Dealing with Truants. — An experience of sev- 
 eral years with the most troublesome children in 
 a number of public schools has brought to light 
 some ways of dealing with them. Children who 
 play truant can be made to become lovers of 
 school by the faithful, friendly help of visitors 
 who can inspire them and give them a desire to 
 do right. Or these children can often be helped 
 simply by transference to another school where 
 the teacher understands how to get at the cause 
 of their trouble. There are teachers who can 
 take any child, however troublesome or way- 
 ward, and bring out in him all that .is good to the 
 exclusion of the faults which other teachers have 
 found unendurable. 
 
 An active boy of twelve, for many days a tru- 
 ant, was brought into juvenile court by a truant 
 officer with the plea that he be sent to a reform 
 school. Instead he was given another chance 
 with a different teacher in a different school. 
 *'Why is it, John, that you stay away from 
 school?" his new teacher asked. The boy an- 
 swered: "Oh, after I stay in school a little while 
 I can't breathe — I must get out in the fresh air." 
 So the cause was just the boy's natural activity, 
 which made him rebel against the close atmos- 
 phere of the school with its uncomfortable seats
 
 126 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 and its rules requiring quiet. The new teacher 
 saw the way to win the boy. She said to him: 
 "John, if you will come to me when you feel 
 that you must go out, I will let you run around 
 the square, and then you can come back." Com- 
 mon sense and insight into the needs of an un- 
 usually active boy on the part of that teacher 
 saved the boy from the reform school. There 
 are hundreds of children less fortunate who nev- 
 er have a teacher able to see into a child's heart, 
 and so able to deal wisely with him. 
 
 Faults Every Teacher Meets. — Truancy, theft 
 and untruthfulness are faults every teacher must 
 meet, and if she is efficient she should be able 
 to deal with them and correct them without re- 
 sorting to outside sources of help such as truant 
 schools or courts. The school acknowledges its 
 own weakness when it is unable to treat faults 
 like these, which are to be expected, and should 
 be treated judiciously and sympathetically. To 
 have a school child arrested and dragged into 
 court, to have him branded with the stigma of 
 arrest and prosecution, should never be a part of 
 the procedure of any school. Whatever the mis- 
 demeanors of children may be it must be remem- 
 bered that after all they are children. The duty 
 of the teacher is to produce form out of chaos. 
 There will be rough places on the road, and they 
 are unavoidable. Laying the foundations of 
 character can not be separated from the formal
 
 TRUANCY 127, 
 
 lessons out of books while the pupil is travers- 
 ing the formative years of life. Hand in hand 
 the two go; and in selecting teachers their abil- 
 ity to build character strong and true should be 
 looked into as well as their mental acquirements. 
 There are no hopeless children for the teacher 
 possessing such a combination of qualifications, 
 and there are many such teachers doing noble 
 work. Branding a child as a truant and commit- 
 ting him to a truant school have often been a 
 child's first approaches to a criminal career. 
 Fully half the children in juvenile courts are tru- 
 ants. 
 
 Helpers Needed. — The schools to-day need a 
 corps of consecrated specialists in child nurture 
 to whom may be given the names of all children 
 who seem troublesome and in need of help, and 
 who in this way may be given friendly help and 
 guidance quietly and without publicity. It is the 
 first step that counts. In our schools to-day are 
 the boys and girls who in a few years may be 
 standing in criminal courts or serving out prison 
 sentences. It is when they make the first wrong 
 step that they can be helped, and it is at this 
 point that no adequate help is provided for them. 
 Teachers, with their heavy work, do not have 
 the opportunity to give to them as much per- 
 sonal attention as some of these children need, 
 yet they know and see as can no one else the 
 tendencies that result so surely in crime.
 
 128 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 Preventing Crime. — The juvenile court and 
 the Probation Association in one city have given 
 special attention to this comprehensive and im- 
 portant method of preventing crime. The prin- 
 cipals of schools and the Compulsory Educa- 
 tion Department are asked to give the names 
 of children needing better moral guidance. Even 
 the child does not know why the friendly woman 
 comes to see him, but she is one whose person- 
 ality wins respect and regard, and once she has 
 established friendly relations with the child the 
 opportunity for inspiration and help is made pos- 
 sible. There are many societies for the help of 
 poor children ; there are unfortunately few as 
 yet for the more important office of helping 
 children who stand at the parting of the ways, 
 where wise direction may change their entire 
 course of life. 
 
 To those interested in the decrease of crime 
 the school offers an inexhaustible field for serv- 
 ice in preventive work. When it assumes fully 
 its rightful sphere in child life, when it recog- 
 nizes that misdemeanors of children are not 
 crimes, as they might be if committed by an 
 adult, when it assumes the responsibility for 
 such treatment as will eliminate the desire to 
 commit misdemeanors, then will our educational 
 system be an efficient, vital factor in the pre- 
 vention of crime. 
 
 The care and training of children is an educa-
 
 TRUANCY 129 
 
 tlonal problem. It is one that can be handled 
 better through wise educational methods than 
 by any courts. When children are placed in the 
 hands of the schools for certain years of their 
 life it is the duty of the schools to meet every 
 problem of child life, and not to turn the difficult 
 ones over to other agencies less fitted to meet 
 them in a way that will help the children. 
 
 Young Teachers. — The youngest and most in- 
 experienced teachers would certainly give their 
 help generously to wayward children if they 
 realized the great influence their personalities 
 might exert on the after-life of each child. It is 
 to these teachers that more than one-fourth of 
 the school children must look for guidance in 
 school life. Many of these children are hard to 
 deal with and try sorely a teacher's patience. 
 Many of them come from homes where parents 
 have been neglectful, and then the task is doubly 
 hard for the teacher. I do not believe, however, 
 there is a single teacher who would not bend 
 every effort to overcome the faults in children 
 if he or she once grasped the far-reaching effect 
 such effort would have on the future lives of 
 those children. Every teacher will have chil- 
 dren who are disorderly and who seek to make 
 trouble in the school. Good results would fol- 
 low if the teacher, instead of keeping such chil- 
 dren in after school and scolding them, should 
 invite them to go to a baseball game or for a
 
 130 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 walk with her to collect specimens for the school. 
 If the teacher thus met these children more than 
 half-way in the spirit of comradeship it would 
 be easy to tell them of the work expected of the 
 teacher and the school, and it would be easy 
 to learn more of the motives and ideals animat- 
 ing the lives of these children. 
 
 A Personal Relation. — Once such a friendly 
 personal relation as this is established it would 
 be very natural to ask the help of these children 
 in the school, and to give them responsibilities 
 which show confidence in them and which would 
 put them in the way of helping to maintain the 
 standards of the school. Such a method of deal- 
 ing with children would be more effective than 
 sending notes of complaint to parents or send- 
 ing the children on to the teacher of the next 
 grade with the message that James or Lucy has 
 been a very troublesome child. Try it, teachers, 
 with troublesome children. Get at the heart of 
 the child. Find out why he is a trial to him- 
 self and to others. No problem in mathematics 
 you may ever solve will equal in value the prob- 
 lems you may solve in learning to understand 
 and help the children who are problems to you. 
 Do not give up the solution or pass it on to 
 others. It is your chance to render a service of 
 inestimable value to some child and to the world. 
 You will meet children who will take your pen- 
 cils, tablets or it may be your pocketbook. Do
 
 TRUANCY 131 
 
 not think that you must pass the correction of 
 such children on to others. Remember that 
 children's characters are not yet formed, that 
 they are weak and ignorant of the gravity of 
 their offenses. Help them to see their faults 
 and to correct them. 
 
 The Child Who Steals. — Every teacher must 
 sooner or later face the problem of the child 
 who steals. Do not expel him from the school; 
 do not publicly reprimand him. Do not have 
 him arrested and sent to court, but take the 
 child and talk quietly with him. Find op- 
 portunities of talking to the school about re- 
 specting the rights and the property of others. 
 A child is not necessarily abnormal or beyond 
 hope because he steals, and you should think 
 what a great service you will render him if you 
 give him a different ideal of life without bring- 
 ing him into disgrace. Of course, the aid of 
 parents should be enlisted in helping such way- 
 ward children — not by way of asking that they 
 be punished, however, but in order to secure the 
 cooperation of both parent and teacher in the 
 great task of character building. 
 
 The Child Who Lies. — You will encounter 
 children who deceive and are untruthful. You 
 must expect this, but you should not help to 
 make them lie by asking questions which en- 
 courage untruthfulness. Do not make children 
 fear you — there is a difference between fear and
 
 133 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 respect. You can make children see that, while 
 you desire quiet and order, it is a more serious 
 offense to tell a falsehood than it is to whisper. 
 Children do not have the perception of relative 
 values that you have. It is in your place to 
 make them understand the standards you ex- 
 pect the school to maintain. You should inter- 
 est the children with the idea of making them 
 work with you instead of for you. 
 
 Irregular Attendance. — You will have chil- 
 dren who are irregular in their attendance. If 
 you can deal with them without outside help it 
 will be advantageous both to the children and 
 the school. Try to make all the children under- 
 stand what the school should mean to them, and 
 that standards can not be kept up without their 
 regular presence. Make children feel it is their 
 school and that their responsibility is as great 
 as yours in keeping it right. You should, of 
 course, learn why a child stays away from school 
 and often you will find it necessary to devise 
 some means for preventing non-attendance. Re- 
 member only that to save the child who is go- 
 ing astray is worth all the thought and effort 
 you can give. When you recollect that half of 
 the children requiring the attention of juvenile 
 courts are truants you will realize that the ex- 
 perience is a critical one in the lives of these 
 children. Next to the child's own parents you 
 can exert more influence on his life than any
 
 TRUANCY 133 
 
 one else. This matter takes patience and indi- 
 vidual study, because in each case the reason 
 for truancy may be different. What greater re- 
 ward can any teacher have than to know that 
 she has helped a child to overcome a fault w^hich 
 would lead him into serious trouble later and 
 perhaps has saved him from a life of crime? 
 You are in your first year of teaching and you 
 have seen nothing of the lives spent in reforma- 
 tories and prisons largely because of lack of 
 proper care in youth. Through your patient 
 interest, however, in the least attractive and 
 most irritating children you should know that 
 you may save a human life from ruin. Where 
 home conditions are worst for a child, there is 
 the greatest need for your help. 
 
 Parents' Cooperation. — Invite all the parents 
 of your children to come to the school. Organ- 
 ize a parent-teacher association under the advice 
 of the Home Education Division of the United 
 States Bureau of Education or the National 
 Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Asso- 
 ciations in Washington, D. C. Such an associ- 
 ation will be of incalculable value to you in en- 
 listing the cooperation of parents in your work 
 for their children. It gives parents the best and 
 readiest opportunities of learning about meth- 
 ods that have proved valuable in bringing up 
 children. Your acquaintance with the children's 
 parents, too, will give you side-lights on the
 
 134 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 children's characters which will help in under- 
 standing them. 
 
 Your profession brings you into contact with 
 life in its formative period. Try to find the good 
 in each child and try to stimulate it. Seek to 
 inculcate high ideals. Only He who sees the 
 secrets of all hearts may know what you accom- 
 plish. Such lessons in character building will 
 live long after more formal ones are forgot. 
 
 The Bureau of Education. — The United States 
 Bureau of Education for many years confined its 
 work principally to questions relating to the 
 schools, but recently the wider field covered by 
 education has been recognized and several di- 
 visions have been created in the Bureau which 
 open limitless fields of service. The work of 
 the Bureau may properly cover every phase of 
 education. Questions concerning every phase of 
 education and child life, from a child's birth on 
 and through his graduation from college as a 
 young man, as well as questions concerning the 
 education of parents in child nurture, may prop- 
 erly be investigated through this national edu- 
 cational bureau. 
 
 The establishment of the Home Education 
 Division of the Bureau of Education marks an 
 important advance in the opportunities given 
 to parents to further their own education. This 
 Division will recommend to them interesting 
 and valuable reading matter in regard to the
 
 TRUANCY 135 
 
 care and home education of their children with 
 reference to physical welfare, in the matter of 
 health, sleep, food and the like. The Division 
 will also furnish advice as to games and plays 
 for children and as to their early mental devel- 
 opment and the formation of moral habits. The 
 Division also endeavors to interest boys and 
 girls who have left school and who are still at 
 home in furthering their education by well 
 planned courses of home reading and study. 
 
 Bulletins and literature practical in character 
 will be issued and will be available for every 
 home. Doctor Claxton says: ''Rightly used, the 
 home is the most important factor in the educa- 
 tion of children. Through its Home Education 
 Division the Bureau of Education is trying to 
 help the home to do its best work." In accom- 
 plishing this end the cooperation of teachers 
 everywhere is invited to bring parents together 
 to discuss their common problems. Apprecia- 
 tion of Doctor Claxton's action in establishing 
 a method for home education has been voiced in 
 thousands of letters from homesteads in the wil- 
 derness, homes on the prairies and homes in the 
 most thickly populated districts of the country. 
 Thus is being filled a need that has evidently 
 been felt everywhere. 
 
 First and foremost in saving erring wayward 
 children should be their parents. It is therefore 
 a matter of great importance to have parents
 
 136 THE .WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 as well organized as teachers, and to bring the 
 parents of the nation into intelligent, sympa- 
 thetic, purposeful cooperation with the teachers. 
 Both are educators of the children. Neither can 
 do their best work except through united effort. 
 Homes as well as schools belong to the educa- 
 tional system. They have received the recogni- 
 tion of the United States Bureau of Education 
 as an integral part of the educational system. 
 This action should go far toward raising the 
 standards of homes and toward insuring more 
 efficient guidance and direction of children.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE saloon's part IN THE DOWNFALL OF YOUTH. 
 
 THE study of the causes which lead to a large 
 proportion of the crimes of youth takes one 
 to liquor and the saloon. It is a fact so generally 
 admitted that discussion of it is unnecessary. 
 The testimony of those who are enduring im- 
 prisonment throughout the nation is in accord 
 with the views of all business men and with the 
 educational and religious sections of the entire 
 country. Even the liquor dealers themselves in 
 their official organ recently admitted that the 
 sentiment of the nation is opposed to the manu- 
 facture and sale of liquor, and it was further said 
 that: "When the moral and religious forces of 
 the country unite on a definite plan for its aboli- 
 tion, the end is here." 
 
 The Saloon. — One of the first steps to be 
 taken for the wholesale diminution of crime 
 must be the wiping out of the saloon. It should 
 not be permitted to continue its ravages under 
 official sanction. Great advances have been 
 made in this direction, but the whole traffic in 
 liquor should be abolished. Not a single saloon 
 
 137
 
 138 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 should enjoy official sanction to injure the com- 
 munity. To carry concealed weapons is a crime 
 — how much greater are the possibilities for 
 harm lurking in the universal, ever-present sa- 
 loon! Respect for law is lost when people find 
 their government sanctioning things which are 
 harmful, and there can be no honest difference 
 of opinion concerning the expense and injury 
 which liquor causes. 
 
 Schools have done much to educate youth 
 concerning alcohol and the result of this educa- 
 tion has been shown in the enactment of prohi- 
 bition laws in many states. The young men are 
 demanding the abolition of liquor. In Tennes- 
 see prohibition laws were sustained over Gov- 
 ernor Patterson's veto. Since that time Gov- 
 ernor Patterson has renounced in the strongest 
 terms his views as to "personal liberty" when 
 applied to liquor, and he now urges the govern- 
 ment to prevent its manufacture and sale. 
 
 The refusal of large business houses to employ 
 men who drink has been another blow to the 
 evil. For the protection of childhood and the 
 salvation of youth liquor must cease to have the 
 sanction of law in undermining homes and de- 
 stroying and blighting human lives. 
 
 Three hundred thousand earnest women have 
 worked for forty years to remove this menace to 
 youth. As mothers and home makers they have 
 fought for the protection of the home. Mothers
 
 ■ THE SALOON'S PART 139 
 
 and home makers suffer equally with those who 
 are slaves to the habit. There is no sorrow 
 greater than that suffered by a wife and mother 
 who sees the father of her children a drunkard 
 and a criminal as the result of liquor. There is 
 no sorrow greater than that of the mothers of 
 men and women who are in prison as a result 
 of their use of liquor. No financial gain on the 
 part of liquor dealers and manufacturers can 
 balance the loss, the sorrow and misery, the 
 crime that the world suffers as a consequence 
 of the use of liquor. 
 
 National Regulation. — Congress has now un- 
 der consideration a measure which, if adopted, 
 will strike at the root of the evil. A bill has 
 been introduced in the Senate by Senator Works 
 of California, and referred to the Judiciary Com- 
 mittee, proposing an amendment to the consti- 
 tution prohibiting the sale, manufacture and im- 
 portation of distilled liquors containing alcohol 
 after a period of three years next succeeding the 
 ratification of this article by the legislatures of 
 three-fourths of the states. Mr. E. E. Covert, 
 employed to collect data on this subject, says: 
 "Notwithstanding the great increase in prohibi- 
 tion and dry territory, the increase in consump- 
 tion of spirituous liquors has increased at a tre- 
 mendous rate." Mr. Covert in his report con- 
 tinues : "The conclusion is irresistible that pro- 
 hibition in the states does not prohibit, that the
 
 140 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 states and local government are impotent to en- 
 force the law, and that if the United States is to 
 be saved from alcoholism the remedy must be 
 applied at the root of the evil, and that is to 
 abolish the distilleries and the importation of 
 spirituous liquors. Congress has not the power 
 under the present constitution of the United 
 States to stop its manufacture, so it will take 
 such an amendment as above proposed to accom- 
 plish the end desired." Whether or not this bill 
 as introduced shall be passed must depend on 
 the support it may receive from the distinter- 
 ested men and women of the United States. 
 The liquor interests will, of course, expend 
 money and effort freely to prevent its passage. 
 The mere fact that the bill has been placed be- 
 fore Congress gives hope that before many years 
 have gone by the abolition of the manufacture 
 and sale of distilled liquors will be an accom- 
 plished fact. The anomaly of a government 
 which licenses the sale of a product causing an 
 increase in crime, while at the same time pro- 
 viding for the severe punishment of every crime 
 committed under its influence, will then have dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 Governmental Expense. — The income derived 
 by the government from this death-dealing in- 
 dustry is more than covered by the expense of 
 the prosecution and imprisonment of those who 
 succumb to its influence and sq become law-
 
 THE SALOON'S PART 141 
 
 breakers and criminals. If governments are 
 formed for the protection of their citizens they 
 can not command respect and at the same time 
 accept revenue which comes at the cost of the 
 physical and moral degradation of these same 
 citizens. 
 
 Saloons with official licenses meet the eyes of 
 youth everywhere. In the smallest towns the 
 proportion of them to the population is often 
 greater than in the largest cities. No home can 
 protect children from this danger, for it is ever 
 present. Every saloon is given official sanction 
 to undermine homes, wreck families and ruin 
 the lives of untold thousands. The city, the 
 state and the nation owe protection to youth. 
 Instead of sanction being given to the sale of 
 liquor in saloons the whole traffic should be abol- 
 ished. It is the foe of those who specially need 
 protection. Those who have no home life, who 
 are away from home influences or who live in 
 congested districts are often led through their 
 social instincts to the only bright, warm place 
 where a welcome is always given. Boys emu- 
 late the example of the men with whom they 
 come in contact. They drink because others do 
 it. The craving for drink does not come until 
 the habit has been formed, and often before 
 drink has become a habit — the first time a boy 
 has taken too much — he commits some offense 
 which mars his whole future.
 
 142 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 The Saloon or the School. — "I had no trade 
 and saloons and dives were my only places of 
 recreation," says one young man now in prison 
 as a result of his use of liquor. This is a condi- 
 tion which should not exist anywhere while 
 there are schoolhouses which are closed and 
 dark every evening and which best offer them- 
 selves as places of recreation. They are dedi- 
 cated to youth. They should serve the needs 
 of youth in as many ways as possible. Every 
 village and town has its schoolhouse, and every 
 schoolhouse should have an assembly room in 
 addition to its room provided with desks. 
 Schools which have no assembly room should 
 be fitted with movable desks. Libraries can be 
 obtained for schools with little effort and games 
 can be provided. A cheerful room, pleasant com- 
 panions, warmth, light and a welcome would 
 make this meeting place a powerful competitor 
 of the saloon. The expense should not be con- 
 sidered, but the end it will serve. Such a plan 
 involves the employment of at least one man or 
 woman to be present every evening, to care for 
 and direct the activities of the young people who 
 come. This duty should not be added to the 
 teacher's burden. The National Congress of 
 Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations can 
 give information and help in regard to this val- 
 uable use for school buildings. This associa-
 
 THE SALOON'S PART. 143 
 
 tion can be reached in Washington, D. C, in 
 Room 910 of the Loan and Trust Building. 
 
 Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A.— Through coop- 
 erative effort Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. build- 
 ings as well as church buildings can be made into 
 such attractive meeting places as to drive the 
 saloon out of business. A definite count of all 
 the saloons in a district can be made and through 
 the cooperation of the schools, churches and 
 other agencies for public welfare the power of 
 the saloons in that district can be made of no 
 account by the substitution of something better. 
 
 A man who is interested in learning why men 
 are in prison, he himself being a prisoner, says: 
 "Statistics of this prison show that eighty per 
 cent, of the men confined here owe their down- 
 fall to the American saloon or, in other words, 
 to whisky." "Closing the saloons would stop 
 nine-tenths of the crime now committed," is the 
 opinion of another, who adds : "Liquor is the 
 entire cause of my being in prison." An Ameri- 
 can man who has spent years in prison and who 
 attributes his downfall to liquor, says: "The gov- 
 ernment ought to be held responsible for all 
 crime committed under the influence of drink 
 while it licenses the saloons." Another prison in- 
 mate who in his youth was deprived of right in- 
 fluences but who in the quiet hours of a long 
 imprisonment has had much time for thought,
 
 144 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 writes: "If schools would instruct children about 
 the curse of drink I believe there would be less 
 crime among coming generations. God grant 
 there may be. It's hell." 
 
