OF THE UNIVERSITY OF . «^IPORi^ AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING BY A. H. STEWART, M. D. FORMERLY MEMBER OF THE KENTUCKY STATE SENATE COMMITTEE ON PRISONS AND CHARITIES, PHYSICIAN, AND ASSISTANT WARDEN AT THE KENTUCKY PENITENTIARY, AND CAPTAIN IN THE SPANISH AMERICAN WAR. 13 E. 38th street NEW YORK .5% Copyright, 191 2, by A. H. Stewart, M.D. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAQB I. Introductory i II. The Influence of Age on Conduct 19 III. The Relation of Sex to Conduct 35 , IV. The Relation of Mind and Body to Character 47 L / V. Coniparative Influence of Herejiity and Environ- ment on Conduct 65 VI. Comparative Influence of Heredity and Environ- ment on Conduct {concluded) 77 VII. The Growing Relaxation of Home Discipline 95 VIII. Can Our Schools Save Our Boys ? in IX. The Need of Physical Culture in Our Public Schools 1 29 X. The Hygienic and Social Value of Play 145 XI. Our Unhealthy Public Moral Sentiment 159 XII. Our Peculiar Social Problems 175 XIII. Punishment as a Deterrent from Crime 193 XIV. Reformation 211 XV. Prevention 223 271400 Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.archive.org/details/americanbadboysiOOstewricli '* Every delinquent child is a defrauded child — it has been despoiled of its birthright, the right to be well bred and well taught; it is a living indictment of society for its neglect and indifference." " We think of crime very much as we think of disease. We expect to find both wherever the conditions exist, and expect both to disappear when the condi- tions are removed." " Every community has just the number of criminals that it deserves ^ and deserves just the number that it has." "It is a significant coincident that the world's greatest criminals, as well as its greatest heroes, have been young men. Lack of self control and misdirected energies led one class to excess and crime, and self control and properly directed energies led the other to success and fame." "Not only the needs but the actual rights of children have increased more rapidly than most parents realize. Just in proportion as society imposes new responsibilities upon its individual members, just in that proportion do the rights of children increase." "For parents to attempt to escape their individual responsibilities is like one attempting to flee from his own shadow." "Cruelty will no more prevent crime than almsgiving will prevent mendi- cancy." AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. The chapters in this unpretentious volume consist chiefly of pubHshed articles and public addresses which have been written and delivered from time to time by the author since his experience as physician and assist- ant warden of the Kentucky Penitentiary during the years 1896-97-98. They have recently been carefully revised to bring them up to date, but the original pur- pose of trying to awaken pareiits to a realization of the appalling record made by our boys in the criminal an- nals of the country has been steadily upheld. For centuries our civilization clung so tenaciously to fatalistic teachings, and an exaggerated belief in the influence of heredity on conduct, that we were begin- ning to look upon the inhabitants of the undersocial world as permanently 'doomed to a life of misery and vice, and to think of crime as a fixed characteristic, amenable only to repression and intimidation. It was easy for us to beheve that it was our boys that were soon to take charge of the government, fight our battles, fill our pulpits and professors' chairs, but we could not realize that it was our boys also that were filling our 2 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. jails and penitentiaries, and furnishing recruits for the ever-increasing army of tramps and incompetents. We deluded ourselves by believing that it was our boys that were filling the one and our neighbors' boys that were fiUing the other. Not until within the last few decades did we fully appreciate the fact that since the community is composed of family units, as the family is composed of child units, our neighbors' boys are, socially, our boys, and that we have a vital interest in their welfare and are, in a measure, responsible for their conduct. I confess that, not until I assumed my duties at the Kentucky Penitentiary, did I fully realize that boys and young men comprise so large a proportion of prison inmates. At that time the state had no reformatories for youthful offenders, and as a consequence all state convicts were sent to the state prison. I had been a frequent visitor to the prison, and had been a member of more than one legislative committee, appointed to visit and investigate its condition, yet not until I became officially connected with that institution, and had made some personal investigation into the early life of the inmates, was I convinced that juvenile and adult crime are so intimately connected; that condi- tions which favor the one nearly always favor the other, and that the juvenile offenders of one generation usually become the adult offenders of the next. I found that out of an average of about fifteen hundred male prison- INTRODUCTORY. 3 ers there were usually between two and three hundred boys and young men under twenty-one years of age. I noticed, too, that this large proportion was maintained in the almost continuous stream of newcomers. Among these recruits were many lads from twelve to fifteen years of age, who were not infrequently loaded down with chains, ostensibly to prevent them from escaping from vigilant guards, on their way to prison, but in reaUty to better enable those guards to embrace the opportunities afforded them to satiate their thirst for strong drink. Nearly all the boys showed by their person and clothing that they had just emerged from some unclean county jail. After inquiring of several hundred of these boys, and later upon a personal in- spection of more than half of the one hundred and nine- teen county jails in the state, I learned what I had long suspected, that most of these jails were loathesome disease and crime-breeding dens, maintained at public expense. The rule, with very few exceptions, was that prisoners of all ages and all degrees of criminaHty were crowded into one large room, or into adjoining rooms opening into a large corridor, where boys of tender years were forced to Hsten to the vile language and learn the evil habits of the most degraded criminals. But to my great surprise and chagrin I found that con- ditions were scarcely better in the state prison. Up to that time very httle effort had been made to separate the youthful from the more hardened inmates, either 4 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. by day or night. As a consequence, evil influences and opportunities to contract evil habits were quite as great, if not greater, than in the county or city jails. As I stood day after day at the entrance and exit gates, watching the boys coming and going, I became more and more impressed with the awful part the state and society were playing in this human drama. Very few boys were so bad when they entered that they were not worse when they left, and very few were so anxious to leave at the expiration of their terms, but gave evidence of indescribable sadness over the gloomy prospects before them. Prison contractors were often seen at the entrance gate scanning new arrivals for suitable young men to assign to some of the most difficult and degrading labor in the shops, where even the stoutest often failed. If a consignment of prisoners consisted chiefly of old men or unhkely looking boys, the contractors would invari- ably give unmistakable evidence of keen disappoint- ment, or even disgust, but if they were mostly healthy, athletic-looking young men the contractors would fairly gloat over their good fortune. They would examine the most promising-looking boys as carefully as a man would examine a horse he was about to pur- chase, or as a slave buyer before the Civil War would have examined a slave offered for sale. I traced more than five hundred of these boys to their individual homes, visiting many of them in person, and INTRODUCTORY. 5 not in a single instance did I find one from that which could be called a model home, while the direct home influences of fully ninety-five per cent, were positively bad, and the surrounding influences of most of the others certainly not good. It goes without saying that the education of such boys was rudimentary in the extreme, and that their moral sense corresponded rather closely to the low state of morals in the social sphere in which they were brought up. Intellectually they were easily divided into three distinct classes. About fifty of the five hundred boys whose records I kept could be said to possess rather a high degree of intelligence, while fifty were of exceedingly low mental- ity. Four of the latter were hysterical, four choreic, two epileptic, and three became insane while in prison. The remaining four hundred could not be classified as exceptionally bright or exceptionally dull, and yet there was a peculiarity about them which would readily dis- tinguish them from a group of school boys of similar ages. The difficulty did not appear to be due so much to brain defect as to arrested or retarded mental de- velopment brought about through vicious social con- ditions and lowered nutrition. Their mental horizon was extremely narrow and their conception of Ufe and its duties and responsibiUties was limited and crude. These conditions greatly improved under favorable and encouraging influences, even in prison, and were immeasurably aggravated by repression. Punishment, 6 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. especially by the use of the strap, appeared to fix per- manently this condition, and stamp the poor victims ever thereafter as criminals. The resentment seemed not to be directed so much towards the person that in- flicted the punishment as towards society whose repre- sentative he was supposed to be. This resentment • increased as the months and years passed by until it poisoned the whole life of the prisoner. Every phase of social life finally came to be looked upon with sus- picion. There was no justice, no reHgion, no virtue. This was practically the experience of every one, without regard to age, that received corporal punishment while in prison. Two classes of boys were easily distinguishable one from the other by their physical and mental bearing. A very large proportion of those charged with offenses against the person, such as assaults and homicides, came from a remote portion of the state. They were well developed physically, fairly intelligent, good looking, and possessed rather a high moral sense, ex- cept that they were over-tenacious of what they were pleased to call their personal rights. To them the law was too slow and uncertain, besides, they felt it to be unmanly not to resent by force any infringement on their individual prerogatives. The broad statement that the homes of ninety-five per cent, of the boys in prison were positively bad should, in the case of these boys, be modified to the extent that the unwholesome- INTRODUCTORY. 7 ness or badness consisted chiefly in the toleration, and even the encouragement, of this spirit of revenge, and the use of force in the settlement of personal differences. As a natural consequence they followed their belief in the right to carry deadly weapons in self defense. The records, too, showed that many of these boys were under the influence of strong drink when the offense for which they were convicted was committed. Given these three conditions, namely, a behef in per- sonal force, the right to carry arms in time of peace, and the use of intoxicating liquors — and we have a combination of social conditions difficult to improve upon for producing violence and crime. And yet the parents of many of these boys were honest, their sisters were chaste, and the boys themselves were brought up to attend the pubKc schools, the churches, and the Sunday schools in their respective communities. The chief social defect was the lack of appreciation of the sanctity of human life, the importance of self-control, and a recognition of the majesty of the law. On the other hand,the majority of those boys charged with theft, burglary and housebreaking were from the cities, especially the large cities. They were usually poorly developed physically, many of them being shrewd, cunning and worldly wise, with httle moral sense, especially concerning the rights of property. The homes of these boys, when they had any, were 8 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. almost uniformly bad, and of all prisoners they were least amenable to treatment. Occasionally a brutal murderer was brought from the city, and occasionally a cunning thief was brought from the remote portion of the state, but these were the exceptions and not the rule. In this connection I wish to make special mention of twenty-three boys found in the institution, twelve of whom were the only sons, and eleven the only children of their respective parents. These came from both city and country, but those from small towns predominated, and as a rule they were from a better class of homes than the average prisoner. One distinctive characteristic about them was the childishness of their natures; they were con- stantly out of harmony with everybody and every- thing. A disproportionate number of them had been convicted for homicide or aggravated assault, upon what appeared from the evidence, on very slight provocation. One was serving a life term for kiUing his fatlM, while another was serving a life term for kilUng his playmate because he would not carry a bucket of water. In our classes among the boys for the study of moral questions it was as difficult to convince those from the remote part of the state that personal rights should be subordinated to community rights as it was to convince the other class that the community had a vital interest in protecting each individual in his personal and prop- erty rights. Indeed, it was almost impossible, by mere INTRODUCTORY. 9 abstract reasoning, to get either class to understand why the community should be interested in these questions, or to get them even to understand what the word community meant. Concrete examples of reform and brotherly love, even in prison, were worth vastly more in expanding their mental and moral perception than all possible abstractions and efforts at repression. I also secured a brief statement of the early life his- tory of 2,400 white adult male prisoners, so far as such a statement could be obtained. These were susceptible of practically the same classification as were the boys, except one would have supposed that the boys, at maturity, would show a higher average intelligence than did these men. The intelligence of fully twenty per cent, was decidedly below the average, while five per cent, of these, or one per cent, of the whole number, were epileptic, idiotic or insane. The intelligence of thirty-five per cent, was fair, of forty per cent, good, and of only four per cent, excellent. About thirty per cent, was of a neurotic temperament. Although these were among the most intelligent prisoners, they were easily provoked to anger and as a consequence were frequently in trouble with one another and with prison officials. In nearly every instance, even among the most in- teUigent pr isoners, there was an apparent lack of moral perception and of an appreciation of the duties and responsibihties of good citizenship. lO AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. Although prisoners from the large cities charged with homicide were usually of a very low grade of intelligence, many of those from the country and smaller towns charged with homicide were among the most intelligent prisoners. Among these I remember two former prom- inent citizens from the remote portion of the state who believed in the Mosaic Law, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth''; two prominent doctors with ungovernable tempers, one prominent judge who believed in the unwritten law, and one petted and spoiled youngest son of a widowed mother. Those charged with embezzlement or forgery and those charged with a certain class of burglary — as diamond and jewelry thieves — ^possessed a certain suave, cun- ning shrewdness that gave them the appearance of being extra clever intellectually, yet an intimate ac- quaintance with them soon showed this to be extremely superficial. With the exception of three of the four doctors, who had graduated at medical colleges, not one of the 2,400 prisoners was a college graduate. Only a very small proportion had advanced beyond the common school course, while the vast majority of them could scarcely read and write. Upon inquiry it was learned that much of the superficial education of many of these prisoners had been picked up at odd times since their majority and much of it since their incarceration. Only three embezzlers, one forger, one doctor and one lawyer had ever been worth as much as five thousand INTRODUCTORY. II dollars; fourteen others claimed to have been worth half that sum, while less than fifty had been worth as much as one thousand dollars. The vast majority of them had never had homes of their own and compara- tively few claimed to have had good homes when they were children. More than seventy-five per cent, of those charged with offenses against the person, assault and homicide, attributed their downfall to intoxicating liquors. Many of the young adult prisoners, especially those serving their first terms, appeared to respond even more readily to kind and encouraging treatment than did the boys. They appeared to fully realize their unfortunate condition and to be fully determined in their future course, while the boys appeared to be simply drifting like a ship without a rudder. As captain of volunteers in the Spanish American War, I noticed that boys of good, sound intellect and with a history of good home influences were seldom found in the guard house or on the Hst of deserters. During the winter of 1898-9 I made frequent visits to the different guard houses in a camp of some ten thous- and men, mostly young volunteers, and learned, by talk- ing with the prisoners themselves, that in nearly every case their home influences were not what they should have been. It appeared that the parents of many of these young men were good meaning people, but were evidently lax in home disciphne and allowed evil tenden- 12 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. cies in their boys to develop into evil habits. Much of the sickness and high rate of mortality during this brief campaign was directly chargeable to the lack of proper home and school training in the laws of hygiene and sanitation. The testimony of the inspectors appointed to investigate the cause of so much sickness in these southern camps during the early days of mobiHzation was unanimous that the fault was chiefly due to the total disregard of all sanitary rules and regulations by these young recruits. The recklessness, too, with which many of these young men plunged into dissipa- tion, in the cities, was another evidence of the lack of proper home instruction on the evils of strong drink and the dangers of social diseases that lurk in the dens of vice and immorality. But in no other respect was the dereliction of home and school more in evidence than in the lack of physical training of these young patriots who answered the call of their country in time of need. Although they entered eagerly and enthusi- astically into all the drills and exercises, the ordeal was an extremely trying one. Without the co-ordination and cor-relation of the physical and psychical forces which can come only through early home and school training, the overstrain, through hurried drills and forced exercises, brought untold suffering and lasting injury to thousands of these young men. One striking American boy characteristic everywhere manifest among these young volunteers was their evi- INTRODUCTORY. I 3 dent dislike to show even proper respect to those of higher rank or station. The outcropping of that demo- cratic teaching of which we all like to boast, that in a free country like ours neither rank nor birth entitles one person to more respect than another, was every- where in evidence. It appeared especially repugnant to the democratic feelings of a large number of these young men to be forced to salute their officers. What- ever may be the merits or demerits of these well re- cognized American boy characteristics, they have doubtless had much to do with the difficulty experi- enced in this country of securing discipUne in our schools and in the army. Although they have doubtless been potent factors in the splendid independence of the American boy, in his recognized capacity to take care of himself in time of great emergencies; in his bravery on the field of battle and in his manly bearing wherever he has appeared as an American soldier or sailor around the world, yet they have also been potent factors in his frequent dehnquencies and his frequent desertions from the army and navy. His love of liberty and dis- like of restraint, therefore, constitute his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. To readjust our system of home and school training so as to remedy the evils without impairing the good is evidently one of the great social problems of the future. As a probation officer, my observation has been that when a boy from even a fairly good home is brought 14 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. before the juvenile court he is usually lacking in intel- lectual acumen, or, at least, in will power, or he has fallen through evil associates. Indeed, in the vast majority of these cases, all of these conditions prevail. Parents are usually slow to imderstand that their child- ren often differ as much in intellectual capabilities as they do in form and feature and that what is proper training for one child is not always proper training for another. Both parents and teachers often fail to understand that a child needs special training just in proportion as it differs from, especially falls below, its brothers and sisters or the average of its class in intel- lectual or moral perception, and when it fails to receive this special training it is to that extent a neglected child. The story of delinquency, therefore, is in a great measure the story of indifference and neglect, whether it be in the palace of the rich or the hovel of the poor. Scientific training for the highest social efficiency implies a knowledge of the activities and susceptibilities of both child and adult mind, not in the old metaphysical or theological, but in the modern psychological sense, as a part and parcel of the in- dividual himself, and largely as a part and parcel of the nutrition upon which he subsists. Thus understood, both the child and the man become something tangible, physically, mentally and morally, upon which forces and influences may act and react, producing almost innumerable changes and modifications. INTRODUCTORY. I $ We had drifted so far into the fatalistic behefs, and a belief in the influence of heredity upon character, that it was difficult for even the most thoughtful to realize how much depended upon circumstances. We had come to think of Nature's laws pertaining to develop- ment and growth as inexorable. "Like begets like" had become axiomatic. But recently we have pro- gressed somewhat, and we now modify the old theory by saying that like tends to beget like, and admit the possibility of almost endless changes and modifications, as exemplified in the animal and vegetable world. With unsanitary surroundings and defective nutrition we expect disease and defective physical development; with diseased or disordered brain tissue we expect de- fective mentahty, and likewise with vicious moral influences we expect distorted moral hves. We now very rarely think of perversity by intuition alone. If the home and its surrounding influences are what they should be we think of perversity as being the result of defective mentality rather than of defective moral sensibiHties. With a normal body and a normal mind we expect character to be fashioned and shaped largely according to the forces and influences that act upon the individual as a whole, especially during the formative period of Hfe. We think of crime very much as we think of disease. We expect to find both wherever the conditions exist, and expect both to disappear when the conditions are removed. This renders it necessary to 1 6 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. Study causes as well as symptoms, and to consider in- dividuals as well as classes. At the very threshold of such an investigation we are confronted with innumerable contradictions to the high-sounding declaration, ''All men are bom free and equal." We find that as individuals differ in their susceptibilities to infectious diseases, so they differ in their susceptibiUties to temptations to wrong doing. This is even true of persons of equal inteUigence and equal opportunities, but especially true of persons of varying degreees of intelligence and widely diifering opportunities. Persons of the so-called neurotic tem- perament are easily provoked to anger; those of weak wills yield readily to temptations, while those of hmited intelligence are unable to distinguish properly between right and wrong. Both sex and age are found to exert a far-reaching influence on human conduct. About ninety-five per cent, of the crimes of this country are committed by males, and about fifty per cent, of these crimes are committed between the ages of eighteen and thirty-three years of age. The recognition of the right of unfortunate human beings to humane treatment while languishing behind prison bars, and their right to have an opportunity to reform and re-establish themselves in the confidence of their fellow men, and the unquestioned right of children to be properly brought up, are some of the most noted advancements of modern civiUzation. INTRODUCTORY. 17 Notwithstanding the great advance made during recent years in the management of public institutions it is to be regretted that many of our so-called reforma- tories are reformatories in name only. Incompetency and cruelty still exist in many institutions supposed to be conducted according to the most modern reforma- tory methods. Between 1895 and 1901, I visited the prisons and reformatories in sixteen of our states and in many instances I found that the severest punishment was regularly inflicted on small boys in state institu- tions with an ugly leather strap called "grandmother's slipper '^ or the "breast strap," but I could not see that the name took any of the sting or humiliation out of the punishment. Again, the monotonous, red tape and cold mechanical process so prevalent in many in- dustrial schools and eleemosynary institutions may produce human machines but certainly not well- rounded citizens. The disproportionate number of delinquents found among those reared in orphans' homes show that children are not adapted to any wholesale plan of bringing up. Again, it is not gener- ally understood that overindulgence, either in the home or institution, is often as fatal to efl&ciency and sys- tematic discipline as excessive harshness. Thoughtful and enHghtened sympathy is sympathy systematized. It is the consummation of the axiom "Humanity is best served when science and reason are united." Thus the beginning of wisdom is the study of the individual 1 8 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. and his relation to his environment, particularly during the earlier, more plastic, years of life. In the days of the pref ormationist and when heredity was the controll- ing thought the child was looked upon as a Httle man. Now we know that the difference in size and weight are the least of the differences between the boy and the man. Aside from the vast dissimilarity in their quanti- tative physical constituents, mentahty and spiritualty are scarcely more than latent potentialities at birth. These potentiaHties do not grow into the highest type of manhood and womanhood by chance, but conform, in large degree, to the forces and influences that act upon them during the period of greatest growth and development. CHAPTER II. THE INFLUENCE OF AGE ON CONDUCT. The powerful influence of age on conduct is the most characteristic feature of wrongdoing. ^Criminal statis- tics of all civilized countries unite in showing that the greater proportion of crime is committed during the early adult years of life. Fifty per cent, of all crimes, and sixty per cent, of all grave crimes, are perpetrated by young persons, chiefly young men, under thirty years of age, nearly forty per cent, being committed during the period between twenty and thirty, and more than twenty-five per cent, during the period between twenty and twenty-five years. Following a well-defined age curve, crime increases gradually up to fifteen years of age, and makes a tre- mendous bound between fifteen and twenty, and a still greater leap between twenty and twenty-five, decHning gradually up to seventy, when it is reduced to a mini- mum. The first great crisis comes before the develop- ment of the will, just as childhood reUnquishes its claims to those of youth, when the senses and emotions overbalance reason and judgment, and the first contact with the world is experienced. The cHmax follows 19 20 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. when the parental roof is abandoned, when the ties of the home and the school circles are broken, when the individual responsibiHties present themselves, and when the social and the industrial activities are actually assumed and the real breakers of hfe are encountered. These crises, too, fairly represent the different stages of development of the individual organism, some of which are more or less antisocial in their nature. The change from childhood to youth is not the simple, uniform process it was once supposed to be. The complexity of organs and functions and their mutual interdependence makes this the most critical period of Hfe. In addition to the normal rhythms, temporary arrests, and sudden leaps and bounds in both physical and mental development, complications often arise which affect the entire future. The rapid unfoldment of the great mysteries of life, physical, mental, and spiritual, ushers one into a new world. Until this period is reached children are usually pro- vided with food, raiment and shelter. While engaged in their amusements, they take little cognizance of, and are Httle influenced by, the actions of adults, and they learn comparatively nothing of the complex social and industrial forces with which, in after life, they will have to contend. At this age the increased metaboUsm, the increased blood pressure, the slightly increased temper- ature, the rapid annual increase in height, weight and strength, the development of organs and functions. INFLUENCE OF AGE ON CONDUCT. 21 and the augmentation of personality, call for physical and psychic activities hitherto undreamed of. To say, then, that the boy is like a live wire, or like a little steam engine, is not inapt. Thus, the adolescent youth, amid such rapid shifting of scenes that it is often difficult for even the most stable characters to adjust themselves to the changed conditions around them, becomes an actor in the great drama of life with but little knowledge either of himself or of the world. Youths, otherwise apparently normal, often have a vague feeling of loneliness, of inferiority, of being neglected, or even of being despised by parents or friends. At such times a slight disappointment or a mild rebuke will have the most crushing effect. These imaginary wrongs not infrequently lead to sui- cide, chiefly for the purpose of punishing others, or, later, follows suicide on account of disappointment in love, failure to pass examinations, or, perhaps, to realize high ideals and great expectations dreamed of and often erroneously fostered in youth. The desire so common among young persons during this stage of development to resist the restraints im- posed by legalized authority, to leave home, to see more of the world, or to engage in business, marks the rapid evolution of personality. Heretofore their thoughts have been chiefly objective, but now intro- spection begins. Personality projects itself into the inner consciousness, and an individuality separate and 2 2 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. distinct from surrounding objects and individuals, is realized. The adolescent youth, therefore, is no longer a child, neither is he yet a man. This unique position he understands but vaguely. Owing to the rapid un- folding of instincts, normal at this period, he no longer seeks the companionship of children or dehghts in childish amusements, yet he reaHzes that he is far from being prepared for initiation into the high priestcraft of full manhood. He is much like a vessel stranded in the darkness, trying to cast anchor or to reach the shore. This is the time for joining clubs, gangs and other organizations, and, more than at any other period of hf e, the time for forming strong attachments, especially for older associates. It is pre-eminently the time, also, of the greatest susceptibiUty to the influence of books and companions, whether good or bad. Suggestion, a powerful crime factor everyivhere, is especially potent in all juvenile wrongdoing. Children imitate in their daily lives that which they see others do, or that which is suggested by reading or conversa- tion. Pages and other youthful attendants upon Congress and State Legislatures organize junior assem- bUes, provide smoking rooms, pass salary grabs, bribe members and provide easy berths for needy friends, just as they see it done by the leaders in political life. Boys are arrested regularly, especially in the West, while trying to wreck trains, just as such action has been described in detail in books found in their pos- INFLUENCE OF AGE ON CONDUCT. 23 session. A large number of children are killed each year in the United States by their small brothers or companions while trying to imitate the reckless cow- boy or Indian warrior they saw in the Wild West show. I was once called to the country to treat a seventeen- year-old lad who had fallen while trying to walk a rope, as he had seen it done at a circus the day before. An- other illustration of the power of suggestion was thrust upon me at one time while passing a wooded lot on the outskirts of a central Kentucky town, when I came upon half a score of disguised street urchins who were trying to hang a negro boy, as a mob had hanged a negro man to a nearby railroad bridge, the previous night. Only recently, in a Southern state, according to popular newspaper reports, while conducting a celebrated trial in which members of a Night Riders' Association were charged with an atrocious murder, and in which many of the misdeeds of that organization were made public, a judge was forced to take steps to prevent the formation of a similar society by the small boys of the town. * But the most fruitful source of juvenile delinquency, chiefly the result of vicious sanitary and social condi- tions, is defective mental and moral perception. A majority of youthful offenders are mentally and morally astygmatic. This is usually due either to a lack of proper intellectual endowment, a temporary arrest of mental development, an undue augmentation of some 24 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. instinct, or the power of inhibition may be retarded. Sense perception is often hampered by the impairment of the sense organs. The gates between the mind and the outer world, instead of being wide open, are often only ajar, and some are entirely closed ; but the moral sense may be completely blinded by lack of early train- ing, and by early unwholesome influences, even when the sense organs are intact and the intellectual faculties normal. A boy of twelve (with whom I was acquainted), who killed his little sister left in his care and buried her in the sand, because she interfered with a fishing expedi- tion, had never heard of God except as his father had used the word in cursing his mother. His one idea of wrong was that it was wrong to be caught stealing; theft itself was inconsequential. Such children, steeped in vice and crime, or having defective mentahty, see little of the suffering of their victims, or know little of the value of the property they destroy. Small wonder, therefore, that so many find their way into almshouses, reformatories and prisons. Early antisocial tenden- cies of normal children under favorable influences are not usually pronounced, but merely develop along lines of least resistance. With proper home influences such children are ordinarily carried over the critical period of hfe until they can by degrees adjust themselves to the new order of things imposed upon them by ad- vancing age and increased social and industrial respon- INFLUENCE OF AGE ON CONDUCT. 