 It is a serious question whether one group of 
 citizens has a right to manufacture and sell any 
 product which is as prejudicial to youth, to 
 homes and to society as liquor has proved to 
 be. "Lead us not into temptation," is a part of 
 the Lord's Prayer. It is a prayer that lawmakers 
 must consider if they would prevent the misery 
 that has broken up countless homes and turned 
 thousands of children adrift. They owe it to 
 youth to remove as speedily as possible the 
 source of such a large proportion of crime. 
 
 EFFECTS OF LIQUOR WRITTEN BY PRISON INMATES. 
 
 American, forty-one: ''My drunken father 
 died when I was nine. My mother died when I 
 was eleven. I was in a Catholic school when 
 ten years of age. I reached the high school be- 
 fore leaving school. If it were not for liquor 
 and cigarettes there would be less crime com- 
 mitted in this wide world of ours." 
 
 American, thirty-four: "I had a good home 
 and a fair education. I began early to use liquor 
 and go with bad company. I was arrested at 
 twenty and sent to prison for eighteen months 
 I have served four terms. I was arrested first
 
 THE SALOON'S PART 145 
 
 for a trifling offense. Afterward it was hard to 
 get along." 
 
 American, thirty: *T lived with my grand- 
 mother, who was a good Christian woman and 
 was more than a mother to me from infancy. 
 I attended school regularly. Liquor has been 
 the cause of my trouble. I have served thirteen 
 months in the Windsor Reform School and am 
 now in prison." 
 
 Canadian, thirty-six: *'Liquor has been the 
 cause of all my trouble. I was arrested for bur- 
 glary at sixteen, and was sent to the Elmira Re- 
 formatory. The influence was detrimental to 
 me. I don't believe in sending young boys to 
 reformatories, as there is where they learn to 
 become crooks. I learned my crooked work in 
 the Elmira Reformatory under Z. R. B. There 
 would be fewer crooks if the courts would parole 
 first offenders instead of sending them to pris- 
 on." 
 
 American, thirty-one: "Liquor has been my 
 trouble. I think if some of the judges would 
 use more discretion and let more of the mere 
 children go instead of sending them to so-called 
 reform schools you would soon find that the 
 state prisons would not be overcrowded with so- 
 called reformed boys and girls." 
 
 American, forty: 'T preferred work to going 
 to school and so attended irregularly. Lack of 
 schooling and not being able to take positions
 
 146 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 and liquor caused my trouble. I was arrested 
 for stealing at seventeen and sent to prison for 
 a year. I have served thirteen terms in prison. 
 I did ten years w^here there w^as no light in my 
 cell, and no books." 
 
 American, forty-three: "I committed burglary 
 at sixteen while drunk. Liquor and bad com- 
 panions were the causes of my ruin. Most of 
 the inmates of the Elmira Reformatory you will 
 meet in the state prison. Two out of three are 
 recruits from this place, and the worst kind. 
 This is nothing but the truth." 
 
 American, thirty: "Liquor was my downfall, 
 and as long as it is sold it will be the downfall 
 of many more. Reformatories are no places for 
 boys or men. They taught me what I did not 
 already know of crime." 
 
 American, twenty-seven: *T had a drinking 
 father. Evil companions and drink caused my 
 arrest for burglary at sixteen. I was sent to a 
 reformatory, where the influence was not good. 
 Sending a youth or man to a reformatory or 
 prison is nothing more or less than sending him 
 to a school of crime. There should be more use 
 of the suspended sentence and parole." 
 
 American, twenty-four : "I was a child of 
 drinking parents. If I liad had temperate par- 
 ents, especially my mother, I never would be in 
 prison. Drink has Ijccu my greatest trouble."
 
 THE SALOON'S PART 147. 
 
 American, forty-five : "Liquor is the cause of 
 my trouble. It got the best of me. I was sent 
 to prison for five years at twenty-eight. I tried 
 my hardest to Hve within the law when I was 
 released, but I had no friends and no money 
 and the world gave me a cold shoulder. A kind 
 word and some one to help me to a position, or 
 to give me sufficient to keep me until I secured 
 one, would have helped me to lead an honest 
 life. If a criminal has a right to suggest what 
 would help those in prison, I should say it would 
 be a moral instructor who would call on the pris- 
 oners once in a while, and who would use his 
 influence wherever possible in getting a dis- 
 charged man a job. Otherwise he is a lost man, 
 since not one man out of every fifty will employ 
 an ex-convict unless some one speaks for him as 
 to his behavior while in prison and the desire 
 he shows of wanting to lead an honest life." 
 
 American, thirty-two: "I wish to say that dur- 
 ing my life among criminals I have never met a 
 single man who has fallen except through the 
 use of intoxicating liquors. There are probably 
 other causes but I have never met with them and 
 I have met some thousands." 
 
 American, thirty-four: "My mother worked 
 out. Everything was scarce at home and we 
 were hungry. I spent time in gambling dives 
 and saloons. I was arrested at nine for fighting.
 
 148 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 I wanted to be a bully like my father. If my 
 father had been a man I could tell a different 
 story." 
 
 American, twenty-three: "My father died 
 when I was two. Home was not pleasant. I 
 had a roaming disposition. I attended school 
 four years, I spent my evenings gambling. 
 Liquor was the cause of my downfall. Children 
 should obey their parents. I would not be 
 spending my life in prison if I had obeyed my 
 mother." 
 
 American, fifty-seven: "My whole trouble was 
 due to liquor. Nine times out of ten crime is 
 committed through the use of liquor. The gov- 
 ernment ought to be held responsible for all 
 crime committed under the influence of drink." 
 
 American, thirty-six: "I had drinking parents. 
 I stole an overcoat because I needed liquor." 
 
 American, forty-five : "My father was a drunk- 
 ard. My parents seldom lived together. My 
 father supported saloons and my mother was a 
 washwoman. I was an orphan at twelve. The 
 government sanction of rum in saloons broke up 
 our home." 
 
 Scotchman, thirty-four: "Evil companions 
 and drink caused my arrest for larceny at six- 
 teen. I should never have known as much about 
 crime and the way to work it without being 
 caught if I had never been sentenced to a re-
 
 THE SALOON'S PART 149 
 
 formatory. It was there I learned all the finer 
 points of a criminal." 
 
 American, thirty: "My mother drank and she 
 died when I was fourteen. I was three times in 
 a protectory in childhood and once in a house of 
 refuge. I was arrested at eight for petty lar- 
 ceny. I always got the strap and no kind words. 
 Kind words would have made a m.an of me. Bad 
 company and drink are the two things that bring 
 many men to prison." 
 
 Irishman, sixty: "I had drunkards for parents. 
 I had almost no schooling and spent my child- 
 hood in an almshouse. I have used liquor the 
 last fifty years. I never would have seen the 
 inside of a prison if I could have let drink alone. 
 It has been the cause of all my misfortune. I 
 wish there was not a saloon in the country. If I 
 had been properly trained by my parents I might 
 have been different." 
 
 American, twenty-seven: 'T lost my father 
 when a year old. Liquor, cigarettes and sport- 
 ing women were the causes of my trouble. Kind- 
 ness and sympathy would have helped me. They 
 are the resurrection of mankind from sin. Show 
 a man kindness and sympathy after trouble and 
 he can not do enough for you according to my 
 experience." 
 
 American, twenty-five : *T attended school 
 regularly. Drink and fast women caused me to
 
 15Q THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 go crazy temporarily. The result was homicide 
 and a sentence to twenty years in prison. My 
 experience proves that drink can do more mis- 
 chief than any other thing under the sun. I 
 don't wonder at the prisons being filled when re- 
 ligion is being cut out of the schools. Parents 
 neglect to send their children to Sunday-school." 
 
 American, twenty: "My mother died when I 
 was fourteen. Home was pleasant until then. 
 After my mother died I got wild and went to 
 drinking. That and bad company led me to 
 burglary at fifteen. I was sent to a reforma- 
 tory for five years. The influence was not good. 
 If I had not been sent away for my first offense 
 it would have helped me. People seem to think 
 if a young fellow does wrong he should be sent 
 to a reform school. It is a mistake. They are 
 schools of crime. Don't send a lad there unless 
 you want him to go to prison afterward." 
 
 American, twenty-seven: "I committed mur- 
 der at twenty-three while under the influence of 
 liquor. It was the whole cause of the trouble. 
 My sentence is life imprisonment." 
 
 American, twenty-three: "I am in prison for 
 twenty-five years. I owe my downfall to whisky, 
 houses of ill repute and gambling." 
 
 American, twenty-eight: *T was adopted in 
 infancy. I committed burglary at twenty-three 
 when under the influence of liquor. I had previ- 
 ously spent two years in a reform school where
 
 THE SALOON'S PART 151 
 
 the influence was bad. I was sent out on parole 
 and had to work for my board, being allowed no 
 freedom or money for clothes or amusements of 
 any kind." 
 
 American, thirty: ''Liquor was the cause of 
 all my trouble. I was arrested at fourteen for 
 receiving stolen money. I was kept in prison 
 three months awaiting trial and was then dis- 
 charged. This first time did it all. People hold 
 it against you for being in prison. It is hard to 
 live it down. If some man who knew my past 
 would have given me a job it would have given 
 me a chance." 
 
 American, twenty-five: "I began work at nine 
 years of age. I used cigarettes and liquor. I 
 was guilty of larceny at twenty-two years be- 
 cause of drink and having no work. I was sent 
 to prison for three years. Kindness and sym- 
 pathy would have helped me to live an honest 
 life." 
 
 American, twenty-two: "I was sent to a coun- 
 ty jail at twenty for six months. Liquor was the 
 whole cause of my trouble." 
 
 Englishman, forty-five: "My father drank, 
 my mother died. I had two stepmothers, learned 
 no trade and used liquor from fourteen years of 
 age. My offense was larceny." 
 
 American, twenty-nine: "Saloons, bad houses, 
 gambling, were my ruin." 
 
 American, twenty-five: "I believe that over
 
 152 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 sixty per cent, of the prison population in the 
 world to-day owe their downfall to liquor. Do 
 away with the saloons and give the children a 
 good education and there will be less crime and 
 imprisonment." 
 
 American, twenty-three : "The saloon is a 
 curse to our country and should be abolished 
 with its associates — the house of ill fame and 
 the gambling table. Liquor and the gambling 
 table were entirely the causes of my downfall." 
 
 American, forty-seven : "My mother died and 
 I began work at eleven. I had no trade. I used 
 liquor and think it the cause of my trouble." 
 
 Englishman, fifty-six: "I am well educated. 
 Have been a cook and butler. I committed mur- 
 der through liquor in defense of myself and an- 
 other." 
 
 American, twenty-nine : "I was a newsboy and 
 messenger boy. I used liquor. I stole when out 
 of work at twenty-four, having a wife and baby 
 to support. I was sent to a reformatory for 
 from one to seven years. The influence was the 
 worst possible. The appetite for drink, and loss 
 of public confidence, with family troubles, led 
 to other terms in prison." 
 
 American, twenty-six: "My mother died when 
 I was fifteen. The cause of my trouble was 
 liquor." 
 
 American, thirty-two: "At the age of sixteen 
 I was arrested for selling liquor, which I also
 
 THE SALOON'S PART 153 
 
 used. I was an inmate in a reformatory seven- 
 teen times. The influence was bad. I was first 
 sent to jail by mistake and after twenty-five days 
 was turned out in the rain without a cent. I 
 then tried to get revenge." 
 
 American, twenty-seven: *Tf saloons had not 
 been where I could enter them I never would 
 have made the mistake of my life." 
 
 A man serving his third term in prison, forty- 
 five years for murder, says: "What would help 
 most to live an honest life would be a place of 
 recreation for the poor boy as well as the rich — 
 an opportunity to labor regularly at honest 
 wages, a place of recreation away from the influ- 
 ence of saloons and dives kept by consent of 
 the law." 
 
 American, fifty-one : "I broke a window while 
 intoxicated when twenty-five years old. I was 
 arrested and sent to jail for thirty days. Liquor 
 and being put in jail with other crooks have pre- 
 vented my leading an honest life." 
 
 American, twenty-one: "I had a drinking fa- 
 ther, and my mother worked out. I had little 
 schooling. I spent my evenings in saloons, and 
 holidays in the pastures drunk. I was arrested 
 at twenty for drunkenness. The greatest help 
 to live an honest life would have been some one 
 to look after me when I was young." 
 
 American, twenty-one : "My father died when 
 I was five. I had little schooling and little care.
 
 154 THE .WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 Liquor and no one to look after me were the 
 causes of the burglary for which I was arrested 
 at twenty." 
 
 American, forty: "I was arrested at twenty 
 for being drunk. Liquor has been all my trou- 
 ble. My parents drank, too." 
 
 American, thirty: "My mother died when I 
 was eight. I had a drinking father who made 
 home dreadful. I spent my evenings as a child 
 in pool-rooms and card-rooms. I began work 
 at nine. My first offense was getting drunk at 
 fourteen. I went on drinking and was sent to 
 prison." 
 
 American, forty-five: "I was guilty of assault 
 while under the influence of liquor. I was sent 
 to a reformatory for four years when eighteen. 
 The influence was bad. I have served three 
 terms in prison. Liquor was the cause of my 
 trouble." 
 
 American, twenty-four: "Bad company and 
 liquor were my troubles." 
 
 A German, twenty-eight years old, says: "Re- 
 move the saloon with all its blasting elements." 
 
 American, forty-seven : "I worked a confi- 
 dence game. I used liquor and cigarettes. It is 
 my own fault." 
 
 American, thirty-one: "I never had a home 
 or went to school. I was guilty of larceny at 
 sixteen. It was partly caused by liquor. My 
 life is a failure simply because I never had a good
 
 THE SALOON'S PART 155 
 
 home and lived always with people who abused 
 me in my childhood. I don't wonder that I'm 
 in jail." 
 
 American, thirty: "I had a good home and ed- 
 ucation. .Wrong associates led to drink, and 
 drink to crime. Self-control would have helped 
 most to lead an honest life. After being a pris- 
 oner the people shunned me." 
 
 An American writes : "Boys should be taught 
 to shun saloons, and criminal business will de- 
 crease if saloons are forbidden." 
 
 American, twenty-seven: "Liquor is the ruin- 
 ation of man. Crime is committed under the in- 
 fluence of liquor." 
 
 American, thirty-four : "The law that permits 
 one class of men to distil and give or sell poison 
 to others will always have criminals or paupers 
 to deal with, and a land cursed with crime. Do 
 away with making liquor and eighty-five per 
 cent, of crime will disappear. Liquor was the 
 cause of my ruin." 
 
 American, thirty-nine: "Home was not pleas- 
 ant owing to a drunken and neglectful father. 
 I do not possess the will power to overcome the 
 appetite for strong drink. It is the principal 
 cause of my being in prison." 
 
 American, thirty-one : "Liquor began my trou- 
 bles. I was arrested for larceny and sent to a 
 reform school for five years. The influence was 
 bad. I tried to get work when I was released
 
 156 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 but I was weak and unable to labor. While in 
 the reformatory they treated me severely and 
 the environment was not good. In my judgment 
 the system is all wrong. I stood days and nights 
 in irons without rest or something to eat. I 
 have been five years in prison." 
 
 American, twenty-six: "Liquor is all the cause 
 of my being in prison. I was arrested at four- 
 teen for stealing coal. I was then sent to a re- 
 formatory and have had four terms in prison. 
 To help the youth of this country I think that 
 closing the saloons would stop nine-tenths of 
 the crime now committed. Boys should also be 
 kept from running around corners with people 
 older than themselves, as they teach them to do 
 wrong." 
 
 American, twenty-two: "License no saloons 
 and you can tear down half the prisons. A light 
 sentence for my first offense would have helped 
 me to an honest life." 
 
 American, thirty: "My parents were divorced. 
 I was sent to a reformatory at thirteen. It 
 taught me to be crooked. After one conviction 
 your life is ruined. If all young fellows would 
 have a club in which to meet instead of a saloon 
 there would be a great decrease in crime." 
 
 Scotchman, twenty-two: "I had drinking par- 
 ents. My mother died when I was nine. I real- 
 ly never had a home or any early training, and 
 had little schooling. I stole when nine years
 
 THE SALOON'S PART 157 
 
 old — was brought up to it. I was sent to a re- 
 formatory for from one to five years. The in- 
 fluence was emphatically bad. I was transferred 
 to prison. I think that drinking parents should 
 not be allowed the care of their children." 
 
 American, twenty-eight : "I had a drinking 
 father. I stole at seventeen while under the in- 
 fluence of liquor. I was sent to a reformatory 
 for three years and six months. The influence 
 was not helpful. I have had two terms in prison 
 since. I was without a trade and unable to get 
 work." 
 
 Mexican, twenty-four: "Home troubles caused 
 me to leave home when I was eleven years old. 
 I kept company with tramps and hoboes. I was 
 guilty of murder at eighteen, and have a life sen- 
 tence. Liquor and bad company were the 
 causes." 
 
 American, twenty-seven: *T was arrested for 
 discharging firearms within city limits. Drink- 
 ing caused my troubles."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE STATERS METHODS IN TREATMENT OF CRIME 
 
 npHE criminal code, which dates back for more 
 '■' than two hundred years, was undoubtedly- 
 designed for the protection of society. It em- 
 bodies a statement of the acts which should be 
 considered criminal and the punishment to be 
 inflicted for each crime, leaving the maximum or 
 minimum amount to the discretion of the court. 
 The criminal code requires police arrests, 
 criminal courts, prisons, executioners and all the 
 machinery with which every nation is familiar 
 for the treatment of offenders against the law. 
 Time has brought many changes in this code, 
 as regards both the deeds called criminal and 
 the punishments prescribed for them, though 
 every change has been fought bitterly by the ad- 
 herents to the old regime. 
 
 There has been a thorough test of the present 
 system of criminal procedure in its application 
 to past generations. Everywhere the verdict is 
 that crime is increasing, that more courts and 
 more prisons are needed. Is it possible that the 
 state may itself be a factor in the increase in 
 
 158
 
 TREATMENT OF CRIME 159 
 
 criminality, through mistaken, inefficient meth- 
 ods of treatment of offenders and through in- 
 difference to and ignorance of the contributory 
 causes of such offenses? Is it not at any rate 
 reasonable to investigate the effects of methods 
 so long in use in order to learn whether they are 
 in any degree responsible for the increase in 
 crime? It is true that society must be protected, 
 but it is equally true that society would be better 
 protected were measures for preventing crime 
 studied with a view to their taking the place of 
 a system of mere punishment. 
 
 It is a plain duty of the state to make provi- 
 sion for the study of means for preventing crime 
 and also of the real causes contributing to it. 
 This is as important a duty as the maintenance 
 of the present outworn system which has not 
 proved effective in lessening crime or in lessen- 
 ing the community's expense for punishment. 
 
 Criminal Procedure. — The first recognition by 
 city or state that an individual has offended 
 against the law is his arrest by one of the police- 
 men whose duty it is to patrol the city or country 
 in order to protect law-abiding citizens from the 
 menace of the lawless. Any individual who has 
 made himself amenable to the criminal law must 
 first pass through the drag-net of the police sys- 
 tem. There is no age limit for arrest, the small- 
 est child being open to it. Some restrictions are 
 laid down, however, as to the age at which an
 
 160 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 individual can be regarded as responsible for his 
 deeds. The limit varies in the different states 
 from seven to fourteen years of age. Until 1899 
 criminal procedure was everywhere the same for 
 children as for adults, provided of course the 
 child did not fall within the age limit of the state 
 where the offense was committed. 
 
 After arrest the individual is given a hearing, 
 usually in a magistrate's court. In large cities 
 there may be forty or more of these courts, one 
 for each ward or district. All so-called minor 
 cases are heard and decided there. There is no 
 jury, and yet the power of commitment to re- 
 formatories or prisons is given to these magis- 
 trates. In criminal procedure there really are no 
 minor cases, for if crime is to decrease the time 
 to prevent it is before the offender has become 
 habituated to wrongdoing. As it is, many thou- 
 sands of men, women and children are tried 
 yearly in these courts and their futures are often 
 decided then and there. No one claims that any 
 effort is made to choose magistrates on the basis 
 of their possession of qualities that fit them to 
 undertake so grave a responsibility. Many of 
 them do conscientiously try to do what will be 
 l)est, but few of them have given special atten- 
 tion to the subject of human development. They 
 are in the seat of authority to dispose of cases 
 as the law directs, and often they are regardless 
 or ignorant of the causes that have led the pris-
 
 TREATMENT OF CRIME 161 
 
 oner into their presence and unaware of the 
 vital importance of their decisions. They may 
 open or shut the door of opportunity to every 
 individual who comes before them. It means 
 everything to the individual and the state that 
 the ofificials of minor courts should be men quali- 
 fied to judge of the possibilities of each life and 
 of what can best be done for each person. There 
 should be some means of learning the results of 
 sentences given in these minor courts. To con- 
 tinue to follow, unless it is efficient, a routine 
 adopted ages ago is sheer folly. 
 
 Minor Offenses. — There is no benefit to soci- 
 ety in imprisoning a man for ten days, a month 
 or three months, and in repeating the process 
 an indefinite number of times. The offender 
 merely loses his self-respect and finds himself 
 more handicapped than ever before in his efforts 
 to do better. Cases of intoxication and other 
 minor offenses require treatment different from 
 this. The liquor habit is bad, but association in 
 jail with lawbreakers of all kinds is worse, for 
 the prisoner usually acquires additional bad 
 habits and his last state is generally worse than 
 his first. When the state assumes the responsi- 
 bility of the direction of a life an opportunity 
 should be given for forward movement instead 
 of retrogression. 
 
 No sufficient provision has yet been made for 
 the treatment of confirmed drinkers. These are
 
 162 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 often returned to jail dozens of times for periods 
 of varying length, with no benefit to themselves 
 or anybody else, v^hile their families are in the 
 meanw^hile often disgraced or completely broken 
 up. If efficient and special methods for the 
 treatment of confirmed drinkers w^ere devised 
 and established they would reduce crime more, 
 perhaps, than any other one thing; for the most 
 terrible crimes are often committed, not pre- 
 meditatedly, but as a result of intoxication. 
 
 The Minor Courts. — The minor courts have 
 jurisdiction over nearly all cases such as these, 
 which are usually preliminary to offenses that 
 lead to the criminal courts and the penitentiaries. 
 Something more than punishment is needed for 
 the person who has lost control over himself and 
 who can not become a safe citizen until he re- 
 gains it. 
 
 The Wayward Girl. — For the wayward or 
 erring girl who comes within the meshes of the 
 law the way upward is made very difficult. 
 Many of these are brought into the minor courts. 
 Men who prey on women make it a point to at- 
 tend the hearings of girls who are in trouble. 
 They carefully note when the girls will be freed, 
 and then they lie in wait to keep them on the 
 downward path. On this account a girl who in 
 the first instance may have been more sinned 
 against than sinning finds it almost impossible 
 to retrace her steps and lead a pure life. Inves-
 
 TREATMENT OF CRIME 163 
 
 tigation should be made as to whether or not 
 imprisonment of these girls protects society or 
 helps the girls themselves, for unless it does one 
 or the other a different method of treating them 
 should be devised. 
 
 Juvenile Offenders. — Until 1899 nearly all ju- 
 venile offenders were taken before these minor 
 courts. Children, for the protection both of 
 themselves and of society, require the most 
 thoughtful, sympathetic and intelligent consid- 
 eration when they are being treated for their 
 offenses. But in these courts the practise was 
 either to reprimand them and return them to the 
 same influences that had brought them into trou- 
 ble, with nothing to prevent further wrongdoing, 
 or to send them to prisons or reform schools. 
 Thus they were branded with the stigma of ar- 
 rest in any case, and perhaps with that of im- 
 prisonment, where besides they were condemned 
 to associate with those versed in every phase of 
 crime. In these cases, too, the court might shut 
 or open the door of opportunity to youthful 
 lives, but the letter of the law was all that was 
 considered. There was no vision of the possi- 
 bilities of childhood, but instead the belief that 
 some are criminals from birth and that society 
 must be protected from them. 
 
 Children in Prisons. — In every prison in the 
 United States until within a few years ago chil- 
 dren could be found in large numbers, and in
 
 164 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 many they are still there to-day. In other words, 
 in the impressionable and formative years of life 
 thousands of children were receiving from the 
 state an enforced education in crime. Could it 
 be expected that crime would decrease under 
 such conditions? The result of such a condition 
 was as certain as that healthy children if con- 
 demned to a smallpox hospital would contract 
 smallpox. 
 
 During the last century well-meaning people, 
 feeling that erring children required special 
 treatment, established reform schools for that 
 purpose. These schools constituted the first step 
 in recognition of the need for a treatment of ju- 
 venile offenders different from that accorded 
 adults. In many states they became a part of 
 the official machinery for the protection of so- 
 ciety against crime. There has now been ample 
 opportunity to test their efficiency in character 
 building. 
 
 The reform school is in fact a juvenile prison 
 with educational features added. Children are 
 often taken there handcuffed, like ordinary crimi- 
 nals. In some of these schools fully half of the In- 
 mates have come there because irresponsible 
 parents were glad to be relieved of the support 
 of their children until they In turn could con- 
 tribute to the support of the family. A state- 
 ment from a child's parents that he was incor- 
 rigible has usually been sufficient In times past
 
 TREATMENT OF CRIME 165 
 
 to gain the child's commitment, especially if 
 there was a fee in it for the magistrate. Thus 
 on one-sided evidence children have been con- 
 demned to uninspiring surroundings, to institu- 
 tional instead of family life, and the state has 
 been wronged in having to support children 
 whose families should have been responsible for 
 them. 
 
 Whether or not the reform school has accom- 
 plished what its promoters hoped from it can 
 only be determined by the verdicts of those who 
 have spent their early years within its confines. 
 At least the effort was a conscientious one, and 
 one of the first steps through which the special 
 needs of children were emphasized. 
 
 Criminal Courts. — Criminal courts have both 
 a judge and a jury but have no jurisdiction over 
 magistrates' courts. From the view-point of the 
 prevention of crime the lower courts are more 
 rather than less important, as the first treatment 
 of an individual often determines his whole fu- 
 ture. The criminal courts with their juries sit 
 for the trial of offenses graver than those 
 handled in the minor courts. The common- 
 wealth employs the prosecutor and often more 
 effort is made to prove a prisoner guilty than to 
 get at the facts of the case. Juries decide cases 
 on the basis of the evidence given, and after 
 their decision the judge fixes the penalty within 
 the rather large latitude allowed him by the law.
 
 166 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 The marked divergency of sentences for similar 
 offenses is one of the curiosities encountered by 
 those who study the records of criminals. 
 
 Prisons. — The next part of the state's ma- 
 chinery for the protection of society from the 
 criminal is the prison. In the United States we 
 have invested approximately five hundred mil- 
 lion dollars for prisons, and we annually expend 
 about two hundred millions for their mainte- 
 nance. It is estimated that eighty thousand of 
 our citizens are arrested yearly. The cost of a 
 year's crime is estimated to be not less than six 
 billion dollars, and yet only eleven per cent, of 
 the crimes reported are punished. 
 
 What does the nation get in return for this 
 large outlay? We get, in the first place, as much 
 protection for society as is possible when about 
 eleven per cent, of our offenders against the law 
 are convicted and imprisoned. In the second 
 place we get the building up of a professional 
 criminal class through the compulsory associa- 
 tion of first offenders with those already versed 
 in crime, for forty per cent, of those who serve 
 a first term come back later on for a second one. 
 And in the third place we get the satisfaction 
 of having punished the lawbreaker, together 
 with the feeling that we may have prevented oth- 
 ers from following in his footsteps, through fear 
 of similar punishment. 
 
 Recent official investigations in fourteen states
 
 TREATMENT OF CRIME 167 
 
 have revealed a terrible state of affairs in our 
 prisons. Shocking cruelties to prisoners have 
 come to light, as well as conditions so detri- 
 mental to health and decency that no human be- 
 ing should ever be subjected to them. In esti- 
 mating the worth of our prison system the effect 
 of these things on prisoners must be taken into 
 consideration. We should also understand 
 clearly the difificulties a prisoner encounters as a 
 result of his punishment. 
 
 Released Prisoners. — The youth who comes 
 out of prison is given five or ten dollars and a 
 new suit of clothes to last him until he can find 
 work. He does not dare admit that he has been 
 in prison, for no one will knowingly employ a 
 released prisoner. He also is unable to give 
 prospective employers any references. It does 
 not take long to use the small amount of money 
 given him. He is weak as a result of his im- 
 prisonment, and so is not in condition to do 
 heavy work. He is an object of suspicion to the 
 police, who have no faith in a released prisoner's 
 intention to live honestly. If, despite all these 
 difficulties, he is fortunate enough to obtain work 
 he is likely to lose it at any time, if some one 
 he has met in prison lets it be known that he is 
 an ex-convict. 
 
 Released prisoners are ostracized, not for the 
 crime that sent them to prison, but because tbey 
 have been sent to prison. The handicap is too
 
 168 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 great, and few can surmount it. In appearance 
 a judge sentences an individual only to a term 
 in prison, but all too often he in reality sentences 
 him to a life of crime. 
 
 When one realizes the blight of a prison sen- 
 tence on any life one can not help supposing 
 that the right to sentence to prison would be 
 given only to those who will exercise the duty 
 with care and discretion. Such, however, is not 
 the case. Here is the experience of one Ameri- 
 can youth. He was the son of a drinking father, 
 and he lost his mother when ten years old. He 
 had no opportunity for education and he could 
 not get work. In consequence he was arrested 
 for vagrancy and sent to jail for fifteen days. 
 Can any trace of justice or common sense be 
 discerned in such treatment for a case of this 
 sort? 
 
 When dockets are crowded little time can be 
 given to any so-called trivial case. And yet ten 
 or fifteen days in jail may ruin a life, where a 
 suspended sentence and intelligent help could 
 save it. 
 
 The power of commitment to reformatories 
 and prisons should be used with discretion, and 
 should be given only to judges who appreciate 
 the grave responsibility entailed by such power. 
 This power of sentencing to prison is too freely 
 used and is a large factor in the making of crim- 
 inals. The world outside knows little and thinks
 
 TREATMENT OF CRIME 169 
 
 little of those on whom the prison door is bolted. 
 Ordinary thought scarcely goes beyond the fact 
 that shelter and food have been provided for 
 those who have transgressed the law, save in 
 so far as it is thought that there is a "criminal 
 class" that must be kept from harming the com- 
 munity. 
 
 Conditions in Prisons. — Imprisonment is only 
 part of the punishment given offenders. The life 
 of the prison inmate is full of other hardships. 
 He has to live in a narrow, ill-lighted cell, de- 
 prived of fresh air, of exercise and of work; he 
 has no appeal from whatever treatment he may 
 receive; often he is crowded with several other 
 prisoners into a cell designed for one, because 
 space does not increase and crime does. When 
 the state deprives an offender of his liberty he 
 should not also be limited in his enjoyment of 
 pure air and of light and of sufficient space for 
 exercise to keep him in good physical condition. 
 Such deprivations as these should not be in- 
 cluded in a prison sentence in a civilized coun- 
 try. There is no court of appeal for the prison 
 inmate. His presence in prison cuts him off 
 from all the rights and privileges of his fellow 
 men as well as from their confidence, and his 
 life is wholly under control of those put in charge 
 of him through political influence. 
 
 The possibilities for hardship and injustice are 
 great, for it is generally admitted that one who
 
 170 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 deals continually with crime loses sympathy and 
 becomes hardened and thereby unfitted for his 
 work. The opinion of the unconcerned free man 
 on the outside has generally been that since the 
 man in prison is a criminal he deserves all he 
 gets. A study of the facts shows this to be a 
 fallacy. Prison inmates are, it is true, men and 
 women who have committed crimes, but the 
 prisoner serving a first term is never a profes- 
 sional criminal. Many of these later become 
 professionals because after they have been in 
 prison practically every avenue of employment 
 is closed to them, no matter how greatly they 
 would prefer to live honestly if they could. 
 
 Many people regard the released prisoner as 
 a being without the pale of humanity, a person 
 to be avoided in every way. If the serving of 
 a prison sentence so degrades the offender it 
 would seem sensible to improve the method of 
 his treatment rather than to continue his pun- 
 ishment by avoidance and ostracism. The adop- 
 tion of better measures in the treatment of pris- 
 oners has been delayed by the belief that those 
 who commit crimes do so on account of some 
 physical or moral peculiarity, the premise being 
 that criminals are dift'erently constituted from 
 other human beings. As a matter of fact this 
 premise is not correct. There would be no crim- 
 inal class if proper study were given to the 
 causes that produce the criminal and efficient
 
 TREATMENT OF CRIME 171 
 
 measures taken to remove the contributing' 
 causes. Such a study of the facts would show 
 that offenders are not entirely responsible for 
 their deeds. 
 
 The prisoner has no one to whom he can go 
 for help. Wardens are usually appointed on ac- 
 count of political service rendered by them. 
 Guards are chosen for strength of arm and 
 muscle rather than for their spiritual qualities. 
 Through daily contact with those over whom 
 they exercise the most absolute authority they 
 often forget the better instincts of humanity and 
 become brutal and abusive. Prisoners dare not 
 rebel against their treatment, for if they do the 
 abuse they suffer is simply increased. 
 
 Prison stripes, the number system, enforced 
 idleness, lack of an adequate amount of fresh 
 air and exercise are all cruelties which no civ- 
 ilized nation has a right to inflict on those whom 
 it is deemed necessary to deprive of liberty. Im- 
 mediate death would be better than this slow 
 torture which undermines health and character 
 and takes away all opportunity for a decent life 
 after the prisoner's release. The fear that pris- 
 ons will ever become too attractive is ground- 
 less. Men and women suffer enough punish- 
 ment in the deprivation of their liberty to pre- 
 vent any of them from losing their dread of a 
 prison sentence, even though it were accom- 
 panied by some of the decencies of life,
 
 172 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 Political Control. — Prisons can never be what 
 they should until they are utterly removed from 
 political control. All men and women who have 
 charge of them should go into the work conse- 
 crated to the service of those who need help. 
 Those who take these places should be men and 
 women of the highest character, full of the spirit 
 of justice and of sympathy for the unfortunate. 
 Directors of prisons should be men and women 
 ■who can give at least one day of every week to 
 the visiting of the prison. They should not go 
 occasionally to see the warden, but should know 
 at first hand all that affects the life of the in- 
 mates. They should be able to put themselves 
 in the places of those who are forced to stay 
 there, and so consider whether or not conditions 
 are what they should be. 
 
 The absolute ignorance of the outside world 
 concerning life within prison walls has made it 
 possible for evil conditions to remain there un- 
 changed. Among greatly needed changes is the 
 abolishment of the contract labor system. Work 
 must be found for each prisoner which will pay 
 for the expense of his maintenance, and will in 
 addition enable him to earn money which may 
 either be given to his innocent but helpless fam- 
 ily or saved so as to enable him to gain a foot- 
 hold in the world on his release. 
 
 It should be possible for inmates to learn 
 trades that can be pursued outside the prison,
 
 TREATMENT OF CRIME 173 
 
 and indeed all prisoners should be equipped to 
 earn an honest living when they leave. Prisons 
 should never be a source of income to the state, 
 but they need be no expense except for build- 
 ings. The money now^ devoted to maintenance 
 should be spent in providing for prisoners light, 
 well ventilated rooms in place of the unwhole- 
 some, crowded cells now in use. 
 
 Helping Prisoners. — A large proportion of 
 those serving their first sentence in prison could 
 by proper treatment and help both before and 
 after release be restored to useful citizenship. 
 Instead of building more prisons and creating 
 more courts the need to-day is a careful study 
 of the reasons why crime increases. All the 
 fault is not with the convicts. A single crime 
 need not make a criminal, but its punishment 
 usually does succeed in making one. The pres- 
 ent system amounts to a compulsory course of 
 education in every phase of crime and often in- 
 cludes sentence to tuberculosis. 
 
 To put into the hearts of those who have 
 stumbled a living belief in a God whose laws are 
 the only safe guide, and who is always ready to 
 help those who look to Him, is to give the true 
 compass for right living. Only those who live 
 what they teach can touch the hearts of others, 
 and with the Bread of Life they must give lov- 
 ing kindness, sympathy and patience. Mission- 
 ary work for every church lies at hand in the
 
 174 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 courts, in the station houses, in the prisons, at 
 the prison door when a prisoner is released. If 
 the churches could take up this work through 
 earnest, kindly people who know the conditions 
 which lead so many astray a large number would 
 be saved from further transgressions. Punish- 
 ment followed by ostracism, however, will never 
 result in making offenders into useful and hon- 
 orable citizens. 
 
 Responsibility for Crime. — The state provides 
 a code of laws for the protection, education and 
 guidance of its citizens. The laws of life given 
 by God are ten in number. The laws of life laid 
 down by the legislatures of forty-eight states and 
 by the councils of our cities and towns mount up 
 into the hundreds. Each year new crimes are cre- 
 ated by the passage of some new act, subject- 
 ing the violator to arrest and prosecution. 
 
 Making New Crimes. — This situation has 
 brought many people into the position of law- 
 breakers who do not rightfully belong there, 
 which is unfortunate both for the individual and 
 the community. Compulsory education laws, 
 for instance, have been adopted for the purpose 
 of benefiting the child. Their enforcement has 
 brought the necessity for truant officers, special 
 schools, truant schools, the arrest of parents fol- 
 lowed by their fine or imprisonment, and the 
 bringing of children into the courts for truancy. 
 Items like the following have become common
 
 TREATMENT OF CRIME 175 
 
 pieces of news in the daily press: "Peter Nawn 
 was sent to the penitentiary for five days for 
 failing to keep his boy in school. He said he 
 had been ill eight weeks and had no coal in the 
 cellar or clothing for the boy." "When Mrs. 
 Dora Ford was arraigned in Police Court yes- 
 terday morning on a charge of violating the 
 compulsory education law in not sending her boy 
 to school, she pleaded guilty, but explained that 
 the boy had no shoes and that he did not have 
 sufficient clothing to wear to school. The fa- 
 ther of the boy is dead." "Margaret Maguire 
 was brought into Police Court because her girl 
 had been a truant from school. She pleaded that 
 she had to go to work at seven o'clock, for the 
 support of the family depended on her. In her 
 absence there was no one to see that the girl 
 went to school. She was fined $2.50." "John 
 Burns and Patrick Mullen were arrested for 
 breaking a window while playing ball in the 
 street in violation of a city ordinance. They 
 were held for Juvenile Court." 
 
 Education is undoubtedly valuable for chil- 
 dren, but it is secured at too serious a cost when 
 it involves placing on their parents the stigma 
 of arrest and imprisonment. Child welfare is a 
 question having many sides. One may gain one 
 phase of child welfare at the sacrifice of another 
 quite as important. It is time to call a halt on 
 the passage of laws creating new crimes. The
 
 176 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 subject of child welfare includes so many things 
 that must be weighed and balanced and made to 
 fit into one another that no adequate safeguards 
 will be placed about childhood's best interests 
 until a carefully chosen child welfare commission 
 is appointed in every state to study the condi- 
 tions affecting children and to recommend such 
 measures as are needed for their protection. 
 
 Efficiency of the State. — Efficiency is de- 
 manded to-day in all human activities. The 
 state, with its code of laws, its system of enforce- 
 ment, its provisions for the health and welfare of 
 its citizens, has a grave responsibility and must 
 answer as to its efhciency quite as much as must, 
 in their spheres, citizens or corporations. Meth- 
 ods honestly designed to be beneficial often fail 
 of their object. The only real test is the con- 
 stant study of actual conditions and the accu- 
 rate observation of the relations of cause and 
 effect. 
 
 City Ordinances. — The city that makes it a 
 crime punishable by arrest for a boy to play ball 
 in the street and at the same time provides no 
 playground or place where a boy may enjoy the 
 activity his nature requires, is in a large degree 
 negligent of its entire duty and therefore re- 
 sponsible for the familiarizing of boys with arrest 
 and courts. The city which permits the arrest 
 of a gang of boys for some breach of the law and 
 then allows those whose parents have political 
 pull to be discharged while the others are pun-
 
 TREATMENT OF CRIME 177 
 
 ished, is teaching disregard for law and is re- 
 sponsible for future crime. The city which 
 licenses saloons and permits youths to frequent 
 them, and then arrests them for being intoxi- 
 cated, is making no consistent, sensible effort to 
 protect the morals of its younger citizens. The 
 city which has no place of detention other than 
 station houses or jails for its youthful offenders, 
 and often permits them to mingle with those 
 steeped in crime, is criminally responsible for 
 many wrecked lives. The city which makes no 
 provision for the proper care and education of its 
 homeless waifs is responsible for the lives of 
 many of the men and women whom it later sup- 
 ports in prisons and almshouses. 
 
 The city that sends its dependent little ones to 
 reform schools for their care and training is sub- 
 jecting them to influences from which they 
 should be guarded and is doing irreparable in- 
 jury for which it will later surely pay. The city 
 which permits railroads to run through its limits 
 unfenced and unguarded and then arrests chil- 
 dren for picking coal on the tracks is neglecting 
 the protection of life and is putting needless 
 temptation in their way. Any city that main- 
 tains conditions favorable to the growth of crim- 
 inality is responsible for that growth. Such con- 
 ditions are an absence of kindergartens, the ab- 
 sence of efficient means for preventing infant 
 mortality, the lack of laws against congestion of 
 population and of sanitary housing laws.
 
 178 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 A city is contributing to the making of crimin- 
 als when manual training is not provided in the 
 schools, when the schools are a part of the poli- 
 tical system, w^hen insufficient money is given to 
 the schools and when incompetent persons have 
 the direction of the schools. That city faces a 
 grave responsibility which entrusts judicial de- 
 cisions concerning children to judges who have 
 not a lively sympathy with, and a special knowl- 
 edge of, child nature. For this duty there are 
 other requirements more important than mere 
 legal qualifications. 
 
 A city which has no probation system is not 
 equipped to meet the questions of juvenile de- 
 linquency. A city is contributing to the making 
 of criminals when its probation system is under 
 political control, or when not enough probation 
 officers are employed, or when officers are 
 chosen who have little love for children, little 
 patience and little of the experience which years 
 bring to parents. 
 
 At the center and heart of society stands the 
 child. His welfare must be considered and pro- 
 vided for at every point. Who does this to-day 
 in any city ? It is done in one place and neglected 
 in another. Whose business is it in any city to 
 know what affects every phase of child life? 
 Yet this is an efficient means for removing one 
 of the great contributing causes which add year- 
 ly to the ranks of criminals.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS AS A PART OF THE PENAL SYSTEM 
 
 THE reform school was introduced less than a 
 hundred years ago as a means of relieving 
 children of prison life and associations and in 
 many states it was made a part of the penal sys- 
 tem. Children were sent to these schools at the 
 direction of the court and it was not forbidden to 
 commit them to prison, so that even with the 
 schools in operation thousands of children still 
 became prison inmates. 
 
 The reform school prevented the association 
 of children with adults who were leading crim- 
 inal lives. It also offered educational advantages 
 not found in prisons. Why has it been, then, 
 that the reduction in crime sought for has not 
 materialized? 
 
 One Cause of Failure. — The massing together 
 of erring children as a means of elevating char- 
 acter would not be deemed an efficacious method 
 by any one who has studied child nature. Imi- 
 tativeness is a marked characteristic of children. 
 They copy what their companions do. When 
 their associates are exclusively those who have 
 committed some offense a bad result is naturally 
 
 179
 
 180 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 to be expected. One girl who was committed to 
 a reform school for picking locks in a single week 
 had taught twenty others how to do it. And so 
 the matter goes — each child becomes a teacher 
 of all the others in the special phase of crime 
 with which he is familiar. This is unavoidable 
 and must be recognized as a condition which 
 exists wherever children are associated with one 
 another. 
 