25 sibilities. Without these influences this is but the beginning of a sorrowful end. What appears at first to be only nomadic tendencies develops by degrees into vagrancy, truancy, and incorrigibility. Later, as the little wanderer strays farther and farther away from home, the instinct of self preservation manifests itself through the desire for food, clothing and shelter; and, in order to obtain these, the young vagrant becomes a young thief. This period is especially characterized by offenses against property. At first it is the fighter forms of petty theft, then, as he approaches manhood, his physical strength increases, the timidity and ap- prehension that clung about him in earfier years dis- appear, and he now begins bolder operations. Burg- lary, robbery, house-breaking and safe-blowing are substituted for the vagrancy and petty theft of boy- hood days. Consequently, the age for offenses against property is usually higher than for miscellaneous of- fenses, vagrancy and offenses against society. As the individual advances in years, evil associations are formed and crimes of this character are increased so that they constitute sixty per cent, of all those com- mitted between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five years, after which they gradually decline. As age in- creases, however, up to a certain period crime increases, not only in extent but also in seriousness. As full manhood is approached, the impulses increase, new difficulties in the social world are experienced, conflicts 2 6 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. with individuals become more frequent and offenses against the person usually follow. Thus, the natural evolution of the criminal is from the vagrant to the petty thief, thence to the burglar, and lastly to the murderer. This, perhaps, is not in exact accord with the early instincts of the child, but is rather along the Hne in which they are permitted to develop. The first real antisocial tendency of the child, while it is largely a motor creature without reason or will, is to commit offenses against the person. But these are generally trivial in their nature and are not taken cognizance of by the law. Offenses against the person increase not only in number but also in serious- ness with advancing years. Under twenty years only twenty per cent, of the offenses against the person are homicides, but between twenty and thirty, thirty-six per cent., and between thirty and forty, forty-seven per cent, are homicides. The percentage of offenses against society tends to increase steadily from one decade to another up to seventy, when it declines; while the percentage of of- fenses against property diminishes with regularity up to seventy, and then sHghtly increases. For both sexes the number of prisoners reaches its maximum between twenty and twenty-four years of age, but for males the percentages are larger between fifteen and twenty-five, while for females the percent- ages are larger between thirty and forty-four years of INFLUENCE OF AGE ON CONDUCT. 27 age. Of adult prisoners fully ninety-five per cent, are males, while the number of males among juvenile delin- quents reaches only eighty-five per cent. More than seventy per cent, of colored, and slightly less than forty per cent, of white, adult prisoners are under thirty years when committed. The average age of all adult prisoners is about twenty-eight and one-half years, and of juveniles fourteen and one-half. Although comparatively few of the younger class of juvenile delinquents are themselves confirmed inebri- ates, fifty per cent, of them are what they are largely through the vicious destitution wrought on the home by the intemperance of parents, who commenced the drink habit in early Ufe. Out of forty-eight hundred prisoners questioned by the writer, forty-eight per cent, admitted that they were occasional, and twenty-two per cent, more that they were habitual, drunkards, when convicted. Many of these prisoners made the significant statement that, while the drink habit was commenced before their majority, and while the desire was very pronounced by the time they were twenty- four years of age, they were able to resist excessive indulgence, except occasionally, until about twenty- nine years of age. But the evidence is overwhelming that a comparatively large proportion of delinquent boys are cigarette and drug users. The increase in the number of juvenile delinquents in the United States, from 14,846 in 1890 to 23,000 in 2 8 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. 1904, does not necessarily indicate an increase in the criminal tendencies of children, for the reason that they are apprehended for much lighter offenses since the estabhshment of industrial schools and juvenile re- formatories. The courts, too, are less reluctant to send juveniles to these institutions than they were to send them to prison. Nevertheless, there is no escaping the humiliating fact that juvenile deHnquency is on the increase, that youthful criminals are becoming more and more precocious, and that recidivism is more com- mon. An average monthly conviction of one thousand juveniles and twelve thousand adults in the United States is Httle less than appalhng. The rapid growth of our cities has found our people unprepared for the new conditions imposed by a change from sparsely settled rural communities into restricted city areas. In the country smaller returns for labor suffice for support, the lines between the rich and the poor are not so closely drawn, and the grinding, crush- ing-out process is not so great. The employment of children in unsanitary and crime-breeding shops and factories, the rapid growth of slum districts and the wide-spread social and industrial spirit which has robbed home of much of its significance have also contributed to this anomalous condition of the increase of crime with the increase of education and advancing civihzation. Statistics show that the home influences of fully eighty-five per cent, of youthful offenders are INFLUENCE OF AGE ON CONDUCT. 29 positively bad, and that eighty-five per cent, of these offenders become respectable, law-abiding citizens after a thorough course of physical, mental and moral training in industrial and reformatory institutions. Equally noteworthy is the fact that practically all children taken from the lower walks of life, even from the slums, and given the benefits of good Christian homes, justify the highest expectations of their bene- factors; while those who are left to struggle with ad- versity continue to gravitate downward, fall into the usual paths and meet the usual fate of such surround- ings. So potent are the early impressions that, if the influences of the home for good are positive in their nature, the character of the child is practically assured by the time it is seven or eight years of age. There- after, the chief function of the home is to guide and direct. But this guiding and directing must also be of a positive nature. As moral perception is even later in its development than the intellectual, children under fourteen years are seldom able to differentiate between crimes and forbidden offenses. To them a thing is wrong because it is forbidden, and not because it is in itself wrong. So the ability of children to refrain from evil doing depends almost wholly upon the influence of their superiors. In tracing the early history of lasting impressions for good it is interesting to note that, like impressions for evil, their frequency and intensity corresponds 30 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. rather closely with certain periods of physical and mental development. ReHgious impressions, which are vague and indefinite during infancy and early child- hood, become more marked and more clearly defined at the approach of maturity. The subject of the future state is one of the most persistent of the many complex questions that press for consideration with varying degrees of intensity at different periods of adolescent Hfe. Fully sixty per cent, of all conversions, and eighty per cent, of the conversion of ministers and active church workers, occur between ten and twenty years of age, the average age for girls being thirteen and one-half, and for boys sixteen. After twenty, the number of conversions gradually declines by five-year periods, until after fifty, when they are reduced to a minimum. In the buoyancy and optimism of youth thoughts of fabulous wealth, great fame or much learning are common. Often there is a desire for a higher, nobler life, for service to others, or for an ideal moral charac- ter. These ambitions and their accompanying per- plexities and perturbations crowd thickest and fastest at a time when the sterner, more stable qualities which come with maturity are contending for the mastery over the many youthful foibles that cling tenaciously to the last, some of which not infrequently sHp through the meshes of this transition period from youth to man- hood, and become the dominating forces in the after INFLUENCE OF AGE ON CONDUCT. 31 life of the individual. The lack of will and self control are, perhaps, the most frequent and most grievous faults thus transferred. As these qualities are the chief factors in the formation of character, and are largely that which distinguishes the man from the lower animals, and the rational from the irrational, the lack of them becomes a fatal defect in later life. It is a significant co-incident that the world's greatest criminals, as well as its greatest heroes, have been young men. Lack of self control and misdirected energies led one class into excess and crime, and self control and properly directed energies led the other to success and fame. Thus, the great battle for supremacy with life's conflicting forces is fought and won or lost in youth and early manhood. But the real foundation for success or failure is laid in childhood and youth. In this sense the child may be father of the man, but he is in no sense a little man, as many people are prone to think. More is needed than mere weight and stature to make of him a man. He needs long years of organization of tissue and function. This evolutionary process is so delicate that even slight interruption may lay the foundation for grave defects'of body, if not of mind and character, in after life. Not only the needs but the actual rights of children have increased more rapidly than most parents realize. Just in proportion as society imposes new responsibili- ties upon its individual members, just in that proper- 32 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. tion do the rights of children increase. A few centuries ago a man^s position in hfe was so hedged about by tradition and custom that individuahty was reduced to a minimum. He was expected to follow the trade of his father and take only such part in public affairs as was customary for one of his station. Since the in- auguration of the new industrial system and the advent of democracy all this has changed, and each individual is expected to select his own occupation and make his own position in Ufe. This calls for greater initiative and increased individuality. With each advance in civilization, therefore, come increased rights of children. To be prepared for the highest possibilities in our over- complex social and industrial organism, every influence that acts upon the child should be so regulated as to insure the most complete development of all the facul- ties and functions. Character has been, not inaptly, likened to a seed, and society to the soil and climate in which it grows. And again, it has been compared to a vine whose nature is to grow, but not in any predetermined direction, but along such support as it may find for its dehcate ten- drils. The seed, the soil and the climate are necessary for the production of the tree, the fruit and the flower, but what the tree, the fruit and the flower are depends materially upon the soil and the climate. When parents come to understand, therefore, more INFLUENCE OF AGE ON CONDUCT. 33 clearly than they do now — except in the rare exceptions — that children are largely what their training, their association and nutrition in early life make them, there will be fewer invaHds in society, and fewer inmates in our prisons and reformatories. CHAPTER III. THE RELATION OF SEX TO CONDUCT. The statistics of all civilized countries unite, not only in showing that criminality is much more manifest among men than among women, but also that under the same circumstances and the same social conditions men are more prone to criminal tendencies. In 1904 seventy-nine per cent, of our juvenile reformatory in- mates and ninety-four per cent, of our prison population were males. This difference in the criminal tendencies of the sexes is doubtless due largely to the difference in their psycho- physical organization. Woman's emotional nature, her physiological timidity and physical inferiority in- capacitate her for a criminal career, while her restricted social relations, owing to her peculiar maternal func- tions, lessen her temptations and opportunities to commit crime. Aside from the distinctive and funda- mental characteristics of the two sexes, it is held that the dissimilarity of their early training accounts for much of the disparity in their later social development. From this point of view it is argued that in early life the girl is usually kept sacredly within the precincts of the 35 36 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. home while the boy is often allowed the privilege of the streets or community; that evil companions are scrupu- lously excluded from the girl and recklessly permitted with the boy; and that, at night, the girl is carefully tucked away in bed while the boy is allowed to keep late hours in the company of questionable comrades. Fur- thermore, it is argued that there is a halo of innocence and purity — a radiance of sacredness and sanctity — surrounding the small girl that does not envelop the boy, and that there is a sadness associated with even the possibihty of the wrong-doing of the girl that is not felt in the case of the boy. That this feehng does exist, to a large extent, among parents is indicated by their greater reluctance to surrender their daughters than their sons to benevolent institutions, sixty-five per cent, of all children thus surrendered, and seventy- five per cent, of those abandoned being boys. As the social and industrial sphere of early girlhood and even of later womanhood is much more restricted, girls and women have fewer temptations and provoca- tions to manifest abnormal tendencies than have boys and men. We have seemingly good authority for the theory that the disparity in the criminal tendencies of the two sexes is reduced in proportion to the broadening of the social and industrial sphere of the female. In the great centers of population, where women are em- ployed in commercial pursuits, in offices, shops and factories, the proportion of female offenders is always RELATION OF SEX TO CONDUCT. 37 greater than in rural districts. Thus, while ninety-six per cent, of the inmates of our state prisons, in 1890, were males, only eighty per cent, of the city prisoners were males. The next largest proportion of female offenders is found in the vicinity immediately sur- rounding great centers of population. This is espec- ially shown by the police returns from the cities of London and Manchester and from the counties of Surrey and Lancaster, in which these cities are respect- ively located. In the Metropolitan PoHce District of London, one-fourth, and in the city of Manchester, one-third of the summary offenses are committed by females; while only about one-tenth of the offenses in the county of Surrey, outside of the Metropohtan Pohce District, and one-seventh of those in the county of Lancaster, outside of the city of Manchester, are com- mitted by females. In the United States the largest proportion of female prisoners is found in the oldest and most highly-civiHzed group of northeastern states, in- cluding New England, New York and New Jersey. In this region of cities, shops and factories, females form twelve per cent, of the white prison population, while they constitute only four per cent, of the white prison population for the remaining portion of the country. Again, it is claimed that the public is more reluctant to prefer charges and that officers are less incKned to arrest and incarcerate female than male offenders. This is, in part, due to the universal feeling of com- 38 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. miseration for female offenders, and partly to the fact that many of their first offenses consist largely of petty thefts, such as the taking of small articles by domestic servants. That courts and juries are more lenient in deaHng with female than with male offenders is mani- fest from the much larger percentage of females than of males who are acquitted, under what appears to be the same evidence and same circumstances. The greater percentage of females in the industrial schools and reformatories, as compared with those in prison, also indicates that the courts are more reluctant to commit them to prison. The tendency to vagrancy and petty theft found more pronounced in females than in males is due, not to age, for all through life their offenses are usually of a Hghter character and are less serious in their nature. Their offenses differ from those of males largely for the same reason that the offenses of children differ from those of adults. Like children, even if they had the mind to plan, they have not the courage and muscular strength to commit crimes re- quiring great daring and physical abihty. Her fem- ininity, therefore, as expressed in mind and body, renders woman less capable than man, even if so in- clined, to commit deeds of skill and daring. Conse- quently, the greater proportion of crimes against the person and crimes of violence are committed by the male portion of the population. Thus, thirty-two per cent, of the male prisoners in the United States, enum- RELATION OF SEX TO CBNDUCT. 39 crated June 30, 1904, were charged with offenses against the person, forty per cent, of which were homicides, while only eighteen per cent, of the female prisoners thus enumerated were charged with offense against the person, but fifty-four per cent, of these were homicides. The proportion of suicides is also three times greater among males than among females. Out of 10,852 suicides in' the United States in 1908, as reported in the pubHc press, 7,864 were males and 2,988 females. There is only one period in life, between fifteen and twenty, when suicide between the sexes even ap- proaches an equaUty in numbers. During this five- year period there is even an excess of females over males, especially in some European countries, notably in Eng- land. Although women are more precocious, physi- cally and mentally than men, men are more precocious in criminaUty. The maximum of male criminality is reached before thirty years of age, while the maximum of female criminaHty is not reached until after thirty. This explains, to some extent, why more woman than men criminals are married. A larger proportion of male than of female prisoners are so-called moderate drinkers, but a larger proportion of females are drunkards. While the percentage of illiteracy is sHghtly higher among adult female than among adult male prisoners, it is shghtly lower among girls in reformatories than among boys in these institu- tions. In 1904, eighty per cent, of the boys and nearly 40 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. ninety per cent, of the girls in reformatories could read and write, while eighty-three per cent, of the men and eighty per cent, of the women in prisons could read and write. One peculiarity of women criminals is that, while their propensity to gossip and to confide in friends, es- pecially in lovers, often leads to the detection of their guilt, when confronted in court they are more persistent in their denials than men criminals. Their absurd and often fantastic pretexts appear, however, to be more the result of weak logical faculty than to deep-seated perversity. Owing to their mental and moral astyg- matism, they fail to comprehend the gravity of the pro- ceedings or to realize the unfavorable effect on the court of their inconsistencies and contradictions. They listen with the greatest complacency to the most dam- aging evidence against them and continue their denials with a persistency worthy of a better cause. Their arts of dissimulation, which serve them so well in the minor affairs of life, become too patent when pitted against the stern logic in court, yet they not infre- quently escape merited punishment by imposing upon the credulity of the court and jury. So susceptible are they to suggestion, even to auto-suggestion, that in time they really come to believe in the truth of their oft-repeated misstatements. It is worthy of note, in this connection, that emotion- alism is not limited to mental processes, but includes all RELATION OF SEX TO CONDUCT. 4 1 t associated and accompanying vaso-motor and neuro- muscular manifestations. The muscular agitation and cardiac acceleration in anger, the pallor and muscular quivering in fear, and the blushing in embarrassment are as truly emotional as the psychic phenomena them- selves. Emotion, therefore, is physical as well as psychical, and in all highly emotional states the higher ideational centers are, in a measure, subordinated to the lower subconscious activities. To say, then, that woman is more emotional than man is to say that she has less self-control; that her nervous mechanism is more highly organized, and that her sensibilities are more highly developed. This enables us to understand more fully woman's peculiar susceptibility to the host of nervous affections, chorea, hysteria and neuras- thenia, which she largely appropriates to herself, and her great affectibility, as seen in religion, hypnotism and suggestive therapeutics. But for this, woman would occupy a far less conspicuous place in criminal records than she even now occupies, for, whatever be the character of her wrong-doing, whether in vice or in crime, suggestion, in some form, is a potent factor in its production. Under its spell she often becomes like one possessed. She has been known to abandon her luxurious home and become an outcast, or ruthlessly murder her helpless offspring without any apparent remorse until the spell has subsided. Illustrations of this are not wanting. For instance, a woman in i, 42 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. Switzerland killed her child in a cruel manner and then committed suicide. As indicated by a note left in her room, the deed was prompted by a newspaper article in which the details of a like tragedy had been reported. Another woman asked to be locked up to prevent her from committing a similar act, the impelling desire to perpetrate this murderous deed having been created through newspaper suggestion likewise. Then, too, she frequently becomes the unconscious instrument of crime through personal suggestion, as that of a villain- ous husband, lover or friend. In an excited gathering, whatever its cause, whether it be due to religious fervor, criminal violence or an impending calamity, woman's susceptibility to suggestion still obtains, for she often becomes an unconscious automaton and acts in accord- ance with the will or feehngs of the crowd. In religious revivals women, especially young women, usually con- stitute the major portion of converts; in hypnotic seances they make the best subjects, and in hypnotic clinics, for the cure of disease, they are the greatest beneficiaries. There is a widespread, popular belief, shared by many high authorities, that the femal portion of the prison population is more criminal than the male por- tion. It is claimed, likewise, that girls in reformatories are really more criminal than are the boys in similar institutions. Part of this is charged to the reluct- ance of the public and of the police to prefer charges RELATION OF SEX TO CONDUCT. 43 against girls and to the leniency of the courts towards young female offenders. Granting this, the tendency would be to harden them in crime, especially in com- munities where there are no truant or probation officers or charity organizations to look after them. This is strongly indicated by the much larger per- centage of drunkards among females than among male inmates in juvenile reformatories and other prisons. The apparent cruelty of some female criminals, and the difficulty experienced in their reformation, also adds strength to these theories, but much of this is more apparent than real. In the first place, that same sentiment in the home and community which throws a greater degree of sacredness around the small girl than the small boy, and lays special stress on even the possibility of crimi- nality in a girl, gives rise to much of the nominal differ- ence in the crimes of the two. The same character of crime, if committed by a girl, is considered more hein- ous than if committed by a boy. For example, if a brother and sister, or a little vagrant boy and his sweetheart, steal candy from a confectioner or fruit from a grocer, more stress is placed on the action of the female than on that of the male participant. This is enhanced as the gravity of the offense increases. We can scarcely imagine that a dehcate, timid female could be guilty of an atrocious crime, and when one is com- mitted the feeling is intensified just to the extent of our 44 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. former incredulity. Great hopes and expectations, if not realized, give rise to great disappointments. As the increased regard for the purity and sanctity of the female over that of the male member of the family is shown, just to that degree will the shock at her wrong- doing be greater, both to the family and to the com- munity. This is not merely a vague sentiment but a definite and well defined reaUty. Much stress is laid on the premeditation and appar- ent cruelty so frequently manifested in females who commit homicides by the use of poison, but there is equally as much premeditation and cruelty shown in males who commit assassination from ambush or by stealth. Nor is the much larger percentage of homi- cides among females, charged with offenses against the person, evidence of their special cruelty or criminality, "for he who attempts homicide and fails is just as criminal as he who attempts and succeeds. The failure or success was not in the intention or purpose of the individual, but in the conditions, in the means employed and the opportunities and circumstances afforded." Then, the greater number of homicides committed by woman on members of her own family, especially on her own children, is due rather to the restrictions of her sphere, to the home and to her peculiar relation to her children and the community. The truth is that woman has seldom ever committed a crime that man has not committed, or would not com- RELATION OF SEX TO CONDUCT. 45 mit under similar circumstances; nor has she ever plunged to depths of crime that man has not sounded, or fallen lower than he has fallen. Owing to her pecu- liar childlike, psycho-physical organization, both her lighter and her serious offenses partake largely of similar offenses committed by children. Like the child, she is governed more by emotion and impulse than by reason and judgment, and therefore does not realize the enormity of her crime before it is committed nor com- prehend the seriousness of her position subsequently. It is this predominance of the emotions and impulses in all the criminal acts of the female that renders her reformation less hopeful; or, to be more exact, it is rather the lack of judgment and will than the existence of exaggerated criminality. She may not be more criminal than the male offender, though her acts may appear so, but she is less able to summon courage and resolution to refrain from criminal ways. The peculiar constitution of her mind throws more obstacles in her way on the one side and gives fewer resources on the other. It is, therefore, these very qualities in her constitution which shield and protect her from criminal tendencies, and which form her real strength in normal life, that constitute her greatest weakness when once she has yielded to crime. She may thus become ap- parently more cruel in crime and more abandoned in vice, without being really any more criminal at heart than her male prototype. Her continuance in crime k 46 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. is not SO much on account of her love of it as on account of her inability to extricate herself from it, and because she sees no way out of it. This feeling of self-abandonment is doubly intensified by the restrictions of public sentiment, especially the restrictions imposed by conventional society on female offenders. A kindred feeling, though somewhat modi- fied, to that which made the public reluctant to in- criminate a young female offender, and which created such a shock at her conviction, now makes society reluctant to take her back. There may be no doubt as to her reformation, but fear of lowering the high ideal of womanly purity forms an impassable barrier to her return to the position she once occupied. So- ciety may accept the reformed man with open arms, but shudders at the thought of accepting a reformed woman. All may express delight at any evidence of her return to an upright life, but few will extend a helping hand to her. The compassionate wife receives back the erring husband with fond embrace, but the stern husband turns a deaf ear to the penitential plead- ings of the erring wife. The return of the prodigal son is hailed with loud acclaim, but the poor erring daughter is made a further outcast by the stern rebuffs of parents. CHAPTER IV. THE RELATION OF MIND AND BODY TO CHARACTER. Since the establishment of psychology upon a sound physiological basis we no longer think of the mind as a separate entity, residing in but independent of the body. We now understand the brain to be, not only the organ wherin the mind resides, but the organ wherein mental energy is generated. It is the great central power-house of the nervous system, while the spinal cord is the transmitting cable, the nerves the sending and receiving wires and the ganglia or plexus the sub-stations or tiny brain distributed about the body. The mind and the body are, therefore, not only intimately but inseparably connected. We might possibly conceive of a mental process, as a mathemati- cal calculation, going on in the brain with but little physical manifestation of such a process, but we cannot conceive of an emotion without conceiving of some physical evidence of such a process. The accelerated heart beat and blush seen on the cheek in surprise or embarrassment, the pallor and muscular contraction seen in anger or fear, all point to disturbance in the sympathetic and central nervous systems as surely as 47 48 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. the needle points to the pole or the thermometer points to the degree of temperature. What we call emotion, then, is inextricably bound up with body metabolism. In other words, emotion is a state of the body as well as a state of the mind. This is true, in a measure, not only of emotion, but of all the attributes of the mind. Connected thought in all its phases is inseparably as- sociated with body nutrition. Every thought we think and every emotion we feel registers itself upon the organism, while every variation in nutrition impresses itself upon the mind. There is a mutual action and reaction — a reciprocity of influences, therefore — be- tween the mind and the body. But this relation between mind and body is no more intimate than is the relation between mind and character. With healthy brain cells we expect healthy minds, and with these and healthy moral influences we expect well-rounded moral characters. But in the fierce struggle for existence many have fallen short of the highest possible physical and intellectual attainments, and as a consequence society now has a vast army of dependents and defec- tives as a reward for its flagrant disregard of the law of eugenics and the potency of social forces in the develop- ment of the highest possibilities of the race. In these invalids and semi-invalids of society is found nearly every gradation of mentality from the genius to the imbecile. Indeed, these mental aberrations are often the most distinguishing characteristics of this RELATION OF MIND AND BODY TO CHARACTER. 49 unfortunate class. Prominent among these aberrations are varying degrees of what is popularly known as the neurotic temperament which, especially in its most aggravated forms, appears to be due to exceeding delicacy of structure and complexity of metabohsm in nerve cells resulting in instability in the tissue of the brain cells and lack of equiUbrium in their forces. The most manifest of these disorders is the incapacity of the cells to properly adjust their inherent function of generating, discharging and inhibiting cell energy. This seems to be especially true of those cells whose function it is to inhibit, or as it were, to put the breaks on outgoing cell energy. In many cases this condition really amounts to an actual inhibition of the higher in- tellectual centers, as the very slightest sensory impulse will cause such overflow in the motor centers that all motor avenues are immediately thrilled with motor impulses, and the individual thereby reduced to a mere automaton. The intelligence of such persons may be and often is of the very highest order, and their pur- poses and desires of the purest type, yet, owing to the lack of equiUbrium in the brain forces, their lives are a bundle of eccentricities and inconsistencies. Whether this condition be due to weak inhibitory centers or to over-excitation of the motor centers, or to both, at times there might as well be no intelligence, so com- pletely is it submerged by these great motor storms which place him under the control of the automatic 50 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. forces; his intelligence may struggle for the mastery, and frequently may appear to have it well in hand, but, like Banquo's ghost that would not down, this instabil- ity asserts itself and he is again subject to its behests. Many subjects of this nervous instability die in early infancy, often from convulsions, or they succumb to some of the infantile diseases from which stronger child- ren readily recover. But all through life, especially during infancy and childhood, this discordance in the nerve forces is greatly exaggerated by the slightest physical disturbance, such as dentition, attacks of indigestion, slight elevation of temperature, or over- study or overwork. Violent paroxysms are not in- frequently ushered in by similar disturbances. Such children, particularly those that are weak and anaemic, and those with extreme nervous susceptibility, are usually irritable, easily worried, and suffer much from periodical headaches and frequent outbursts of anger. All through life they are a constant source of annoyance and anxiety to their friends, for in these paroxysms of madness they are uncontrollable and often commit deeds of violence which they seriously regret later. Whatever they do they do hastily and in a state of ex- citement. Their likes and dislikes are very pro- nounced, and they either hate or love with intensity, there being for them no neutral ground; it is either praise or disparagement for all with whom they come in contact. Their excesses, too, when once begun, are RELATION OF MIND AND BODY TO CHARACTER. 51 carried to the greatest extreme, and they are easily affected by small quantities of alcoholic liquors or other narcotic poisons, while many of those who are fortunate enough to escape the evils of strong drink fall victims to some other vice, or, through some special weakness, become melancholic, hysterical or insane. In many cases there is a strange combination of this highly organized nervous condition and varying low degrees of mentality, with a tendency to scheme, cheat, mis- represent, and in extreme cases to pilfer and steal. In others, again, there is a tendency to incorrigibility, lying, vagrancy, or indecency may manifest itself. These cases vary from those representing the highest degree of nerve disturbance, lowest mentahty and grossest immorality to those possessing but slight nerve disturbance, the highest intelligence, and the most refined moral sensibilities. Many of the latter are the most gifted people in their communities, pos- sessing, not only a high degree of inteUigence, but stand high in business and social Hfe, and only on extreme occasions display any eccentricities. In the great majority of these persons there are differing degrees of egotism, self -consciousness and disinclination to yield to the opinion of others, or to acquiesce in the settled order of things around them. With many of them concentrated, sustained effort, either in regulating their own conduct or in the management of their business, is almost impossible. 52 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. Again, the chief difficulty with a large class of persons is simply the lack of will, without the petulancy and eccentricities so frequently met with in those persons that are constantly annoying their friends by the com- mission of rash acts. Persons lacking will are usually amiable, good-natured and pleasant, even amidst the greatest misfortunes. They seldom commit acts of violence, disagree with friends or take exception to conditions as they find them. Ordinarily they are hail-fellow-well-met, and especially suited to convivial companionship. Others may be of indolent tempera- ment and apparently indifferent to their own fate, or to that of the communtiy in which they Hve. Though altogether intelHgent they have little or no volition of their own. At first their anti-social acts consist of the lighter forms of dissipation, but later they drift into the grossest immoralities. The one is led into evil habits through convivial companionship, and the other through indolence or the subtle influence of associates. It is difficult for either of them to resist temptation, and still more difficult for them to refrain from evil habits when they are once formed. In all these cases (of the impulsive and weak willed) there is either a quantitative or a qualitative disproportion in the minute constituents of the cells and fibers of the central nervous system, and a consequent lack of adjustment in their forces and functions. These conditions are powerfully influenced by environment. Very slight RELATION OF MIND AND BODY TO CHARACTER. 53 deviations from the normal may be greatly modified in early life by wholesome or greatly intensified by unwholesome nutrition. Much depends upon circum- stances, too, as to the success or failure of such persons. Under favorable influences they often attain eminence and distinction, but are seldom able to stem the tide against adversity. Both cerebral congestion and cerebral anaemia are responsible for much of the juvenile delinquency met with in schools. The restless, irritable temperament of many pale, anaemic children is only an outward ex- pression of the irritation going on in the nerve cells and fibers through impoverished blood or defective blood supply. Even the tendency to frequent outbursts of anger and gross acts of insubordination are not infre- quently due to defective nutrition, acting injuriously on the nervous "system. The unsteady hand and twitching facial muscles, seen in children suffering from chorea, often yield more readily to nutritious diet than to any system of discipline that can be instituted. In a few instances, however, this affection appears to be due to an actual diseased condition of the brain or spinal cord, but more frequently to hereditary ten- dencies, enhanced by low nutrition and overstudy. It may even become epidemic and spread throughout a large school. Hysteria is also comparatively frequent among school children, especially in large cities. It, too, is often due to bad heredity, lowered nutrition and 54 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. overstudy, and in rare cases, especially in its lighter forms, may also become epidemic among children. It is a much more persistent affection, however, and at- tended with much graver anti-social tendencies than chorea. In addition to excessive nervous agitation, such children are subject to outbursts of anger and acts of insubordination, and eventually, through a process of a weakening of the will, they often become cunning and deceitful, and do not hesitate to resort to the gravest misrepresentation, and even to downright untruthfulness. Various pathological conditions, such as premature closure of the cranial sutures, pressure from depressed or fractured bones, tumors and excess of cerebral fluids and disordered membranes, often affect adversely the brain cells and give rise to numerous mental and moral disorders in children. Many of the anti-social nervous disorders of early childhood, some of which continue through Ufe, are only outward manifestations of these internal disturbances. In epilepsy, for instance, which is also frequently a manifestation of these disturbances, the paroxysms represent only a portion, and often only a very small portion, of the injury done to the nervous system. There is extreme irritability of temper in many cases and outbursts of anger for several hours, and sometimes for days, preceding the paroxysms. The child seems out of humor with everything and every- body about him, he quarrels with friends, tears his RELATION OF MIND AND BODY TO CHARACTER. 55 clothing, breaks furniture and beats inoffensive domes- tic animals. Instead of paroxysms there are sometimes periods of partial or complete unconsciousness lasting hours, or even days, during which acts of violence, and even theft, are committed, of which the sufferer has afterwards but a slight recollection, and sometimes is unable to recall anything that has transpired. Another manifestation of the same disorder is a life-long irrita- bility of temper. If the disturbance affects adversely the early func- tional development of the nerve cells, especially those cells whose function it is to generate mental energy, the early development of the intellect will hkely be disturbed somewhat in proportion. If the potentiality of these cells is weak and their functions are carried on sluggishly, mental dullness, stupidity or even imbecil- ity may follow, the extent of dullness depending upon the extent of defect in the brain forces, and these, largely upon the quantitative and qualitative arrange- ment of the structures upon which the forces depend. Such cases differ from mere tardiness of functional development, in that there is an actual defect in the metaboHsm of the tissues. Instead of the uniform yielding of all the cells to impressions, as under normal conditions, external impressions seem to follow the few paths of least resistance, leaving all others undeveloped. Under these circumstances the few brain tracts first established serve as highways for all the brain activities, 56 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. resulting in a tendency to repetition and to the auto- matic, machine-like movements of dullards. This partially accounts for their continuance in crime when it is once begun, and especially for their persistence in the same kind of crime. Being unable, on account of weak judgment, to settle strict questions of right and wrong, they often fall into evil paths at an early age, and then, owing to weak wills, they are unable, even when convinced of the wrongfulness of their acts, to change, until by restraint or special treatment new brain paths are opened up and the old ones by disuse grow more and more indistinct, until finally they become non-existent. Next to feeble mentahty feeble moral sensibihties are the most distinguishing characteristics of all these children. It is next to impossible for some of them to pass that period of childhood in which the destructive tendency predominates. This tendency in the early life of many, if not all children, is a negative quaHty, due rather to lack of development of the reasoning faculties than to any positive inherent depravity or tendency to avatism, as some would have us believe. Like the infant, too, these children, even when ad- vanced in years, manifest little feeling of commiseration for the destruction of property, the suffering of dumb beasts, or even the death of one of their own com- panions. Another distinctive period in the development of the RELATION OF MIND AND BODY TO CHARACTER. 57 child's mind, after perception and memory, is the ex- pansion of the imagination. During this period many children, more from pure imagination than from per- versity, will indulge in exaggerations of truths, if not in downright prevarications. This tendency of the imagination to undue expansion usally passes oJff in normal children as reason and judgment develop, but as these faculties are always faulty in mentally feeble children, they are apt to invent the most unreasonable falsehoods and tell them with the greatest apparent sincerity, even after they have arrived at maturity. They often confess to crimes in minute detail, upon arrest, when there is no proof against them. A feeble- minded, hysterical boy in the Kentucky Penitentiary was very careful to have the warden, the chaplain, and the physician — the present writer — ^present at a con- fession in which he went into great detail as to how he had helped to murder a man and woman in his neigh- borhood before coming to the prison for a minor offense; but upon inquiry at his home it was learned that he was not near the place — not even in the state at the time of the tragedy. The habit of purloining small articles is also over- come in normal children as reason and judgment de- velop to counteract the promptings of appetite and curiosity; and the inclination of children to wander about the streets is usually outgrown with years. But with the feeble-minded these propensities increase with 58 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. years until the victims become confirmed thieves or tramps. In the normal child the repugnance to hard labor, often manifested in early life, is also usually overcome later, through the desire for self-preservation; but the feeble-minded cannot understand the relation between labor and the preservation of life, and in them this repugnance continues. The normal child profits by experience. He learns that a violent display of temper is unmanly and leads to endless trouble; that punishment for the disobedience will be repeated if the offense is persisted in, and that dissipation brings physical suffering and disgrace. Consequently he attempts to adjust himself to conditions around him, but his weaker brother, incapable of such reasoning, continues a criminal. "For crime is wrought for want of thought, As well as want of heart." In 1 89 1 the Bureau of Education at Washington tried to ascertain, through correspondents and special agents, the mental condition of prison inmates in the United States. Of 27,103 prisoners reported the intelligence of nineteen per cent, was defective, of thirty-three per cent, fair, of thirty-eight per cent, good, and of only five per cent, excellent. Nineteen per cent, of 150,000, the number of adult prisoners committed to our prisons during the year 1904, would give us 28,500 defective RELATION OF MIND AND BODY TO CHARACTER. 59 or feeble-minded persons cast into prison annually in this country. During the year 1892-93-94, Dr. Warner examined 100,000 children in the pubUc schools of London, with startling disclosures as to the extent of physical and mental defects. Out of the first 50,000 children ex- amined, 9,941 showed some deviation from the normal, either in defective development, or in abnormal nerve signs, or in both. Of these, 3,435 were found to be mentally dull, while only 319 dull children were found who were free from some physical defect. It was also found that the percentage of dullness rose from thirty- eight per cent, of those with physical defects alone to forty-eight per cent, where physical defects and ab- normal nerve signs were present. A significant dis- covery was that all these defects increased with each lower strata of society. This was forcibly illustrated in the much larger proportion of these defects found in the children in the poor law schools than in those of the public schools proper, and the still larger proportion found among the boys in industrial or reform schools. Again, many cases of so-called mental dullness in school children do not depend so much upon brain defect as upon eye strain, deficient hearing, obstruc- tions in the posterior portion of the nose and mouth, and other external defects. Often the child who ap- pears to be dull will become fairly bright by changing his position in the schoolroom to one nearer the teacher, 6o AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. where he can hear what is said. Many others are vastly improved by changing the window shade to allow more light, or by changing their position in relation to the blackboard. Shortsighted children are at a disadvantage when studying the diagrams and illustrations and are put down as stupid when they are really only unable to see. Some cannot adjust their angle of vision to the position of their books or of the desk. Here, again, a change of position or suitable glasses will often convert a so-called dullard into a bright student. The present Emperor of Germany, William III, once said in a speech before the German Parliament that seventy-five per cent, of the children in the schools of Germany were shortsighted, and, although the room in which he studied was well lighted and well ventilated, eighteen out of twenty in his class wore glasses. Re- cent investigations show that seventy-five per cent, of the school children in some of our large cities suffer from some physical or mental defect, disease of the eye, ear, nose and throat ranking first among these disturb- ances. In many cases dullness is the outcome of exhaustion caused by overwork, perhaps at home, especially at night. This is particularly apparent in early morning lessons, when the pupil should be the brightest. Ex- haustion, too, is often due to lack of brain nutrition quite as much as to lack of brain activity. This is RELATION OF MIND AND BODY TO CHARACTER. 6 1 shown in anaemics; or it may be due, not so much to lack of generation of intellectual energy, or sluggishness of the cells, as to lack of co-ordination of their forces. The latter class of children are often extremely nervous and restless. Many dull children are under size, especially girls, who usually have rounded shoulders; others are thin, pale and deUcate, with bloodless lips and sunken eyes, but occasionally obesity is a promi- nent feature. Very small heads are more common among dull girls than among dull boys, and these girls are especially liable to be thin and anaemic. There is a larger percentage of dull girls that are delicate than of dull boys, but a larger percentage of delicate boys than of deHcate girls are dull; this varies, however, at dif- ferent ages. Prominent among the abnormal nerve signs found in such children are bad balance of body, lack of co- ordination in locomotion, weak balance of head, over- smiUng or grinning. In many cases it is observed that when the hands are held out the wrists are drooping, the palms contracted, the fingers twitching, and often extended backwards from their junction with the palm ; that conversation is slow, hesitating, stammering, or jerky and excited. All this shows the close relation between the mind and body, particularly between the mind and the cen- tral nervous system, and the dependence of a healthy mind, and indirectly a healthy moral character, upon a k 62 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. healthy physical organism. This is forcibly illustrated in the rapid improvement of nearly all cases of nerve signs with increased nutrition, fresh air and sunshine. Education, also, aids materially in reducing the nerve signs and nearly all cases of brain disorderliness in school children. The broad gap between the brightest and dullest individuals in any community is not a level plane, but is made up of varying degrees of intelligence, and whether that intelligence will approach nearer to the one or the other of these extremes depends materi- ally upon social conditions. In the highest social spheres, where nutrition and sanitation are on the highest planes, the tendency will be toward the highest standard, and -pice versa. Like the moving of metallic particles towards a magnet, social units in all their attributes tend to gravitate towards the center of at- traction. Not the least benefit derived from this uplifting pro- cess in the most enlightened communities is the sus- taining influence afforded the weak and unstable members of society. Under such influence, too, injury, disease or defective nutrition, whether occurring in embryo or after birth, are reduced to a minimum. Thus, under proper social conditions, the number of unstable members of society is not only lessened, but the instabilities themselves are reduced, while such members are greatly sustained by this powerful social updraft. While it is our duty, therefore, to humanely RELATION OF MIND AND BODY TO CHARACTER. 63 care for the defectives and dependents we now have, according to the most scientific methods and in accord- ance with the highest altruestic spirit of the times, it is no less incumbent upon us to courageously and ener- getically strive, through improved social conditions and a wise application of the laws of eugenics, to increase the social efficiency of each social unit until inefficiency is reduced to a minimum. More rigid restrictions should at once be placed on the marriage of the socially unfit; children should be examined especially while in school, at stated periods by medical experts, and classified, treated and trained according to their respective physi- cal and mental needs. The best evidence we can hand down to posterity of our worthiness to have been their progenitors is to transmit to them strong bodies, clear heads and clean hearts. Indeed, the chief end of man, at least so far as this life is concerned, is to see that each suc- ceeding generation is an improvement, physically, mentally and morally, upon the preceding one. CHAPTER V. COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRON- MENT ON CONDUCT. Because plants and animals reproduce their kind, and because certain somatic characteristics, such as high or low stature, complexion, color of eyes and color of hair have a tendency to reappear in successive gen- erations, it is popularly held that moral traits should also be reproduced. If a fellow-traveler stumbles over the obstacles strewn along life's pathway, and if it is learned that some remote ancestor was similarly un- fortunate, the misstep is promptly charged to heredity. Indeed, this is such a convenient method of disposing of vexed social problems that, with many, it accounts suf- ficiently for all the frailties and foibles of the race. If we were dealing alone with hfe in its simpler forms this method of reasoning might, in the main, hold good, biit when we attempt to make the appHcation to its higher and more complex forms such reasoning fails because the analogy is lost. On account of the simphcity of structure and func- tion and the simple method of reproduction by mere division of the parent cell, there is a striking similarity 6s 66 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. in all organisms of the lower planes of life; but in the more highly developed types conditions are radically different. Added complexity of structure and func- tion means added complexity of organic evolution and increased susceptibility to external influences. There is also a difference in the manner of descent in the high- er and lower forms that figures conspicuously in the problem of heredity. In the latter there is less migra- tion, fewer changes of place and country than occur with the higher forms and in consequence the line of descent is likely to be purer and the maintenance of characteristics to be more uniform. Even if these difficulties could be overcome and we were to attempt to trace our ancestry back only a few generations, that we might assign to each, his or her just proportion of our virtues or vices, we should be overwhelmed by the array of data that would present itself. In the tenth generation there would be a thous- and and in the twentieth a milHon or more ancestors to reckon with; even then we should hardly have gone be- yond the twelfth century. The more one studies this subject in the light of these facts the less importance will he attach to heredity. He will find that much of what is considered hereditary is in reality due to trans- mitted environment. Characteristics in children, resembling those of their parents, presumably transmitted, will often prove to be the result of certain molding forces to which the child INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 67 has been daily subjected. It is the testimony of history that wherever even a heterogeneous population has for centuries been under the same cHmatic, economic and social influences, certain physical and mental character- istics peculiar to these conditions have been established. This is the result, not of heredity, but of formulating forces which work without regard to heredity. The Esquimaux of the frozen regions of the North, owing to frigid chmate and a defective nutrition, having become a race of dwarfs, afford a pertinent illustration of this inexorable law of hereditary environment. Among civilized people the Jews perhaps, furnish the best example of heredity. Through a strict observance of a sanitary and moral code, as a part of their religious tenets, they have, for thousands of years, retained cer- tain distinct characteristics of form and feature, as well as certain well-known traits of mind and character, by which they are everywhere recognized. Yet, despite this tenacity with which they have adhered to their traditions, every nation of people with whom they have sojourned in their wanderings has stamped its impress upon them. Some of their most pronounced physical characteristics, as well as some of their best known traits of mind and character, have been so exaggerated in some localities and so modified in others that there is often but little resemblance between the Jews of these different countries. Convincing evidence of the powerful influence of 68 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. environment on large populations can be found in near- ly every quarter of the globe. The physical and mental characteristics of the inhabitants of fertile val- leys, arid plains and rugged mountains, though they be the same people and speak the same language, will doubtless differ just as widely as do their surroundings. Speaking in terms of biology, every Hving organism is endowed at the beginning of its existence, through the parent cell, with two quantities : the fixed quantity of heredity, which stands for the permanency of the race, and the changeable quantity, which represents racial variations. Nothing is inherited that is not contained in the germ plasm of the parent cell. The fixed, almost immutable quantity in the personal entity of every liv- ing organism which insures permanency of kind is in- herited, but the cells which go to form the body organ- ism are subject to such changes as the varying condi- tions of environment may impose. They are wholly dependent upon nutrition for their stability. The most persistent of all hereditary tendencies are those that are purely somatic, yet transmitted tendencies to obesity, or to a high or low stature may be materially modified by nutrition. The most persistent tendencies next in order are those of mentaHty, while last and least should be placed traits of character. The various mental aberrations, eccentricities and even grave defects of intellect and will which dominate the Hfe of many unfortunate indi- INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 69 viduals, and enter so largely into the vagrancy and crime of the country, are as often due to unfavorable conditions, acting directly upon the child, either before or after birth as to heredity. Any disturbance in the nutrition of the child, either in embryo or later in its development, sufl&cient to give rise to physical abnor- maUties would also Hkely be sufficient to give rise to mental aberrations and moral obliquities. When we come, therefore, to understand that a well rounded character depends largely upon a fully-developed intel- lect, and this upon stable cerebral cells which are the ultimate result of nutrition, we. begin to comprehend faintly the far reaching influence of nutrition on mind and character. The significance of this is made still more apparent when we understand that nutrition, in its broadest acceptation, means everything in the econ- omy of nature which affects tissue change. Hence, the intimate relation between body and mind. What- ever higher spiritual possibihties the mind may have, it is certain that the character of its manifestations de- pends to a marked degree upon the stabihty of the con- stituent elements of the brain, the organ with which it is most intimately associated. A healthy, well-devel- oped brain, usually means a healthy, vigorous intellect, and under normal social conditions, a well-rounded character. The claims of physiology and sanitary science must therefore, be given due consideration in every effort at character building. 70 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. Very slight variation from the normal, in intellectual endowment, due probably to some disturbance in the important function of nutrition, may be exaggerated into portentous proportions by vicious sanitary condi- tions, while very serious deviations may be almost en- tirely eradicated by wholesome sanitary influences. This is equally true of moral infirmities. Many chil- dren who grow up physically, mentally and morally unstable owe such infirmities to faulty nutrition, not to heredity. Certain intellectual or moral tendencies that have been modified through successive generations may be transmitted, but whether the one or the other shall prevail and dominate the life of the individual depends very much, if not entirely, upon circumstances; indeed, whether the greatest intellectual and moral possibihties of the child shall be reaHzed or not depends altogether upon circumstances. Numerous counter-currents, each struggUng for supremancy, may exist in the same person at the same time. Under one set of influences, perhaps, one set of tendencies may prevail, while under other conditions tendencies quite the opposite may gain the ascendency. It is this plasticity, this receptivity to the influences of the molding forces around it, that makes the child Hke wax in the hands of the artist, which Httle by little takes on the ideal and assumes the shape and form of the fig- ure desired; every impress of the fingers contributes to this end. So it is, Httle by Uttle, that the child, through INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 71 twenty years of the most critical period of Kfe, grows from a helpless mass of potentialities, at birth to man- hood or womanhood, and what that manhood or wom- anhood shall be is determined in a great measure, if not wholly, by the character of the forces and influences that act and react during the process of evolution. This is forcibly shown in the numerous reported in- stances of the kidnapping or capturing of innocent chil- dren by roving bands of gypsies or savage tribes of Indians, and the subsequent conversion of these chil- dren into typical gypsies or Indians. A historic case is that of Cynthia Parker, a little white girl, who, in the early settlement of the state of Texas, was captured by the Comanche Indians, and upon reaching young wom- anhood was made the wife of the chief of the tribe. After giving birth to Quanna Parker, the late noted chief of the Comanches, she was recaptured in a fierce battle between soldiers and the Indians and ' returned to her people, where, after repeated efforts to escape to her tribe, she died, it is said, of a broken heart. When recaptured she was in the thickest of the fight and was using a gun, apparently, with more skill and bravery than any of her savage companions. None of the well-known and oft-repeated stories of romance and fiction afford a more startling presentation of the powerful influence of environment on mind and character than does the true story of this innocent little frontier girl, of respectable parentage, who, by the irony 72 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. of fate, was converted into a veritable savage, made the wife of one, and became the mother of another noted savage chief. The tangible and intangible forces, therefore, that act and react on mind and character are countless and incomprehensible. The average person is too apt to regard the child as a little adult. The boy is often treated as a little man and the girl as a little woman, when the truth is the difference in size is the least of the differences between a child and an adult. The new- born child is but a man to be, with all the possibilities of individualized being, yet wholly dormant. By rea- son of its delicacy and complexity, it is the most helpless of all living creatures, and for the same reason is longer in reaching maturity. Twenty years of its life are con- sumed in tissue change, in building bone, muscle and nerve; in strengthening organs and functions, and in developing intellect and character. As compared with the adult, the bones of the infant are softer, the mus- cular and nervous tissues contain more fluids, the brain is softer, contains more water, and is much more easily broken down; its convolutions are not well defined, and the difference between the gray and the white matter is indistinct, while the cells are relatively small in size and immature in construction, lacking in fibre, or having imperfect development, so that impulses cannot be transmitted. Everywhere, there are unmistakable evidences of immaturity. The pulse rate and respira- INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 73 tion are different, the blood pressure is lower, secretion of the glands is defective and the proportion of the elemental constituents of the gastric juices differs from that in after life. Whatever intellectual or spiritual possibilities the child may have are altogether latent at birth, and, compared with its future capacities, surely nothing is so helpless as this diminutive bit of humanity. No plant or flower is more dependent upon nutrition and careful cultivation than is the little human plant. Surely, no greater demonstration of the hidden pos- sibilities of nature is to be found anywhere than in the evolution of the dependent infant into the independent adult. The process is the result of the intimate union and co-operation of certain forces, inherent within the organism, with those external forces with which they are brought in contact. While one's nature selects from the great storehouse of environment such material as is best suited for its needs, the nature is moulded and shaped thereby and a new creature formed. This is as true of the higher intellectual and spiritual faculties as it is of the physical organism. Indeed the higher in the scale of attributes we ascend, the more amenable to environment do they become. So true is this that the highest known faculties, the imitative, emulative and sympathetic, are almost entirely void of inherent ten- dency in any special direction and are wholly dependent upon environment for whatever course they may take. 74 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. These are the chief social forces that bind individuals into groups and groups of individuals into a unified social organism. They are pre-eminently the ties that bind individual members of society together. Through them individuality is lost and society is merged into a complete whole. They are the forces that make and mould character. It is for this reason that it is diffi- cult for one member of a community to consider an in- dependent course of conduct and break away from old customs and traditions. This is why it has been said that every community has just the number of criminals in it that it deserves and deserves just the number that it has. During the most plastic period of life, infancy, child- hood and youth, each individual is bound by a thousand ties to his environment. The objects with which he is thrown in daily contact lay hold on him. They pro- ject themselves into his very being, and weave nets of entanglement on every side until he is utterly unable to extricate himself from their grasp. Like a caged bird or an anchored vessel he may appear to be free but in reality his movements are confined to a very limited circle, and he is not only bound to his environment, but, in accordance with the law of local affinity, he is conformed to it. His plastic nature is fashioned and molded by the social and moral forces around him. To attempt to resist them would be like attempting to resist atmospheric pressure. The social and intel- INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 75 lectual standard of the community becomes his stand- ard. To him the intellectual and moral atmosphere has limitations beyond which his aspirations cannot go. This is especially true where the standard of moral excellence is low and the influences which help to form character are constantly hedging and hampering one's inner nature. Spontaneity is thus paralyzed, individu- ality is destroyed, and the fountains of the soul are dried up. On the other hand, where these forces are constantly expanding and the current is from within outward, there are but few Hmitations to individual aspirations or possibilities. Latent hopes and ambi- tions are drawn out and new springs of Hfe are opened up. Under the former conditions only the strongest, only the veritable giants, can hope to break through the fetters of custom and tradition and reach beyond the horizon of their environment, while under the latter conditions only the weakest need remain behind. These facts explain, in a measure, why there is such a sameness, such a similarity of characteristics, among primitive and semi-civilized people, and why there is such a diversity of characteristics in more enlightened communities. They explain, likewise, the dependence and lack of initiative in the lower, and the splendid in- dependence and great initiative in the higher social planes of life. Taken in the broadest signification, these facts also explain why crime comes chiefly from the lower social strata; how specially saturated crime 76 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. centers are formed, and why the amount of crime in any community depends almost wholly upon the degree of criminal saturation, either of the whole or a portion of the social organism. There is an important psycholog- ical factor, therefore, to be taken into consideration in deahng with crimes of individuals or groups of individ- uals. The mental and moral perception of those occu- pying the lower planes of social life are less acute than of those occupying the higher planes. By their super- rior advantages, the latter are enabled to understand the criminal nature of their acts, the danger of detection and the suffering and humihation that would follow conviction. The less fortunate, however, with their stunted mental and moral sensibihties and their re- stricted and beclouded horizon, are incapable of such comprehension. Actuated and moved by entirely different natures, governed by different standards, and possessing different capabilities, the occupants of the two social spheres are not to be judged by the same rules. Regard for the good opinion of society, which is one of the most powerful repellant forces against wrong- doing in one class, is almost wholly wanting in the other. The high appreciation of individual rights, and the regard for law and order so sacred to the one have but little weight with the other. And finally, the purely physical consideration, the horror of being confined in dark cells, with scant bedding and coarse food, so repug- nant to the one, is of little consequence to the other. CHAPTER VI. COMPARATIVE INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRON- MENT ON CONDUCT (concluded). Since we have learned that the comparative im- munity of some persons and the pecuHar susceptibility of others to the influence of certain infectious diseases depends chiefly upon the difference in the resisting power of the body cells, the minute constituents of the body organism, we no longer think of tuberculosis as being inherited, in the sense that the hving organism of the disease is transmitted through the germ plasm of the parent cell. We now know that it is only the tendency, the predisposition through special cell weakness that is transmitted, and that this may be acquired as well as inherited, and in either case may be largely, if not en- tirely, overcome by proper nutrition. Likewise, a child may inherit from an intemperate parent weakened nerve tissue, or special neurotic temperament, that will render him pecuHarly susceptible to the action of alcoholic liquors when taken into the system; or he may inherit unstable brain cells, which will render him specially liable to insanity if exposed to certain exciting causes, but in neither case is the disease inherited. 