 Erring children need the inspiration and stimu- 
 lus of association with wholesome normal chil- 
 dren rather than condemnation to the exclusive 
 companionship of others like themselves. Good 
 is contagious as well as evil. But the acquaint- 
 ances formed in reform schools are a serious 
 drawback for any child. If the only friends of 
 a youth, both before and after he has been dis- 
 charged from a reform school, are those whose 
 lives have been darkened by evil, his life will be 
 constantly filled with temptation from those 
 whose evil habits have not been changed by the 
 school. Many young men and women have be- 
 gun with the intention of doing well, but have 
 finally succumbed to the continued appeals of 
 their reform school friends. 
 
 Children who are wayward should be separ- 
 ated from other children for a time. The per- 
 sonal influence of a good man or woman is what 
 they most need. 
 
 When reform schools grew to be large insti-
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS 181 
 
 tutions, taking in hundreds of children, a serious 
 blow was dealt to their power of rendering help 
 to the children they housed. Although these 
 schools provided good educational training and 
 the teaching of trades they were unable to over- 
 come the undermining influence of the massing 
 together of the erring children of a great state. 
 The odds were too great. The finding of a suffi- 
 cient number of men and women able to cope 
 with this great drawback and to build character 
 proved very difficult. Many who have attempted 
 the task and have given years of their lives to 
 earnest effort in it are honest enough to say that 
 the system is a failure and that they do not be- 
 lieve in it. The superficial appearance of the 
 system is fine. With excellent buildings, good 
 educational work, training in trades, drills and 
 military discipline, good food and physical care, 
 the observer is wont to think that good results 
 are bound to follow. The reports of these schools 
 are also full of the numbers who have been re- 
 formed in them — and yet every prison superin- 
 tendent says that a large proportion of prison in- 
 mates are reform school graduates. One secret 
 of the failure of these schools is to be found 
 in the fact that it is impossible for helpful per- 
 sonal influence to be exerted on the children in 
 them. And yet it is admitted that these chil- 
 dren need more rather than less personal influ- 
 ence than the average child.
 
 183 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 Indiscriminate Commitments. — The reform 
 school has received dependent and homeless chil- 
 dren as readily as wayward and erring- ones. 
 Whomsoever the courts send must be received. 
 Courts have been limited in the selection of 
 places for the care of children, and often it has 
 been necessary to make use of the reform school 
 as the only available refuge for them. Irreparable 
 wrong has been done to thousands of homeless 
 and dependent children by their being forced 
 into association with those versed in evil habits 
 of every kind. In a number of states such chil- 
 dren have even been housed and brought up in 
 prison because no other provision has been made 
 for their care. 
 
 Irresponsible Parents. — There are always 
 some parents who are eager to shirk their duties 
 as parents or who are helpless in meeting their 
 responsibilities. Children have suffered griev- 
 ously from both these causes, and reform schools 
 have had to assume the care of many who would 
 never have been committed to them had any 
 careful investigation been made into the child's 
 side of the case. 
 
 If a father or mother dies and leaves a family 
 of children these, bereft of normal home care, 
 often become independent of control. When a 
 stepfather or a stepmother later enters the home 
 the resulting problem is a difficult one. In in- 
 numerable instances it has ended with the par-
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS 183 
 
 ents going to a magistrate and petitioning him 
 to send the child to a reform school because he is 
 incorrigible. Until the establishment of juvenile 
 courts, absolute power to make such a commit- 
 ment was vested in magistrates. The child's side 
 of the question was not investigated, the parents' 
 verdict being taken without question. A fee was 
 also allowed magistrates for every commitment. 
 In this manner hundreds of children have been 
 quietly railroaded into reform schools. 
 
 When courts require that parents pay board 
 for their children in reform schools, the parents' 
 desire to have them committed frequently de- 
 creases. Whenever parents are able to bear even 
 a portion of the expense they should be required 
 to do so, as this increases the feeling of parental 
 responsibility. 
 
 Immigrant parents have also used the reform 
 school unjustly, they apparently regarding it as 
 a sort of free college in which their children may 
 be reared until they are old enough to be self- 
 sustaining. A mother with this view of the re- 
 form school said: "Jo^^^i^* yo^ see that street 
 light? Break the glass! You will be arrested 
 
 and sent to . You will have good things 
 
 to eat, good clothes and will learn a trade. And 
 when you come out they will give you a new 
 suit of clothes." So Johnnie followed his moth- 
 er's advice. Everything came out as she said it 
 would, but when he came out he took away with
 
 184 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 him more than a new suit of clothes. He took 
 the friendships he had made there; he took the 
 knowledge of crime he had gained there; he took 
 the handicap of having served a sentence in one 
 of the state's penal institutions. The reform 
 school, of course, had no option in the matter. 
 It must receive those whom the court commits 
 to its keeping. 
 
 The third class of parents who use the reform 
 school are those whose children do get beyond 
 their control, and they regard the school as a 
 place better equipped than their home for the 
 proper training of their children. Such parents 
 are heart-broken when they find that their chil- 
 dren have been guilty of stealing or of other 
 grave errors. But instead of dealing with them 
 patiently and firmly as they should, they appeal 
 to the court to have them "sent away." Many 
 are the men and women who owe to such an act 
 of their parents a life far from the path of recti- 
 tude and honor. 
 
 Parents are usually careful of the associates 
 they choose for their children. Those, however, 
 who know only inmates of a reform school have 
 countless temptations set before them when they 
 meet these youthful friends later in life. Many 
 a boy or girl can date his or her downfall from 
 the friendships made in a reform school. Though 
 they have earnestly desired to do well they have
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS 185 
 
 finally yielded to appeals from the wrong kind 
 of friends. 
 
 The Reform School. — In the past the ease with 
 which children could be turned over to the care 
 and support of the state has done much to en- 
 courage parental irresponsibility. This condi- 
 tion has also been the indirect means of impart- 
 ing to children a knowledge of evil which has 
 more than counterbalanced the good things of- 
 fered by the reform school. The state has had 
 to support thousands who should never have 
 come under its care and who, with the more care- 
 ful methods now in use, would never have been 
 permitted to go to reform schools. 
 
 The reform schools can not be held altogether 
 responsible for the conditions obtaining in them 
 which have been disastrous to so many. Neither 
 are the courts altogether responsible. For one 
 thing, inadequate provision by the state for 
 childhood's different needs has led to the em- 
 ployment of the reform school for purposes so 
 diverse as to make it impossible to satisfy them 
 in a single institution. 
 
 The indiscriminate commitment of children to 
 these schools in the past has made it possible for 
 them to show a fair percentage of success in their 
 reports of reform. If we eliminate all the chil- 
 dren who should never have gone there — those 
 guiltless of any crime, those whose parents were
 
 186 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 irresponsible, and the like — and trace for ten 
 years the lives of the remainder, we are forced 
 to the conclusion that the reform school does not 
 reform, that it handicaps rather than helps a 
 child. 
 
 The testimony of thousands of prison inmates 
 who have passed through these schools is almost 
 unanimously to the effect that the schools helped 
 to make them criminals. They earnestly urge 
 that no child be sent to a reform school. Such 
 testimony as this must be heeded. It has been 
 given sincerely and with an earnest desire to 
 help those who are studying the causes of crime 
 and estimating the efficiency of methods used in 
 its treatment. 
 
 The view-point of the man who has lived his 
 life, who can look back and see what has con- 
 tributed to his failure, is worthy of a hearing. 
 The opinions of those who believe they are doing 
 valuable work must be modified as they follow 
 the lives of those who have written their heart- 
 stirring appeals for a different treatment of 
 youthful errors. 
 
 Large Institutions. — Economy has been urged 
 as a reason for bringing upward of a thousand 
 children — each one of whom presents a special 
 problem — under the control of a single superin- 
 tendent. The cottage system has ostensibly been 
 adopted in many of these schools, but where 
 fifty or sixty children are gathered together
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS 187 
 
 under one roof all semblance of a normal home 
 is lost. In almost any state there should be a 
 hundred homes to each of which half a dozen 
 children needing special treatment could be sent. 
 These homes should be chosen on account of the 
 special ability of some man or woman to bring 
 out the good qualities in children. A good price 
 could be paid for this care, because the state 
 would be under no expense for grounds, build- 
 ings and maintenance, and all the money now 
 spent on these things could go to paying for the 
 care of the children. No distinguishing mark 
 should set these homes off from others. They 
 would have to be selected and supervised very 
 carefully, and this should be done by a commis- 
 sion of competent specialists in child nature. 
 In some homes perhaps only one child could be 
 cared for, while others could take in several. In 
 all cases the main factor to be looked into would 
 be the personality and nature of the father and 
 mother in the home. 
 
 The Institution Child. — The boy or girl who 
 grows up an institution child, with no one to 
 give individual sympathy, no one to get at the 
 child's heart and learn what the child is really 
 thinking, is deprived of factors which alone will 
 bring out his best qualities. A child in the poor- 
 est home with parents who care for him is hap- 
 pier in his destiny than any child who enjoys the 
 many advantages which a state may provide in
 
 188 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 a reform school. The plain truth is that the re- 
 form school can not fill the needs of all children. 
 Too much has been expected of it in the past. 
 And in the future the state should be prepared 
 to meet the requirements of all the children that 
 have to be cared for. 
 
 No time should be lost in placing every school 
 for children under the state board of education, 
 instead of placing some of them under the juris- 
 diction of the state board of charities. The func- 
 tion of every school is the training of the child. 
 This is true no matter what children are being 
 educated, and all should enjoy the same advan- 
 tages of administration, supervision and direc- 
 tion. 
 
 THE REFORM SCHOOL WRITTEN BY PRISON 
 
 INMATES. 
 
 An American twenty years old who once spent 
 ten months in a reformatory says of that experi- 
 ence: *T learned more than I ever knew of 
 crime. After I was released no one would give 
 me work without reference. I am serving my 
 fourth term in prison." 
 
 American, nineteen: 'T attended school regu- 
 larly. Bad companions led me to steal at four- 
 teen. I was sent to a reform school for nineteen 
 months, and am now in prison for two years and 
 ten months. It would have helped me most to
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS 189 
 
 be honest, not to be sent to a reformatory and 
 then to a penal institution at the age of eighteen. 
 When a boy or girl is arrested, convicted and 
 sent to a reformatory and gets released there is 
 but little hope, as the reformatory is a prepara- 
 tory school for hardening them to lead a crim- 
 inal career. To my knowledge seventy-five per 
 cent, of them get into penal institutions. Those 
 that do not are leading lives of crime against 
 nature and prostitution and vice. When these 
 are arrested a second time and sent to a penal 
 institution and put in w^ith old offenders and 
 hardened criminals hov^ can there be any hope 
 for them? I have seen these things happen." 
 
 American, tv^enty-five : "I lost my father at 
 six, and began work at seven. I was guilty of 
 larceny at fourteen. I was sent to a county jail 
 for ninety days and afterward was in a reforma- 
 tory. The influence was bad. I was transferred 
 to prison." 
 
 American, twenty-one: *'My mother died 
 when I was two. I had a stepmother. I had 
 little schooling. I was put in a house of refuge 
 by my father because I would not attend school 
 and I blame my later life on the influence of that 
 institution. It was nothing less than a school of 
 crime." 
 
 American, forty-five : "1 had a good home and 
 education. I was sent to a reformatory for a 
 slight offense. The influence was ruinous. I
 
 190 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 have served five terms in prison. Kind and hon- 
 orable treatment after my first faux pas would 
 have helped me. Reform schools are breeding 
 places of the vilest practices that human beings 
 can perform. The present system should be 
 abolished. No boy should be sent away until 
 other means for his reformation have been tried. 
 Such institutions should be under the supervi- 
 sion of the higher clergy. The same thing is 
 true of all state prisons. All prison commis- 
 sioners, superintendents and wardens should be 
 strictly honest men, and the most honest are 
 not among politicians but among the clergy of 
 all creeds. Christian women of known capabil- 
 ities should be given more power in the admin- 
 istration of affairs juvenile and in general. Sin- 
 cere people and not hypocrites are the only ex- 
 amples to place before the eyes of our children. 
 Abolish the general sale of cigarettes, liquor, 
 opium and its products, making their sale with- 
 out the prescription of a physician a felony. 
 Punish the seduction of boys and girls to wrong- 
 doing with severe sentences for repeated of- 
 fenses. Parole all first offenders. Abolish the 
 long-term sentence of second offenders." 
 
 American, thirty-eight: "A reformatory makes 
 more criminals than it reforms. It is no fit place 
 for any young man to go." 
 
 American, forty: "Institutions are the great- 
 est cause of crime. Children should not be ar-
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS 191 
 
 rested for minor offenses. Reformatories con- 
 firm children in crime." 
 
 American, twenty-four: "I spent five years, 
 from nine to fourteen, in a boys' home. While 
 under the influence of liquor I broke into a small 
 store at ten years of age. I was sent to a re- 
 formatory. In boys' homes and reformatories 
 the tendency is toward crime, committed not 
 only by the boys but on them by their male su- 
 pervisors — crimes not practised by the dumb 
 beasts of the field." 
 
 American, thirty-four: "If I had not been sent 
 to a reformatory probably I should never have 
 come to prison." 
 
 American, thirty-three : "I have no father or 
 mother. I was beaten, kicked, starved and mis- 
 used and compelled to steal by my supposed 
 uncle. I was sent to a reformatory for two or 
 three years where the influence was demoraliz- 
 ing — then to prison for three terms. If I had 
 ever had some one to love and to love me it 
 would have helped. Most crime is a product of 
 the scheme of law and order now existing. The 
 whole conception in my estimation is wrong. 
 To teach a child the Ten Commandments and 
 at the same time teach him to break them is hell 
 for certain." 
 
 American, twenty-two: "The best thing to do 
 with a boy when he starts to steal is to take 
 him to a near-by lot and shoot him. If that had
 
 192 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 been done to me I'd be better off to-day. All 
 reformatories are nothing but schools of crime." 
 
 American, forty-one : "I had a drinking fa- 
 ther. I was sent to a house of refuge at ten 
 and I lay the blame of my criminal life to that 
 sentence. I was hounded from pillar to post by 
 policemen. Men leaving prison should be given 
 work or money to keep them until they can ob- 
 tain work for themselves. A few dollars at times 
 may prevent crime." 
 
 American, thirty-six: "I attended school very 
 little. I was interested in stories of crimes and 
 thieves. At thirteen I was sent for one year to 
 a house of refuge. At seventeen I was arrested 
 for petty larceny. I was herded with a lot of 
 criminals and sent to a penitentiary for six 
 months. If I had not been sent to the house of 
 refuge it would have helped me to live right. 
 I learned more about thieving in one year than 
 I could learn out of books in twenty years. Keep 
 young boys away from homes and refuges. The 
 causes of my crime have been cigarettes, evil 
 companions, trashy books and no idea of the 
 seriousness of what I was doing." 
 
 American, twenty-two: "I could not get along 
 with my father and so left home. I was a mes- 
 senger boy. I was arrested at seventeen for 
 petty larceny, and was sent to the Elmira Re- 
 formatory. If the judge had suspended sentence 
 and some good people had got me a job I would
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS 193 
 
 not be here to-day. Elmira Is a school to learn 
 crime instead of reforming you. What I did not 
 know when I went I knew coming out. I cer- 
 tainly did graduate with a head full of crime. 
 They will never reform anybody by sending him 
 there." 
 
 American, twenty-six: "Lack of parental con- 
 trol and influence together with evil associations 
 led me to petty thieving during truancy from 
 school when I was fourteen. I was sent to a re- 
 formatory where the influence was shockingly 
 brutal. My candid opinion is that my downfall 
 — as well as that of others in like circumstances 
 in prison — was caused by my reformatory ca- 
 reer. Mine was a demoralizing one, in the midst 
 of mismanagement, brutal vice and corruption. 
 In fairness I state that careful research will prove 
 that at least sixty per cent, of crime can be 
 traced directly to reformatories." 
 
 American, forty-five : "I have noticed that of 
 the men I have met in prison most have been in 
 some institution, and that I have been is the 
 reason why I am here to-day. Never send a 
 child to an institution, for he will come out 
 hardened to crime." 
 
 German, thirty-three: "I was arrested at 
 twenty-one for forging a check. Necessity for 
 food and to pay rent drove me to it. I was sent 
 to a reformatory for two and a half years. What 
 I had not known of crime I learned there. I
 
 194 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 tried to live within the law when released but 
 was recognized by an ex-convict and I lost my 
 job. No one would trust me and give me a job 
 so I could support my family." 
 
 American, thirty-two: "I was sent to an in- 
 dustrial school for truancy and was kept there 
 seven years. When you send a child to a re- 
 form school you make a criminal out of him, 
 for what badness he does not know he will soon 
 learn while there. I have been serving time 
 ever since." 
 
 American, twenty-three : "I was sent to a re- 
 form school at seventeen for nothing. When I 
 came out I knew more crookedness than the 
 average man of thirty. The influence couldn't 
 have been worse. After release I couldn't get 
 work. I tried everything and almost starved. 
 An honest job, which I couldn't get, would have 
 helped me to live right." 
 
 American, thirty-five: "My father died when 
 I was seven and my mother when I was eleven. 
 I was arrested for larceny at sixteen. It was 
 caused by my love of money and the good times 
 it can bring. I was sent to a reformatory for 
 a maximum of ten years. Educationally the in- 
 fluence was good, morally it was bad. Bad com- 
 panions and police persecution after release 
 brought me to prison." 
 
 American, twenty-four: "My father drank. I 
 attended school irregularly. I spent my child-
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS 195 
 
 hood in a state institution for crime. I can say- 
 truthfully that if I had not been sent to that 
 state industrial school I would have been more 
 of a man than I am now. I did not know any- 
 thing about crime when I went there, but when 
 I was turned loose among over six hundred I 
 soon learned tricks that I had never dreamed of. 
 So there was where I met my fate." 
 
 English, twenty-seven: ^'Sending a kid to a 
 juvenile institution ruins him. He will learn 
 more crookedness in one month in a house of 
 refuge than he would in all his life on the streets, 
 and going from a house of refuge to a reforma- 
 tory is like going from a public school to a high 
 school." 
 
 Russian, twenty-six: "My father was a Rus- 
 sian revolutionist. I lost him when I was ten. 
 I never attended school or learned the Ten Com- 
 mandments. At nine years of age I was ar- 
 rested for picking pockets when I was innocent. 
 I was sent to a reformatory in Russia for six 
 weeks. This is why I remained a criminal. I 
 have served six terms in prison. An ex-convict 
 can not do anything honest." 
 
 American, forty-three: "Want, ignorance and 
 drink led me to my first crime at nineteen. I 
 was sent to a reformatory. The influence was 
 not beneficial. Never send boys under seven- 
 teen to any reformatory. The conditions are 
 simply vile in all of them. The officials are
 
 196 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 mostly good men but the morals of some of the 
 boys contaminate the others in spite of any 
 watchfulness of officers." 
 
 Italian, twenty-five: "I was brought up in an 
 orphan asylum. At eighteen I was arrested for 
 passing counterfeit money. The cause was ig- 
 norance of the law and of wrongdoing. I was 
 sent to a reformatory for ten months. The in- 
 fluence was not beneficial. I could not get em- 
 ployment without references after being re- 
 leased. I am now serving my third term. A 
 helping hand and less hounding by the police 
 would have made me live right. The influence 
 and teachings of reformatory and prison have 
 done me more harm than good." 
 
 American, thirty-seven: 'T had a drinking 
 father who died when I was five, and five broth- 
 ers and sisters who died in infancy, and a drink- 
 ing stepfather. I was sent to a house of refuge 
 at seven. I ran away when I was twelve and 
 a half years old. I was hungry and stole. I was 
 arrested and sent to a reformatory until I was 
 twenty-one. The influence was not beneficial. 
 I have served five terms in prison. All reforma- 
 tories for boys are schools of degeneracy, vice 
 and crime at present, and the worst boy outside 
 will reach a lower depth when sent to one. No 
 boy under age should be sent to prison for a first 
 offense against property."
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS 197 
 
 Russian, twenty-seven: "I was well educated. 
 I was arrested at twenty-two for a crime I did 
 not commit. I was sent to a reformatory where 
 I just learned about crime. I couldn't get any 
 work after being released. I met a number of 
 acquaintances that I knew in E. and a life of 
 crime commenced. Work when released from 
 prison would have helped me to live honestly." 
 
 American, thirty-one : "I had a drinking fa- 
 ther, and little schooling. At sixteen I was ar- 
 rested for burglary with some bad companions. 
 I was sent to a reformatory for two years. The 
 influence was bad. Kindness is a boy's best 
 teacher and a reformatory his worst." 
 
 American, twenty-one : "I am a high-school 
 graduate. I was arrested for burglary caused 
 by drink and bad company. I was sent to a 
 reformatory. If I had never been sent to a re- 
 formatory I would not be doing time to-day. 
 There are not five men out of a hundred that 
 are sent to a reformatory but what return to 
 prison." 
 
 American, twenty: 'T was arrested at nine for 
 assault. I was sent to a reformatory for eighteen 
 months. If it were not for the reformatory I 
 would not be in prison now. Judge Ben B. Lind- 
 sey has found the only way to reform criminals." 
 
 American, twenty-five: 'T think there is a 
 great mistake made in sending young boys and
 
 198 iTHE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 girls to reformatories, for while there they learn 
 things they would not on the outside. There- 
 fore they become confirmed criminals." 
 
 German, thirty-five: "I went to the highest 
 grade in school. I had an excellent home and 
 good parents. At twenty-one I took what was 
 not my own through ignorance of the law. I 
 was arrested and sent to a reformatory. It was 
 my undoing. It has made me what I am. I 
 have served two terms in Huntington. My life 
 was ruined." 
 