77 78 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. That which is true physically and mentally is equally true of the moral characteristics. Criminality — per se — ^is not inherited. A child cannot be wholly like either of his two parents, or either of his four grand- parents, but he may possess tendencies and character- istics of each, and what these shall become depends materially upon the fostering care that is given one and the obstacles that are thrown in the way of the other. This is the cheering message that comes to the present generation out of the gloom and shadows of the past. None of these scourges of the race are fixed, definite quantities in life's equation; all are more or less pre- ventable, and all are in a measure curable. Crime and disease exist wherever the conditions exist and disappear whenever the conditions are removed. As a race our destiny is placed in our own hands; we are, in truth, our own and our brothers' keeper. Disease, physical, mental and moral, being largely the result of weak resisting power, the chief aim of all education should be to cultivate and fortify this power of resistance. Of the many persons daily exposed to to the germs of infectious diseases, comparatively few yield to their insidious attacks. Family afflictions, business reverses or pubHc disasters do not affect the minds of all alike. So, in the domain of moral infirmi- ties, some can endure more strain, some less, the extent of endurance depending upon individual power of resistance. INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 79 For the commission of a crime two conditions are ab- solutely necessary-motive or desire, and opportunity. To satisfy a desire or gratify an appetite requires the presence of other persons or objects. Even with the fulfilment of these conditions, a third or contributory cause, an approving conscience, is necessary for the completion of a criminal act. However strong the desire or patent the opportunity, the act may be so reprehensi- ble to the conscience, or so repugnant to the intelU- gence, as to prevent its consummation. Thus, the higher elements, the conscience, the will, and the in- tellect are placed as safeguards against excesses of the lower instincts and grosser propensities, and upon their efficiency or inefficiency depends much of the success or failure in life. Conscience, however, does not spring, Minerva-like, into existence, as some are prone to believe, but its highest possibiHties are reached only through careful cultivation and training. For this reason the individual conscience nearly always reflects the social conscience. So true is this that when crimes are committed by those moving in the highest social circles they are usually found to be the acts of those who have always been out of harmony with that circle. They are almost invariably deficient mentally or ^ have been unfortunate in their early training and are not susceptible to amalgamation or assimilation. By some social upheaval, or some incident out of the ordinary course of events, they have been thrown into a sphere 8o AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. to which they do not belong. Social evolution, how- ever, especially in newly organized communities, is seldom symmetrical. Great stress is often placed on some particular virtues, while others, equally essential to a symmetrical development of the social organism, are allowed to remain undeveloped. In nearly every community, too, the less resistant classes tend to gravi- tate to the lower social levels, where they constitute a class of their own, while the still less resistant tend to gravitate to some locaHty where they form crime centers. In the United States there are numerous large areas of so-called retarded frontiers or social eddies where crimes, especially those of violence, are more frequent than elsewhere. As crime, therefore, is only relative, and as it consists of a violation of some ar- bitrary standard of human rights which varies with time and place, it can have no satisfactory descriptive definition. Actions that would be held as criminal in one stage of social evolution would not be so held in another. Neither sin, a violation of divine law, nor vice, a violation of natural law, become criminal unless prohibited by human law. Usually the more enKghtened the community the more numerous will be the statutory restrictions on personal hberty, and the more viligant will be the police surveillance; consequently, there will likely be more minor infractions of the law in highly cultivated than in primitive communities. For much the same reason INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 8 1 the proportion of major infractions of the law is usually- greater in rural communities, where police surveillance is limited, than in communities where poHce regulations are more rigidly enforced. Multiplication of statutory offenses, lack of employment, scarcity of the necessities of life, increased temptations and opportunities, all tend to swell the volume of crime. So do all those conditions which go to weaken individual powers of resistance — conscience, will and intellect. The relation between alcoholism and vicious home influences, the giant twin evils, is so intimate and so interdependent that it is difficult to fix the relative potency of each in its mutual work of social degra- dation. Fifty-eight per cent, of the prisoners in the United States, in 1890, who gave answer to the ques- tion, admitted that they were occasional, and twenty- four per cent, more that they were common drunkards. More than twenty- three per cent, of the 149,000 prisoners committed to our prisons during the year 1904 were charged with drunkenness. Fifty per cent, of the parents of the 30,000 abandoned children in the United States, in 1890, were intemperate, and forty per cent, of these were drunkards. The same ratio doubtless holds good in 1904 in the case of our 92,000 orphans and dependent children and our 23,000 juvenile deKn- quents. While comparatively few juvenile delinquents are themselves intemperate, they are generally the victims of the destitution and demorahzation wrought 82 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. in the home through the drink habit of parents. On the other hand, destitution and defective nutrition quite as often lead to the drink habit. Among unfavorable environments, density of popu- lation is perhaps the most potent in its influence for evil. All statistics show that the ratio of crime in- creases in any given community largely in proportion to the increase in population. Thus, a population of one thousand to the square mile is more criminal in proportion than a population of one hundred to the square mile; likewise, a population of ten thousand to the square mile is still more criminal in proportion than a population of one thousand, and so on in an increased ratio. On account of the growing competition and greater struggle for existence in large cities, the less vigorous, physically and mentally, tend to gravitate to the lower level of society, where, by reason of increased hardships and privations, vitality and mentality, and often moral sensibilities, are still further lowered. The inevitable result of crowding large numbers of human beings of all ages, of both sexes and all degrees of criminahty, into small, unventilated, unlighted apartments, like packing herrings in a box, must necessarily be bad in the extreme. With every incentive to do evil and none to do good, they are driven by an almost irresistible force into crime. An examination of the school children of London INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 83 showed that physical defects increased from seventeen per cent, in the high-grade pubHc schools to over twenty per cent, in the Poor Law Schools, and to more than twenty-nine per cent, in the industrial schools; also, that mental dullness increased with each lower strata of society. Another British report showed that the boys in the pubHc schools were, on an average, taller than boys in the middle-class schools; that these, again, were taller than those in elementary schools and mili- tary asylums; and finally, that these were still taller than the boys in the industrial schools. These reports show that industrial school boys of the age of fourteen are nearly seven inches shorter in stature and more than twenty-four pounds lighter in weight than juveniles of the same age in the general population. Unfavorable environment, therefore, does not simply mean bad example and unwholesome moral influence, but includes all those conditions which act adversely upon the physi- cal and mental, as well as upon the moral growth of the child. Character, therefore, is not formed by what one sees and hears alone, but also by what one eats and wears. With faulty nutrition comes poor blood and impoverished and probably irritable brain cells, and with these, unstable intellect and unequally balanced character. Contaminating influences from without and improper nutrition within doubly intensify the process of deterioration. In this way physical weakness and mental and moral obliquities in families may be estab- 84 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. lished and perpetuated through several successive generations. It is in this way chiefly that juvenile crime and crime in general keep pace with each other and juvenile offenders of one generation become the adult offenders of the next. Not so much through transmitted evil tendencies as through transmitted evil influences; not so much through kinship as through associated con- ditions. A striking illustration of this truth is found in the familiar story of the Jukes of New York, as narrated by Dugdale in his exhaustive social study of this family. Out of more than seven hundred persons Hving and dead, seventy-six per cent, were criminals, twenty per cent, were paupers, and only four per cent, were not a burden on society. Their criminal procHvities seemed to have been handed down from parent to child for at least three of four generations, but more than one in- stance is mentioned where members of this family married outside of their own degraded circle and re- moved from its harmful influence, with the result that their children grew up as did the children of their neighbors, becoming industrious and respected. In 1897, two young brothers, a still younger sister and a cousin were received for burglary at the Ken- tucky Penitentiary from a remote county. The cousin had served three terms, the older of the two brothers had served two and the other had served one previous INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 85 term in that institution; and all, including the girl, had served numerous jail sentences. Their fathers had also served one or more terms in state prisons and some of their near relatives were known to have been subjects of charity in one of the remote counties of the state. These four prisoners were described by newspaper cor- respondents as degenerates of the lowest type and held up as incontestible proof of inherent depravity and heredity criminality. But a rather exhaustive investi- gation instituted by the writer (prison physician at the time) showed that they were closely related to one of the most prominent families in the state. By the merest accident, indeed, on account of the illness of one of three brothers, members of a well-known Virginia family, who, in 1789, were on their way from Virginia to Kentucky, the ancestors of these two branches of the same family became separated. After his recovery from a lingering illness the sick brother took up his permanent residence in a remote part of the state, where, because of limited educational facilities and meagre opportunities for accumulating property, some of his descendants drifted into idleness and later into pauperism and crime, while the two brothers who set- tled in the central portion of the state purchased land which proved valuable, and they and their descendants became wealthy and influential. The writer was acquainted with a beautiful girl who was born in the county jail less than a year before her 86 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. mother was given a life sentence in the state prison for aiding in the murder and mutilation of the wife of her paramour (the illegitimate father of this girl), who was himself executed as the chief actor in this bloody trag- edy. When two years of age the girl, both of whose parents were supposed to be dead, was adopted as an orphan by a wealthy family and taken to a large city, where, amid the refining influences of the home, the church and the school, she developed into beautiful young womanhood, and later became a model wife and mother. From the mother, while a prisoner under the writer's care, and from other reUable sources, he learned she had come from a long line of dissolute and profligate ancestors, many of whom had been in almshouses and prisons in other states. A very interesting and impressive illustration of the influence of associated conditions is found in the case of our foreign-born population. Although the ratio of crime, especially for minor offenses, is greater among the foreign born than among the native born, yet wherever the conditions are favorable this disparity tends to decrease gradually with each generation of residence in this country until it finally disappears altogether. Again, the large number of rehabilitated youthful offenders annually discharged from our re- formatories furnishes even still more convincing proof of the powerful moulding force of surrounding con- ditions. This is the more remarkable in that these INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 87 delinquents have not only been the victims of both bad heredity and bad environment, but their evil ten- dencies have been permitted to develop until the indi- ^yidual bent has been established and the criminal habit formed; yet complete rehabilitation is the result in eighty-five per cent, of the cases, after a thorough course of physical, mental and moral training in these institutions. Such startling, though incontestable facts, leave little foundation for the teachings of those criminologists who claim that criminality is a distinct characteristic of the individual, due largely to ativistic tendencies or to degeneration, and that this instinct is usually distinguished by certain well-recognized physi- cal and mental characteristics. But with our present knowledge of the intimate relation between the impor- tant function of nutrition and developmental processes the wonder is that in these victims of social degra- dation, morphological anomalies, mental aberrations and moral obliquities are not even more frequent than they are. Nothing is more certain than that mental and moral perception correspond closely with the degree of social degradation in which these victims have been reared. In old settled countries, as in some European coun- tries, where racial types have been fairly well developed and where the inhabitants of the lower social strata have been struggling for centuries against adverse economic and social conditions, it is not strange that a 88 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. special class or type from which the majority of the criminals of the country come should be developed. But that this is a compound of environment and hered- ity, probably more of the former than of the latter, is strongly indicated by the rapid improvement of the descendents of these classes when transplanted to new and improved surroundings, as to a new country. No- where, perhaps, is there a more striking illustration of the powerful influence of environment than is to be found in the comparative decent and lawabiding in- habitants of Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania, many of whom are the descendants of slum convicts. Whether we consider juvenile or adult crime, crimes of individuals or groups of individuals, suggestion in some form is an important factor in its production. Not unfrequently a number of specially cruel or mys- terious crimes follow each other in quick succession in widely separated locaUties after one of their kind has been reported by the newspapers. An epidemic of crime commencing with one of its kind often sweeps over the country, then subsides to be succeeded by one of a somewhat different character. In a crowd, espe- cially — a so-called psychological crowd — the individual will is subordinated to or merged into the will of the crowd, and as a consequence the aggregated will often acts, as in the case of mobs, contrary to the wishes of many in the crowd. Many active participants of mobs and massacres often begin as idle spectators or perhaps INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 89 as genuine peace makers. During the French Revo- lution and the Paris Commune, many who went out to condemn the atrocities of the assassins were, through the contagiousness of suggestion, irresistibly drawn into the thickest of the fray. Authorities differ as to the extent of criminal sug- gestibility while in the hypnotic state. Some affirm that in many cases at least there is complete suggesti- bility, while others doubt or deny it altogether in non- criminal subjects. But whether it be hypnotism, sug- gestion or the mere influence of strong minds over weak wills, nothing is more certain than that there are a large class of persons who are as completely in the hands of their masters as wax is in the hands of the artist. More frequently, perhaps, it is the hysterical, weak-willed or feeble-minded, but often persons with strong minds, who wield great influence over others, are themselves completely under the control of some stronger mind. Often this yielding to the wills of others is without the knowledge of either party, especially of the person who is influenced. Good-meaning wives frequently yield to the suggestions of wicked husbands, and become their accomplices in crime, and not infrequently hus- bands become mere machines in the hands of cunning and designing wives. But susceptible children are the greatest sufferers from the criminal suggestion and bad example of parents and older persons. One reason given for the decrease of crime after thirty-five years 90 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. of age is that after that age many real criminals cease active operations and become contrivers of crime through younger persons. They gather about them certain susceptible youths, furnish them with keys and other necessary implements, and plan their operations and share in the profits of their criminal acts. In all organized crime, there is one dominating influence, one person, who by his skill and cunning guides and directs the actions and movements of the organization. This is especially true in the case of boys. Another important psychological factor in every criminal career that is receiving more serious considera- tion in recent years is habit. It is important because it is insidious, and difficult to explain because it is intangible. This makes it the more dangerous because it is the more treacherous, and has so many subterfuges behind which to hide its true nature. There is more in the expression, ''Just as a twig is bent the tree's inclined" than the mere growing of the tree in conformity to the inclination of the twig. There are changes in the molecules of the bent portions of the wood that are never readjusted. The channels of nutrition are, in a measure, changed, and the future growth conforms to these changes. There is also more in a fixed habit than the mere continuation of the habit. There are physical changes in the nerve fibers and cells that are permanent, physiological changes that have increased with each repetition of the act until the pro- INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 91 cess has become automatic and continues without the aid of the will. The ungovernable temper, manifested by frequent outbursts of anger, has, through habit, a positive physical basis. The discharge of motor force by the brain cells, having been uninterrupted by counteracting inhibitory forces from childhood, be- comes spontaneous. Activity, therefore, increases while inactivity decreases any given faculty or function. While the strong is thus growing stronger, the weak is growing weaker. Both processes usually proceed at an increased ratio. Like falhng bodies, they gather momentum with increased distance. But habits do more than cause physical or even physiological changes; they leave their trace upon the mental and moral life of the individual as well. Habits are cumulative. Each thought, word or deed, gains strength by repetition. By degrees we become less and less conscious until we finally act unconsciously. Sentinels and guards who are accustomed to certain signals are aroused by them when much louder noise fails to make any impression upon them. The mother whose watchful care of her child never abates is aroused by its slightest cry, while she may be totally indifferent to much louder noise near by. One wrong act not only renders more easy another wrong act but it also lessens regard for good. Habit, therefore, is like interest doubly compounded; it acts and reacts until it becomes not only a part and parcel of one's life, but one's very existence. Through 92 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. habit the farmer thinks of his crops, his flocks and herds by day and dreams of them by night. For the same reason the banker counts his money and feels it on the very tips of his fingers while asleep. The habit of theft, beginning with small articles of trifling value taken at long intervals, may increase with each repetition until the habit becomes a part of the very Hfe of the un- fortunate individual. He steals, not only for the intrinsic value of the article stolen, but for the insidious, inexplicable pleasure the very act itself affords. It is said that an Italian artist, in early Hfe, drew on canvas the picture of a beautiful child who was to him an ideal of purity and innocence, and that in old age, while searching the dark dungeons of foreign lands for a true representative of all that was wicked and crim- inal, he was horrified, after painting his subject as he crouched, demon-like, in his cell, to learn that it was his ideal of innocence and purity that he had painted in early Hfe. Habits had changed, not only his nature, but his form and features as well. In 1897 a life prisoner by the name of Brooks, who had been on parole for a number of years on con- dition that he leave the state, appeared at the Kentucky Penitentiary and asked for an unconditional pardon, or to be given his old cell in the prison. The Governor refused to grant the pardon and, as he had violated the condition of his parole, he was accordingly assigned to his old ceU with great rejoicing of the prisoner. Many INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT. 93 instances have been reported recently where life prison- ers, after long years of confinement, have refused to accept unconditional pardons. '^Even misery becomes a pleasure when long pro- tracted. The bedridden sick enjoy the universal sympathy which a kind world bestows. The very thought of freedom, of health, to such becomes a source of annoyance. The prison cells, dark, dank, and dis- eased, may, by long association, become so fixed a factor of one's consciousness that escape would not be courted were every iron bar shattered and hinges swung wide to freedom.'' "At last they came to set me free, I asked not why, and recked not where, It was at length the same to me, Fettered or fetterless to be, I learned to love despair." CHAPTER VII. THE GROWING RELAXATION OF HOME DICIPLINE. Whatever truth there may be in the widespread belief that the children of today are not so good as were the children of a few generations ago is evidently due to such changes in our industrial and social systems as have tended to weaken home ties and neutralize home influences, for children are the same everywhere under the same circumstances. The introduction of machinery into all branches of industry since the beginning of our new industrial era, whereby women have been enabled to compete with men and even small children to compete with both men and women — at greatly reduced wages — in many of the lighter industries has doubtless contributed largely to this unfortunate condition, especially in important industrial centers. Children have thus been drawn away from home at a tender age and crowded into shops and factories, often under the most unfavorable moral and sanitary conditions. While recent child- labor legislation has done much to check the employ- ment of children and to improve the unfavorable con- ditions of shops and factories, yet large numbers of 95 96 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. children are still regularly employed in the United States and the moral and sanitary condition of many estabhshments are, to say the least, anything but wholesome. Little less pernicious in its effects on the home as a character builder has been the employment of women, especially of mothers, in these industries. Such homes are hardly more than mere lodging places, and are wholly lacking in those forces and influences that mould and make character. The spirit of commercialism, too, which has per- meated all classes of society has been a potent factor in severing those ties and weakening those influences that count for most in the ideal home. People from all stations of life, from the city and from the country, on business or pleasure bent, daily crowd the railway trains, throng the streets and press for positions in the centers of trade and halls of pleasure. Owing to im- proved facilities for travel, many men have their homes in the country but engage in business in the city, which keeps them away much of the time, and even those who live in the city are often so closely confined at their store, office or shops that they see little of their children except at night and on holidays. The chief responsibil- ity of rearing children and diciplining them, therefore, is thrown upon the mother, who, on account of in- creased and pressing social duties, is in turn, obliged to depend upon irresponsible nurses. Parents are thus drawn away from their children, while children un- GROWING RELAXATION OF HOME DISCIPLINE. 97 consciously drift away from parental restraint and parental influence. These separating influences continue to expand as the years go by and as the conditions which give rise to them continue to enlarge. The daughter becomes less and less mindful of the mother's advice, while the son falls by degrees into the evil habits of his evil companions, until suddenly parents become alarmed at the horrify- ing spectacle that confronts them. They loudly declare that children were not so bad when they were young, and a few ill-directed efforts at discipline follow, but on account of business pressure and social duties these special efforts are relaxed and children resume their old habits. In the United States the most positive and unfavor- able changes of recent times has doubtless been the rapid increase of population, especially that of the urban over the rural population. Temptations and opportunities for evil doing become extensive every- where, noticeably in large towns and cities with increas- ing population. From the very nature of their sur- roundings children are attracted away from home more in urban than in rural communities. The number of children is larger and there are stronger inducements in close proximity to entice them, and, owing to the construction of houses and the formation of streets, they are often more completely out of sight of (and away from the knowledge of) parents, when only a few 98 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. rods away, than they would be in the country when as many miles distant. The opportunity, therefore, to commit crime without the knowledge of parents, to say nothing of the enhanced temptations, is as a thousand to one in the city over the country. For these reasons children who would have grown up into good citizens in the country have fallen victims to the snares and allurements in the city. Many a young man who was the idol of his family and the pride of his community in the country has been impelled by the almost irresist- ible forces of evil to frequent the haunts of evil and crime in the city. But aside from these temptations which lure unsuspecting youths into crime, there are other forces which help to press them on in that course. Sickness comes and accidents occur in the city as they do not in the country. So as years go by, through sickness, hardships and exposure, the children of the poorer classes become less able each succeeding genera- tion to compete for a livehhood with the well housed and well fed, hence they naturally drift into pauperism, if not into crime. The once powerful influence of the Christian rehgion on the home has been greatly neutrahzed by this ever- increasing business and social pressure. The multipli- cation of books has distracted attention from the old family Bible, once so sacred to every home. Church services appear to be more formal; places of worship appear not to have the attractions for the male portion GROWING RELAXATION OF HOME DISCIPLINE. 99 of the population they once had, and as a consequence boys now seek places of amusement, if not dissipation, instead of attending church. The lack of solidarity, to say nothing of the rivalry and contention between the different sects, has in the past at least had a greater distracting influence on youthful seekers after rehgious truth than most communicants have been willing to admit. But more than all, the last few decades have been a transition period — a period of great spiritual unrest. The controversy among the higher critics as to special creation, evolution, a personal and impersonal deity, determinism and free will, has tended rather to becloud and mystify than to clear the religious at- mosphere. Many were unable to adjust their religious faith to the doctrines of evolution. Orthodox mothers clung tenaciously to the old theology and trained their children, so far as they were trained religiously at all, according to the old traditions. At school, especially at college, these children soon found that this teaching was at variance with the modern idea of evolution, and for a time, at least, doubts and misgivings arose. But, happily, much of this has past into history. Denominational rivalry, too, has been reduced to a minimum, little is now said of the once supposed conflict between reHgion and science, between Genesis and geology and the rehgious out- look for the home is now much brighter. But other distracting conditions have arisen during the last lOO AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. few decades which have made this a pecuHarly trying period on the home. This has been a transition period from government by physical force to government by moral force. During this interval much confu- sion has arisen as to what constitutes true discipUne. The pendulum of pubKc opinion has swung back and forth until many good-meaning parents have no well- defined opinions on the subject. Many understand that corporal punishment is neither polite or popu- lar, yet they have not learned the secret of the more refined, subtle process of getting behind the conscious life of the child and guiding and directing from within. This chaotic condition has had a decidedly disquiet- ing, not to say demorahzing effect, both on the home and the child. The timely appearance of the public schools along with these social and industrial changes and confusion of religious thought, has been in the nature of a God- send. Teachers especially skilled in training children in the ways of truth and virtue have been provided at public expense to relieve parents of much of their responsibihties. But even here a great lesson is to be gained by the parents of the future from the experience and failure of the parents of the past. The chief difl&- culty appears to be the result of the dual oversight imposed upon parents and teachers by our system of public schools. \Parents are prone to leave too much to the teacher. Dual oversight is always more or less GROWING RELAXATION OF HOME DISCIPLINE. lOl unsatisfactory even under the most favorable circum- stance, as in the case of private tutors. It is difficult for parents and teachers to understand each other, and for each to appreciate the respective duties and respon- sibilities of the other. In the pubUc schools this diffi- culty is intensified. In the case of the private tutor or even the private school, where either the parents em- ploy their own teacher or select their own school, they are likely to know something of the progress of their children, but in the public schools even this oversight is more or less withdrawn. Parents are apt to think that as the state builds the schoolhouses, employs and pays the teachers, it ought also to assume all respon- sibilities and give all needed moral instruction. They not infrequently blame the teacher for certain manifes- tations of rudeness and certain evidence of disregard for parental advice on the part of their children. Wholly unconscious that it is chiefly their fault, by degrees they further relax, if they do not entirely rehnquish all parental authority. This is particularly noticeable in large cities where the majority of the parents know practically nothing of the progress their children are making, where they are or with whom they associate between school hours or on their way to or from school. That this tendency to abandon children to the state is due to one universal cause is evidenced by the fact that all give the same explanation and share the same uni- versal indifference. It is an exemplification of the I02 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. universal weakness of human nature manifested in a disposition to shirk from responsibiHties, just in pro- portions as we are reheved of them by others and is doubtless to be attributed largely to an evolution of sentiment growing out of an effort on the part of the state to share with parents the responsibihty of properly educating their children. As this spirit of indifference increases each year and is intensified with each suc- ceeding generation, it has imposed upon parents and teachers of to-day, extra responsibiHties, the full pur- port and meaning of which they can scarcely realize. Teachers must assume, to a great extent, these respon- sibiHties; they must learn that morals cannot be taught en masse; they must learn that children must be studied individually as well as collectively and treated according to their respective capacities and suscepti- biHties. Yet the great burden of these special respon- sibiHties should and must inevitably fall upon parents. Fathers must learn that it is not so much the length of time they spend with their children as the use they make of the time so employed. They should at least take the same interest in their children while with them as they do with their business during the hours employed in its pursuits. But unfortunately they work at their business during the day and think of it at night. A balance sheet of the day's receipts and disbursements is carefully kept, but the gain or loss in the manHness GROWING RELAXATION OF HOME DISCIPLINE. 103 and in the moral sensibilities of their children is not even noticed. The father who is in charge of the training of his children for the great battle of hfe should not only know what they are doing and how they are progressing each day, but he should also know the dangers to which they are constantly exposed. He may depend much upon the kindergarten and much upon the school, but he cannot abandon them to either. He must have a place in their hearts that cannot be filled by others. To be able properly to administer to their wants, he must know their needs, their hopes and their fears, their strength and their weakness. If moral force is to be substituted for physical force, in accordance with the demands of the greatest of all social changes, it must be brought into direct contact with the forces with which it is expected to operate. To repress a wayward tendency, strengthen a weakness, or develop a virtue, the acting forces and the forces to be acted upon must be brought in apposition with each other. If this relation could be properly maintained between parents and children there would be no more necessity for corporal punishment. There is much truth, therefore, in the rather harsh statement, that, "He who is unable to govern without the rod is unfit to govern with it." With parents who have the con- stant oversight of their children this is held to be abso- I04 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. lutely true, and with teachers and caretakers who are called upon to correct many of the faults of parents there are but few exceptions. Even these errors may, with the proper exercise of patience and skill, be cor- rected indirectly by strengthening weaknesses and developing virtues, or at most by repressive measures without force. To deprive a disobedient child of privi- leges enjoyed by others, to take from his recreation the time spent in idleness, and to force him to pay for damages or losses caused by his neglect or maliciousness are usually more effective means than force. The frank confession on the part of the most earnest advocates of direct punishment that there are those who can and do govern successfully by rational methods without force, throws the weight of the responsibility upon those parents and teachers who fail to thus govern. It is an admission that the failure is not so much due to the badness of children as to the weakness of those having them in charge. In the case of parents it is an admission that they have not been sufficiently disci- plined in the school of self denial, patience and firmness, that they have not learned the full value of good example in word and deed and the great danger of allowing even the most trivial fault in the early life of the child to go uncorrected. The element of feeling in one's own mind while administering bodily punishment is sufficient to con- GROWING RELAXATION OF HOME DISCIPLINE. 105 demn it in the strongest terms. The very act gives rise to emotions diametrically antagonistic to tender- ness. Certain psycho-physical changes take place which aid in suppressing tenderness and in increasing harsh- ness. The flow of blood is increased; inhibition of the motor nerve centers is relaxed and all the motor activi- ties given free play. If one could examine his own inner conscience at the time he would find slight con- sideration given to "tempering justice with mercy." There is little commingHng of the two thoughts at the time. If, however, it is found that '* sparing the rod is spoihng the child" there should be no question as to the course to pursue. But this does not argue that the same results could not have been accomplished, even more effectively, by vigilance, kindness and firm- ness, without force. These measures, however, are not to be alternated and applied each in its turn by days or weeks but always in conjunction with each other. Nor should kindness be allowed to lapse into indulgence any more than firmness should be permitted to grow into harshness. For a child to hesitate to comply with a parental request, to ask the reason for or doubt the wisdom of such a request or the right of the parent to make and enforce it is rather an indication of a lack of disciplinary power on the part of the parent than to inherent obstinacy on the part of the child. There may be bad I lo6 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. tendencies, even in very young children, but where these tendencies are allowed to develop into bad habits it is usually more the fault of the parent than of the child. Indiscriminate punishment was the bane of the old system. Children were often severely punished for some childish indiscretion, for some innocent diversion, while rude and perhaps vicious tendencies, which should have been checked, even if the severest punish- ment was necessary, were allowed to grow into perni- cious habits. This is the crucial point, the final test of the competency of home discipline. The unquestioned, supreme authority of parents, wisely exercised, brings only profound respect and even reverence from children. Under such discipline parents are unconsciously idolized and joyfully obeyed. At the approach of maturity, when companionship, mutual trust and confidence should characterize the relation of parent and child, parental restraint should be relaxed rather than in- creased. Any attempt at co-ercion at this age is likely to be bitterly resented. It is as much the duty of parents to teach patience, perseverence and self control as it is to teach honesty and virtue. Indeed, few qualities stand for more in the life of the child and the man than absolute self control. The mariner has learned by many sad experiences of shipwreck and privation the great danger of even GROWING RELAXATION OF HOME DISCIPLINE. 107 the slightest deviation in the compass, and we are learning by equally sad experience the danger of the slightest uncorrected deviation from the right in the early life of the child. The maxims, "As the twig is bent, the tree is inclined," and "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it,'* are being more fully appreciated each day. When the home comes to be regarded as a nursery for the cultivation of the rarest of plants and flowers, and the same care is taken in building character and developing virtue as is taken in developing delicacy of shade and fragrance of flower, there will be no place for corporal punishment in the code of the disciplinarian There is a real psycho-physical basis for the claims of moralists that no word, no deed, no act — in short, no circumstance in the home — ^is without its influence on the future life of the child. For parents, therefore, to attempt to escape their individual responsibilities is like one's attempt to flee from his own shadow. It is not so much the rigid discipline or fervid expostulations and labored sermonizing that counts as it is the daily and hourly practice of those virtues they would have their children imitate. As the imitative, emulative faculties of the child are more plastic and more sus- ceptible to early impressions than the intellectual and reasoning faculties, example is worth far more than pre- cept. If vicious habits are practiced in the home, and if lo8 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. honest dealing, veracity, and sincerity are regarded lightly, children will likely reflect these characteristics in their after lives. If, on the other hand, the moral atmosphere of the home is pure, if the higher virtues are practiced and the finer graces are cultivated, the children of such a home will be almost proof against vicious outside influences. Therefore, though intangible and undefinable, the true home spirit which cements family ties and fixes ineffaceable impressions for good on the impressionable minds of the young is as essential to the moral life of the child as the air he breathes is to his physical well being. Traditions of the past, ancestral pride, rever- ence for parents, family reunions, wedding and birthday anniversaries are some of the outward manifestations of this home spirit. The question with the real pro- gressive physician of to-day is not so much what will cure as what will prevent disease. So it is with the management of children, the question is not so much how to correct as how to prevent evil tendencies. The true province of the home is not so much to restrain from evil as it is to build character in spite of evil ten- dencies and evil surroundings. *^ We attain a moral attitude as we build a structure. We lay stone on stone around the rising frame- work to fashion the image of the mind. So we must pile thought on thought, cement resolution to resolution. GROWING RELAXATION OF HOME DISCIPLINE. 109 till the will's attitude is fixed, and our characters approach completion." ^'Home is not mere four square walls, Though with pictures hung and guilded. Home is where affection calls. Filled with shrines the heart hath builded." "Home is not merely roof and room, It needs something to endear it; Home is where the heart can bloom. Where there is some kind word to cheer it." CHAPTER VIII. CAN OUR SCHOOLS SAVE OUR BOYS? The pioneers of popular education devoutly believed that knowledge would prove a sovereign remedy for crime. The maxim of Victor Hugo, ^^He who opens a school closes a prison/' was accepted as a self-evident truth. Universal education, it was claimed, would usher in an era of universal uprightness as surely as effect follows cause. Yet today we are confronted by the anomalous condition of an apparent, if not an actual, increase of juvenile and adult crime, together with an enormous increase of both popular and univer- sity education. "Many schools have been opened but no prisons have been closed." The painful experience of the past few decades has shown that there is in reality little in the elementary studies alone to remove criminal tendencies and that even a higher education avails but nominally amidst vicious and contaminating influences. The proverb, "To know the right is to do the right" does not possess the potency it once possessed. We are beginning to learn that there is no special magic in mathematics or gramm^to ward off vice. Of nearly 150,000 prisoners committed to the prisons 112 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. of the United States during the year 1904, more than eighty- three per cent, could read and write; of the whites, eighty-seven per cent, and of the native whites ninety- two per cent. Out of nearly 12,000 juvenile delinquents committed to our reformatory and in- dustrial institutions during the same period, eighty-five per cent, of the boys and eighty-nine per cent, of the girls could read and write. Of the 82,000 prisoners in the United States in 1890 more than 2,500 were said to have been well educated; of these, 1,100 claimed to have a collegiate or university education, nearly one hundred a scientific, sixty-three a medical, eighteen a legal and six a theological. But a careful investigation among many thousand prisoners shows that the intel- lectual crank, the educated imbecile, and those who can scarcely read and write, comprise the vast majority of the so-called educated criminals. By force of cir- cumstances, usually economic and social, the less prosperous classes in nearly every community, especi- ally in densely-populated towns and cities, tend to gravitate to the lower social levels, where the less pros- perous and most vicious of these form centres of pauper- ism and crime for the community. Prisoners who come from this class, as the vast majority of them do, and who claim to have been educated in the public schools, usually admit that their attendance was of short dura- tion and at irregular intervals. They generally attend school long enough to contaminate others with their CAN OUR SCHOOLS SAVE OUR BOYS? 1 13 vicious habits but not long enough to be benefitted morally themselves. The child from the stately mansion and the child from the humble cottage may occupy the same seat and recite in the same class with mutual benefit, but in order to rescue the children of the vicious classes it is absolutely necessary to reach their homes. While compulsory education, truant and special day and night schools are relieving the public schools of much of the odium of a superficially educated criminal class, many grave responsibilities which properly belong to the home are still persistently shifted on to the pubhc schools. No special class has a monopoly on American bad boys. They flourish like green bay trees wherever the conditions are favorable, whether it be in the palace of the rich or the hovel of the poor. They are the products of conditions rather than of places. But for their respectable clothing, one would suspect from their language and conduct that many of the boys he sees on their way to and from school were brought up in the slums. Evidently their home influences have not been what one would expect from their dress, or they have been adepts in adopting the ways of their evil com- panions. While it is one of the foibles of youth, as well as of adults, to imitate the bad rather than the good, yet, judged from their conduct, many of these children must have absorbed whole chunks of wicked- ness from their hoodlum associates in an incredibly 114 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. short time. But the truth is, when traced to its ulti- mate source, much of this naughtiness is found to be due to loose discipHne in respectable homes. Many parents are so deeply engrossed in business or pleasure that they have scant time to devote to their children. They know httle of their associates or habits while on their way to and from school. Many of them not only entrust their children to the school but actually abandon them to it. Then there are the children of the wealthier classes, not the over rich, who do not patronize the public schools, but those whose incomes are sufficient to enable them to rear their children in luxury and idle- ness, and who often teach them to believe that they belong to a class by themselves. Many of these child- ren are arrogant, some even defy the rules of the school, and nearly all seek to obtain their education along the lines of least resistance. By allowing them to yield to every whim from childhood, they become wholly in- capacitated for serious study and often drift into idle and vicious habits early in life. Having had their every want gratified by over indulgent parents, they have never learned the important connection between individual exertion and gratified desire, as have those children who have been thus impressed through the constant struggle for existence. For teachers to transform these children — the street gamin, the undisciplined and the over indulged — into typical American citizens, without the co-operation or CAN OUR SCHOOLS SAVE OUR BOYS? 11$ even the sympathy of parents with whom they are associated three-fourths of the time during the school year, would be almost as miraculous as the transmuta- tion of the baser metals into the finest gold, and yet this is what is expected of the pubhc schools. One serious difficulty, however, properly chargeable to the school, has been the failure of teachers, until within the last few decades, to take proper cognizance of the great difference in the physical, mental and moral capabilities of children entrusted to their care, and the tendency to bring all under the same rigid rules without regard to the innumerable variations from the normal in the moral sensibilities and intel- lectual capabilities of their pupils. By this method the boy with merely an irritable temper, or the one with slightly stunted moral sensibilities, failing to conform at once to the rigid rules intended for model boys, or the boy with sHghtly obtuse intellectual acumen, not reaching the standard of excellence fixed for the brightest, was either expelled, or by rebuffs and dis- couragements, was driven from school, which, owing to lack of proper home influences was, in many respects, equivalent to forcing him into vagrancy, if not into pauperism and crime. Once deprived of these restrain- ing and uplifting influences which should characterize every home and every school, the road is usually short to the almshouse or the prison. Criminal statistics everywhere show that a large per Il6 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. cent, of the inmates of jails and penitentiaries and many victims of the gallows come from boys who leave their homes because of unsympathetic parents who were totally ignorant of their greatest needs, as were their teachers who forced them frohi school by lack of ap- preciation. Fortunately, however, it is now coming to be re- cognized that morals that will grow and ripen into Christian citizenship cannot be imparted, even to normal children, en masse, at least not didactically and in the abstract, as heretofore attempted; and further- more, as every child differs in form and feature, he like- wise differs in mental and moral susceptibihties from every other child. Therefore, in order to secure the best possible results, a rational classification must be made and each treated according to his capacities and susceptibilities. To the progressive teacher of today it appears passing strange that such an important truth should have so long escaped recognition. The child units may not be complete, only in process of com- pletion; they may not be independent in their influence one upon another, nevertheless, they are separate and distinct child units. There may be a striking similar- ity between them, both physically and mentally, yet each represents, at least a separate and distinct physical and psychical process. To be able, therefore, to develop the best and repress the worst of these in- CAN OUR SCHOOLS SAVE OUR BOYS? 117 dividual characteristics, they must be dealt with according to their varying needs. The difficulty has been still further complicated by an over-crowded and over specialized curriculum. A layman actually becomes bewildered when he thinks of a child of twelve years of age having to master a dozen, and the child of sixteen having to master sixteen different studies. This process of enriching and embellishing the course of study has gone on until it includes nearly every fad and fancy of authors and theorists. Such extension and attenuation necessarily leads to superficiality and indefiniteness, by diverting attention and preventing concentration. The weightier questions of moral excellence have thus been subor- dinated to these superfluous embellishments until, lik^ the storm tossed vessel that has not time to cast anchor, children are not given time to take their moral bearings. "Accomplishments have taken virtue's place, And wisdom fails before exterior grace; We slight the precious kernel of the stone, And toil to polish its rough exterior alone." ** Knowledge is power," but it is not all powerful. The emotions and the will must be trained as well as the intellect; not incidentally and secondarily, but primarily, and as the chief factor in the education of the child. It is argued that this is encroaching upon religion and that religion cannot be taught in the public L Il8 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. schools without inculcating sectarianism into the minds of the pupils. This is unfortunately confounding morality with rehgion. To teach mathematics one should know more than is contained in any single text book on the subject, and to teach civics he should know more than is taught by any political party. He should be conversant with text books, parties and creeds, and if he choose, have his preferences, but his knowledge should not end here. A teacher thus equipped can teach moral excellence and civic righteousness in the public schools without encroaching upon the peculiar beliefs of any party or creed. It is not necessary for him to teach theological dogmas, meta-physical ab- stractions or ancient asceticism in order to awaken the conscience to right thinking and right living. It is the province of the intellect to apprehend and discriminate; of the emotions to suggest and solicit, but it is for the will, the great arbiter of this trinity of powers, to set in motion the souPs desires. It is this trinity of the mind, this interdependence of its parts that constitutes the strength of character when all are conjoined in its production. Since the feelings cannot compel, but can only impel to right actions, save through the ex- ercise of the will, the so-called ^* autocrat of the soul," it is of vital importance that the will be trained to respond readily to the correct solicitations of the emotions. Both potential and kinetic moral energy, therefore, are important factors in character building. CAN OUR SCHOOLS SAVE OUR BOYS? 119 *' Character is both principle and product, cause and effect/' It is a noteworthy fact that each voluntary repetition of a moral act increases, not only the capacity, but also the tendency to continue the performance of such act until it ultimately becomes a fixed habit, which, in its broadest acceptation, is more than second nature; it is even more than part and parcel of one's self, it is one's very existence. This is as true in intellectual and moral activities as it is in those physical, and furnishes the strongest argument for sending the "whole boy to school." It is the basis upon which the argument in favor of the three H's, Head, Heart and Hand, in education is made. As a boy feels, thinks and acts, so will he be incHned to feel, think and act, until each becomes automatic. We are too prone to think of children, and children are too prone to think of themselves, as preparing for activities in some vague, distant future, "where con- ditions are entirely different." The truth is, they are preparing for the now, which is the most effective preparation for the future. They must learn by acting as well as by thinking. The greatest epoch-making advance in discipHne was the substitution of self- activity and individual initiative, for coercion, re- pression and domination. Discipline, through re- straint alone, tends to fetter personality and enfeeble and dissipate the will. I20 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. The success attending the School City, organized as % part of the discipUne in the schools of many of our large cities, and the Junior Republics, recently organized in various parts of the United States, has thrown a flood of light on the wonderful self-governing capacity of children. This lies in the trend of the mind, the mental attitude, the power of purpose, and the ready response of the will to the inner promptings. With the mental attitude once fixed towards a certain* goal and the power of purpose once formed the teacher only has to guide and direct. Much of the civil government taught in the schools should relate to the duty of children towards their parents as the heads of the family government ; towards the teacher as the representative authority in the school; they should be taught their obligation to the local and general government for the protection of life and property, and their responsibilities as individuals and citizens. Government, therefore, should be taught practically as well as historically and theoretically. Like morals and manners, it should be acted rather than recited. The highest ideal for the boy is not to hold office, to be Governor or President, but to be a good citizen. To this end every child should be trained with the same painstaking care that a crown prince is trained for his kingly responsibiHties. This is of especial importance in a country like ours with a large, heterogeneous popu- CAN OUR SCHOOLS SAVE OUR BOYS? I2i lation, holding different traditions and speaking differ- ent languages, many of whom are wholly ignorant of our history and the genius of our institutions. If we would mold the children of such heterogeneous and incongruous elements into responsive American citizens, patriotism, in its larger and broader acceptation, must be inculcated in early life. The vital necessity of this becomes even more obvious when we see the propa- gandists of all the anti-socialisms of the Old World finding refuge in our country, where they think they can with impunity carry on their unholy warfare against all forms of organized government. Formerly, when speaking of patriots, one instinctively thought of great, historic characters, sword in hand, fighting for and ready to die for their country; but now one thinks of his industrious, upright neighbors, in- telHgently, conscientiously and uncomplainingly per- forming their duty in every department of life; voting, paying taxes, serving on juries, working the public highways, scrupulously obeying and earnestly aiding in the enforcement of the laws. These are the patriots and heroes demanded by the twentieth century de- mocracy, and it is these that the public schools, if they fulfill their mission, must produce. A full realization of this personal relation of each individual to the government is of supreme importance in a democracy where the government is of, by and for the people; where the character of each individual forms the warp 122 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. and woof of the character of the nation, and where the individual is to the nation what the link is to the chain. A few centuries ago, when one's position in life was fixed at birth, when he was expected to follow his father's trade and conform to the traditions of his race in all public affairs, spontaneity and individuahty were of little consequence; but now since each individual is expected to make his own way in life, these qualities are of vital importance. It is of equal importance, however, that this energy be not exaggerated and the rights of the community encroached upon; there should be such regulation that the rights of the in- dividual and the rights of the community would be blended and harmonized. This is the highest social efficiency, and it is for this the pubHc schools are es- tabhshed and maintained. This is why it has been said that education is the chief business of the American people; this is why the pubHc schools are as sacred to their hearts as is democracy itself. No better evidence of the devotion of the American people to popular edu- cation is needed than that of the nine hundred miUion dollars invested in school property and the four hun- dred million dollars annually expended in the United States for the maintenance of pubhc schools. But if our schools would place more emphasis on the import- ance of subordinating individual rights for community rights we would not hear so much of the spurious cry CAN OUR SCHOOLS SAVE OUR BOYS? 123 for personal liberty in the time of great moral crisis which our country is constantly undergoing. With approximately seventeen milHon American children in the care of half a million consecrated pa- triotic teachers, we feel assured in our hearts that our republic is safe from foreign foes, but when we realize that every state in the Union still has its prisons and reformatories and that these are so filled with the youth of the land, that many states are building more of these institutions, we can reaHze as in no other way that our greatest danger is not from our external but ^ from our internal enemies — ourselves. 4f The chief responsibihty for this increase of crime, /accompanying an increase of popular education and / advancing civiHzation, should, perhaps, fall upon the home, but the trend of social evolution has been such as to throw much of it, whether just or not, upon the school. The school has, by degrees, encroached upon the prerogatives of the home until it must, whether wilUngly or not, either assume some of the responsibili- ties of the home or help in the crusade for better ones. Indeed, the greatest educational problem the twentieth century has been called upon to solve is how best to secure the harmonious co-operation of the home, the school and the community, in the interest of the twentieth century child. To this end the school must inevitably become more and more a social factor until its benign influence is felt in every home however 124 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. humble or squalid it may be. Under the law the child of this generation does not belong exclusively to the home nor to the school nor yet to the community, but to the state, which stands sponsor for its education and training for citizenship. Since nearly eighty per cent, of our teachers are women, much has been said about feminizing our schools, but the most trustworthy investigation ap- pears to indicate that it is not so much a question of sex as of personality. Indeed, since it is known that children assume a somewhat different attitude toward the world at each of the different periods of develop- ment — infancy, childhood and adolescence — it is prob- able that future research will reveal the fact that at one of these periods children may respond more readily to the influence of one sex and at another period to the other. Even now there appears to be little disposition to question the superior influence for good, of women, over children in their earUer years, and probably over girls at all ages, but as example is worth more than pre- cept, it is believed adolescent boys can best form their ideals of great men by having living examples after which to pattern. At this age boys have a passionate liking for the heroic, whether in books or in real Hfe, and often they are actually spellbound in the presence of great personaHties. While teachers have made wonderful progress during the last few decades, having kept pace with, if not CAN OUR SCHOOLS SAVE OUR BOYS? 125 abreast of, the marvelous achievements made in the arts and sciences during this period, yet their responsi- bilities have increased far in excess of the advance made. The teacher has advanced a hundredfold and his responsibilities have increased a thousandfold. This is not peculiar, however, to teaching, but is one of the distinctive characteristics of the law of progression. Every advance is encompassed with numerous demands and responsibilities, each being greeted with applause in which is mingled multiplied demands for further advancement. The glory of the medical profession is not in relieving aches and pains, nor in building colleges for instruction and hospitals for the care and treatment of the sick, but in the efforts to discover the cause and prevent the many ills that befall the human family. Nor is the glory of the public school system in its magnificent buildings, its enormous expenditure of money, nor even in the great learning of its splendid corps of teachers, but in the character of citizens it produces — men who are faithful to every civic trust and duty; men who can afford to be honest in poHtics and business, just to their neighbors and loyal to their country. The final solution of this vital, this all-absorbing question, is to be found in the new teacher, insofar as the new teacher himself or herself has been found. The most distinctive characteristic about this new teacher is not his great learning, though perhaps this is of more 126 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. importance than at any other time in the history of popular education, but in that mysterious something called personality, which enables him to work his way into the hearts of his pupils, to get behind the main- springs of conscious Hfe and there set vibrating certain forces which impel to right thinking and right acting. "Though he neither speaks nor commands, there is everywhere a conscious recognition of his authority. His very presence in the schoolroom is a benediction. He illumines and strengthens all with whom he is as- sociated.'' Beneath the maze and myth of hypnotism and sug- gestive therapeutics there is a grain of truth, which, though perhaps not larger than the traditional mustard seed, plays an important part in all character building. This is faith; faith in one's self, faith in humanity. In suggestive therapeutics this faith comes through re- peated suggestions from the operator, and in the school from the teacher. In either case it is most effective, when repeated, again and again, with almost the force of a command, until it is burned into the very soul of the individual. There is a wresthng of mind with mind, and heart with heart until the subject, be he patient or pupil, becomes an unconscious beHever and actor. A complement to, or rather a component part of, this faith, is the power of concentration, of attention, of purpose; the power of transmuting faith into works, CAN OUR SCHOOLS SAVE OUR BOYS? 127 thoughts into deeds. This psychological rebirth, this spiritual rejuvenation, has been the inspiration of men and nations in the hour of their greatest triumph throughout the ages. It is not so much the mission of the teacher to drill and coerce as it is to stir the soul to seek the truth, and thirst for knowledge; to fan the little spark of faith and hope that flits and flickers in every human soul, into a consuming fire; not so much to impart information as to plant in the soul the seeds of knowledge and truth that will grow and bloom and ripen into splendid Chris- tian citizenship. Every true teacher, therefore, is a mental healer, a true magician in the school room. She waves the magic wand and stirs the brain and thrills the heart to do or die. It must be remembered that the time in which we are Hving is only a transition period from the gross darkness of ilHteracy into the approaching Hght of universal education; only a voice crying in the wilder- ness; only the early dawn, the forecast of what we have a right to expect, from what we have already received. It is, in truth, only the first stroke of the sculptor's chisel, the first touch of the artist's pencil, and it de- volves upon the teachers of the present and the future to develop character, and bring out the true beauties of the individual and the race. As is the soul, so is the teacher; as is the teacher, so is the school; as is the school, so is the nation. CHAPTER IX. THE NEED OF PHYSICAL CULTURE IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS Few conditions have contributed more to the short- comings of American youths than the lack of systematic physical training in the home and school. This great truth becomes more apparent as we gain a better under- standing of the threefold nature of man, and the inti- mate relation between a healthy physical organism, a well balanced intellect, and a well rounded moral char- acter. We have foolishly believed that in going to and from school, and in their games and plays on the school ground, our children obtain all needed exercise. We have lost sight of the fact that it is not exercise alone, but scientific physical training, the co-ordination and correlation of all their physical and psychical forces that our children need. This is as important to the un- gainly, stoop-shouldered boy in the country school as to the pale visaged, narrow-chested boy in the city school; as important to the over-developed boy as to the undeveloped boy, who is all intellect and no muscle. In a speech before the German Parliament the pre- sent Emperor (WiUiam HI.) startled the people by the emphatic declaration that the school children of the 129 I30 AMERICAN BAD BOYS ^ IN THE MAKING. country were deteriorating physically, and as a proof stated that eighteen out of twenty of his classmates were forced to wear glasses on account of defective vision. With one accord we, Pharisee-like, congratulated ourselves that the children in New America were not like those in decadent Europe; but none too soon we discovered our mistake, for upon examination, practi- cally the same deplorable conditions were found in our own country. Carefully prepared statistics showed that fully seventy-five per cent, of our school children were suffering from some physical or mental defect, these defects being especially in evidence in large cities. Prior to this the manual training and physical culture taught in our schools and colleges were chiefly for utili- tarian, aesthetic, and educational purposes, with little regard for the body itself. Indeed, much of the early gymnastic training was for spectacular effect, or for excellence in some sport or acrobatic feat rather than for its effect upon the individual. For lack of properly trained instructors, too, much harm was often done by over-straining the heart, arteries, and certain groups of muscles of sturdy and normal students, who simply lacked harmonious development and co-ordina- tion of movement, but incalculably harmful were the effects upon those below the standards of health, and many were permanently injured by excesses of various kinds. NEED OF PHYSICAL CULTURE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 131 For a striking illustration of this we have but to turn to the stunted, overworked children born in extreme poverty. By immoderate use in early life the epiphysis of bones may become prematurely developed, their length shortened, and the size of the individual thereby lessened. Excessive gymnastics often result in pre- mature hardening of the muscles and retardation of their growth, superiority in some special sport, as throwing the discus or placing the shot, demonstrating the point, for the strain is often thrown on one set of muscles to the expense of others, resulting in unsymmet- rical development. Careful investigation has shown that each muscle or group of muscles has, with certain fairly well-defined limits, a fixed weight or load called the physiological load or equation, under which it can perform the great- est amount of work. As this varies with each muscle or each group of muscles, and even with each individual, it must be given due consideration in all physical exer- cise. Although dangers from excesses still exist, they have been reduced to a minimum by the thorough train- ing of modern instructors; according to the present slow rate of progress, however, three or four generations must pass away before physical culture can be uni- formly adopted in our pubHc schools. It is estimated that out of approximately seventeen million school children less than one-fourth are receiving systematic physical training from competent instructors. 132 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. As the true aim of all physical training should be to teach how to acquire and maintain good health, phy- sique, and the subordination of the physical to the psychical forces, the teacher, and later the pupil, should fully comprehend what is meant by growth and de- velopment, and the influence of exercise on these pro- cesses. Boys are slightly larger than girls at birth, and both grow rapidly during the first two years of life, and slowly during the third and fourth years, though the boys forge ahead from the start. This difference in growth is especially marked from the fifth to the ninth or tenth year when conditions are reversed and the girls outstrip the boys both in height and weight. These changed conditions obtain from three to four years when the boys again take the lead and complete their growth at the age of twenty-three or twenty-four, while the girls attain their complete growth at ninteen or twenty. The year of most rapid growth for girls is thirteen, and for boys sixteen. In both sexes the period of accelerated development is preceded and followed V by a period of retarded development, and in both sexes, too, there are minor variations and rhythms in develop- ment, and there are also evidences of diurnal, weekly and seasonal rates of development. As the growth of the body is merely the sum of the growth of its parts, it is obviously as important to understand the growth of the parts as of the whole. We know that the rate of NEED OF PHYSICAL CULTURE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 133 growth in height and weight is usually inverse. Thus, boys grow in height two and one-half times more from April to August than from August to November, while the rate of growth in weight is much greater from August to November than from April to August; that is when the height rate is at its maximum the weight rate is at its minimum and vice versa. Growth focuses and centers about different organs or sets of organs for a certain period and then changes to another, each group of muscles having its period of accelerated and retarded rate of growth. The muscles of the upper arm and shoulders are susceptible of de- velopment much earlier than the small muscles in the lower arms and fingers, while the heart and lungs have their greatest development during the years of adoles- cence. The growth of the brain is about nine times as great from birth to the fourth year as from the fourth year to the eighth or ninth year, when it practically reaches maturity. ^^ Not only the time, but the manner of development is a factor of great physiological importance and sig- nificance. Thus, the muscles grow stronger from the center of the body towards the extremities, the bones also grow from their centers to their extremities. The mind, too, has its periods of accelerated and retarded development. Its capacities are not all unfolded at the same time, but one by one in regular order. These, however, may vary at times in their rate of growth, and 134 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. may at times overlap each other. The first days, months, and even years of a child's hfe are concerned chiefly in accumulating sense experience for later elaboration into memory and thought experiences. Health statistics of German school children show that those children that do not go to school until they are seven years of' age become stronger and in all other respects are better developed than those that start a year sooner; furthermore, that in the higher schools for boys, where there are gymnastic exercises but no studies in the afternoon, the percentage of sickness varies from twenty-five to thirty per cent, and in those schools where children are forced to study in the after- noon without physical exercise, the percentage is as high as seventy-nine per cent. It is also found that school work suffers in quaHty with the length of the session; that forenoon work is always better than that of the afternoon, and that the quality of work, too, is always better when the half day's session has two brief recesses. ^ The chief object in all physical training is a unity of purpose sufficiently broad and comprehensive to in- clude the whole nature of the child, physical, mental, and moral. Although each organ of the body is com- posed of groups of cells which are differentiated ac- cording to the special function they are to perform, each individual group is intimately connected, by Hues of intercommunications with every other group and NEED OF PHYSICAL CULTURE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 135 cell, SO that the body acts as a unit in all its vital func- tions. Any physical culture, therefore, that is not broad enough to include this threefold nature of the child is to that extent defective and harmful. "The soul is not the body, and the breath is not the flute, Both together make the music; either marred and all is mute." Physiologists tell us that during each wave of con- traction of a muscle the tissue fluids are forced onward, and the arterioles become dilated, thereby admitting of more nutrition; during each wave of relaxation the tissue juices and waste products are sucked into the lymph channels to be carried to the blood in the veins. The increased afflux of blood to a structure or organ through its increased exercise is exempUfied by the ingenious experiments of Mosso who, as is well known, demonstrated that, when a man is placed in a horizontal position on a delicately balanced table the head portion of the table goes down during the act of thinking. Thus, in nearly every form of muscular exercise up to the point of exhaustion, the blood is attracted from the heart through the arteries, at a rate proportionate to the in- tensity of the exercise. The result is increased capil- lary pressure and consequent increased flow of blood through the veins toward the heart, stimulating that organ to more frequent and vigorous action. Even if there be no effort whatever to exercise the chest, imder such circumstances the increased action of the heart 136 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. and the greater demand for oxygen tends to quicken the aspirating movements, increasing the exchange of gases between the blood and the air. The tremendous im- portance of some form of chest gymnastics can be ap- preciated when it is remembered that even in health less than one-seventh of the air in the lungs is expelled at each expiration, the remaining six-sevenths of the air in the lungs being retained as residual air to become more or less contaminated with the bi-products of metabolism. By full, deep respiratory movements with the alternate expansion and contraction of the chest walls, the volume of tidal air inhaled and exhaled is materially increased, the exchange of gases between the blood and air is accelerated, the contraction of the heart becomes more frequent and vigorous, the sluggish blood in the veins and the contents of the lymphatics are squeezed outward and onward, and all the vital processes given greater impetus. The larger the muscles the greater the amount of debris of broken down tissue is there to be disposed of. If the lung capacity is correspondingly large, well and good; but if not, the large muscles are a distinct hindrance. As the smallest muscle in the smallest finger has, through nerve fibers, direct connection with some part of the brain, a