 American, thirty: "My parents separated 
 when I was fourteen. I left school to help my 
 mother. At nineteen I began to use liquor. I 
 broke into a store, on account of drink and bad 
 company and being discouraged in life. I was 
 sent to a reformatory for five years. I tried to 
 live right when I was released, but I had no 
 money and no friends and was broken in health. 
 If I had not been sent to a reformatory and 
 there made to associate with bad boys and learn 
 their various methods of doing bad deeds I don't 
 think I would be in the penitentiary to-day." 
 
 American, forty: "I robbed a money drawer 
 when twelve years old. I was sent to Elmira for 
 two and a half years. It was the worst place I 
 was ever in. I have served three terms in prison. 
 Prison and reformatory will reform no man. He 
 must reform himself." 
 
 American, thirty-three: "At sixteen I stole
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS 199 
 
 because I needed money. I was given no ad- 
 vice or even a chance, but was sent to the county- 
 prison for one year. It made me a criminal. 
 When I got out I could not earn wages to pay 
 my board. Decent wages would have helped 
 me to live right." 
 
 American, thirty-one: "I had a good educa- 
 tion. I was guilty of forgery at twenty-four. 
 I was sent to a reformatory for two years and 
 three months. It was association with good 
 people that might have reformed me, not con- 
 tact with those of loose morals. I tried to live 
 right when I got out but adverse criticism made 
 it hard. I need real friendship. My only reason 
 for not ignoring this is because Judge Lindsey's 
 name tells me this may help. May good for- 
 tune go with the cause." 
 
 American, thirty-two: "My mother died when 
 I was small. I began work when eleven. I 
 never attended church or Sunday-school or 
 learned the Lord's Prayer or the Ten Command- 
 ments. I was arrested at thirteen for fighting 
 because of an insult to my sister. I was sent 
 to prison for nine months. I was then put on 
 my downward path. All my friends were against 
 me and I was forsaken by all. I have traveled 
 considerably and among all I met ninety per 
 cent, were graduates from different reforma- 
 tories and all influenced me to steal. I think it 
 is there where professional thieves come from.
 
 200 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 If some remedy were found to do away with 
 these colleges of crime I think the rising gen- 
 eration would be useful men and women," 
 
 American, thirty-five: "I was an orphan at 
 thirteen. I was sent to a house of refuge at ten 
 years of age. I was sent to a reformatory at 
 sixteen years of age. I mixed with all kinds of 
 men and learned many bad things that I had not 
 known of. Reformatories are the starting-point 
 of a criminal's life. Ninety out of every hun- 
 dred past inmates in reformatories are in the 
 penitentiary to-day. You can go through a pen- 
 itentiary and ask the boys there. They will tell 
 you that the reformatory is the starting-point 
 for a convict. I have served five terms in pris- 
 on." 
 
 American, twenty-eight: "I attended school 
 until fifteen, I was arrested on suspicion at 
 eighteen. From then on I was classed as a crim- 
 inal. I was sent to a reformatory for thirty-eight 
 months. The influence was degrading. I tried 
 to live within the law after my release but it 
 seemed that I was disliked by every one after 
 my first ofTense." 
 
 Canadian, fifty-seven : 'T am serving my first 
 term in prison for an assault caused by a dis- 
 pute. Since I came to prison I have come in 
 contact with a number of young men and I find 
 that ninety per cent, of them are from some 
 reformatory and all are crooks."
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS 201 
 
 American, twenty: "The reformatory inmates 
 of the present are the criminals of the future. 
 Commitment to reformatories for misdemeanors 
 and shght offenses is entirely wrong." 
 
 American, twenty-four: "I lost my mother 
 at an early age and had a careless father. I left 
 school at eleven. I was a newsboy, bootblack 
 and messenger boy. I stole at fourteen and was 
 sent to a reformatory until I should be twenty- 
 one. The influence on me was not good. If I 
 had had some good person to advise me and to 
 help me out of bad company I do not think I 
 would be in prison to-day for my second term." 
 
 American, twenty-three : 'T had a drinking 
 father, and a stepmother. I attended high 
 school. At eight years of age I was sent to a 
 reform school for petty larceny. I was there 
 twice — four years and nine months in all. The 
 influence was absolutely not helpful. To have 
 received good advice and to have had good as- 
 sociates would have helped me to live right." 
 
 American, thirty-one: "I lost my mother at 
 seven. A stepmother made home unpleasant. 
 To have kept my mother until I was grown 
 would have helped me most to live an honest 
 life. At eleven years of age I was arrested for 
 stealing and was beaten for it. Later I was 
 sent to a reformatory where the influence was 
 the worst in the world. Ill treatment at home 
 and the constant reminders of what you are,
 
 202 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 after you have been in prison, take all the good 
 from a man. If more were trusted more would 
 reform." 
 
 American, twenty-seven : "My mother died 
 when I was six months old. A stepmother made 
 home unpleasant. I had little schooling. My 
 stepmother was the cause of my troubles. I was 
 put in a children's home. I used cigarettes and 
 liquor. I was sent to a reform school between 
 eight and nine. I was there ten years. It taught 
 me to be a crook. A good kind word would 
 have helped me." 
 
 American, twenty-seven: ''From what I can 
 see all around me I should say that a reforma- 
 tory makes first ofTenders professional criminals, 
 and penitentiaries make anarchists or cause them 
 to seek revenge. Kind treatment will tame an 
 animal. Kindness will make a good man out 
 of a bad one, but the treatment he now gets will 
 make a brute out of him." 
 
 American, seventeen: "I had little schooling. 
 I spent my evenings on street corners and in 
 pool-rooms. My father would not support the 
 family. I was a messenger boy. At nine years 
 of age I was arrested for stealing. I was sent 
 to a reformatory for eighteen months. The in- 
 fluence was harmful. I am in prison now for 
 the second time." 
 
 Scotch, forty: "My first offense against the 
 law was getting drunk at eighteen. I was sent
 
 REFORM SCHOOLS 203 
 
 to a reformatory for eighteen months. I do not 
 consider the reformatory beneficial. I think it 
 makes more thieves than it helps. I also think 
 that first offenders should not be allowed to 
 mingle with hardened criminals in jail. When 
 I got out of the reform school I tried to live right 
 but officers of the law bothered me all the time. 
 I have served two terms in prison."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE PLACE AND WORK OF THE JUVENILE COURT 
 
 THE first juvenile court established by legis- 
 lative enactment was opened in Chicago in 
 April, 1899. The second one was opened in 
 Philadelphia in June, 1901. Before this time 
 whatever effort was made to separate children 
 from adult criminals was purely voluntary on 
 the part of individual judges. 
 
 Massachusetts had used probation by legisla- 
 tive enactment for many years, but it was rarely 
 extended to children, and the fact that there 
 were but two or three probation officers in Bos- 
 ton for all adults and children made the system 
 one of parole rather than probation, which for 
 children is rarely effective. 
 
 Chicago's Juvenile Court. — In Chicago, how- 
 ever, a small group of men and women had be- 
 come deeply interested in devising a system 
 which would remove children from the influ- 
 ences and associations of the prison and the 
 criminal court and which would insure for each 
 child individual, careful consideration. As a re- 
 sult of this Judge Harvey B. Hurd, an able law- 
 
 204
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT 205 
 
 yer, a wise statesman and a fathef and grand- 
 father, in 1899 drafted the now famous Juvenile 
 Court Acts of Illinois. Judge Hurd gave the 
 ripe experience of a remarkable life to planning 
 this system of dealing with children. Familiar 
 as he was with the courts and the children who 
 came into them, he felt that the then existing 
 method of procedure made criminals. To make 
 conditions better for the children before he died 
 was his earnest wish, and in his enthusiasm he 
 gave days and weeks of his time to explaining 
 his plan and the way in which he wished to see 
 it carried out. Judge Hurd was wonderfully 
 adapted for making an adequate system for the 
 state to use in guarding the interests of child- 
 hood. He understood children. He loved them 
 and knew them as few men do. Children and 
 grandchildren had given him experience. He 
 also was acquainted with the unfortunate chil- 
 dren who were caught in the drag-net of the po- 
 lice system and day after day were imbibing the 
 poison of criminal courts and prisons. Thus the 
 combination of qualities which brought into be- 
 ing this method of caring for children was as 
 rare as the method itself has proved to be good. 
 Juvenile Court Laws. — Two years after the 
 establishment of a juvenile court in Chicago, 
 that is, in 1901, juvenile court and proba- 
 tion laws were passed in Wisconsin, Penn- 
 sylvania and Kansas. Philadelphia had the
 
 206 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 second juvenile court In the United States. 
 In 1902 Maryland got the system. In 1903 
 six states passed acts establishing it. In 
 
 1904 it was adpoted in two more states. In 
 
 1905 juvenile court and probation laws were 
 passed in eight other states, and in 1906 two 
 additional ones secured this legislation. In 1907 
 laws modeled after those in use here were passed 
 in England. Canada also adopted the system by 
 parliamentary enactment, and Sweden, Norway, 
 Germany, Austria-Hungary, France and Italy 
 have all sent their representatives to America 
 to study this system, and as rapidly as possible 
 they are modeling laws after those in use here. 
 
 The conscience of the people has been 
 aroused. Eyes have been opened, not only in 
 America but in Europe, to the injustice that in 
 the past has been done to helpless erring little 
 ones, and the leaven of enlightenment is work- 
 ing in the establishment of new and efficient 
 methods of caring for children. The considera- 
 tion of what is best for each child is replacing 
 the old-fashioned method of meting out punish- 
 ment in accordance with the letter of a criminal 
 code that may have been suitable a thousand 
 years ago but that has long outlived its useful- 
 ness to-day. 
 
 The juvenile court and probation system has 
 become an important and beneficent feature in 
 the development of more efficient methods of
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT 207 
 
 treating children who need care or guidance. 
 This system was not adopted without opposition. 
 Cases testing its constitutionality have been car- 
 ried to the Superior Court and Supreme Court 
 in Pennsylvania. The favorable decisions in 
 these cases have strengthened the system every- 
 where and have given an added impetus to its 
 adoption in other states. 
 
 The Supreme Court. — ^The Supreme Court of 
 Pennsylvania put itself on record as sustaining 
 the juvenile court and as considering it a court 
 for protection and guardianship and in no sense 
 a criminal court. The decision states that: "As 
 the welfare of the state requires that children 
 should be guarded from association and contact 
 with crime and criminals, and as those who from 
 want of proper parental care or guardianship 
 may become liable to penalties which ought not 
 to be imposed upon them, it is important that 
 the powers of the court in respect to the care, 
 treatment and control of dependent, delinquent 
 and incorrigible children should be clearly dis- 
 tinguished from those exercised by it in the ad- 
 ministration of the criminal law. After defining 
 the powers of the court the act proceeds to di- 
 rect how they are to be exercised in giving 
 eflfect to its purpose, etc. 
 
 "It is not for the punishment of offenders, but 
 for the salvation of children, and points out the 
 way by which the state undertakes to save, not
 
 208 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 particular children of a special class, but all chil- 
 dren under a certain age, whose salvation may 
 become the duty of the state in the absence of 
 proper parental care or disregard of it by way- 
 ward children. No child under the age of six- 
 teen years is excluded from its beneficial provi- 
 sions. Its protecting arm is for all who have 
 not attained that age and who may need its pro- 
 tection. It is for all children of the same class. 
 That minors may be classified for their best in- 
 terests and the public welfare has never been 
 questioned in the legislation relating to them. 
 
 *'To save a child from becoming a criminal or 
 from continuing in a career of crime to end in 
 maturer years in public punishment and dis- 
 grace, the legislature surely may provide for the 
 salvation of such a child if its parents or guard- 
 ians be unwilling or unable to do so, by bring- 
 ing it into one of the courts of the state without 
 any process at all, for the purpose of subjecting 
 it to the state's guardianship and protection. 
 The natural parent needs no process temporarily 
 to deprive his child of its liberty by confining it 
 in his own home to save it and shield it from the 
 consequences of persistence in a career of way- 
 wardness, nor is the state, when compelled, as 
 parens patriae, to take the place of the father 
 for the same purpose, required to adopt any 
 process as a means of placing its hands upon the 
 child to lead it into one of its courts.
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT 209 
 
 "When the child gets there and the court, with 
 the power to save it, determines on its salvation 
 and not its punishment, it is immaterial how it 
 got there. The act simply provides how children 
 who ought to be saved may reach the court to 
 be saved. If experience should show that there 
 ought to be other ways for it to get there, the 
 legislature can, and undoubtedly will, adopt 
 them, and they will never be regarded as undue 
 processes for depriving a child of its liberty or 
 property as a penalty for crime committed. As 
 already stated, the act is not for the trial of a 
 child charged with crime, but is mercifully to 
 save it from such an ordeal, with prison or peni- 
 tentiary in its wake, if the child's own good and 
 the best interests of the state justify such salva- 
 tion. Whether the child deserves to be saved by 
 the state is no more a question for a jury than 
 whether the father if able to save it ought to 
 save it. If the latter ought to save, but is pow- 
 erless to do so, the former, by the act of 1903, 
 undertakes the duty, and the legislature in di- 
 recting how that duty is to be performed in a 
 proper case denies the child no right of a trial 
 by jury, for the simple reason that, by the act, 
 it is not to be tried for anything. The court 
 passes upon nothing but the propriety of an ef- 
 fort to save it; and if a worthy subject for an 
 effort of salvation, that effort is made in a way 
 directed by the act. The act is but an exercise
 
 210 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 by the state of its supreme power over the wel- 
 fare of its children, a power under which it can 
 take a child from its father and let it go where 
 it will without committing it to any guardian- 
 ship or any institution if the welfare of the child, 
 taking its age into consideration, can be thus 
 promoted. The true rule is : 'That the courts 
 are to judge upon the circumstances of the par- 
 ticular case; and to give their directions accord- 
 ingly.' 
 
 "There is no restraint upon the natural lib- 
 erty of children contemplated by such a law, 
 none whatever; but rather the placing of them 
 under the natural restraint, as far as practicable, 
 that should be but is not exercised by parental 
 authority. It is the mere conferring upon them 
 that protection to which under the circumstances 
 they are entitled as a matter of right. It is for 
 their welfare and that of the community at large. 
 The design is not punishment nor the restrain- 
 ment of imprisonment any more than is the 
 wholesome restraint which a parent exercises 
 over his child. The severity in either case must 
 necessarily be tempered to meet the necessities 
 of the particular situation. There is no proba- 
 bility, in the proper administration of the law, 
 of the child's liberty being unduly invaded. Ev- 
 ery statute which is designed to give protection, 
 care and training to children as a needed sub- 
 stitute for parental authority and performance
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT 211 
 
 of parental duty is but a recognition of the duty 
 of the state as the legitimate guardian and pro- 
 tector of children when other guardianship fails. 
 No constitutional right is violated, but one of 
 the most important duties which organized so- 
 ciety owes to its helpless members is performed 
 just in the measure that the law is framed with 
 wisdom and is carefully administered. 
 
 "None of the objections urged against the con- 
 stitutionality of the act can prevail. The as- 
 signments of error are, therefore, all overruled 
 and the order of the Superior Court affirming 
 the commitment below is affirmed." 
 
 What, then, are the duties of the juvenile 
 court and what should it do for the children? 
 
 The Dependent Child. — This court deals with 
 the care, treatment and control of dependent, 
 neglected, delinquent and incorrigible children. 
 What is its duty to dependent children? No one 
 dreams of transferring houses or land from one 
 person to another without a record, and these 
 records can be traced back to the first settlement 
 of the county in which the transference takes 
 place. Children are much more important than 
 houses or land, and yet they can be transferred 
 from the care of one person to that of another 
 without any record or report of the matter being 
 made. Any agency, whether responsible or oth- 
 erwise, can put children where it pleases and 
 there is no one to question the act. Many fam-
 
 213 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 ilies have been separated and have lost sight 
 of each other on account of this carelessness. 
 In large cities the appropriations and equip- 
 ment for this work are inadequate, and thus it is 
 impossible to find proper homes for dependent 
 children and to provide the supervision neces- 
 sary for making sure that the homes found are 
 satisfactory. 
 
 Children should be brought into court on the 
 petition of any citizen who knows the facts 
 about their circumstances. The child's parents 
 should be obliged to explain their neglect and 
 the state should exercise its authority in using 
 whatever means are necessary for giving neg- 
 lected children a fair and square chance. Pro- 
 bation for parents is necessary in such cases. 
 
 In the past many children have been placed 
 in unsuitable homes. Justice and the protection 
 of helpless children can only be secured by hav- 
 ing every child placed in a home with the ap- 
 proval of the county court and by providing for 
 the making of an accurate record of such place- 
 ment and of any later change. Records of this 
 kind are of the utmost importance and the 
 court's approval would prevent much careless 
 placing of children. 
 
 The Erring Child.— The delinquent child is 
 one who commits offenses which in older per- 
 sons would be regarded as crimes. The court's 
 duty is to consider in each case what will best
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT 213 
 
 prevent the recurrence of the offense, and as 
 each case must be considered on its individual 
 merits no rules can be made. Common sense, 
 sympathy and insight into real causes are the 
 qualities most needed for success. 
 
 Incorrigible Children. — This court also deals, 
 with so-called incorrigible children. Many of 
 these are so named on account of their parents' 
 desire to let the state support their children. 
 Many are the children of careless and neglectful 
 parents. Wisdom is needed in dealing with such 
 cases. On account of the law requiring com- 
 mitments to be made only through the juvenile 
 court no child can now be sent from his home 
 and made an expense to the state without thor- 
 ough investigation. Due consideration is now 
 given to the child's side of the case as well as 
 to the parents'. 
 
 Truants. — Children who are habitual truants 
 can be brought into juvenile court and placed on 
 probation. The juvenile court in each county 
 should have a record of all dependent children 
 and where they are placed, of neglected children, 
 of delinquent children, of incorrigible children 
 and also of children who work. 
 
 Juvenile Court Not a Criminal Court in Penn- 
 sylvania. — The decision rendered by the Superior 
 and Supreme Courts of Pennsylvania in sustain- 
 ing the constitutionality of the Juvenile Court 
 Acts is of the utmost importance in showing that
 
 214 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 the state has not only the power but the duty of 
 protecting its child citizens. In its clear state- 
 ment that the juvenile court is not a criminal 
 court, but a court for the protection and guard- 
 ianship of children who require its protection, 
 this decision removes the stigma attached to ap- 
 pearance in a criminal court. In the juvenile 
 court the child who steals, the truant, the run- 
 away and the vagrant child are considered as 
 children needing treatment. It is more impor- 
 tant to prevent continuance in wrongdoing than 
 to inflict punishment on a child. It is necessary 
 to consider children individually rather than in 
 a mass. Punishment blindly inflicted usually 
 avails nothing. Before juvenile courts and pro- 
 bation laws were passed children were appear- 
 ing in every criminal court and were present in 
 every prison. With no one to help them, no one 
 to treat them differently from the crime-hard- 
 ened adult, they entered the mill that grinds out 
 criminals, and it was next to impossible for them 
 ever to escape the meshes which entangle those 
 who once sin against the laws. The child, al- 
 ready handicapped in many cases by bad influ- 
 ences and environment as well as by trial and 
 imprisonment, met obstacles to the living of a 
 good life that few could surmount. Hardened 
 and embittered against society, these children's 
 lives were turned to evil. 
 The juvenile court is the state's guarantee that
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT 215 
 
 every child shall be given the chance to become 
 a good citizen. Through this court the state has 
 the authority to consider and provide for the 
 child's future welfare at the time when the child 
 is unable to guide his own life, or when weak 
 ignorant parents have failed, or when perhaps 
 criminal parents are guiding him into crime, or 
 when orphanage and poverty or neglect have 
 sent him adrift, a waif with no one to whom he 
 is responsible. 
 
 A Hospital for Treating Moral Disease. — The 
 juvenile court is a hospital for the treatment of 
 moral disease. The probation officers are the 
 nurses. The recovery of the patient depends in 
 great degree on the accuracy of the diagnosis 
 in each case and on the treatment it receives. 
 The juvenile court has been the means of re- 
 vealing conditions which no one realized so long 
 as children's cases were not dealt with separately 
 from those of adults. The report for one week 
 in a large city shows what a vast work lies be- 
 fore those who would help these blameless but 
 erring children. During this week there were 
 arrested one hundred and ninety-seven children 
 under sixteen years of age — seventy-four for lar- 
 ceny, forty-five for being runaways and forty for 
 incorrigibility. Vagrancy, assault and malicious 
 mischief were the causes of the arrest of the 
 others. One hundred and eighty-two were boys 
 and fifteen were girls. Seventy-five were Amer-
 
 216 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 icans. Twenty were between eight and ten 
 years of age, sixty-three were between ten and 
 thirteen years of age and one hundred and four- 
 teen were between thirteen and sixteen years of 
 age. This particular week was under the aver- 
 age in the number of arrests made, and yet it 
 would bring the number of juveniles arrested in 
 a year to over ten thousand in just one city of 
 America. 
 
 These are the children who are standing at 
 the parting of the ways. These are the little 
 ones who may be saved if they meet at this time 
 a loving wise friend who will guide them and 
 care for them. Before juvenile courts were es- 
 tablished such children were either neglected 
 until they had committed a more serious offense 
 or they were sent off to reformatories. There 
 was no system through which help could be 
 given at the very first downward step. 
 