failure to develop such a muscle means a failure to develop the corresponding brain area. At the time of the most rapid development of an organ or structure, and at the time of its greatest functional activity, it NEED OF PHYSICAL CULTURE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 137 needs extra nutrition through extra blood supply. Thus, during close and protracted study the brain needs more than the ordinary amount of nutrition. Again at the very time of life during early adolescence, when the school is demanding the heaviest brain work, the heart and lungs are making their greatest growth, the one process, in a measure, antagonizing the other. Hence, all physical exercise should be adapted to and made to harmonize with these variations in the blood balance. The amount of exercise necessary to accom- plish a given result will vary in proportion to the rate of growth of the parts to be especially affected; less being needed at the time of most rapid development, and more during periods of retarded and completed develop- ment. The stooping posture, so comjtnon among children while studying at their desks, not only favors spinal curvature but also tends to displace and bring undue pressure upon nearly all the abdominal and thoracic viscera. The vital capacity, as tested by the amount of air that can be expelled into a spirometer, is from fifteen to twenty-five per cent, less in stoop-shouldered and flat-chested persons while in their accustomed posture than in the same persons when standing erect. If this rule holds good, which it doubtless does in nor- mal respiration, it means that twenty-five per cent, more life giving oxygen is taken into the system while in the erect than in the stooping posture. It is difficult, 138 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. therefore, to estimate the benefits to be derived from proper physical exercise upon body, mind and charac- ter. The erect, well poised body, and the definite, forceful and free movement of all the Kmbs gives an impetus to the vital organs, sends an extra supply of blood to all parts of the body, and brings a conscious- ness of self and of the dignity and importance of life. The erect position then is in itself both a physical and moral exercise. "Unless above himself he can Erect himself, how mean a thing is man." The mind and body are so intimately interrelated that an experienced observer can see in a boy with a slow shuffling gait, and in the boy with a quick, jerky gait, minds and characters closely corresponding to these respective physical conditions. Change these abnormal into normal movements, and much will have been done towards the transformation of mind and character. This is accompKshed in the first instance by substituting an active, healthy vital process for one sluggist and unhealthy; and in the second, a regular, rhythmical vital process for one fitful and spasmodic. Both are Ukely to live longer, make better citizens, and be happier as the result of the change Both vice and disease are attracted towards those that are constitu- tionally weak, and repelled by those that are strong. The aim, therefore, of all physical culture is to develop NEED OF PHYSICAL CULTURE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 139 the latent possibilities, inherent in the individual; to inspire reverence for the body, and a due appreciation of sanitary science; to develop the will that the phys- ical self may be subordinated to the mental and moral self. "Then the tongue will be framed to music And the hand be armed with skill, The face be the mold of beauty, And the heart the throne of the will." Formerly the arguments of educators in favor of physical culture in the school centered around the development of the special senses, and the strengthen- ing of the lines of intercommunication between the countless thousands of nerve fibers, in the brain mass, which connect each group of cells with every other group in the brain, in the process of education. The tendency, therefore, was to emphasize the psychic rather than the physical eiSects of such exercise. But since it has been abundantly demonstrated that the most perfect physical exercise gives the best psychic results by coordinating and correlating all the physical and psychic forces, whether so intended or not, edu- cators have come to be the most pronounced champions of physical culture for its combined effects. Next to physicians they can see, as few others can, the fearful tendency towards physical deterioration following in the wake of advancing civilization. They can see, by I40 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. the side of the intellectual giant, the feeble minded; by the side of the genius, the degenerate; by the side of the strong, the weak, the delicate, the pale, pinched products of overcrowded cities. Mr. Spencer says: "Perhaps nothing will hasten the time when body and mind will be adequately cared for as a diffusion of the belief that there is such a thing as physical morality. The fact is that all breaches of the laws of health are physical sins. '' The people of ancient Hellas attained to their supe- riority in physical form and feature through ceaseless practice of games and gymnastics. To them the care of the body was a matter of ethics. They believed that their gods inhabited human forms, the most per- fect and beautiful that man or gods could conceive of. Hence, their highest aim was to pattern after and strive to reach physical perfection. This may account, too, for their superior intellectual achievements, and that "incomparable shining forth of the soul in cold marble " in the best specimens of Greek sculpture. On the other hand, the early Christians in their zeal for internal perfection, and their hatred for all things formal and pagan, crucified the flesh that holiness of soul might be manifest. So, while the Grecian youth glorified his god through his physical perfection and physical possibiHties, the overzealous Christian sought to glorify his God and show forth his purity of soul by flaggellation, fasting NEED OF PHYSICAL CULTURE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 1 41 and exposure. But fortunately for the race the flagel- lant and the cloister are rapidly passing into history, and the corporal man, "the temple of the holy spirit" is again coming into its own. Much of the credit for the progress in physical cul- ture and the stimulation of pubUc sentiment in its favor is due to the ceaseless efforts of the Young Men's Chris- tian Association, and the Woman's Christian Temper- ance Union. They have been among the very first to see the truth of Rosseau's apparent paradoxical maxim, "The weaker the body the more it commands, and the stronger the body the more it obeys." So, with the clergy, the educators, and the physicians, who are striving separately, one to build up the spiritual, one the mental, and one the physical man, yet united in one tremendous effort to build up and rejuvenate the whole man, may we not hope even for greater progress in the near future than we have made in the recent past? But in order to obtain the best possible results it will be necessary first, to elevate physical culture from the secondary position it now occupies to the exalted posi- tion in the educational field its importance demands. It should mean more than mere gymnastic exercises or competitive athletics; more than a few champion teams for our high schools, colleges and universities. It should mean the physical, mental and spiritual re- juvenation of the individual and the race. "If the time ever comes when this science is rec- 142 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. ognized as its merits warrant, and men and women everywhere practice their daily exercises (including daily ablutions) as regularly as they take their daily meals, sickness will be an old woman's tale, and death but the falling to earth, as a ripe and luscious apple in the fullness of fruition drops from the tree. " It is putting it mildly to say that the enthusiastic advocates of the formal study of hygiene in our public schools have been as sadly disappointed with results, as have been the advocates of the formal study of civics and ethics. All are coming to reaUze that that which is to be acted out in adult hfe is best learned by being acted out in childhood and adolescent Hfe. It is not the purpose of physical culture to develop a race of giants or Roman gladiators, but to make the weak strong, the timid courageous, the crooked straight, and the brazen reserved. In other words, its purpose is to develop a race which will be wiser, Hve longer, and make the world happier. To this end there should be no cessation of intelHgent physical culture between the kindergarten and the high school and college. The student should not only practice physical culture but he should learn what it has done for other individuals and nations. It is as important that he study the music, the oratory, the sculpture and athletics of a nation as to study its revolutions and dynasties. We need a national system of physical culture, drill, and discipline, selected from the best of all the systems NEED OF PHYSICAL CULTURE IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 143 which will be as applicable to America as the German and Swedish systems are to these respective countries. "What constitutes the state? Not high raised battlements or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate, Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned. Not bays and broad armored ports, No; men, high-minded men, with power far above dumb brutes imbued. Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing dare maintain — These constitute the state." CHAPTER X. THE HYGIENIC AND SOCIAL VALUE OF PLAY. In 1909 a bill providing for the establishment of playgrounds for children in Washington City was de- feated in the American Congress, chiefly through the dilatory tactics of a member who sneeringly said that "You had as well try to teach a fish to swim as a child to play." He insisted that, as play was natural with the child, supervised play was worthless if not harmful because imnatural. In common with this, and many other present-day statesmen, many of us are more or less oblivious to the fact that the old-fashioned farm life of a century ago is rapidly giving way to over- crowded cities with their deteriorating influences. Thus, in 1800 about three per cent, of the population in the United States lived in cities of eight thousand and over, while in 19CX) more than thirty- three per cent, of our population lived in five hundred and forty-six cities of this size, and one-fifth of our entire population lived in thirty-eight great cities. In 19 10 more than fifteen million lived in nineteen cities with over two hundred and fifty thousand, more than twenty million lived in cities with over one hundred thousand while eight 145 146 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. million lived in one hundred and seventy-eight cities of from twenty-five thousand to one hundred thousand. To say, then, that children take to play as naturally as a duck takes to water argues but little if there is no place for either the child to play or for the duck to swim. It is worse than mockery to expatiate upon the tendency of children to repeat in their play the history of the race by climbing, hunting, fishing, building fires and constructing houses if they have not even a micro- scopic back yard in which to follow out these instincts, as is the case with milHons of children in this country. If, as physiologists tell us, the growing child hungers for muscular exercise as truly as he hungers for food and drink, is it not as cruel, not to say as criminal, to deprive him of one of these essentials as the other? And if this be true of the average child in good homes, is it not doubly so with the children in over-crowded tenement districts, where food is scarce, where the air is stuffy and where the sunshine seldom comes? For such children even supervised play is evidently better than no play. There is no disposition whatever on the part of the enthusiastic advocates of outdoor exercise to substitute play, vacation or recess schools, as the new national movement is variously called, for formal physical exercise, but rather is it their purpose to offer these natural elastic exercises as a supplement to those that HYGIENIC AND SOCIAL VALUE OF PLAY. 147 are rigid and unnatural. Both forms are necessary in our over-complex social life, especially in over-crowded cities, but games and plays have the advantage, in that, wherever possible, they are carried on in the open air. There is a vast difference in playing baseball, football, basket-ball, lacrosse, or in puUing up (chinning), placing the shot, making the standing broad or running long jump, or the fifty, one hundred, three hundred or four hundred-yard dash in the open air and in swinging dumb-bells or Indian clubs in stuffy athletic rooms. If health comes in through ''the muscles and flies out through the nerves'^ nothing is better suited to restore this equiHbrium than properly regulated exercise in the open air. This is as true in the case of girls as of boys, as outdoor exercise can be more readily adjusted to suit their needs than can be done in cramped indoor artifi- cial athletics. With increased outdoor athletics during recent years, girls are rapidly escaping their well-known tendency to tuberculosis and anaemia and chlorosis during adolescence. One of the strongest arguments in favor of games and plays as a means of exercise for children of both sexes is the significant fact that from earHest recorded times throughout the ages children's plays have been largely the same, thereby indicating their natural or instinctive origin. From this we are to infer that the more in- stinctive a movement is the less exercise necessary for its development, and vice versa. 148 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. This is forcibly illustrated in the comparative ease with which a child learns to walk and the extreme dif- ficulty with which it learns to write. As the purpose of all education is to develop the latent possibilities of the child it follows that the chief function of the teacher, especially of athletics, is to watch these tendencies and direct their proper development. Since hereditary racial motor tendencies are repeated in plays of children it is obvious that development is best fostered through properly regulated plays. Another fact of overwhelming significance in this connection is the recognition of certain nascent periods in the development of parts of the human organism and of the organism as a whole, and that children's games and plays not only tend to follow hereditary racial tendencies but also to conform in a measure to these nascent periods. Hence the tendency of groups of children the world over to vary their exercises accord- ing to these impeUing, determining forces. The great advantage in following these instincts is that so far the closest research has not revealed any logical arrange- ment in the manner or time of the development of these nascent periods. Though hidden somewhere in the deep mysteries of racial development, they unquestion- ably exert a potent influence in the normal develop- ment of the child. Any empirical exercise, therefore, not in rythmical consonance with these nascent periods is likely to be ineffective if not actually harmful. A HYGIENIC AND SOCIAL VALUE OF PLAY. 149 case in point is the well-known failures attending efforts to develop the thoracic viscera, heart and lungs, prior to the period of their greatest nascency, during ado- lescence and the marked success attending such efforts during this period. t^Play, therefore, is not only the most natural form of exercise but, when properly regulated, especially with reference to these nascent periods, one of the most ef- fective aids to symmetrical physical development. In order to avoid excesses in any form of exercise it is im- portant to keep the limitations and needs of the growing child ever in mind, yet as play is expressive rather than repressive and is in a great measure a response to the growing needs of the organism there is less danger of either over or under work of a part of the organism or of the organism as a whole in play than in formal physical culture. Moreover, since many of these natural rythmical, vibratory movements, are often expressive of physical changes in the organism they may be woven into rythmical games and plays with great physiological advantage. Correct physical attitudes, proper chest expansion, graceful and harmonious movements can thus be made a part of various games and plays. The former widespread skepticism in regard to the educa- tional value of play or even of any form of physical exercise was largely due to lack of appreciation of the essential unity of mind and body. But the belated recognition of this unity and the further recognition ISO AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. of the inestimable value of physical culture on brain nutrition, and indirectly upon educational processes, has only tended to emphasize the superior benefits of properly regulated play as an aid to education over nearly all other forms of exercise. Owing to the fact that formal physical culture re- quires more or less concentration of attention while play is spontaneous the latter affords vastly more mental rest for the same period of time than the former and as a consequence offers greater safeguards against fatigue. This insures a maximum of mental efficiency with a minimum of expenditure of nervous energy. It is therefore especially suited to the harmonious co- ordination and correlation of physical and psychical forces and the conservation of nerve energy in mental processes. But it is in its hygienic and social aspect, perhaps, that play proves its greatest superiority over all other forms of exercise. It is here that the maxim, "To brace the mind we must strengthen the muscle'' is given double significance, since the individual must learn to regulate his own conduct to conform to the rights of others. While the will is thus being strength- ened through the strengthening of the muscle, it is also being fortified through subordination to the will of the social group. Although this is the most important, it is also the most difficult lesson that children are called upon to learn. Its importance increases just in pro- portion as social complexity increases and its diflS- HYGIENIC AND SOCIAL VALUE OF PLAY. 151 culties are largely in proportion to the former isolation of children. This acounts, in a measure, for the extreme diffi- culty experienced by the youngest and the only sons of their parents in adjusting their conduct to the require- ments of large social groups. It also helps to explain why an undue proportion of these boys find their way into penal and reformatory institutions. This same difficulty, though probably to a less degree, is experi- enced by members of isolated families and of isolated tribes or clans. Children therefore, learn self-control largely in proportion to the sphere of their social train- ing. The more restricted the social sphere the less self- control and vice versa. yjAJ though the chief advantage claimed for the public over the private schools is their greater socializing in- fluence yet, regrettable as the fact is, it is nevertheless true that the highest expectations of the public schools in this regard have not so far been realized. Though they are the acknowledged melting pot into which the children of our heterogenious population are being molded into American citizens this citizenship is falling far short of the ideal. The chief defect appears to be a lack of physical and social efficiency. How far the growing demand for a reduced curriculum and in- creased play grounds with fewer hours at school and more hours at play will correct these evils remains to be seen. That it is already doing much to correct the first 152 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. of these evils is everywhere in evidence and that it will be equally effective as regards the other is fondly hoped. For a boy to fall in line and march rigidly into the classroom, there rigidly recite his lessons and as rigidly march out again, does not make him in the broadest sense a social unit of that school. The situation is but little relieved by the inelastic physical culture usually carried on in school. The boy is still deprived of one of the essential social requisites — an opportunity to develop his sympathies, and the spirit of altruism that hfts him above selfish aims and purposes. "Unless he can above himself erect himself how mean a thing is man.'^ The first important social lesson for the boy is to learn that whatever hurts him — as a kick or blow or jostle — will also hurt other boys. This can be learned by actual experience upon the play- ground much more readily than by expostulations from parents and teachers. In this way the child " spHts up into his other selves," as physiologists call it. He altern- ately becomes the I and the you, the pursuer and the pursued, the it and the not it, until the fighting instinct of which all aggressive individuals and races are made is wholly transformed. An injustice to himself or his companion becomes an injustice to the whole social group, ^ence, a boy's sense of justice is developed largely in proportion to the expansion of his sympathies. When a boy comes to understand that justice is some- thing that belongs to others as well as himself he is HYGIENIC AND SOCIAL VALUE OF PLAY. 153 rapidly becoming socialized. His resentments are now directed more against social than against individual wrongs and he is as ready to fight for civic righteousness as the primitive man is to fight for personal wrongs. As sympathy is a child of the emotions and close akin to sentiment, while justice is the outgrowth of reason and judgment, the harmonious development of the two stand for the highest possibilities of the individual and of the race. While sympathy should not be permitted to over- balance reason and judgment, the claims of justice should not be permitted to degenerate into cruelty or vindictiveness. Surprising evidence of large sympathy and a high sense of justice in boys has recently been brought to light in Junior Republics and other self- governing boy organizations. Boy relief corps for dealing with offenders and adjusting differences have proved eminently successful wherever tried. Com- munity play organizations, debating societies and neighborhood lawn meetings have accomplished much in securing accessions from boy gangs. Anyone who has watched boys swarm out of alleys to see processions go by or to follow bands or who has watched half a score or more boys, perhaps dressed in fantastic Indian attire, with imitation guns or bows and arrows, dash out of an alley in full pursuit of one of their number, supposed to be a pale face, can form some faint con- ception of the tremendous influence that music, motion and crowd groupings have on the life of boys. 154 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. A significant suggestion as to the infinite possibilities of the future is the fact that as soon as suitable play grounds are established in close proximity to densely populated communities gangs begin to disappear. \rhe alley becomes the world to the boy brought up in restricted city areas. He gauges everything by and locates everything in the alley as did the boy who was asked by his Sunday school teacher where Adam and Eve hid when the Lord came into the Garden, when he said, "In the alley.'' The results of experiments in biological laboratories strikingly illustrate the marked, effect of surroundings on development. It has been thus shown that if a number of the lower forms of life, tadpoles, for instance, of the same size, age and parent- age be placed in jars of varying size, some in the small- est, some in the next larger and some in the largest size, that they will develop in proportion to the size of their respective jars. Important lessons in regard to the value of space on physical and ipental efficiency have been gained by experiments with classes in the mechanic arts, especially with classes in difficult and delicate handicraft. These experiments have shown that with the same tools, light, temperament and ventilation, the same pupils can do much better work and do it more expeditiously in a class of fifteen pupils in a room than when there are thirty pupils in a room of the same size. Indeed, it is said that an expert can select from a mixed sample of HYGIENIC AND SOCIAL VALUE OF PLAY. 155 the work of such classes that which was done by the fifteen from that done by the thirty pupil class. The former apprehension that the better class of students might be injured morally by intimate association on the playground with the more vicious classes has proved to be wholly unfounded. Since the teacher is present to observe every movement, and since pupils are held to the same strict accountability for conduct on the playground as they are in the school, the tendency is rather to lift up the bad than to drag down the good. The expenditure of surplus energy through vigorous play is the surest preventive against fighting once so common on the play ground. The spirit of imitation, of emulation, of higher aspirations and hopes of success pervades the whole playground at- mosphere. When a boy of unfortunate home influences once comes in touch with this upward impelling force he instinctively feels the inspiration and tends to move in the direction of that force. This is forcibly illustrated by the story of the boy who was sitting on the side of the street pavement looking intently upward with both hands also extended upwards, as if holding something firmly, and when asked by a passerby what he was doing, said '^I am flying my kite," and when the man told him that he did not see any kite, the boy repKed, "Neither do I, but I feel it pull." The former fear, too, of excesses appears not to have been well founded. As the movements are 156 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. voluntary and are under the direct supervision of the teacher or superintendent there is really less danger of excesses than in formal physical culture. Besides, games and plays appear to be especially suited to the needs of the feeble and lethargic, both in body and mind. The same is true in the case of the nervous and of the anaemic. Voluntary movements, fresh air and sunshine usually bring better results than do tonics and sedatives. Teachers have learned that the surest and quickest way to transform a disorderly indifferent class into an orderly and interested one is through physical exercise, especially in the form of games and plays. In the games there is a better moral influence because the child enjoys the effort put forth for the accomplish- ment of a definite purpose. The element of joy is most important because every good feature of character grows more rapidly in joyous conditions. Joy is the sunshine that gives vitality to good principle. More- over, exercise which results from and develops self activity insures the highest propulsive power and tends to make of the individual a self-directing agent. No other form of exercise insures this to such a degree as does well directed play. The boy who is a member of a team must be self-reHant, possess complete self-con- trol and be ever on the alert. He must decide quickly and act accordingly. He must act on the square, never shirk a responsibility, be courageous, but courteous. HYGIENIC AND SOCIAL VALUE OF PLAY. 157 aggressive but not offensive, hopeful but ever ready to yield gracefully to defeat. The rules of the game must be as scrupulously obeyed as is the law of the land. Plato, says "If children are trained to submit to laws in their plays, the love of law will enter their souls with music accompanying the games, never leave them and helps them in their development.'' In order to understand something of the tremendous interest being taken in outdoor life one need only note the rapid increase in the number of playgrounds, parks, outdoor athletics, fresh air schools, public baths, and the multiplicity of boating, motoring, riding, mountain climbing and camping-out clubs. The Boy Scout movement and the National Playground Association are perhaps the most comprehensive and widespread expression of this almost universal demand for out- door life, especially when associated with games and plays. Anaxagoras, the Greek philosopher, when asked during his last conscious moments how he would have the anniversary of his death celebrated, said "Let the boys play." CHAPTER XI. OUR UNHEALTHY PUBLIC MORAL SENTIMENT. One of the strangest features of present-day Ameri- can civilization lies in the degree of importance at- tached to the different virtues, each one of which is equally essential to a uniform development of the social organism. Because of this inconsistency we are con- fronted with the anomalous condition of var)dng standards of morahty, which threaten to undermine the basic principles of our civil and pohtical institutions. So long as crime is confined to the lower social levels there is hope for its extinction and a chance for the average youth to escape its baneful influences. But when the foimtainhead of social life becomes polluted there is grave danger that the whole social current become contaminated. That the vast majority of American citizens are, at heart, honest and patriotic is abundantly shown by their traditional uprightness in private life and their historic devotion to their country in time of great national peril. No better evidence of their altruistic spirit is needed than the magnificent provision they have made for the education of their children, the care IS9 l6o AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. of their dependents and their ready response in time of pubHc need. It is difficult, therefore, to beUeve that a people endowed with such generous traits and noble impulses would defy public opinion and engage in prac- tices, the known tendencies of which are to injure the public and poison the minds of the young. It is more in keeping with the spirit of the times to beheve that such acts are due, rather to defective ethical standards than to individual perversity. It is almost incon- ceivable that a man who scrupulously practices honest dealing in private life should unscrupulously manipu- late stocks, thereby defrauding shareholders and de- ceiving the public, simply because he happens to belong to a corporation, unless such act were, in a measure, condoned by pubhc moral sentiment. An illustration of the truth of this is seen in the difference in the standards upheld by many in their deahngs with individuals and with the government, or with corporations. They appear to feel under less obligations to deal honestly with the latter than with the former. Again, in some western states, in the neighborhood of Indian Reservations, there is often one standard for dealing with Indians and another for dealing with white persons. In other localities the unsophisticated immigrant or newcomer is considered a legitimate object for exploitation. The American people are so imbued with the idea of success at any price that the magnitude of a com- OUR UNHEALTHY PUBLIC MORAL SENTIMENT. i6l promising transaction is not without its influence upon public sentiment. A man who obtains a few dollars by questionable means is sent to the penitentiary, while the man who obtains a few millions by similar means is hailed as a new Napoleon of Finance. For a great corporation to swindle the government out of many millions of dollars in a few years by the aid of false scales and the connivance of venal public officials is quite American; and for an active church member and prominent Sunday School superintendent in puritan New England to rob the bank of which he has for years been the trusted cashier, and in which members of his church and Sunday School are confiding depositors, is but an unfortunate incident in American high finance. In the domain of politics, too, moral sentiment is equally inconsistent. The responsibilities of citizen- ship rest Hghtly upon many high in social and political Hfe. Self-righteous citizens, possessed of wealth and affluence, prompt in discharging reHgious obHgations, think lightly of smuggling imports and of making false tax returns. Elevation to high official position is too often taken as a license for the exploitation of the government. Fealty to party and loyalty to friends is frequently mistaken for genuine patriotism. Citizens who would risk their lives in repelling an invading foe find ample justification in voting with their party, even when such vote means retention in office of a clique l62 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. of political bandits who have systematically robbed the pubHc treasury for years. Even when great moral questions are submitted to the people estimable citizens are often controlled by commercial interests and mercenary motives in casting their votes. As a member of the State Central Committee of my party in my native state for a number of years, and as a representative of the State Campaign Committee in more than one closely contested state and national election, candor compels me to state, humihating as such statement may be, that the greater bulk of the campaign funds, claimed to be necessary to maintain literary and speakers' bureaus, seldom leave campaign headquarters until the very eve of election, when this preliminary work is practically completed and the great battle of ballots is about to begin. Then it is des- patched by swift couriers to different parts of the state, or rather to the most promising missionary fields. It is to be regretted that personal observation shows that these missionary fields increase largely in proportion to the amount of funds distributed at each election. The fault, therefore, is not so much due to the venal- ity of the average voter as the encouragement given by the example of those of larger responsibility in social and political Hfe. For this reason, as in other like cases, ill-advised legislation, looking to the restriction of these evils in advance of pubhc sentiment, usually OUR UNHEALTHY PUBLIC MORAL SENTIMENT. 163 multiplies offenses, without in the least diminishing the evil. Even the AustraHan ballot and the direct primary laws have not met the sanguine expectation of their advocates. In nearly every town and city, and in many states of the Union, it is claimed that offices are held, public money handled and pubUc business controlled by a powerful organization known as "The Ring," which dictates party nominations and often forces unworthy men upon the people. But the blighting curse of nearly every legislative body in the country, city, state and national, is the ever present representative of special interests — the lobbyist. Whether he is to deHver an address before a com- mittee, appear as expert witness, cultivate sentiment or lay snares for unsuspecting members, he is selected on account of his peculiar fitness for the special duties assigned him. The startling disclosures made during the recent investigation of municipal affairs in many large cities, notably, St. Louis, San Francisco and Pittsburg, show that the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure or defeat certain fran- chises is considered a good investment by interested corporations. The more recent disclosures of the wholesale bribery of members of state legislatures in the election of United States Senators and in securing or preventing the passage of certain legislation or letting certain contracts and the embezzlement of l64 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. public funds by trusted public officials give color to the widespread belief among the masses that honesty and patriotism in high places are only conventional terms and that every man has his price. It would thus appear that some malign influence had suddenly invaded the moral atmosphere of the upper social strata and set up a deadly contagion from which few in high position are entirely immune. But the truth is, the germs of many of these evils are deep- seated in some of our most cherished characteristics, if not in our much boasted institutions. That ad- mirable Anglo-Saxon tendency to excel at every pos- sible point, when unrestrained, as it is in our democratic country, is prone to excesses. Again, our justly lauded tendency to individual initiative, which creates a kind of friendly rivalry for supremacy among the members of a community, is not without its dangers and abuses. From his earliest recollection the American boy is taught that he has within him latent possibilities of greatness in almost any direction his genius may chance to lead him. By his own initative he may become a champion athlete, a merchant prince, a great general or even a president of the United States. The motto is *' Succeed.'' Succeed honestly if you can, but suc- ceed. Means must be subordinated to an end. The result is a blind rush without adequate preparation and without due regard for the rights of others for an un- known goal, which only a few, and these not always the OUR UNHEALTHY PUBLIC MORAL SENTIMENT. 