 The hospital having but one remedy for ev- 
 ery disease would in these days be considered 
 absurd. The juvenile court in which each case 
 is not studied individually, in which home condi- 
 tions and other conditions and motives leading 
 to the offense are not studied and in which there 
 are not a variety of agencies for helping chil- 
 dren, may be compared to a hospital possessing 
 a single remedy for all diseases. Such a condi- 
 tion might lead to the cure of a few, but it would 
 be disastrous for the majority. This has been
 
 .THE JUVENILE COURT. 217 
 
 the case with the methods of the past. This is 
 why crime has increased, and this is why our 
 prisons are full. The wide-spread idea that we 
 must accept the situation and that crime and 
 prisons are a necessity, that there is a criminal 
 class made of different clay from the rest of 
 humanity, has kept aloof the good men and 
 women without whom these erring brothers and 
 sisters of ours will never be saved. 
 
 Probation Work. — The juvenile court that 
 does not have a corps of probation officers who 
 are guided by a loving insight into child nature 
 and who also have the ability to inspire in the 
 child true standards of right living is almost use- 
 less. It is like a hospital without any nurses; 
 and every one knows that in illness good nurs- 
 ing is more important than medicine. 
 
 A Juvenile Court. — The success of a juvenile 
 court depends far more on the quality of its' 
 probation officers than on its judge. While the 
 judge has the opportunity of impressing a child 
 the few moments he is before him, real success in 
 character building comes only in the old way. 
 The reiteration of line upon line and precept 
 upon precept is necessary and over it all must 
 brood the spirit of love, without which no child 
 can be helped. Probation work consists of 
 character building, nothing more, nothing less. 
 It is joining hands with God to lead His little 
 ones to His fold.
 
 218 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 The duty of a probation officer is not only to 
 the child. It extends to helping parents. Good 
 housekeeping, the qualities of a good home and 
 the principles of child nurture must be under- 
 stood by a good probation officer. Often ignor- 
 ance of these things is the cause of a child's get- 
 ting into trouble. No better foundation for pro- 
 bation work can be given than kindergarten 
 training of a kind that brings into the fore- 
 ground the study of a child's needs and devel- 
 opment. The essential equipment for all w^ho 
 have the care of children is a know^ledge of child 
 nurture and a love of children. There are some 
 individuals whose faith in human nature brings 
 out the best in those whom they have under 
 their care. They have sympathetic hearts and 
 spirits consecrated to the service of uplifting 
 childhood. The more difficult the case the 
 greater is their interest in it. Patience, love, 
 common sense, dignity and experience of life 
 are essential to one who is to guide children 
 and parents. No children are hopeless. Some- 
 where in the heart of each one is concealed a 
 germ of goodness which may be quickened and 
 grow to eternity, but which is often crushed by 
 those who do not understand the delicate, sensi- 
 tive nature of a little child. The juvenile court 
 gives an opportunity never before afforded to 
 study the needs of children. Under the old sys-
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT 219 
 
 tern no separate account was taken of juvenile 
 crime. It was but part of the criminal record 
 which included all of every age who violated our 
 laws. The sole duty of the court was to carry out 
 the letter of the law by way of punishment. 
 
 Experience in thousands of cases in juvenile 
 court and probation work has proved to the 
 writer that in nearly all cases the children's 
 presence in court is due to conditions over which 
 they have no control. These conditions have 
 been brought into being by the community in 
 which the children live. They can be changed, 
 and they will be as a result of the new light that 
 has come to those who all over this country are 
 coming in touch with the beginnings of crime. 
 
 The Next Step Forward. — Fourteen years 
 have passed since the first juvenile court was 
 held. To secure a law providing for a juvenile 
 court system is but the first step toward the end 
 and aim of those who designed this agency for 
 child protection. There is no magic power in 
 the law unless it is administered by those who 
 are qualified through a sympathetic knowledge 
 of child nature to understand how to help those 
 who come into the courts. An experience of 
 fourteen years has shown that it is very difficult 
 for those who hold to the old idea of court pro- 
 cedure to adapt themselves to the new condi- 
 tions. Such people seemingly can not realize
 
 220 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 that children require utterly different treatment 
 from that usually accorded offenders against the 
 law. 
 
 A Juvenile Court Judge. — In an ordinary 
 criminal court a judge must have a knowledge 
 of law, of the penal code and the punishments 
 provided for various offenses, and probity in ad- 
 ministration. In juvenile cases other qualities 
 are essential in a judge. Insight, sympathy with 
 children, ability to appreciate causes and knowl- 
 edge of efficient treatment for preventing the 
 recurrence of offenses are all required. The 
 problem a juvenile court faces is one of moral 
 education, of home education for parents and of 
 social education for child protection. It is ad- 
 mitted that the child in juvenile court has broken 
 the law in some respect, but because he is a child 
 he is not held as a responsible citizen should be 
 held for knowingly offending against the law. 
 
 Notable men have made records as juvenile 
 court judges which have attracted world-wide 
 attention, but they are the exceptions. The 
 average judge meets the responsibility placed on 
 him as conscientiously as he can, but with the 
 best intentions he commits woeful errors at 
 times which bring disaster to the child. Such 
 judges are being required to do a kind of service 
 for which they lack the fundamental qualifica- 
 tions. A new standard for the children's judi- 
 ciary must be set, especially in our large cities.
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT 221 
 
 where the large number of cases Is sufficient to 
 warrant the appointment of an individual who 
 can give this his exclusive attention. 
 
 Rural Districts. — Every county should have 
 definite arrangements for the separate hearing 
 of children's cases, but as such cases are com- 
 paratively few in number the same judge who 
 hears other county cases must be required to 
 take this responsibility also. To work out plans 
 for the efificient care of every child under the 
 conditions which must be met in the average 
 county is of as vital moment as to perfect juve- 
 nile court administration in large cities. 
 
 The child in the country, the village or the 
 small town deserves just as efficient help in be- 
 ing led from entering a criminal career as does 
 the child in a large city. If crime is to decrease 
 it can only be through not letting any child miss 
 receiving the help which he needs at the time 
 when it will affect his whole future. "Only a 
 poor, ragged, unattractive waif, an infant dere- 
 lict, the riffraff of humanity, a gutter snipe," say 
 many men of these little ones. "Corral them 
 and protect the world from their ravages." No 
 one who has this view-point can ever properly 
 administer a juvenile court. Only one who be- 
 lieves that each child is one of God's little ones, 
 that however unattractive the exterior may be 
 the germ of good is there, can ever meet the 
 responsibility of a juvenile court.
 
 222 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 Each child is an individual, not a case. When 
 personal interest in each child ceases, when he 
 simply becomes a case, the usefulness of the ju- 
 venile court also ceases. 
 
 The next steps forward which are necssary in 
 juvenile court and probation work may be out- 
 lined as follows : 
 
 I. The system should be extended so that 
 every county may be equipped for efficiently 
 and promptly guarding and providing guidance 
 for its erring and dependent children. 
 
 n. The court should be placed on an educa- 
 tional basis instead of being regarded as an in- 
 strument of correction or charity. Mothers as 
 well as fathers should have a voice in the care 
 of the children under its jurisdiction, for good 
 mothering as well as fathering is the greatest 
 need of most of these children. Wise mothers 
 must take their part if crime in children is to be 
 prevented. 
 
 HI. It should be insisted that probation work 
 be done only by those who have ability and love 
 and patience in character building and in teach- 
 ing home making to parents. The service of 
 kindergarten teachers and good mothers as pro- 
 bation officers should be enlisted wherever pos- 
 sible, as they are qualified to bring out and de- 
 velop the better nature of the child. 
 
 IV, A high standard of service should be in- 
 sisted on in probation work. Constructive meth-
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT. 223 
 
 ods should be used in teaching honesty, self-con- 
 trol and obedience to law, and to this end there 
 should be provision for the special training of 
 probation officers and other workers with chil- 
 dren in the science of child nurture. 
 
 V. Provision should be made for the organiza- 
 tion of county juvenile court associations com- 
 posed of fathers, mothers and teachers. These 
 should cooperate with the courts in the care 
 of children and in improving the methods of 
 dealing with them through enlisting the aid of 
 every local agency that will be helpful. The 
 court's function is primarily judicial, and courts 
 must have supplementary help in the care of 
 children and in character building. 
 
 VI. A state probation commission should be 
 provided for unifying and standardizing the 
 work being done for children through the entire 
 state. This should be done because, since the 
 jurisdiction of the juvenile court extends to all 
 neglected, dependent and delinquent children, 
 the responsibility for the treatment of all of these 
 now rests on the state. In consequence there 
 should be a central official body to which county 
 work should be reported and which should have 
 supervision over all such work. 
 
 VII. The state probation commission should 
 be linked with the state board of education by 
 making the president of the latter or his repre- 
 sentative an ex-officio member of the commis-
 
 224 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 sion. The reasons for this are (1) that every 
 child under the jurisdiction of the court is also 
 subject to the provisions of the educational laws 
 of the state and intelligent administration re- 
 quires the cooperation of all educators; and (2) 
 that the care of wayward children is an exten- 
 sion of the educational system and must eventu- 
 ally be assumed by it. 
 
 Vni. Accommodations separate from jails, 
 either rooms or a building, should be provided 
 for children awaiting a hearing. The manage- 
 ment of these should be put under a county pro- 
 bation association and probation officers. The 
 importance of having one administration over 
 the children coming into court and the value 
 of having the probation officer come first in 
 touch with the arrested child make this course 
 advisable. A place for studying the child is also 
 thus afforded, and this opportunity is a valuable 
 one for the probation officer who will afterward 
 have the care of the child. 
 
 IX. Special small classes for erring children 
 as part of the educational system of the state 
 should be substituted for the present system of 
 large reform schools which are independent of 
 the school system. The moral education of the 
 wayward child should be a part of the educa- 
 tional work of the state and it can be more effi- 
 ciently handled if it is made a recognized part 
 of that system. The grouping of hundreds of
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT 225 
 
 wayward children together has been productive 
 of moral contamination and in hundreds of in- 
 stances has resulted in the confirmation of evil 
 habits. 
 
 X. There should be state supervision over de- 
 pendent children and records should be kept of 
 the homes given them. There should be a law 
 permitting the juvenile court to order the pay- 
 ment of children's board in family homes just 
 as it may now order such payment in institu- 
 tions. There should be enacted mothers' pen- 
 sion laws to prevent the breaking up of homes 
 through the death of a father or extreme pov- 
 erty. These pensions should not be administered 
 by a department of charities. 
 
 Thorough knowledge of the present situation 
 and persistent, faithful work in building up a 
 system efficient in its methods of protecting and 
 guiding unfortunate childhood should be the 
 unending purpose of the real friends of chil- 
 dren. Wayward and erring children can never 
 be efficiently cared for until the responsibility 
 for them is placed under educational direction 
 in every state. 
 
 Juvenile courts and the probation system must 
 eventually come under educational auspices be- 
 cause this work is confined to children under 
 sixteen, because probation work is educational 
 work, because insight into child nature is essen- 
 tial in deciding how a child may be helped and
 
 226 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 because the children under juvenile court juris- 
 diction are also under the jurisdiction of the edu- 
 cational system. A single system under a sin- 
 gle administration can best deal with all the 
 questions of childhood. 
 
 The practise of arresting children should be 
 abolished. Erring children should be reported 
 to a committee selected from the best fathers, 
 mothers and teachers in the community, and this 
 committee should be made a part of the educa- 
 tional system. 
 
 By placing the study of disease in the care of 
 specialists the United States has almost elim- 
 inated yellow fever and the hook-worm. By 
 placing the entire system of child guidance and 
 protection in the hands of specialists and hold- 
 ing them responsible for its thoroughness and 
 efficiency the United States will, at a low esti- 
 mate, save seventy-five per cent, of all wayward 
 children. In the saving of these wayward little 
 ones lies also the solution of the problem of 
 crime prevention. 
 
 The Requirements. — Besides the court room 
 in a juvenile court there should be a waiting 
 room for the children, so that each child may be 
 heard separately and quietly. It is injurious for 
 children to listen to the cases that come before 
 the court. The judge should sit as a chancellor, 
 and so there is no reason for a jury, nor is there 
 any reason for lawyers.
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT 227 
 
 Procedure. — The procedure should be simple. 
 It should not follow the plan of prosecution in 
 criminal procedure. There should be no plea of 
 guilty or not guilty. A probation officer who 
 has made a thorough investigation of the child's 
 history should give the facts to the judge. The 
 child should be permitted to tell his own story. 
 The parents also should be heard and any wit- 
 nesses who may be necessary. The judge should 
 explain clearly to the child the fault he has com- 
 mitted and why it should not be repeated. He 
 should be kind and yet firm. He should also 
 advise the parents as to their duty to the child, 
 and make them realize that the state is inter- 
 ested in the child's welfare and for that reason 
 gives them the help of the probation officer's 
 care. 
 
 The child's own home is the first choice of a 
 place for the child unless the home is of a crim- 
 inal character. Every child should have an op- 
 portunity to improve under the moral stimulus 
 and help given by the visits and interest of the 
 probation officer, and patient, loving care should 
 be faithfully given for months or years if nec- 
 essary. Character develops slowly — too much 
 must not be expected in a short time. The sec- 
 ond choice of a place, if the child's home is un- 
 suitable, is a home in some family, and the care 
 and guidance of a probation officer should still 
 be given the child. Reformatories and institu-
 
 228 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 tions should be a last resort. The massing to- 
 gether of naughty children necessarily conduces 
 to a greater knowledge of crime, puts a stigma 
 on the child and decreases his self-respect. 
 
 Temporary Homes. — There should be places 
 where a difficult child could temporarily be put 
 among adults who would be specially adapted 
 to study him, and if he is beyond parental con- 
 trol to stimulate and help him until he can re- 
 turn to it. The state can better afford to pay 
 for care that will separate unmanageable chil- 
 dren than it can to mass them into reformatories 
 at the most impressionable period of their lives. 
 
 Boarding Homes. — There are many children 
 who are homeless, who are old enough to work 
 and can safely do so and be self-supporting, 
 but who should be placed in families who will 
 guide and advise them. A list of homes where 
 such children may board should be kept in ev- 
 ery city. 
 
 The ideal environment for a child is a fam- 
 ily home. Such homes can be secured for chil- 
 dren under a wisely managed system of placing 
 them out as wards of the state, under the care 
 and guardianship of representatives of the state. 
 Institutions, save for temporary care, are injuri- 
 ous to children physically and morally, and ex- 
 cept for emergency use their day is past. State 
 boarding schools are necessary for the tempo- 
 rary care of wards of the state, until a suitable
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT 229. 
 
 home can be found for them with a family, but 
 the stay there should be as brief as possible. 
 Children taken from a very bad environment 
 may require a longer period in such a school 
 in order to make them desirable members of a 
 family. 
 
 Probation Work. — Probation ofificers must 
 possess high moral purpose, true and sincere 
 character, a conception of the psychological de- 
 velopment of the child and a real love for chil- 
 dren. A probation officer is the trained moral 
 nurse of the child and to obtain the best re- 
 sults must view the work from the spiritual 
 standpoint. Recognizing that character is a 
 plant of slow growth, and that the child's eter- 
 nal future depends largely on the trend given in 
 early years, the probation officer must work pa- 
 tiently, sympathetically and lovingly to bring 
 out the best that is in the child. Maturity and 
 breadth of view and a conception of child nature 
 and its needs are requisites of good probation 
 work. The officer should also view each child 
 as a distinct individual. These qualities can 
 never be secured when officers are political ap- 
 pointees. It should be remembered also that 
 the system is absolutely dependent for its suc- 
 cess on the quality of the probation work. 
 
 Training Schools. — The trained nurse in the 
 sick-room has won recognition and is a neces- 
 sity. Her intelligent work has saved thousands
 
 230 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 of lives. The trained gardener can develop sim- 
 ple flowers until they possess a beauty and a 
 perfection that no untrained care can secure. 
 The trained father and mother also will bring 
 their children to much higher standards men- 
 tally and physically than is possible with hap- 
 hazard and untrained care. The trained proba- 
 tion officer, having also the necessary character 
 and qualities as a foundation, will more efficient- 
 ly meet the needs of children and more cer- 
 tainly guide them into safe and honorable paths 
 than the best intentioned but untrained officer 
 ever could. 
 
 COURT SENTENCES WRITTEN BY PRISON INMATES. 
 
 American, twenty-three : "A strong will power 
 would have helped me to be honest. If I was 
 brought before a judge such as Judge Lindsey 
 I might not have been a thief to-day. I only 
 hope that Judge Lindsey meets with all the suc- 
 cess in the world." 
 
 Irish, eighty-four: "If all judges were like 
 Judge Lindsey this country would have no peni- 
 tentiaries." 
 
 American, twenty-five: "If the government 
 really wishes to reform its criminals and lessen 
 crime let it follow Judge Lindsey's system. Give 
 the beginners a fresh start and the results will 
 prove satisfactory. To place a beginner among
 
 THE JUVENILE COURT 231 
 
 those already deep in crime will hurt more than 
 anything I know." 
 
 American, twenty-two: 'T was left an orphan 
 at eleven. I was sent to a protectory for one 
 year as an orphan, two years for crime. I was 
 alone in the world after escaping. Afterward 
 I was sent to the Elmira Reformatory, Brutal- 
 ity never has any influence. The secret of 
 achievement is to get child offenders before they 
 enter any home or reform school. One kind- 
 ness is far better than spending a thousand years 
 in reformatories. Had I met a man like Judge 
 Lindsey ten years ago it would have been dif- 
 ferent." 
 
 American, thirty-nine: "I had a good early 
 home and education. I committed burglary at 
 thirty-six because I had no work, no money and 
 had to keep loved ones from starving and freez- 
 ing to death. I was sent to prison for from six 
 to seven years. If I could have obtained em- 
 ployment I never would have been where I am. 
 What the country needs is more men like Judge 
 Lindsey, men that money and graft can not buy, 
 men that when they know they are right are 
 not afraid to follow their own views and plans 
 regardless of politics and threats from grafters, 
 men who want to live and help others to live. 
 Until then we need not look for any change." 
 
 American, twenty-nine : "My parents were 
 divorced when I was three years old. My moth-
 
 232 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 er died when I was ten. My sister went to an 
 orphan asyhim and I went to the streets. Bad 
 companions and the lack of home influence led 
 me to purse-snatching at thirteen. I was ar- 
 rested and treated as a hardened criminal. No 
 kindness was shown me. Having been forced to 
 associate with criminals when I was a boy I nat- 
 urally drifted into crime. I think the only way 
 to save a boy is to treat him as a boy, not as a 
 man. If the judges would remember that a boy 
 is only a boy there would be fewer criminals." 
 
 American, twenty-six: "Many thanks to Judge 
 Lindsey for the good he is doing for the kids. 
 I wish he had got a hold on me when I was a 
 kid." 
 
 "Give the world legislators and judges like 
 Lindsey so men will have a chance to correct a 
 mistake instead of being immediately thrown 
 into prison to ruin a life and home." 
 
 "The present system of administering laws by 
 judges, except Judge Lindsey, only makes crim- 
 inals. Any man can and does make mistakes, 
 and if given a small chance would never make 
 the same one or a similar one again. Instead 
 a man is thrown into prison for a long term, and 
 so a criminal is created. Convict and criminal 
 are distinct."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 PROBATION THAT WILL SAVE WAYWARD CHILDREN 
 
 THE possibilities for the proper treatment of 
 wayward children were greatly increased 
 when in 1899 probation work was introduced as 
 a part of the juvenile court system. For the 
 first time a thorough investigation of the facts 
 was made by a reliable person before the court 
 hearing took place, thus enabling the judge to 
 know better than was ever possible before what 
 to recommend. For the first time it became pos- 
 sible to return a child to his home with provi- 
 sion for helping him and his parents to overcome 
 the causes that had brought him into trouble. 
 
 Because probation work has been connected 
 with the courts with their centuries of tradi- 
 tions it has been difficult to put it on an educa- 
 tional basis, without which it can not be thor- 
 oughly helpful. Tradition and custom are hard 
 to overcome, and those who are experienced in 
 the machinery of correction and punishment are 
 not usually conversant with the needs of child 
 life, and do not realize that the qualifications nec- 
 essary in probation officers are entirely different 
 
 233
 
 234 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 from those needful in policemen or court ofBcers. 
 Because of the selection of probation officers 
 who are not prepared to inspire, guide and help 
 children this part of the new system has been 
 very weak in most places. Often the probation 
 officer, even if qualified for the work, could not 
 give good service on account of the large num- 
 ber of children entrusted to his or her care. On 
 account of the failure to understand and recog- 
 nize what qualifications are absolutely essential 
 for effective probation service there will un- 
 doubtedly be a reaction against the probation 
 system in those places where this work has been 
 placed in unsuitable hands. 
 
 In these places the system may be declared 
 unsuccessful when the real trouble lies in a fail- 
 ure to understand what probation work is. Pro- 
 bation officers should be selected by those whose 
 lives have been devoted to child nurture and who 
 will not cripple the service by giving office to 
 those who need the salary but who lack the 
 qualities that will save the children. Helping 
 the children precedes in importance the confer- 
 ring of a salary on the friend of a political leader 
 or on some one who has influence. 
 
 The system is worse than useless, is farcical 
 and inspires contempt for law unless probation 
 is kept up to a high educational standard. 
 
 Qualifications Essential to Good Probation 
 Work. — The first requisite for a probation offi-
 
 PROBATION 235 
 
 cer is the ability to inspire love in a child and 
 to gain his confidence. The second is a knowl- 
 edge of the science of child nurture and an ap- 
 preciation of childhood's needs. These things 
 are best understood to-day by kindergarten 
 teachers, good mothers and some school teach- 
 ers. The third requisite for this work is patience 
 and love for the work so great that no effort will 
 be spared which will help the child. 
 
 The whole duty of a probation officer is char- 
 acter building. It is educational work of the 
 most exacting and highest type. It is a religious 
 work, because the power to overcome evil comes 
 from God alone and no real building of character 
 can be done without the foundation of depend- 
 ence on God's help in keeping the laws of life. 
 Probation work means teaching the child these 
 laws as they relate to the incidents of his daily 
 life, in simple language that he can understand. 
 It means inspiring him with ideals of the man or 
 woman he or she would like to be and helping 
 him to form the habits which will lead to that 
 goal. 
 
 No one can do work of this kind efficiently 
 who goes into it primarily for the salary there is 
 in it, or because it is a way to earn one's liveli- 
 hood. 
 
 No one can do successful probation work who 
 has not the time to establish close personal rela- 
 tions with each child, to get at his thoughts and
 
 236 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 motives, to meet him on the plane of his own 
 life, and with sympathetic insight into his diffi- 
 culties guide him to the better way. This means 
 that good probation work can not be done when 
 one has too large a number of children to make 
 it possible to give this individual attention to 
 each child. Frequent visits and intimate ac- 
 quaintance are required to influence the lives of 
 children. 
 
 It goes without saying that no one can build 
 character in others who has not first begun to 
 build it in his or her own life. Probation to be 
 successful must be recognized as education of 
 the moral nature. With many it now seems to 
 be regarded as the recommendation of some in- 
 stitution to which the child may be sent. 
 
 The test of good probation work is to be found 
 in whether the children are helped to better lives 
 in their own homes ; whether they cease to do the 
 things which brought them into court, whether 
 in the year's work the proportion of children do- 
 ing well goes over seventy per cent. 
 
 No one should be appointed for probation 
 work who is not conscientious and consecrated to 
 service to the children and with sufficient ex- 
 perience in life to command the respect of par- 
 ents as well as children. Given these qualifica- 
 tions for officers there should be few rules and 
 restrictions. Each individual finds his or her 
 own method and should be free to work as each
 
 PROBATION 237 
 
 case demands. The result is what counts. That 
 can only be measured by accurate reports of each 
 child, covering as much as six months or a year, 
 sometimes even longer. 
 
 It takes time to overcome the habits and con- 
 ditions that have led the child into trouble, and 
 a probation officer should not expect steady ad- 
 vancement. There may be many setbacks. 
 Limiting the probation of children to one month 
 or three is unjust to the child and to the proba- 
 tion officer. If the work is to be w^ell done it 
 must be done from the heart. It ceases to be 
 possible to do v^hat one should for a child unless 
 one exercises the same spirit of patience that 
 good mothers do toward their own children. 
 
 Wherever the juvenile court and probation 
 system has been adopted the probation officer 
 holds the key which may open the door to better 
 life for the child. Misunderstanding of child na- 
 ture or neglect may close to him the door of op- 
 portunity. Whether or not wayward children 
 shall be saved depends on the quality of the pro- 
 bation service. 
 
 Safeguarding the System. — While the major- 
 ity of states have provided for this system by 
 law, not one has yet safeguarded it at its weak- 
 est point. The bridge which is to carry the chil- 
 dren over the point of greatest danger in their 
 lives must be safe and strong or the system is 
 worse than useless. The qualifications and work
 
 238 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 of probation officers must be specified and pro- 
 vision must be made for the automatic removal 
 of officers unless the work reaches a certain stan- 
 dard. Ordinary civil service examinations are of 
 little value in determining w^hether or not one 
 will be efficient in work of this kind. The experi- 
 ence of good mothers is of the greatest value and 
 when available they should be enlisted in this 
 service. The kindergarten teacher thoroughly 
 trained in Froebel's philosophy has a foundation 
 which is of great value. The school-teacher who 
 has been successful in guiding the children under 
 her care also has a good foundation for success 
 in probation work. 
 
 So much of the work of a probation officer con-» 
 sists in the reconstruction of the home and the 
 education of parents as to their child's needs that 
 women are especially fitted for this service. They 
 can come into closer relations with a child's 
 mother than is possible for a man. Home mak- 
 ing is primarily women's work and back of near- 
 ly every child's trouble lies some weakness in the 
 home. It is impossible to help a child without 
 taking his home into account. Friendly relations 
 must be established there. As a trusted physi- 
 cian has the confidence of his patients so must 
 the probation officer as a moral physician have 
 the same confidence. Personality counts for 
 much in one who holds such a position. The
 
 PROBATION 239 
 
 probation officer who goes into a family armed 
 with the statement that she is an officer of the 
 court and that she must be obeyed has taken a 
 tactless course which will never enable her to 
 establish the relations necessary if she is to be 
 helpful to the child and the home. 
 
 Training in Honesty. — At least half the chil- 
 dren who are placed on probation have com- 
 mitted theft of some sort. Constructive training 
 in honesty must constitute a large part of the 
 work of a probation officer. Restitution should 
 always be required. If it can only be made 
 gradually it should still be required, for no lessen 
 will sink deeper than this practical experience of 
 effort in restoring what has been taken. The 
 parents, too, should be made to see that justice 
 demands the restoration of what their child has 
 taken. 
 
 Items like the following cut from a daily paper 
 show the extreme youth of many of the children 
 who are brought into court. They are almost 
 babies and yet they seem beyond the control of 
 both their parents and the court. 
 
 "Joseph Guestis, six years old, was held under 
 three hundred dollars' bail to-day for a further 
 hearing by the magistrate, at the House of De- 
 tention, on the charge of larceny. The boy had 
 appeared at the House of Detention six times 
 before on similar charges. Yesterday, it is as-
 
 240 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 serted, he broke into a stall in the market, with 
 a false key, and robbed several cash registers. 
 He also took eye-glasses, pencils and weights, 
 it is said." 
 
 In nearly all cases of this kind investigation 
 shows that the child has been used by older boys 
 or men. It also comes out usually that he has 
 had no definite teaching which would make him 
 regard the property of others. In many cases 
 he has never possessed anything of his own which 
 others have respected. He has committed an act 
 which if done by an adult would properly be 
 styled burglary. The law, however, does not hold 
 children of six as being responsible for such deeds. 
 
 Dealing with Theft. — A child about the age 
 of the one just mentioned was so persistent in 
 his appropriations of the property of others that 
 parents and probation officers became utterly 
 discouraged and took him to a noted kindergar- 
 ten teacher to see what she could do for him. In 
 her class lessons she told the children how to own 
 things without having them in their hands. She 
 asked them to look at beautiful things, then shut 
 their eyes and think how they looked. They 
 played this as a game, learning that that kind of 
 possession was something no one could take 
 away. She had a place for each child's things 
 and taught them not to touch the belongings of 
 others without permission. The rule of d.oing to
 
 PROBATION 241 
 
 others as they would have others do to them was 
 the key-note of all her lessons. She also told them 
 stories of knights and their noble deeds. 
 
 One day the little boy came to her with a hand- 
 ful of things he had taken, saying: "I'm not 
 going to do this any more. Knights don't take 
 things and I know how to have things without 
 taking them." 
 
 Patiently and purposefully this kindergarten 
 teacher had put into the boy's heart a different 
 ideal of boyhood and manhood. She had taken 
 away the desire to steal. A piece of work like 
 this is typical of the careful constructive work 
 that must be done to save children. What she 
 had accomplished was inestimable in value and 
 efficacious in a way that the employment of fear 
 can never be. *'The policeman will get you" ; 
 "You will go to prison"; "I shall send you to a 
 reform school" — these threats have often been 
 held over children and have been actually carried 
 out with fatal consequences to them. The child 
 or man who refrains from stealing only for fear 
 of the law has not advanced very far toward the 
 achievement of character. The probation officer 
 who gives that as a reason for doing right is ap- 
 pealing to the lowest motive of a child. Only the 
 highest motives will count in the long run, only 
 those will enable the child or man to resist temp- 
 tation all through life.
 
 242 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 Parents' and Teachers' Treatment of Dishon- 
 esty. — Crime against property is the one that is 
 most common and which causes most anxiety for 
 parents and teachers. They should not feel that 
 a child is abnormal or criminal because he has 
 taken things. They should not have him arrested 
 or sent to a reform school. They should patient- 
 ly and kindly teach the child what honesty is and 
 what it means to be trusted and reliable. They 
 should not put temptation in his way until he has 
 become stronger. It is a fault which requires 
 careful treatment, and parents and teachers can 
 best give it. 
 
 There will be less stealing by boys and girls 
 when it is recognized that honesty is not born 
 into children, but that it is a lesson which par- 
 ents must give to every child. The wrong act it- 
 self should be condemned, but the child should 
 not be told he is wicked and hopeless. This dis- 
 tinction should always be made, for it makes it 
 easier to help a child when he is not made to feel 
 that he is wicked. To show that one expects 
 better things of him, that such an act is unworthy 
 of him, will be much more effective than to tell 
 him he is depraved and wicked. A child who gets 
 that idea of himself loses all incentive for doing 
 better and feels that he might as well live up to 
 the reputation given him. Very good people 
 often make this mistake in dealing with children.
 
 PROBATION 243 
 
 Hope and Encouragement. — A little ten-year- 
 old boy was brought into a juvenile court one 
 day before a judge who seemed to take the whole 
 thing as a joke. When this little trembling child 
 came before him he glanced at him and, without 
 deigning to question him, said: "You were born 
 a thief, you have always been a thief, you always 
 will be a thief." What strength of character a 
 child would possess who could rise above such a 
 statement coming from one so far above him! 
 
 Our very first duty to children is to give them 
 hope, to show them that good is expected of 
 them, that though they have done wrong they 
 can overcome it. 
 
 Immorality. — Immoral conduct is another 
 fault with which probation of^cers must often 
 deal. It is almost inconceivable that children 
 should be guilty of the serious charges made 
 against them. Here also the real causes of 
 wrongdoing must be sought out. Often it is 
 imitation of things they have seen. They are un- 
 fortunate in the fact that life has given them les- 
 sons so undermining. Again there is necessary 
 the slow process of giving them a different ideal, 
 of showing what is right, and this the probation 
 officer must do. This becomes very difficult 
 where the parents themselves are at fault, and in 
 such cases it may be necessary to remove the 
 child to a better environment.
 
 244 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 Other Offenses. — Arson, assault and battery, 
 truancy and murder are among the crimes which 
 are attributed to children, but when the motives 
 are traced it is often found that the child had 
 no realization of the gravity of his offense. And 
 in no cases do children have an adult's sense of 
 responsibility. Children have been considered al- 
 most beyond the pale and in some way abnormal 
 who have been guilty of these grave faults. Ex- 
 perience has proved that this is rarely the fact. 
 They are usually normal children. It is entirely 
 possible to help them and to prevent the recur- 
 rence of such acts. Again it is constructive work 
 in character building which is the treatment 
 needed. 
 
 Nine-tenths of all the children who are now 
 given the benefit of probation work have in them 
 the possibility of becoming honorable, law-abid- 
 ing citizens. They are not criminal children or 
 incorrigible children, they are children who have 
 committed criminal acts and need wise guidance. 
 What would it mean to America to save these 
 wayward ones? It would mean simply that the 
 supply of human derelicts to fill our prisons 
 would be cut of¥ at its source. There is no ques- 
 tion of greater importance than that probation 
 work shall have the same standing and study 
 that the work of the physician or surgeon now 
 has. 
 
 Efficient probation work can prevent crime.
 
 PROBATION 245 
 
 Appointing men or women for this vital, sacred, 
 far-reaching work on account of political reasons 
 or for any reason other than fitness to save chil- 
 dren is a crime against childhood and a fatal 
 blow to a system which requires specialists in 
 child nurture in order to make it efficient. Love, 
 faith in childhood's possibilities, patience and 
 tact, combined with ability to inspire children 
 with the desire to do right, and to show them 
 what is right — these must be the qualifications 
 for entrance into this service. It is a profession 
 requiring the consecration that leads a man to go 
 into the ministry and the kind of character that 
 is an inspiration to others. No place ofTers op- 
 portunity for greater service to childhood, to the 
 state and to God. 
 
 The probation system and juvenile courts 
 came into existence through the interest of men 
 and women not officially connected with child 
 saving work, but whose interest in children led 
 them to an effort to improve conditions for 
 them. The unofficial interest of good men and 
 women is no less needed now that the system is 
 established than it was before. 
 
 The Citizens' Initiative. — Helping wayward 
 children before arrest and after they have been 
 placed on probation is a larger task than can be 
 done well without the cooperation of interested 
 citizens. Probation officers whose whole time is 
 given to probation work have not the opportu-
 
 246 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 nity to give children many of the openings that 
 come through the help of citizens organized for 
 cooperation. Those who are not constantly 
 meeting the problems of erring children come to 
 them with a freshness and earnestness that are 
 a great encouragement to those who have many 
 children for whom they are responsible. The 
 business man knows of openings for work, where 
 interest may be manifested in and help given to 
 the child. Representatives of the different 
 churches help the children in many ways. A 
 school so situated as to be away from influences 
 that have proved harmful may be the saving of 
 a child. Women who are able are often led to 
 pay for such care through familiarity with actual 
 cases. Those who can become friendly both to 
 child and mother may be helpful. Where there 
 is a representative organization specially formed 
 to cooperate in saving children the way is much 
 easier. 
 
 Personnel of Association. — A juvenile court 
 and probation association in every county, recog- 
 nized by the court and closely in touch with all 
 its work, has been found a valuable factor in 
 maintaining the highest standards of work. The 
 association should have included in its director- 
 ate representatives from all the churches, besides 
 business men and mothers. There are plenty of 
 men and women who would be glad to help chil- 
 dren morally if they knew about their needing it.
 
 PROBATION 247 
 
 Their help can not be secured to any great extent 
 except through the organization of county juve- 
 nile court and probation associations. These as- 
 sociations enlist the interest of most thoughtful 
 and influential citizens whose help could not be 
 purchased, but who will freely give it. The ob- 
 ject of such associations is to promote the high- 
 est type of service to children and to extend and 
 unify the system. It is a fatal error to work for 
 the adoption of laws and then give no attention 
 to their administration. Advances in nearly all 
 cases are the result of the thought and work of 
 those not officially or financially associated with 
 the system. When those who are interested in 
 helping wayward children are organized a force 
 of inestimable value for service is gained. 
 
 The State Commission. — A state probation 
 commission composed of men and women who 
 believe in the newer ways of helping children 
 and who can serve without pay is the center 
 from which should radiate county juvenile pro- 
 bation commissions, the latter reporting at 
 stated intervals to the state commission, and all 
 working under uniform rules. The county asso- 
 ciation should be chartered by the court and 
 should have special charge of all probation work. 
 The selection of people properly qualified to be 
 probation officers is an important service that 
 such associations may render. Judges as a rule 
 are better informed as to lawyers and legal spe-
 
 248 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 cialists than as to those who are fitted to lead 
 children. They are greatly helped by the recom- 
 mendation of candidates who are fitted to do the 
 work. In one city the judges have required all 
 candidates to be endorsed by the county juvenile 
 court association. Appointments have been made 
 annually. This has made it possible to drop 
 those, without bringing discredit to them, who 
 have not measured up to the standard of work 
 required. This is fair and just, for many good 
 and earnest men and women fail to make good 
 in helping wayward children, yet are useful in 
 other kinds of work. The judge who has a coun- 
 ty probation association and good probation offi- 
 cers may safely confine himself to the judicial 
 part of the work, being sure that the other parts 
 will be carefully and conscientiously done. 
 
 Cooperation of Churches — The cooperation 
 of churches secured by county probation asso- 
 ciations connects churches with home mission- 
 ary work in a way that has proved of the great- 
 est value to children as well as to the churches 
 themselves, which wish to do the work that lies 
 at their own doors. Character building is the 
 work of the church. It must go out into the 
 highways and hedges, and not only work for 
 those who come within its circle. It must get 
 into touch with those who need moral help and 
 guidance. A certain church, learning of the need 
 through its representative in the county proba-
 
 PROBATION 249 
 
 tion association, put work benches in a large 
 basement room and invited all the boys who had 
 been giving trouble to come there. Part of the 
 evening was spent in carpentry work, the other 
 part in games and reading. The young men of 
 the church took charge and they became more 
 interested in the church because it was putting 
 into practise its preaching. They, too, were 
 helped by this opportunity to help others. An- 
 other church opened a house in a part of the city 
 where there were many children and made it a 
 center for them and their parents. Still another 
 quietly supplied shoes and clothes for children 
 who were truants on account of the lack of these 
 things. Other churches have paid the whole 
 salary of a probation officer. In many churches 
 pastors have interested themselves in visiting 
 children and parents, while their own outlooks 
 have been broadened by seeing the conditions 
 under which many children are compelled to live. 
 The different denominations have thus united in 
 a common service — Protestant, Catholic and Jew 
 have joined hands in saving the children. 
 
 Mothers' Circles. — A mothers' circle repre- 
 sented in a county association has for several 
 years paid for a wayward boy's education in a 
 boarding school where he could have special care 
 until he could support himself. Another moth- 
 ers' circle for years has paid the salary of a pro- 
 bation officer and has cooperated with her in
 
 250 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 helping the children. The cooperation of citi- 
 zens is most influential in changing the condi- 
 tions causing crime. It was on account of the" 
 light thrown on child life in cities by the juvenile 
 court that playgrounds have been established. 
 It is through the help of citizens that the sale of 
 cigarettes to minors has been discouraged. It is 
 through the help of citizens that saloons near 
 schools have been compelled to close their doors.- 
 It is through citizens' cooperation that the states 
 now having the best probation work have gained 
 that position. Also through citizens' coopera- 
 tion is preventive work being done that keeps 
 many children from ever being brought into 
 court. The more widely knowledge is spread 
 concerning children whose lives are tending 
 downward, the more widely recognition is gained 
 for the fact that this is a problem concerning us 
 all, by so much the sooner will wayward children 
 receive the care that will prevent further wrong- 
 doing. 
 
 If each neighborhood church were interested 
 in learning about the life and conditions of the 
 children in its district and would endeavor in- 
 telligently to meet their needs the work for child 
 welfare would be evenly distributed. If each 
 family would show some personal interest in just 
 one unattractive wayward child it would lighten 
 the burden of work now borne by a few. Instead 
 of shunning street waifs and street boys a wel-
 
 PROBATION 251 
 
 come must be given them, for how can they ever 
 know better ways if they may never associate 
 with those who have achieved better ways of 
 living? 
 
 If there is no county juvenile association in 
 your county, form one, and see how much there 
 is for it to do. It is worth while to organize 
 the best people of a county to help save the 
 wayward children. Without organization the 
 people who could help and the children who need 
 the help never meet. The county probation as- 
 sociation is the connecting link, and a most im- 
 portant one in providing means to help the way- 
 ward children. It should be at the right hand 
 of every judge of a juvenile court. 
 
 Detention Houses. — The provision of a suit- 
 able place for caring for children who are await- 
 ing hearings or who need the protection of the 
 court is a necessity which should be met by ev- 
 ery county. Incalculable injury has been done 
 to children by sending them to almshouses, sta- 
 tion houses and jails because these were the 
 only available places open to them. In nearly 
 all cases of delinquency children may be per- 
 mitted to remain in their own homes until the 
 hearing, their parents being responsible for their 
 appearance. Where the home is respectable it 
 is preferable that the child remain there rather 
 than be taken to any other place. There are, 
 however, cases where it is necessary to have a
 
 252 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 place which is always ready to which children 
 may be taken, where they will receive proper 
 care and where they will not be subjected to 
 associations and influences detrimental to their 
 future. 
 
 Homeless children, children whose parents are 
 drunkards, lost children, runaways, children held 
 as witnesses, as well as erring children — all these 
 require a place of this kind. It should be pro- 
 vided by every county. The expense will be the 
 stumbling block which will be urged against it. 
 Whatever it might cost, however, it would be 
 an economy in the end. Only in counties hav- 
 ing a very large urban population will it be nec- 
 essary or desirable to have an entire house for 
 the temporary care of such children. In other 
 counties rooms should be provided in the home 
 of some responsible person which should be 
 suitably fitted for the purpose and kept always 
 ready for use. The expense of renting such 
 rooms would be small and a fixed rate for the 
 board and care of children during the time they 
 are there could be made. These rooms should 
 be in the largest town of the county, and where 
 the probation ofificer lives. It is desirable in- 
 deed that they should be in the same house with 
 the probation ofificer. The rooms should be as 
 homelike as possible, with no reminders of the 
 prison, though escape should be inconspicuously 
 guarded against. There is no county too poor
 
 PROBATION 253 
 
 to safeguard its children in this way. There is 
 no county where such provision is not needed. 
 In one county known to the writer, where there 
 is a city of the second class, the entire expense 
 for one year is eight hundred dollars. 
 
 It is impossible to estimate the harm that has 
 been done to children who have everywhere been 
 sent to jails, station houses and almshouses, in 
 association v/ith adult lawbreakers of every sort, 
 and kept there until the court released them as 
 the directors of the poor found homes for them. 
 Even innocent children desired as witnesses in 
 some cases have been subjected to this ordeal. 
 Pennsylvania has led all the states in passing a 
 law compelling every county to provide rooms 
 or a building apart from jails for children await- 
 ing a hearing. The children in sparsely settled 
 counties have been accorded the same protection 
 from bad associations, through this regulation, 
 as the children in the cities. 
 
 The first detention houses in large cities where 
 hundreds of children need temporary care were 
 erected in Philadelphia and Chicago. Other cit- 
 ies have rented houses which have been just as 
 suitable for the purpose. The Philadelphia de- 
 tention house was so designed as to include the 
 court room and separate waiting rooms for wit- 
 nesses. Small conference rooms are also pro- 
 vided where probation officers can have confi- 
 dential talks with the children; and there is also
 
 254 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 a room for physical inspection by physicians, a 
 roof garden for outdoor play, a schoolroom with 
 a teacher delegated by the superintendent of 
 schools, a number of single rooms for children, 
 baths and showers and provision for the com- 
 plete separation of the girls' department from 
 the boys'. 
 
 The detention house may be an ordinary 
 dwelling house. It should have single rooms 
 with good air and light, and it should be simply 
 but neatly furnished. It is not wise to place 
 children together to compare experiences. They 
 may be together in the presence of the caretaker, 
 but not otherwise. Acquaintance with the other 
 children there is not to be desired or encour- 
 aged. 
 