165 most worthy, ever reach, "i As a consequence, those who fail become embittered against our institutions, while those who succeed in the highest degree become defiant. Hence, the conservative middle classes are the true repositors of our civil and political liberties. Nothwithstanding our democratic pretentions, we are decidedly aristocratic in our tendencies and aspira- tions. Wealth possesses the magic power of trans- forming a plebian into a self-constituted aristocrat in an incredibly short time. Entrenched behind the power and prestige that great wealth affords, the once humble defender of human rights becomes the arrogant champion of corporate wealth, while the once typical proletariat becomes an enthusiastic Malthusian dis- ciple. Institutions do not possess the potency they once possessed. The form of government has not the same significance it once had. Democratic America is daily becoming more aristocratic, while monarchical Europe is daily becoming more democratic. Democracies have their perils as well as monarchies. To many, the public is a thing separate and apart from themselves; it is a matter of Uttle consequence that their character helps to form the warp and woof of the character of the nation. They understand but vaguely that they are integral parts of the community and that whatever advances or injures the community has a Uke effect on themselves. l66 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. In a democratic Republic, with a large heterogeneous population like ours, where freedom and independence are taught as cardinal virtues, and where the important lesson of obedience and self-control are only half learned, the rights of the individual are likely to be magnified and the rights of the community minimized. Efforts to regulate the conduct of individuals in their relations to each other, and especially to the com- munity, are construed as restraints on personal hberty. As a consequence, friction between individuals and resistance to organized authority is inevitable and a reckless disregard for the sanctity of human life becomes a part of the common heritage of the people. So true has this already become that we have been characterized by many foreign writers as a '^Nation of man killers.'' Ten thousand homicides and ten thous- and suicides annually, with the vast number of deaths by accident, on railroads, in mines and factories, cer- tainly do constitute an appalhng record of violence and crime. To this is added a few hundred victims of mob violence each year with an occasional application of the torch to emphasize our sanguinary propensities. Apart from the demoralizing effect on the minds of the young, these frequent deaths by violence help to swell our already enormous list of orphans and depend- ents. A stream of crime and pauperism, which widens as it flows, is thereby started, and may not be diverted from its turbulent course for many generations. If, OUR UNHEALTHY PUBLIC MOREL SENTIMENT. 167 therefore, the true test of the civilization of a people is the sanctity placed on human life, we would not be likely to draw the capital prize in a contest with the most advanced nations of the earth. Another forcible illustration of the weakness of public moral sentiment, is the difficulty experienced in secur- ing convictions for crime. Especially is this true of persons of wealth and influence. Unless it be for offenses so serious in their nature as to shock the sensi- bilities of the community, and cause a reversal of public sentiment, it is proverbial that persons with friends and money are seldom convicted for crime. The jury is unduly influenced, the trial is postponed, the case is appealed and change of venue taken until the courts and the people are worn out and the case is dis- missed, or compromised with a short sentence, and often with the tacit understanding that an early pardon will be secured. While this frequent miscarriage of justice, through the dereliction of the courts, is perhaps, to some extent, responsible for the spirit of mob violence prevalent in the United States, yet everywhere the idea is more or less prevalent that for certain grave offenses the offender should be summarily dealt with without waiting for the intervention of the courts. This spirit prevails in many communities, because it is believed to be the patriotic duty of the people in self-defense, and as a warning to others, to take the law into their own hands. So deep-seated is this belief in 1 68 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. independent action, in some large sections of the country, that secret organizations are formed, ostensi- bly for the purpose of maintaining law and order, while in reality they are not infrequently largely made up of lawless characters bent on spite and plunder, who, in the end succeed in dominating the movements of such organizations. Wherever this spirit prevails in any of its forms conviction for that peculiar form of crime is almost impossible. If guilty parties are brought to trial, men entertaining similar opinions, or belonging to the same organization as the accused, are selected as jurors; sworn officers of the law plan the escape of prisoners, or, if unfriendly to them, secretly aid the mob in their execution. The majesty of the law, the sans- tity of an oath and the sacredness of human Hfe are given small consideration. Disregard for law and order is thus instilled into the minds of the rising gener- ation, many of whom become participants in these deeds of violence at an early age. Another manifestation of this unhealthy moral senti- ment is seen in the readiness with which good citizens sign petitions and write letters asking Chief Executives to grant pardons, even to hardened criminals, thus turning them out on a defenseless community. Jurors, and sometimes judges, yield to the importunities of friends of the prisoner and join in these petitions with- out newly discovered evidence, tending to estabUsh his innocence, and without any assurance of his reforma- OUR UNHEALTHY PUBLIC MORAL SENTIMENT. 169 tion. The constitutional right to petition does not carry with it the moral right whereby law-abiding citizens may sign petitions jeopardizing the peace and quietude of the community which has rights as sacred as those of individuals. Chief Executives are often censured for granting pardons when, in reaHty the signatures presented them on behalf of prisoners, warrant the action they take. In the last analysis the responsibihty of pardon rests upon those giving their names to such petitions. Like these abuses, the right to carry arms in time of peace has degenerated into one of our greatest evils. What was once considered a sacred privilege, when the early settlers of our country were threatened by savage foes from within and oppression from without, is no longer a privilege, since these conditions no longer exist. Nevertheless, deadly weapons are carried by so caUed good citizens, as a menace to the community and to the peace and dignity of the commonwealth. In one of the middle states during the trial of a young man for carrying a deadly weapon, it is authentically related that a pistol was dropped in the jury box, evi- dently from the pocket of one of the jurors, yet all vehemently denied its ownership. I distinctly remember a colleague in the state legisla- ture, afterwards a member of Congress, whose chief boast was his accuracy of aim with a beautiful ivory- handled pistol which he carried daily, even during the 17 O AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. sessions of the law-making body, of which he was an honored member. Again, I was a guest at the same hotel with a prominent district judge who was much disconcerted one morning upon learning that his pistol, which he had carried daily, in violation of law, was stolen. A small, half-witted boy, employed about the hotel, was suspected, arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to serve two years in the penitentiary, all before noon of the same day, while half a score of murder cases were delayed, at great cost, some of them until the next term of court. Here, then, is a great evil, the cause of many crimes of violence, especially by the young, countenanced and encouraged by jurors, judges, and lawmakers, in direct defiance of the law they are supposed to enforce. What can be expected of thoughtless boys, if officers of the law, to whom they should look for guidance, make of themselves walking arsenals by constantly carrying instruments of death on their person in time of peace? Again, the freedom of the press, once held so dear as to be guaranteed by our organic law, has become an evil of no small proportions. The far-reaching, dele- terious influence of certain low-grade publications on the minds of the young is incalculable. Through the accounts of daring deeds and thrilling adventures of evildoers detailed in these pubHcations numberless young persons are annually lured away from home and enticed into crime. It is a common experience, especi- OUR UNHEALTHY PUBLIC MORAL SENTIMENT. 1 71 ally in the West, for boys, even of tender years, to be arrested in the act of wrecking or holding up a railroad train, just as described in detail in books found in their possession. These evils are materially aided by the unhealthy tone of newspapers that find access to the best homes. In these papers, crime is pictured in all its hideous- ness; wanton murder, bold robberies, the tricks of swindlers, and the haunts of vice and crime are depicted in ghastly detail. It is unnecessary, therefore, for youths to visit the dens of vice and crime to be initiated into the ways of evil doers; opportunities and tempta- tions are everywhere present. But, perhaps, the most shocking exhibition of the moral looseness of modem civilization is seen in the alarming increase in our divorce proceedings. While our population increased twenty-one per cent, during the closing decade of the nineteenth century, the number of divorces increased sixty-six per cent. Nine hundred and forty-five thousand divorces in twenty years means nearly fifty thousand granted annually, and this in turn means the partial or complete breaking up of as many homes, and the greater or less demoralization of the children of these homes. There is, then, evidently something radically wrong with our education and training when it can be truth- fully said that in no other civihzed country, Russia probably excepted, is human life held so cheaply and 172 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. in no other civilized country are so many homes wrecked by the spirit of unrest. However, every cloud has a silver Hning, and it is a hopeful sign that the evildoers constitute but a small proportion of our population and that the great mass of the common people, the chief hope of the nation, is culpable only to the extent of a passive tolerance of these evils. Ours is not a decadent nation; we are not a senescent race; we worship no fetiches and have no fatal traditions binding us to an effete past. On the contrary, we are in the vigor of youth, as a nation and a race, while our traditions point only to glorious achievements and abiding hope. With such legacies bequeathed from the past there are good reasons for beHeving that the people will ultimately come into their own rich inheritance and free their once fair name from the stigma of lawlessness and crime. This optimistic augury is predicted upon the historic fact that the American people have been equal to every emergency, have fulfilled every obligation and met every expectation. When they once come to realize fully, as many of them now reaHze vaguely, that the ideals of their fathers are being forsaken and their precepts abandoned, they will shake off their lethargy and rise to meet and discharge the obligations as men, and citizens of a great Republic. Indeed, there are already unmistakable signs of a coming reaction. The great moral waves which have recently swept over our OUR UNHEALTHY PUBLIC MORAL SENTIMENT. 173 country have so cleared the moral atmosphere and quickened the public conscience that even the most pronounced pessimist must have faith in the future of his country. We need a new declaration of independence, not to free us from our external but from our internal enemies — ourselves. We would not have patriotism, even in its narrowest sense, to become less vitalizing, nor the fires on liberty's altar to become less bright. Our people are too fond of pageantry and pyrotechnics for liberty's birth-day to be soon forgotten, but we would have every American citizen become a self conscious ruler, as he is in fact an uncrowned king. In monarchical countries, where the government is in the hands of the ruling classes, the responsibility of the masses consists chiefly in obedience; but as ours is a government not only of and by and for the people collectively, but of and by and for each individual, the relation between the government and the individual becomes a personal matter. Neither the fact that he is only one of many, nor the fact that responsibilities become cumulative with increased wealth and power relieves the humblest citizen of his personal obligations to the government. Nor does the performance of any number of public duties, such as voting, paying taxes and bearing arms, relieve him of other obligations. His benefits are continuous and his obligations are likewise continuous. It is of the utmost importance, 174 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. therefore, that the coming generations be thoroughly educated and trained in that larger patriotism, which has for its foundation, the hierarchy of virtues; up- rightness of character, honest dealing, love of country and the brotherhood of man. CHAPTER XII. OUR PECULIAR SOCIAL PROBLEMS. Notwithstanding our many natural advantages in the way of territory, climate and soil, as a nation we have had many disadvantages with which to contend, disadvantages which are peculiar to ourselves. We have had to subdue a hostile, savage race; emancipate and enfranchise an alien, unassimilable slave race, and mingle a heterogeneous population composed of many races and nationalities into one homogeneous people. On one side we have had an overcrowded population with its multipHcity of social ills, and on the other a slowly receding frontier with its sparsely settled and crudely organized communities. To make the situa- tion more comphcated social progress has been far from uniform throughout the country. Various geographic, economic, social and racial conditions have caused numerous social eddies to linger long in the interior after the floodtide of civiHzation had swept by on its westward march, and many unmistakable evidences of pioneer driftwood are still plainly visible at different points along the irregular line of this receding frontier. Indeed, it would be rather strange than otherwise if 175 176 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. some traces of the many brave and heroic spirits who formed the vanguard of this fierce struggle for advanc- ing Anglo-Saxon expansion and civiHzation were not still to be found, at least along the main line of travel. With no uniformity either in the enactment or the administration of the laws, and, as is characteristic of a democracy, with every man a lawyer and a judge, there is little wonder that different communities have differ- ent standards of right, that what is considered a crime in one community is not always so considered in another, and that the laws are more rigidly enforced in some localities than in others. Thus drunkenness, disor- derly conduct, buglary and vagrancy are more frequent in the Northern and Eastern States; violations of the Internal Revenue Law, carrying deadly weapons and ofifenses against the person in the Southern States; while assaults with weapons and highway robbery are specially prevalent both in the Western and South- western States. But by far the most serious social problems with which we now have to contend are the foreign, the colored and the slum populations. Since we are all immigrants or the descendants of immigrants, it appears strange, and at first thought perhaps absurd, for us now to raise the question of the influence exerted on the crime of the country by our foreign-bom population. But like natives, there are desirable and undesirable foreigners, some adding to our material and moral wealth and others detracting OUR PECULIAR SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 177 therefrom; however, statistics show that in the latter foreigners by far surpass the natives. While persons of foreign birth formed less than twenty per cent, of the total white population in 1900, in 1904 more than twenty- three per cent, of the white prisoners, thirty-four per cent, of the white insane, and forty-three per cent, of the white paupers were of foreign birth, and of the 122,000 white prisoners com- mitted to our prisons during the year 1904, more than 35,000 were foreign born. In that year in nearly every part of the United States the foreign-born contributed decidedly more than their proportion to the minor offenders, but slightly less than their proportion to the major offenders, and in all the Northern States except New York, the percentage of native white of foreign- born parentage among the native white prisoners was greatly in excess of the percentage of native white of foreign-born parentage in the total population. Those of foreign birth between eleven and nineteen years of age formed only six per cent, of the total population of that age in 1900, but more than eleven per cent, of the juvenile delinquents of similar ages committed to our reformatory and industrial schools during the year 1904 were of foreign birth. The most conspicuous instances of the criminality of our foreign-born population are seen in the vices and crimes of overcrowded slum districts in large cities; in the violence and bloodshed attending strikes and 178 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. riots, and in assassinations by members of the black- hand and other anarchistic organizations. Indeed, secret societies having for their object assassination for revenge, extortion, and the extermination of offi- cials as such, are almost wholly the product of foreign soil. However hopeful one may be, there is no denying the fact that a large proportion of our more recent immigrants are of the most degraded and lawless class- es of the Old World. In common with confirmed criminals everywhere they look upon organized society as their enemy. To them courts of justice are but shams for the protection of the rich and the persecution of the poor; rehgion is but a cloak for hypocrisy, purity the merest pretense, and all forms of government they look upon as despotic, and all officers as tyrants. One significant fact in this connection is that in every geographical division of the United States, except the South Central, the foreign-born formed a larger proportion of the prisoners committed during the year 1904 than of those enumerated in the prisons on the thirtieth day of June of that year. From the vast hordes coming to our shores annually, to assimilate such as are susceptible of absorption and to repress those that are not, is a tremendous strain upon our resources. They not only increase competi- tion, intensify labor troubles, and widen the breach between capital and labor, but they help to fill our prisons, almshouses and insane asylums. Some of OUR PECULIAR SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 179 our best and most conservative thinkers sincerely be- lieve that the greatest danger to our republic and to free government is the not remote possibility of a deadly conflict between capital and labor. If this be true what could tend more to hasten that conflict than to flood the labor market with cheap laborers who have no interest in our government or institutions except the subsistance afforded under their protection. If the enemies of law and order were deliberately to set about arraying the poor against the rich and the masses against the classes, certainly no better scheme could be devised than that of reducing wages, turning men out of employment, and women and children out of their homes. However effective a protective tariff may have been in the past in keeping up the price of labor, when free homesteads are exhausted and the supply of laborers exceeds the demand, the best pro- tection to wages will be the reduction in the number of pauper laborers from foreign lands. When we think of the inestimable wealth of brawn and heart and brain, the Teutonic, Scandinavian, Scotch, Irish, and other like races have brought to us, we are hkely to forget the indescribable burden of incompetency, profligacy and criminality that other less worthy races have imposed upon us. And when we think of the splendid new type of American citizens which is being developed through the minghng of these worthy races under our congenial skies and democratic l8o AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. institution, we are likely to forget the wretched, de- graded criminal type which is being developed through the mingling of the other races in our slums and dens of vice. In our enthusiastic admiration of the virtues of the one we forget the vices of the other. Blind optimism is often more disastrous than a reasonable degree of skepticism. When our vast pubhc domains were open to free home- stead entry thousands were annually lured westward, thus tending to deplete the over congested centers of population and equaUzing'^labor and wages. But now that these domains are practically exhausted each new- comer, however well disposed, increases competition and intensifies labor troubles. Whatever reduction there may be in the future in the number of immigrants, owing to a continued decrease in the opportunities for a Uvelihood, it is Hable to be at the expense of the more desirable element. Moreover, just to the extent that the opportunities for employment and the chances of assimilation are decreased, just to that extent are the chances increased that the future immigrant will become a dependent or a criminal in the centers of population. *^ Drawn first from the higher and more intelligent types of northwestern Europe, our immigration has degenerated constantly to the poorest breeds of .the eastern and southern sections of the continent. ^ The most incompetent and vicious settle down in our great OUR PECULIAR SOCIAL PROBLEMS. l8l cities; and there an army of political criminals — trained by half a century of political crime, exploit and corrupt them, and with them our whole civilization." As a social problem however, our foreign population with all its multiform perplexities pales into insignifi- cance when compared with our colored population, for should the exigencies of the case ever demand such drastic measures against undesirable immigrants, we have an effective remedy in their exclusion and de- portation; but our colored people are, through no fault of their own, already here, with nature's barrier against the possibility of amalgamation and assimila- tion. They are, as it were, a nation within a nation, since they are socially and politically separate and dis- tinct from the white race. As Mr. Bryce well says, they occupy a peculiar place in the history of the races. * To be taken up suddenly as savages and transported by force to a distant continent and there placed under the lash of merciless task masters for centuries and then as suddenly emancipated and clothed with all the habiliments of citizenship, is certainly unparalleled in the history of races. ' Any effort, therefore, to arrive at a conclusion as to the comparative criminality of the white and colored races by comparing the percentage of prisoners of each is obviously misleading. The social conditions and material advantages of the two races are so dissimilar that no such comparison can be made without definite 1 82 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. allowance for these differences. But even this would be putting a known against an unknown quantity; it would be putting numbers against conditions, a quan- tity in life's equation which cannot be even hypoth- ecated unless it be given the highest factor in the calculation. It is manifestly unjust, therefore, to attempt a comparison by placing figures by the side of ages of savagery, and centuries of abject servitude without ethical or reHgious training, and without ade- quate knowledge of economic values, or the sanctity of human life. The most that can be said is that, wherever conditions approach an equality, there is little tangible evidence of greater inherent, incurable criminahty in the colored race. Naturally docile, emotional and of a religious temperament, their chief racial faults are weakness, lack of will and foresight. Psychologically these may be potential, but they are not necessarily kinetic criminal characteristics. Kjiowing these individual characteristics however and the adverse social forces with which the colored race everywhere has to contend, the result can be calculated with almost mathematical certainty. While this race contributes only twelve per cent, to the total population and sixteen per cent, to the prison population, the disparity is no greater than the disproportion in the social position, wealth, environment, and opportunities of the two races. If colored children take to crime at an earlier age than white children, which is everywhere OUR PECULIAR SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 183 shown, it is more an exemplification of the all-powerful influence of environment than of hereditary tendencies. Nowhere do improved social conditions show to better advantage than in the colored race. This is forcibly illustrated by their increased regard for the personal and property rights of others as they themselves begin to accumulate property and rise in the social scale. Without homes, save their poorest semblance, without family influence or ancestral pride, it is strange rather than otherwise that the vast majority of them struggle through life without even being apprehended for crime. If the past history of the colored race has been unique, its future as seen by the most hopeful point of view is indeed pathetic. While thousands of them have made wonderful pro- gress during the past few years, this is evidently the result of fortuitous circumstances and due to individual initiative rather than to any special racial uplift, for the great mass of them still remain in habits and thoughts largely what they were centuries ago. Wher- ever found in any considerable numbers, both in the border states and in the farthest South, they constitute the lowest social stratum and consequently contribute an undue proportion to the criminals of the country. Of the 149,649 prisoners committed to our prisons during the year 1904, 24,598 were colored. Of the white prisoners sixty-seven per cent, were classed as major offenders against eighty-three per cent, of the l84 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. colored prisoners. Among the males nearly sixteen per cent, were colored, while amoung the females about twenty-two per cent, were colored. More than seventy per cent, of the colored prisoners were under thirty years of age, while among the white prisoners slightly less than forty per cent, were under thirty years of age. Owing to the fact that there are comparatively few reformatory institutions in the South for juvenile offenders, especially for negroes, where the vast major- ity of colored children is to be found, it is exceedingly difficult to secure a statistical comparison of the relative criminality of white and colored children; yet wherever proper institutions are found the proportion of colored over white juvenile offenders is very marked. The significance of these figures, however, lies not alone in the fact that in the aggregate the proportion of colored prisoners is much greater than that of the white, but in the fact that the character of offenses committed by the colored prisoner is much graver; that colored adults take to crime at a much earlier age than do white persons; that colored children are more pre- cocious in crime, and above all that among the female prisoners the number of colored is out of all proportion to the number of white. The further significance of these facts is that they point to the home as the chief source of trouble among the colored population, and it is the difficulty of reaching these homes that renders the outlook so gloomy. OUR PECULIAR SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 185 Theoretically, members of the colored race are free to aspire to the highest positions of honor and trust, but in reality they are hedged about by innumerable restrictions. By the very irony of fate they have been placed in the midst of an arrogant, dominating race thousands of years in advance of them in mental and moral training; a race which boasts of its superiority and tolerates no amalgamation or assimilation with inferior races. As a consequence the social and po- litical sphere of the negro is limited to his own small circle, and his freedom is only nominal. If they qualify as thousands of them are doing, for the higher profes- sions, or for the more remunerative trades or occupa- tions, their employment is likewise limited almost entirely to their own race. Only in the lower, most degrading and least remunerative class of labor can they compete with the white race. This racial an- tipathy, however, does not cease with the social, po- litical and industrial rights of the negro but extends to a lesser degree to his civil and personal rights as well. Under our form of government a prisoner is usually held to be innocent until he is proved guilty, but in the case of the negro this is, in a measure, reversed. At least, it is admitted that it is much less difficult, even with the same evidence, to convict a negro than it is to convict a white man. Then, few white men have ever been convicted, and perhaps none ever executed for kiUing a negro. This indifference, not to say utter l86 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. contempt, for the life of members of the colored race has had a most demorahzing influence on the white race, especially in certain sections of the country, for wherever lynchings and mob violence are frequent there human life, both white and black, is held at a discount. In sowing the wind such communities invariably reap the whirlwind. The youth of both races grow up in total disregard of the sanctity of the lives, not only of members of the other, but of their own race as well. It may be said that this is only the dark side of a very dark subject, but it is sometimes well to tell the truth even if it is a little disagreeable. It would be vastly pleasanter to talk of Booker Washington and his work at Tuskegee; of the milHons of money annually spent for the education and elevation of the race; of the wonderful progress many of them have made and the enormous sums of money they have accumulated; yet the fact would remain that millions of them are still in abject poverty and ignorance, crushed between the upper and nether millstones of racial incompetency and racial antipathy. With no promised land to which to journey and no Moses to lead them out of their Egyp- tain darkness, whatever racial uplift may be theirs in the future they must continue to make bricks without straw, and to be hewers of wood and drawers of water for the white race. Not the least discouraging feature of the negro and OUR PECULIAR SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 187 immigration question is their tendency to gravitate toward the city, where they constitute a very large portion of our slum population. While no country can claim a monopoly on slums which have been the city's curse from earhest times our nation seems to have been percuHarly unfortunate in its effort to cope with its attendant problems. The tremendous increase in the population of many of our large cities has been so unprecedented and our rural communities have so rapidly been transformed into city areas that our people have not been prepared to meet the situation, much less to master it. To accommodate these vast city accessions crudely constructed houses have often been hurriedly joined one to another, story added to story, small rooms subdivided into still smaller ones until, in many places, whole city blocks have become veritable human beehives containing as many as one, two, and sometimes three thousand persons to the square acre. Much of this deplorable overcrowding occurred before physicians and health officers were fully aware of the vital importance of fresh air and sunshine to health and happiness, and before so much was learned of the far reaching degradation which comes from crowding large numbers of human beings of all ages, both sexes, and all degrees of criminaUty into small apartments. But even when these facts began to dawn upon human- itarians, greedy landlords often resisted every effort at reform. They bribed City Councils, blocked State l88 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. Legislation and evaded orders of Courts and Sanitary Commissions, until the death rate in many tenement districts doubled and even trebled that of other por- tions of the same cities, and until crime became so common that life was unsafe even in broad daylight. When philanthropists, health officers and poHcemen at last realized that some action must be taken and began an investigation of conditions in these tenement dis- tricts, they found many of them veritable hotbeds of disease and crime, where as many as fifteen and some- times twenty families containing from one hundred to one hundred and fifty persons were frequently crowded together in one building constructed on a twenty-five by one hundred foot lot. Disease and crime lurked in every nook and corner. Dark, damp halls, dilapidated stairways, unlighted and badly ventilated rooms crowded with poorly clad, hungry, cadaverous-looking human beings greeted them everywhere. ^^Infant slaughter-houses, dens of death where the sunshine never enters,'' is the way one commission spoke of these dismal habitations. Twenty out of every one hundred children born there died at an early age. For more than half a century civic leagues, reform clubs and missionary associations have marshalled their forces against these evils, and in some cities conditions have changed and great good has been accomplished, playgrounds, parks, and schoolhouses adorning the OUR PECULIAR SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 1 89 site of the one time disease and crime breeding dis- tricts. Notwithstanding all that has been done this is what a newspaper correspondent had to say of some of these places in New York as late as 1901 : '* Imagine, if you can, a section of the city territory — where the education of the infant begins with the knowledge of prosti- tution and the training of little girls is the training in the arts of Phryne; where American girls brought up with the refinements of the American homes are imported from small towns — and kept, as virtually prisoners as if they were locked behind jail bars, until they have lost all semblance of womanhood; where small boys are taught to solicit for the women of disorderly houses; where there is an organized society of young men whose sole business in life is to corrupt young girls and turn them over to bawdy houses; where it is the rule rather than the exception, that murder, rape, robbery and theft go unpunished, in short, where the premium of the most awful forms of vice is the profit of the politician." A young man, himself of the slums, said at a settle- ment meeting in which he had become interested: "Now you go to your quiet homes in a decent street where no harm comes to you or your wife or children in the night, for it is their home. And we — we go with our high resolves, the noble ambitions you have stirred, to our tenements where evil lurks in the darkness at every step, where innocence is murdered in babyhood, where mothers moan the birth of a daughter as the last misfortune, where virtue is sold into a worse slavery than ever our fathers knew, and our sisters betrayed by paid pander- 19 o AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. ers; where the name of home is a bitter mockery, for alas, we have none." "These dark and deadly dens in which the family ideal was tortured to death and character smothered; in which children were damned, rather than born into the world"; these are the highways that lead to the ruin of the youth of the land; these are the recruiting stations for our prisons and reformatories. Magistrate Joseph E. Corregan of New York City issued the fol- lowing public statement, March 22, 191 1: ** Criminals from all over the country have come to New York in droves and ply their avocation here in safety; the more seri- ous crimes, such as stabbings, gang feuds, highway robberies, burglaries, assaults and larcenies, from the person, grow in number, undetected and unpunished." But we deceive ourselves when we think that these conditions apply only to large cities where poverty stricken immigrants constitute the major portion of the slum population, when, in truth, they apply with equal force to every municipality large enough to be dignified with the name of city. The difference is only one of degree, not of kind. All have their centers of pauperism and crime. Recently while stopping for part of a day in a small city of less than twenty thousand inhabitants, I asked at police headquarters for a guide to take me through the lower part of the city. Before we had passed out of OUR PECULIAR SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 19 1 what appeared to be the respectable portion of the city I was horrified at the spectacle that confronted us. Three emaciated, haggard drug and whiskey fiends in female form begged pitiously for a few pennies with which to buy beer or drugs. A little farther on we saw small and grown up boys and girls as depraved as I had ever seen in ''HelFs half acre" or the "Devil's Kit- chen," in large cities. The forces of corruption may not always be so well organized as is Tammany or as in Pittsburg, St. Louis or San Francisco; the corrupting influences may not always reach the highest official circles, but every- where these forces and influences are to be contended with. Try, therefore, as we may, we can no more escape responsibility for the murder of the innocence and the innocent in our slums, through oflicial muni- cipal misrule, than we can escape responsibility for the evil wrought by strong drink through our tolerance of the liquor trafl&c. Given these three the slums, intox- icating liquors and official municipal corruption, and we have a combination for evil so powerful, so far reaching and so nearly perfect that his satanic majesty would hesitate before attempting to improve upon it. Since the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, however, is the curse of nearly all civilized countries, it cannot be said to be pecuHarly an American evil, yet some of its most aggravating features have assumed quite striking American characteristics. Men imbued 192 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. witH the American idea of moneymaking, plus a total disregard for consequences, have taken advantage of our democratic tendency of the least possible inter- ference with individual liberty and have pushed their