 The child's first appearance in a detention 
 house is a turning point in his life. He is fright- 
 ened and in a state where it means much to se- 
 cure the influence over him which will help later. 
 The probation officer whose duty it is to learn 
 all about the child and who will probably have 
 the care of him afterward is the proper person 
 to meet and talk with the child. The first step 
 counts for much. The child's attitude toward 
 his offense will be largely determined by the 
 influence of the person who meets him and is in 
 charge of him at a time when he is specially 
 impressionable. The house and equipment are 
 secondary in importance to the personality and
 
 PROBATION 255 
 
 qualifications of those who make its atmosphere 
 and its influence. It is the heart of the child 
 that must be reached, touched and influenced. 
 If that is not done nothing can make up for the 
 failure. In order to do this one who assumes 
 charge of a detention house must have a real 
 love for children, a belief in their possibilities, 
 unfailing sympathy, patience and ability to 
 awaken their better nature. Combined with 
 these qualities there must be ability to make 
 the house homelike, orderly and well kept. 
 Though the majority of children will be there 
 but a few days, they may be epoch-making days 
 in their lives. 
 
 The responsibility for the administration of 
 the detention house is an important matter. In 
 some places it has been given to county com- 
 missioners, but this is not satisfactory. It must 
 be as far removed from politics as possible. It 
 must have no tinge of the prison. It must be 
 in charge of those who are abreast of the times 
 in the newer views of child treatment. It is the 
 receiving station for children whose cases re- 
 quire skilled and sympathetic diagnosis. 
 
 The most satisfactory administration should 
 be secured by placing the supervision of county 
 probation work and the county detention house 
 under the direction of a county juvenile proba- 
 tion commission composed of men and women 
 who believe in the newer methods of caring for
 
 256 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 children and who will serve without compensa- 
 tion under the general direction of a state pro- 
 bation commission. The centralization of all 
 child protection under a responsible, intelligent 
 management makes for greater efficiency. The 
 separation of the judicial function from the actual 
 responsibility for the care of the children se- 
 cures better results. By this system the inter- 
 est of the best citizens can be secured and the 
 plan can be used where judges have no time for 
 other than the judicial part of the work. There 
 are comparatively few counties that can have a 
 special judge. Every county must adjust itself 
 for undertaking the proper care of the children 
 through using the judicial machinery already in 
 use. This system can be organized in any coun- 
 ty. Its success has been proved. Where no law 
 provides for it, interested citizens may carry out 
 the plan until its real value has been demon- 
 strated. Wherever this has been done the county 
 has eventually assumed the expense.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 A children's charter for the united states 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN is the first nation which 
 through its parhament has made a broad 
 survey of the conditions affecting all the chil- 
 dren of that nation, with a view to enacting 
 measures which would best minister to the chil- 
 dren's welfare. Education, health, treatment of 
 the erring and the protection of all were the ob- 
 jects of the study made by an official commis- 
 sion. The result was the enactment of a Chil- 
 dren's Charter. Doubtless improvements will 
 be made from time to time, but here for the first 
 time the general welfare of the juvenile popula- 
 tion of the entire nation was made the subject 
 of a careful survey by the highest public body of 
 the nation. 
 
 What has been done in Great Britain could be 
 advantageously followed in all other countries. 
 In education we are doing something of the sort; 
 various states are enacting educational codes to 
 take the place of the unsystematic legislation of 
 the past. The formulation of a carefully de- 
 
 257
 
 258 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 termined code that meets the requirements of 
 all is a great work that must vastly increase the 
 uniform efficiency of the educational system. 
 Such codes are being tested now to prove their 
 working value, and when they are thoroughly 
 tested improvements can be made wherever they 
 are found necessary. But while education covers 
 a vast portion of the general field of child 
 welfare, the child's health covers another por- 
 tion quite as important. State and local boards 
 of health have already done much, but much 
 more remains to be done in order adequately to 
 safeguard the lives and health of babies, chil- 
 dren and youths. 
 
 State boards of charities have followed a rou- 
 tine in their work for child welfare which leaves 
 much to be desired if this work is to be brought 
 up to the requirements of to-day. Congested 
 districts, slums, mines and factories, moving-pic- 
 ture shows, cheap sensational theaters and 
 trashy books all have an important influence on 
 children. 
 
 A broad survey of general conditions has yet 
 to be officially made in the United States. Vari- 
 ous organizations have made partial surveys in 
 some special fields, but these have not been suffi- 
 cient to bring about conditions that will conserve 
 the interests of all children. 
 
 The Congress of the United States would ren- 
 der a great service to the nation if it would pro-
 
 A CHILDREN'S CHARTER 259 
 
 vide for a commission to make such a survey 
 with a view to meeting the needs of all children 
 in the most efficient way. For this purpose such 
 a commission should have as its members fa- 
 thers and mothers who have given conscientious 
 care to the bringing up of their own children, 
 good and successful teachers, leaders in kinder- 
 garten work, physicians wdio have made a spe- 
 cial study of children, leaders in baby-saving 
 work, men and women who have successfully 
 helped wayward and deficient children, business 
 and professional men and women, those familiar 
 with the immigrant problem and the problem of 
 the healthful housing of families and others who 
 have given broad study to the influences detri- 
 mental to the home and children. To make a 
 study such as this that would be worth while 
 would take time and money, but the result would 
 pay many times over for all it would cost. 
 
 The need for broad, disinterested, constructive 
 planning for the all-round welfare of all children 
 is one that becomes very evident to those who 
 have given any study to the subject. Every state 
 should know all the conditions in the state affect- 
 ing child life in order to undertake whatever 
 measures are necessary for bringing all the laws 
 and agencies affecting children into one com- 
 plete, harmonious, efficient system. New meas- 
 ures and new practises should then be inau- 
 gurated as they are required.
 
 260 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 No Correlation. — As it is now there are great 
 gaps in some directions and great wastes in oth- 
 ers. There is no correlation of the departments 
 which have to do with different phases of child 
 life, nor is there any authorized body whose busi- 
 ness it is to know all the conditions of child life 
 within the state. It is impossible for any legis- 
 lature to determine intelligently, with little pre- 
 vious study of the subject and in the short time 
 at its disposal, all that a state requires in the 
 way of provision for child welfare. Antiquated 
 institutions and methods continue in use because 
 there is no one whose duty it is to learn if there 
 are not newer and better ways of meeting some 
 special need. 
 
 Views concerning the care of children have 
 advanced so far beyond those of the last cen- 
 tury and the needs of the country are so differ- 
 ent that the whole question of child welfare 
 should everywhere be considered and an ade- 
 quate, up-to-date and comprehensive system be 
 adopted. 
 
 Better Opportunities. — One of the greatest 
 changes has come to those who were once called 
 dumb because they were deaf. It is now known 
 that no child need be dumb, but that he can be 
 taught to speak and to receive his education in 
 the common schools. Yet, while this fact has 
 been proved, the majority of deaf children are
 
 A CHILDREN'S CHARTER 261 
 
 still sent to state institutions, which do not take 
 them before they are eight years old. 
 
 The years in which the normal child most 
 easily learns language should be utilized in 
 teaching the child handicapped by deafness. As 
 it is, few are provided with the opportunity to 
 develop the ability to speak at the normal age. 
 And yet the isolation of the deaf from compan- 
 ionship with people of normal hearing is not de- 
 sirable and is no longer necessary. 
 
 It would be the province of a child welfare 
 survey commission to report such needed 
 changes of method to governors and legislatures, 
 courageously laboring for the welfare of chil- 
 dren no matter how this may affect methods 
 and institutions at present in use. Antiquated 
 methods and institutions should everywhere 
 have their places taken by newer and more effi- 
 cient ones. Every state has provided in some 
 way for the care of its blind children. Now that 
 the causes of blindness are known every state 
 should, through its boards of health and educa- 
 tion, let these causes be known and as far as 
 possible introduce measures that will prevent 
 them. This is much more important than the 
 care of the blind. 
 
 A child welfare survey commission would be 
 informed as to every condition affecting children 
 in every part of the state. It would thus be able
 
 262 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 to advise the legislature by clear reports of 
 needed improvements as v^ell as actual condi- 
 tions. The state owes more to its children than 
 it has yet given them. A careful study should 
 be made of the results of v^hat it is already doing 
 for them. Purposeful, v^ell considered, consecu- 
 tive work should be undertaken to strengthen 
 weak places in whatever ways will redound to 
 the better development of the children. The 
 personnel of legislatures changes rapidly and 
 legislators themselves are usually entirely unin- 
 formed as to what the state does or does not do 
 for its children. Thus the help that could be 
 given by a permanent child welfare commission 
 would be invaluable. With the best intentions 
 in the world no legislator has the time to inform 
 himself fully on every bill that comes before him. 
 It takes years to learn all that is involved in the 
 question of child welfare in a great state. The 
 lives, health, education and character of our fu- 
 ture citizens are all at stake. That state will be 
 great and strong and rich which is prodigal of 
 thoughtful consideration and protection for all 
 the needs of its children. 
 
 Child Welfare Commissions. — The need for a 
 child welfare commission in every city is shown 
 almost daily through incidents which are con- 
 tinually arising in regard to children. Those 
 who have given much thought to children know
 
 A CHILDREN'S CHARTER 263 
 
 these things to be injurious and they could easily 
 be prevented if there were a child welfare com- 
 mission studying all that occurs in its relation 
 to the child. For instance, a policeman in a large 
 city recently arrested five or six children under 
 eight years of age for selling chewing-gum on 
 the streets on a summer evening. They were 
 taken in a patrol wagon to a detention house, 
 kept over night there and arraigned before a 
 magistrate. If they had been guilty of any crime 
 the procedure would have been exactly the same. 
 They had violated a city ordinance designed for 
 child protection, and the policeman under the 
 law was justified in making the arrests because 
 there had been no ruling which would enable of- 
 ficers to enforce the ordinance in other ways 
 than by the arrest of babies. There are right 
 ways and wrong ways of attaining the same 
 result. In this case the wrong way defeated the 
 purpose for which the ordinance was passed and 
 subjected the children to treatment as harmful 
 as selling gum on the street. The police should 
 be instructed not to arrest children under twelve 
 for violating city ordinances. They should take 
 the children home and order their parents to ap- 
 pear in juvenile court to answer for them. Chil- 
 dren should not be confined in any detention 
 house for the violation of city ordinances. 
 
 No general scheme for child protection is com-
 
 264 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 pletely thought out to its completion. On the 
 other hand, such thought is not the business of 
 the pohce department nor can it be expected 
 that without suggestion from any source police- 
 men will naturally do what is best for the chil- 
 dren. One large American city maintains, for 
 the placement and oversight of all its dependent 
 waifs, a subsection of the Department of Health 
 and Charities in charge of one man who receives 
 a salary less than twenty-five hundred dollars the 
 year and who has at his disposal six hundred dol- 
 lars the year for the expense of placing children. 
 Could such a condition continue if this city had 
 a child welfare commission supervising and 
 studying all the conditions of childhood? 
 
 Saving the wayward child can only become an 
 effective process through a thorough study of 
 the conditions causing waywardness, the re- 
 moval of such conditions and the provision of 
 education that will teach each child what is right 
 in such a manner as will give him the desire to 
 do right. The wayward child has proved to be 
 one of the greatest factors making for the so- 
 called criminal class of society. When one 
 knows the conditions that many of the men and 
 women in prison have had to endure in youth, 
 and when one learns of the lives of the children 
 who come into the courts one can no longer 
 wonder that the ranks of crime are always full.
 
 A CHILDREN'S CHARTER 265 
 
 One can only wonder that the world has not 
 sooner learned that what one sows one reaps, 
 that neglect and \vrong treatment during the 
 most impressionable years of life are bound to 
 bear their legitimate fruit in untrained and un- 
 controlled manhood and womanhood. 
 
 When one sees arid land blossom and bear a 
 rich harvest, when one sees the vast increase in 
 the production of corn and wheat to the acre 
 made possible by the introduction of intelligent 
 cultivation, one must grant that in the cultiva- 
 tion of the human plant there are equally great 
 possibilities for improvement. To prevent way- 
 wardness in children is better than to spend 
 one's efforts on trying to save them after they 
 have become wayward. 
 
 The many causes that have conduced to make 
 the wayward child a problem in the home, the 
 school and the community have been shown in 
 previous chapters. These causes are many and 
 varied and only by concerted and constructive 
 effort can they be removed. Measures which 
 will go far toward preventing waywardness are : 
 
 I. The education of parents in child nurture 
 and home making. 
 
 n. The education of all teachers in the proper 
 methods of treating wayward children. 
 
 HI. The better adaptation of our educational 
 system to children's natural interests.
 
 266 THE WAYWARD CHILD 
 
 IV. Better provision for the care of orphans 
 and of children who for any other reason are de- 
 prived of home care. 
 
 V. The abolishment of the congested districts 
 and slums in our cities. 
 
 VI. The provision by city, state and nation of 
 adequate means for the promotion of child wel- 
 fare in all its phases. 
 
 In addition boys and girls should receive edu- 
 cation that will give them high standards of mar- 
 riage and of home making. Parent-teacher as- 
 sociations in schools can be made valuable cen- 
 ters for education in child nurture. Parents' as- 
 sociations in churches can also be made valuable 
 if they are used for teaching parents how to de- 
 velop the spiritual life of their children and how 
 to make their children apply the laws of life in 
 their daily lives. 
 
 The guiding force of every life is the spirit. 
 The value of the earliest years of life for in- 
 stilling principles which will shape the child's 
 whole future is rarely realized as it should be. 
 Certainly the solution of the problem of crime 
 lies in constructive work for little children and 
 in the protection and guidance of all those who 
 need help. 
 
 What the United States will become depends 
 more on the character and ideals of those who 
 are boys and girls to-day than on the currency 
 question, the tariff adjustment or the enforce-
 
 A CHILDREN'S CHARTER 267 
 
 ment of the Monroe Doctrine. Citizens are in 
 the making everywhere. Whether they will at- 
 tain their highest possibilities or whether their 
 lives will be wrecked and they will become a 
 burden to the community depends on the atten- 
 tion and care that are given to the study of child 
 nurture and child welfare in home, church, school 
 and state. There are no babies who are born 
 criminals. There will be few men and women 
 who will choose a criminal life when every con- 
 dition afifecting children is adjusted so as to en- 
 able them best to develop their God-given possi- 
 bilities. 
 
 THE END
 
 INDEX
 
 INDEX 
 
 ADULT MISTAKES; that make criminals, 03, 94, 95, 
 96, 97, 98 ; prison inmates give results of sending boys 
 to prison, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105; in criminal 
 procedure, 159, 160, 161; treatment of girls, 162; 
 children in prisons, 163; reform schools, 185, 186; 
 build professional criminal class, 166; making new 
 crimes, 174, 175; in cities, 176, 177, 178; massing 
 erring children together, 179, 180, 181 ; the institution 
 child, 187. 
 
 ARRESTS OP CHILDREN: number of, 4; for vagrancy, 
 75; abolishment of, 226. 
 
 BARLEYCORN, JOHN, value in study of child welfare, 5. 
 
 BOY SCOUTS, 43. 
 
 BUREAU OF EDUCATION: provides reading courses for 
 
 boys and girls, 43; Home Education Division, 134, 
 
 135, 136. 
 
 CHILD WELFARE COMMISSIONS : why needed, 262, 263. 
 
 CHILDREN'S CHARTER, 257. 
 
 CHILDREN'S READING, 39, 42, 49, 50, 96. 
 
 CIGARETTES, 7, 37, 39, 48, 50. 
 
 CITIZENS' INITIATIVE, 245. 
 
 COFFMAN, DR. LOTUS D., quoted in regard to personnel 
 
 of U. S. public school-teachers, 113, 114. 
 CONSTRUCTIVE MEASURES, 265, 266. 
 COOPERATION OF CHURCHES, 248, 250. 
 CORRELATION REQUIRED, 260. 
 COVERT, MRS. E. E., quoted, 139. 
 CRISIS IN CHILD'S LIFE, 3-5. 
 
 DANGERS TO CHILDREN : playing truant— street play- 
 picking coal on railroads — no social life at home, 6, 7 ; 
 from reform schools, 57; from separation of par- 
 ents — parents responsible for same, 51; from ciga- 
 rettes, 7 ; lack of love, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 48 ; fear 
 of parents, 28. 
 
 DEAF CHILDREN, 260. 
 
 DEDUCTIONS FROM FACTS GIVEN, 114, 115, 116. 
 
 DETENTION HOUSES, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256. 
 
 DRINKING PARENTS, 29. 
 
 271
 
 "272 INDEX 
 
 GIRLS : treatment in courts, 162. 
 
 GUARDIANS: needed for children of divorced parents, 
 
 53, 54, 60 ; state's cognizance of need of guardians, 63 ; 
 
 mothers natural guardians, SI; mothers' pensions 
 
 make it possible to appoint mothers as guardians, 82, 
 
 83, 84; could prevent murder, 85. 
 
 HALL, G. STANLEY, quoted, 117. 
 
 HOMELESS CHILDREN: two-thirds of prison members 
 homeless children or worse, 73 ; care of, 74 ; state's 
 obligation to, 76-7S; statistics of prison inmates who 
 were homeless children, 79, 80. 
 
 HOOKWORM, disease prevented by discovery of, 2. 
 
 JUVENILE COURT: study of 10,000 children, 34; run- 
 aways, 39 ; nine-tenths boys, 41 ; children taught to 
 steal, 63, 64; placing children in families, 77; 
 children in juvenile courts — school children, 106; 
 new view of children's offenses, 119 ; work of 
 a juvenile court and probation association in 
 prevention of crime, 128; concerning first juve- 
 nile courts, 204, 205, 206; the dependent child 
 in, 211-225, the erring child in, 212; incorrigible and 
 truant in, 213; cases brought into, 215; treatment 
 required for successful administration, 217 ; probation 
 work in, 217; equipment required, 218, 229, 233, 234, 
 235, 236, 238. 239, 240. 241, 243, 245, 248 ; qualifications 
 of judge, 220 ; application of juvenile court methods in 
 rural districts, 221 ; must be on educational basis, 222; 
 state supervision of probation work, 223; detention 
 houses for children awaiting hearing, 224 ; procedure 
 in juvenile coui-t, 227 ; safeguarding system, 237. 
 
 LEGISLATION: remedial, 64; effects, 65, 69; concerning 
 marriage and divorce, 77 ; mothers' pensions, 85. 
 
 LOMBROSO, reference to theory of, 35. 
 
 LONDON, JACK, in life story gives causes of children's 
 offenses, 5. 
 
 McKENTY, ROBERT .7.. quoted, 21, 72. 
 MOTIVES OF OFFENSES, 244. 
 
 NORMAL CHILDREN: nine-tenths arrested are, 35; Na- 
 tional Congress of Mothers and I'arent Teacher As- 
 sociations provides reading, 43; plan for education in 
 child nurture, 46.
 
 INDEX 273 
 
 OCCUPATIONS— WORK : regulation of, 61-66; street 
 trades, 62 ; effect of legislation on, 65 ; habit of work, 
 68; work certificates, 69; necessity for work, 70, 71; 
 prison inmates emphasize children's need of, 71. 
 
 PARENTS : responsible for arrests, 7 ; responsibility for 
 other's children, 10; how all can help, 10; must be 
 informed as to temptations to youth — must combat 
 them — parental neglect, 16; parents' misunderstand- 
 ing, 26 ; inefBciency of, brings children into juvenile 
 court, 34; parents' mistakes, 30, 40, 41; duty of con- 
 cerning purity, 44, 45 ; parental ignorance, 46 ; helps 
 to, 40 ; parental desertion, 58, 59 ; divorce, 52, 53 ; 
 irresponsible parents, 182, 183, 184; treatment of dis- 
 honesty by, 242. 
 
 PARENT TEACHER ASSOCIATIONS, purpose of, 46, 87, 
 267. 
 
 PLAYGROUNDS, 67. 
 
 PREVENTION: TREATMENT NEEDED FOR: when 
 needed, 16 ; to prevent impurity, 45. 
 
 PRISON INMATES : causes of crime given by, 15, 18, 25, 
 30, 31, 32, 33, 41, 47, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58; influence 
 of jails on, 18, 19; lack of parental care, 73, 88, 90, 
 91, 92; effects of liquor and saloons, 143, 144, 145, 
 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 
 157; effects of the reform school, 188, 189, 190, 191, 
 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203; 
 court sentences of children, 230, 231, 232. 
 
 PRISONS: conditions in, 169, 170, 171; political control 
 of, 172; needed changes, 172. 
 
 RELEASED PRISONERS: difBculties of, 167; help in re- 
 storing to useful citizenship, 173. 
 
 SCHOOL LIBRARIES, 43. 
 
 SCHOOLS : bearing of schools and curricula on juvenile 
 delinquency, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111; trade schools, 
 111 ; relation of, to truancy, 125 ; opportunities of 
 schools in prevention of crime, 128; education given 
 concerning alcohol, 138. 
 
 SCHOOLS AS SOCIAL CENTERS, 142. 
 
 TEACHERS : one teacher's method, 108, 109, 110 ; author- 
 ity of, 112; methods of discipline, 112; qualifications 
 for good teaching, 115 ; married women as teachers, 
 116 ; need of men and women in direction of educa- 
 tional system, 117; educators qualified to guide way-
 
 274 INDEX 
 
 TEACHERS : continued, 
 
 ward children, 119; faults every teacher encounters 
 — how to meet, 126, 127; message to young teachers, 
 129; how to win success, 130; dealing with children 
 who lie and steal, 131; parents' cooperation with, 
 133; treatment of dishonesty, 242. 
 
 UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION COMMISSION, parents 
 should read report of, 45. 
 
 WAYWARDNESS REMEDIABLE: wayward child— rela- 
 tion to problem of crime, 1; not fundamentally dif- 
 ferent from other children, 1; who should deal with, 
 3 ; qualities required in dealing with, 2. 
 
 WORKS, SENATOR: proposes constitutional amendment 
 prohibiting manufacture and sale of liquor, 139.
 
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