nefarious traffic to the utmost limits of Christian for- bearance. In some communities they are unceasing in their efforts to make their so-called gilded dens of vice attractive to the public, especially to the young and in others they unblushingly enter, boldly and defiantly, into full partnership with the most positive forces of crime and immorality. The truth of the adage that the abuse of a privilege or power will ulti- mately bring a day of reckoning, and the greater the abuse the sooner and more certain the reckoning, has been forcibly exemplified in the recent great awakening in many of our states to the realization of the magni- tude of the evil of the whisky traffic. CHAPTER XIII. PUNISHMENT AS A DETERRENT FROM CRIME. In the early history of the race, members of the family or tribe of a murdered man had not only the right, but under the law of retaliation it was recognized as their moral duty, to pursue the slayer to his death; and among some tribes it was even held that, should the slayer chance to make his escape, other members of the family or tribe should pay the penalty. Later in the course of social evolution, when the family and tribe became merged into the state and nation, the government assumed the right of punishing offenders, with but little modification of the barbarous rules which for centuries had governed the family and tribe. Thus the death penalty has been inflicted from the earliest times for almost every conceivable offense, and by almost every conceivable cruel and inhuman method which would prolong or intensify the humiliation and suffering of the victim. Not longer than a hundred years ago burning as a means of punishment was still on the statute books of France, and England had more than two hundred statutory offenses for which capital pimishment might be appHed; and even now some of 193 194 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. our own states have as many as ten capital offenses on their statute books. So, today we deceive ourselves most wofuUy if we think punishment is wholly for repression in the interest of society. Could our con- sciences be tested, as the temperature of our bodies can be tested, I fear many of us would find within their depths the call of the tiger, the thirst of the savage for blood still struggUng with our better, more civilized natures. Why was it when executions were public, as they were in many of our states until quite recently, that men and women gathered by hundreds and even thousands to witness the sickening, horrifying specta- cle? Was it to lend their influence to the enforcement of the law, or was it, as has been said, out of mere idle curiosity? It was for neither. It was the desire to see a man killed — strangled to death; to see him writhe and twitch, and then swing limp and lifeless in the air. Does any one suppose that the infuriated mob or armed vendetta think of upholding the majesty of the law? No. They are on murder bent. Vengeance is in their hearts. Nothing but blood will satisfy them. The sooner, therefore, that we come to realize the awful truth, that we are a bloodthirsty, man-kiUing people, the sooner shall we be able to blot out this national disgrace. Our indifference to the miscarriage of justice is strikingly illustrated in the almost unlimited oppor- PUNISHMENT AS A DETERRENT FROM CRIME 195 tunities afforded criminals to escape punishment through legal technicalities, judicial quibbhng and executive clemency. The result is that homicides have increased in the United States from 1266, in 1881, to 8,752 in 1908, until now the annual average reaches almost to the ten thousand mark. During the fifteen years from 1894 to 1909, according to the Chicago Trib- une, there were 133,192 homicides in the United States, while the records of the Civil War show that the entire number of men in the Union Army that was killed or died of wounds during that sanguinary conflict was only 110,090, and in the Confederate Army the number that was killed or died of wounds was 73,278. The latest available statistics (1905) show that, in round numbers, there are about fourteen homicides per million inhabitants in Japan; twelve per million in Canada; eight per million in England and Wales; six per milUon in Germany (1899); and one hundred and fifteen per million in the United States. Thus the northwestern countries of Europe would require about a billion and Canada a billion and a quarter inhabitants to bring the number of their murders up to that of the United States with its ninety millions of people. It is said that Chicago murders six times as many as London and eight times as many as Paris. The conclusion, therefore, is inevitable that homicides are rare or fre- quent, in any community, just in proportion to the degree of sanctity placed on human life by the people 196 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. of that community. So, after all, the failure of the courts to convict criminals is not so much the cause of crime as has been claimed, as it is an evidence of an unhealthy public moral sentiment which is the real source of all crime. An infectious disease does not spread because of a failure of physicians to cure those stricken with the disease, but because of existing unsanitary conditions, and these conditions exist because public sentiment is not sufficiently aroused on the subject. So with crime; if public moral sentiment were sufficiently strong there would be no disease and crime breeding slums, no polluted centers of crime, no sources of moral infection, and crime would be reduced to a minimima. The argument that the increase of homicides is due to the decrease of capital punishment is answered most conclusively by the fact that the increase of misde- meanors and the lighter forms of crime for which capital punishment is not inflicted has been propor- tionally greater than the increase of capital offenses, and that there is no appreciable increase of capital offenses in states where capital punishment has been abandoned over those states where it is still retained. Indeed, statistics show that capital offenses are more frequent in states where the number of executions is the greatest. This is shown by a comparison of the record of murders in Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Rhode Island and Wisconsin where capital punishment has PUNISHMENT AS A DETERRENT FROM CRIME. 197 been abandoned, with that of Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi, Texas and other states where it is still inflicted. Likewise, equally conclusive is the com- parison of the criminal statistics in the fifteen cantons in Switzerland where the death penalty has been abandoned, with the seven other cantons where it is still retained. Until a few years ago the death penalty had not been inflicted in Tuscany for more than a century, and yet it was, at that time, one of the Italian compartments or provinces with the lowest record of serious offenses. The stock argument, too, that mob violence is the result of a failure of the courts to inflict the death penalty is overwhelmingly refuted by the statistics which show that lynchings also are much less frequent in those states where capital punishment has been abolished or is seldom resorted to, than in those states where executions are the most frequent. During the fifteen years from 1891 to 1906 there were 1,090 executions and 1,747 lynchings in twelve states having less than one-third of the entire population of the United States, against 8io executions and 493 lynchings in the remaining states and territories. The amount of crime in any community, therefore, depends almost wholly upon the degree of criminal saturation, either of the whole or of some special strata of the social organism, and people everywhere are largely governed in their thoughts and actions by this saturation. 198 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. In highly-civilized communities crime is almost wholly confined to the lower social strata, and people occupying different social positions are often as widely separated in their thoughts, and in the conception of their respective duties and responsibilities, as if they belonged to different races and lived on different con- tinents. From the very nature of their surroundings and opportunities the mental and moral perception of those occupying the lower planes of social Hfe are less acute than those occupying the higher planes. With their stunted mental and moral sensibilities, their restricted and beclouded horizon, they are incapable of drawing clear distinctions between right and wrong, or of comprehending the humiliation and disgrace that would follow conviction, and are, therefore, Uttle influenced by the terrors of the law. It is elevation and not intimidation, individual uplift and not repression that these people need. When crime is committed by those moving in the social circles where the highest standards of equity and justice are maintained, and where the sanctity of human life is properly appreciated, it is usually by those that have always been out of harmony with the circle in which they have moved. Almost without exception such offenders are deficient mentally, or, having been un- fortunate in their early training are not susceptible to assimilation in the society in which they move; and upon these the deterrent effects of the law also fall PUNISHMENT AS A DETERRENT FROM CRIME 199 lightly. Their crimes are liable to be those of impulse, of passion, and of weakness. This class also furnishes the occasional criminal who, perhaps is more strongly influenced by the fear of the law than the criminal of any other classs, yet this influence is scarcely appreci- able. Finally, when we come to intelligent criminals who are capable of reasoning (if there be such) the element of chance is so great as to almost neutralize the deterrent effects of the law, while the fear of punishment is greatly minimized. First, there are the many chances of escaping detection, or, if detected, there are the chances of escaping officers, and if brought to trial there are chances that the evidence will not be sufficient to con- vict them, and finally there is the possibility that, if convicted, judicial or executive clemency may inter- vene in their behalf. The fallacy of the argument, therefore, in favor of the efficiency of punishment for the violation of social laws, as illustrated by the efficacy of natural punish- ment for the violation of natural laws, becomes appar- ent when we consider the certainty of the one and the uncertainty of the other. And yet people become indifferent even to the certainty of nature's punish- ment. Miners return to the death trap in the danger- ous mine where their companions have so recently perished, and from which they may have barely escaped with their Uves. Cities are hastilv rebuilt on the site 200 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. of those destroyed by earthquakes or volcanoes, and men crowd each other to volunteer for ''The War," regardless of the justice of the cause, the chances of success, or the danger of sacrificing their lives. The charm of optimism lies in the fact that it seeks to minimize possible dangers and encourages a more hopeful view of life. This appears to be peculiarly the philosophy of evildoers. They are either mentally incapable of comprehending their own danger, super- latively optimistic, or recklessly and defiantly indiffer- ent to consequences. But even leaving out of consideration, for the present, the very slight deterrent effect of punishment, and the important question as to whether society has the inherent right in self-defense to inflict the death penalty, its demoralizing effect on the community is worthy of the most serious consideration. It would be difficult, indeed, to estimate the far reaching psychological effect on the community, of even the most humane methods of inflicting the death penalty. Its sanction by law tends to lessen regard for human life and may suggest to the individual the right to take the law into his own hands. In not a few instances murders have been committed in the same town on the same day fixed for the execution of some criminal, while by records of one hundred and seventy-seven persons condemned to death we find but three who had not at some time witnessed other executions. The great pomp displayed PUNISHMENT AS A DETERRENT FROM CRIME. 20I in the religious exercises at the execution of condemned criminals in some of the northwestern countries of Europe during the eighteenth century had to be abandoned because they were beheved to increase the tendency to crime. Doubtless this has been an import- ant factor in stopping public executions in this country. An incident from my own experience will serve to illustrate the force of my argument. Within six months after acting in the capacity of officiating physi- cian at an execution, I was called to the prison at which I had attended the condemned man during the death watch to see one of the jurors who had sat in the case, and was, himself, now incarcerated on the charge of murder. It so happened, too, that it was the one juror who had made a speech in the jury box, advo- cating the extreme penalty of the law on the ground that something must be done to check the increase of crime in the community. Incarcerated with him as co-conspirators in the same murder were three men who were present at the execution referred to. When driven from every other argument in favor of capital punishment its advocates point to its past efficiency when heroically applied, in exterminating pirates, brigands and other lawless bands. But this is not intimidation, it is extermination. It is a barbarous warfare of the many against the few and suited only, if suited at all, to isolated or frontier communities where law and order have not been estabhshed, and in such 202 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. wholesale slaughter the innocent are as likely to suffer as the guilty which fact alone is sufficient to condemn it unequivocally. The state cannot afford to make mistakes, especially in the sacrifice of human Hfe, and at least one state, Rhode Island, has abandoned capital punishment altogether, chiefly because of the discovery that one or two innocent persons had been executed. Recogniz- ing the futility of severe punishments in preventing crime the advocates of repression conceived what appeared to be the happy idea of substituting certainty of punishment by reducing penalties and shortening terms of imprisonment. But this has not been at- tended with the success its advocates hoped for. It was beheved that if penalties were reduced and terms of imprisonment shortened conviction would be more certain, and that this increased certainty would offset the reduced severity. While court records now prob- ably show a larger proportion of convictions, contrary to expectations, there has been a continued increase in crime. Indeed, short sentences are now recognized as a fruitful source of crime. It has been well said that for a judge or jury to impose definite sentences as a cure for crime is about as logical as for a physician, after a superficial examination and a hurriedly written pre- scription, to order his patient at the hospital to be discharged at the end of a fortnight, or that a business man would be willing to agree, on discharging a dis- PUNISHMENT AS A DETERRENT FROM CRIME. 203 honest clerk, to take him back at the expiration of six or twelve months provided he would spend that time among thieves and robbers; and yet this, in effect, is what society is constantly doing through its courts and juries. When the young culprit reaches prison everyone whom he sees except the scowling armed guard, is, like himself, a convict. The great iron bars, the massive walls, the dark cells, and the harsh, arbitrary orders of the gruff warden and guards, tell him that he is an outcast. This helps to strengthen the growing belief that society has truly waged a relentless warfare upon him and henceforth he is to be counted as its enemy. Evidences of crime and criminality are seen and felt everywhere. He breathes it in the dense, stifling atmosphere and hears it in every sound. The most rigid rules cannot prevent clandestine meetings of the very worst classes, which, to the young, are veritable schools of crime. Criminal contagion is in the at- mosphere and the prisoner could not escape its deadly effects if he would. Self-respect is soon lost and the old motives for honesty are gone. Thus schooled in crime and probably in idleness he is released at the ex- piration of one or two years sevenfold worse than when he entered. If, perchance, a spark of hope for a better life remains it is usually extinguished when he is con- fronted with the changed condition of things at home, where, unless specially restored to citizenship by 204 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. executive clemency, he is precluded from holding office, exercising the right of franchise, or sitting on juries, and finds himself out of employment and shunned by former friends and associates. Whatever his intentions may have been he now finds himself forced to seek employment and companionship among the lowest classes and the almost inevitable outcome is a return to his former habits and to prison, there to take other degrees in crime. Thus year after year, society goes on manufacturing its own criminals. Recidivism is rapidly on the in- crease, and now those convicted on the second, third and fourth time make up a large proportion of our prison inmates. This is especially true of workhouses and city prisons. "The courts have therefore, in a measure, become self-feeding machines, passing judg- ment each year on thousands that have been previously convicted.'' These recidivists are, themselves, the very best witnesses that can be introduced to show the slight deterrent effect of punishment on crime. They have not only served terms in prison, but many, if not a majority of them have suffered some form of prison punishment during their incarceration, and yet they are returned, again and again, for other offenses. In most of our prisons if the lash is forbidden by law, the thumbscrew, the water cure, the electric current, the straight jacket, or some other equally painful and cruel method is substituted. However good the intentions PUNISHMENT AS A DETERRENT FROM CRIME. 205 of prison officials may be, and many of them are not overburdened with sympathy for their unfortunate fellowmen, cruelty in some form usually exists wherever the contract system prevails. It matters little whether prisoners are worked on the inside or the outside of prison walls nor if the state reserves the right to appoint its own guards and maintain discipline by its own officers. Old and experienced contractors that have grown rich on convict labor, and have their pull with politicians, know full well how to inveigle or coerce prison officials, at least into their way of acting if not into their way of thinking. If threats to sue the state or abrogate a contract and throw a thousand or two idle prisoners on the state are not sufficient, an appeal to politicians usually suffices. I am sure that the com- missioners and warden of the Kentucky Penitentiary, where I served both as physician and assistant warden, were humane and sincere in their desire to introduce many needed prison reforms, and yet they were handi- capped at every step by heartless contractors that had held the state in their grasp for more than a quarter of a century. We are so prone to associate cruelty to prisoners with the Dark Ages or with Siberian exile, that news- paper and magazine accounts of such things in our own times and among our own people appear to make but little impression upon us. Even the recently pubHshed report of a Legislative Committee of one of our own 2o6 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. states, which showed that at least fifty prisoners had been beaten to death in the prisons and on the convict farms of the state in less than three years, 1906-9, seemed to affect us but Httle. It is true that some of the startling disclosures of the horrible barbarities practiced in a number of our Southern convict camps created quite a sensation at the time, but these were soon forgotten. Comparatively few people, even now, know that at least one hundred out of every five hun- dred prisoners sent to those camps, died of torture, starvation or disease contracted from exposure in camp ; that men were often murdered and women outraged while in charge of officers of the law; that for years men and women, white and black, were sold by author- ity of law to the highest bidding soulless corporation, to work on railroads, in coal mines and lumber camps, with but little restrictions as to their treatment; that constables and deputy sheriffs often made from five to seven thousand dollars a year by trumping up charges against people and railroading them off to these camps where their labor was in demand. I have some personal knowledge of these attrocities, for my first employment as physician was in a railroad convict camp and my first patient was a young white convict who was dying of pneumonia and of injuries inflicted by a brutal guard two days before, because he failed, in his weakened condition, to perform the task assigned him in a ditch in which water stood one foot PUNISHMENT AS A DETERRENT FROM CRIME. 207 deep. It was in this camp that I saw prisoners with great iron shackles fastened to their legs being beaten by guards while on their way to and from the camp to the place of work, because they could not keep pace with the other prisoners. It was here, too, that reliable witnesses told me of seeing brutal guards with fiendish glee stick their knives into the swollen abdomens of the putrifying corpses of convicts. Between 1896 and 1901, 1 visited one or more prisons in sixteen of our states and three provinces in Canada, and almost without exception I found politicians and contractors the evil genius of prison reform. Although the spirit of reform was abroad in the land, they resisted it as one would resist the most deadly evil because it meant the end to their nefarious traffic in human flesh and human souls. But thanks to the successive tidal waves of reform which have swept over our country during the last few decades nearly all of our reforma- tories and many of our prisons have been rescued from the clutches of these human vultures who so long feasted and fattened on human weakness and human misery. My experience with prisoners is that however lawless a man may have been on the outside, when inside of prison walls and iron bars, and surrounded by armed guards, none but fools will offer further resistance unless provoked to do so by cruelty and unkindness. The very first earnest, prayerful resolve that ninty-nine out 2o8 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. of every one hundred young prisoners make, when they first enter prison, is that they will follow the path of least resistance by giving the ofiicers as Httle trouble as possible, if for no other reason than that by so doing they will bring the least trouble on themselves. The critical, psychological moment, therefore, in the Hfe of every youthful prisoner, is when for the first time, the great iron gate at the prison closes behind him with a sharp clank, thus shutting him out from the world and shutting the world out from him. Hundreds of prison- ers have attempted to describe to me their feehngs at this moment, and without exception they have all acknowledged that, at no other time in their lives did they feel in such great need of friends, at no other time did kind words sink so deeply into their hearts and leave such lasting impressions for good, and at no other time did unkindness cut so keenly and leave such bitter pangs. One prisoner stated the case rather inelegantly, but tersely, thus; "There is absolutely no place in all the world, where, by a touch of human kindness, a man can be so easily transported to the third heavens, or by a touch of unkindness, so easily forced to make a league with the devil, as in prison''. In this highly receptive, emotional state, with the temptations of the world and its contaminating in- fluences shut out by prison walls, and with the moral atmosphere of the prison what it should be, it would be possible for youthful prisoners at least to cement PUNISHMENT AS A DETERRENT FROM CRIME. 209 resolution on resolution until they are able to be not only good prisoners while in confinement, but good citizens after their release. This, with the permanent separate confinement of incorrigibles is the supreme prison problem of the future, for repression has not only failed to check the spread of crime on the outside, but has utterly failed to secure discipHne on the inside of prison walls. The most that it has done in the United States, at least, is to annually incarcerate more than one hundred and fifty thousand persons, and to main- tain a great standing army of more than one hundred thousand adult and youthful inmates in our prisons and reformatories at an estimated annual cost of more than six bilUons of dollars. The first great problem of the American people, and of all people, is the intellectual and moral education of the masses, the restriction of the propagation of the socially unfit, the removal of the sources and centers of crime, and the estabUshment of a more healthy pubUc moral sentiment among all classes. Even then the millenium will not come. Courts and prisons will con- tinue to be factors, but they should be ever decreasing factors in our social organism. They should not be made the foundation and capstone of our social super- structure, nor become the chief cornerstone in the building. Prisons and reformatories will continue to be necess- ary for the purpose of restraint and reformation until 2IO AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. society can learn to prevent crime by protecting its youth from contaminating and corrupting influences but the guillotine, the hangman's rope and the electric chair should no longrer be permitted to disgrace an enlightened Christian civilization. CHAPTER XIV. REFORMATION. According to the present prevailing theory of the treatment of crime, through the reformation and rehabihtation of the criminal, retributive punishment has no place, either in a properly constituted penal code, or in institution management, and should be speedily eliminated from all criminal proceedings and reformatory discipline. Any semblance of vengeance or retribution in dealing with unfortunate human beings, is held, not only as contrary to every principle of ethics, but is in itself criminal in the extreme ; more- ever, it is based on the false assumption that society can, in a measure, be compensated for a wrong com- mitted, by inflicting punishment upon the offender in a degree commensurate with the wrong; or, that punish- ment of one member of society will deter others from crime. The truth is, such action does not mend the wrong in the least; does not repay society a farthing, and as has been conclusively shown, serves but nomi- nally as a deterrent to others. The inherent right of society to protect itself from evildoers does not necessarily imply that the biblical 2 12 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. injunction, "If thy hand offend thee cut it off," should be Hterally enforced. It is not the diseased member that either the individual or society wishes to be rid of, but rather the disease in that member. With this as the controlling motive, the culprit is treated more as an offender than as a criminal; the term of his con- finement is regulated more by his evil tendencies than by the single offense committed. It is not so much his physical, as his moral well-being that is sought, and he is released only when his evil tendencies are beUeved to be completely eradicated; when he is thoroughly rehabilitated and capable of becoming a respectable, self-sustaining, law-abiding citizen. Should there be any doubt as to the complete reformation of the prisoner, he is, if given his liberty at all, released con- ditionally, on his good behavior, under the surveillance of a State Agent, a Prisoner's Aid Society, or Charity Organization, that assists him in securing employment and aids him in such other ways as his individual needs may require; if, after sufficient trial, he fails, he is returned to the prison for further treatment. By this method the relation of the prisoner and the prison officials is entirely changed. Both are striving for the same end; the early release of the prisoner, not simply through his good behaviour, nor even his good inten- tions, but through his demonstrated capacity to carry these good intentions into effect when released from the restraining influence of the prison. The officials REFORMATION. 213 then come to be recognized as the friends of the prisoner, and the enemies only of his evil propensities. The prisoner, on the other hand, learns to fear his evil tendencies, for only by conquering them can he hope to secure his liberty. Prison discipline is thus simplified and elevated. Instead of external, repressive measures, the powerful force of hope becomes operative, and the moral evolu- tion is from within, hence its outward expression is normal and wholesome. In its strictest application this method does not permit the intervention of friends in behalf of the prisoner. No petitions or letters asking his release are permitted. Even if permitted by the law, the executive seldom intervenes, except on recom- mendation of the Prison Commissioners or Board of Pardons. "The great object is to compel the prisoner to struggle out; to make him feel that the date of his discharge depends upon himself, and upon no other person, not even upon the warden, nor upon the man- agers, not even upon the Governor; that nobody can help him in any way except to get command of himself. '^ To better aid him in this uplifting process, the atmosphere of the prison is such as to strengthen every effort of the prisoner to throw off any natural or ac- quired shortcomings he may have, and to enable him to hold any vantage ground he may gain. Purity and cleanliness greet him in every department of the prison; in the dining room, the cell-house, the shops, the yards, 214 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. in the conduct of those who have him in charge and those with whom he comes in daily contact. Strict discipHne, maintained through gentle and kind, but firm and positive measures, is seen and felt everywhere, in order that the discordant elements in the prisoner's make-up may be brought into unison with the harmony pervading his surroundings. The hum of machinery furnishes music for the prison during all working hours, occupation making it impossible for idle brains to plot mischief and idle hands to carry it into execution. Trade schools are maintained, where the inmates may prepare themselves while in prison to the more readily secure employment when released. Prisoners are studied individually, as well as collect- ively, and such means used in each case, as will best cure defects, strengthen weak points, and, at the same time develop and bring out that which is good. It does not matter so much what a man has done as what he is, and what, under the circumstances will help him to obtain self-mastery, which will finally end in complete reformation. Officers and employees strive to show the prisoner that they are his friends, and in full sym- pathy with him in his efforts to reform. While no morbid sentimentality is manifested, firmness of pur- pose and sympathy for the unfortunates are seen and felt everywhere. If correction is necessary, the prisoner is, so far as possible, made to feel that it is his bad conduct and criminal tendencies that are being cor- REFORMATION. 21 5 rected, the object being not merely to punish or humili- ate him, but to suppress the bad quahties or tendencies and bring out the good; furthermore, that it is not so much for past bad misconduct that he is imprisoned or punished, as it is to secure future good conduct. The difference in the two methods is well illustrated in the punishment for carrying deadly weapons, ex- plosives, or burglars' tools on the person. According to the vindictive idea, the offender is confined for violating a statutory law, and when he is released he feels that he has repaid, or evened up with society. But according to the reformatory idea he is confined, not so much for the statutory offence, as for the fact that he is a menace to society and needs to be taught to respect and appreciate the rights of others. If to accompUsh this, confinement for Hfe be necessary, well and good, so long as he is made to pay his own way in prison. In any event, society must be protected and those of its delinquent members who will not be re- formed must be restrained. "The convict is usually less expensive than the unreformed ex-convict." The danger of making prisons so comfortable and luxurious as to be desirable lodging places for tramps and crimi- nals is largely overcome by the increased determination to make all able-bodied inmates, especially the in- corrigible ones, earn their own living. While the older and less hopeful inmates in regular prisons are still to be given the benefits of marks, grades. 2i6 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. good time, interest in profits, indeterminate sentences and such other favorable surroundings and upHfting influences as humanity demands, it is especially re- served for intermediate prisons and reformatories for young adults, to partake of these advantages in larger measure. To these reformatories are brought annually for treatment, thousands of young men from eighteen to twenty-five, and even thirty years of age, the greater proportion of them from unfavorable surroundings, and many for the very worst crimes. But so effectual are the methods used, that fully eighty-five per cent, of the large number annually released are thoroughly re- habihtated, and many of them obtain and hold good positions, as shown by the records kept of them after their release. Indeed, it is said that the training in the trades and occupations is so thorough in some of these institutions, that the demand, at good wages, for the inmates, who were so recently criminal outcasts, is even greater than the supply. When a young man enters, a complete record is made of his family history, including that of his own life, his education, occupation and past conduct, so far as can be obtained. He is then carefully examined and tested as to his physical and mental condition, his aptitude, characteristics and eccentricities; after a diagnosis of his case is made and recorded, he is put on the treat- ment best suited to him. If the charge, for instance, be manslaughter, assault, or any act of violence in- REFORMATION. • 217 dicating an ungovernable temper, the cause of this, whether it be natural or acquired, is ascertained, if possible, that treatment may be specially suited to his needs. Then, in addition to being given the benefits of the very best physical, mental and moral treatment, with other inmates, he is placed in a class known as the class of "self-control," where he is promoted by degrees, as he succeeds in controlling himself, and is graduated in that special class when this is fully accomplished. He is first given training in such calisthenic and gym- nastic exercises; such lessons in tedious drawing and difficult handicraft; such instruction in the handling of sharp instruments and the preparation of sample articles, as will place every muscle, limb and joint under his complete control. Then he is given the position of drill master, captain of a squad of men, or some equally responsible position, requiring the exercise of the greatest patience and forbearance, until he has ac- quired complete self-mastery. If, during the progress of the treatment, it is found that a mistake in any particular has been made in the diagnosis, his studies and exercises are changed to meet the exigencies of the case. If outbursts of anger or other evidences of a violent disposition continue, he is sometimes placed at the forge, or at a task requiring great physical effort, until his surplus energy is exhausted and through study and effort, his will is strengthened, and resort to such measures is no longer necessary. With the same pains- 2l8 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. taking care, the weaknesses of each inmate are treated. The young man who has fallen, through strong drink, is given not only the benefit of the best medical treat- ment, but the impetus which refined training, educa- tion, and skilled labor afford, together with all those restraining influences which such a Ufe furnishes. In addition to these he has stimulus offered by the hope of release through complete recovery. The man with a weak will or with defective reasoning faculties is given an opportunity, through physical and mental effort, to gain his equilibrium. Thus the whole force of the institution, with the full authority and sympathy of the State is directed against the special weakness of each individual. The model industrial school for the reformation of still more youthful offenders is simply a model industrial school on a large scale for normal boys or girls, divided into groups of homes, where the one controlling idea, both in construction and management, is the moral and spiritual rehabiUtation of the inmates. Hope is the sign at the entrance of every department, not printed in words and letters to be read by the eye, but to be unmistakably seen and felt in the atmoshpere created by such an environment. The very air is so saturated with this controlling force that the hearts of the most stolid are touched and stirred by its manifestations. "What wax so frozen but dissolves with tempering, And yields to every slight impression. '^ REFORMATION. 219 While there is none of that sickly sentimentality, so often manifested even toward hardened criminals, and while there is no relaxation of firmness of purpose to carry into effect the severest correction deemed neces- sary, yet gentleness and kindness are the watchwords of all. Useful trades and occupations are taught, and every inducement offered the inmates when released, to keep away from their old haunts of vice and crime. In many of the best equipped institutions commend- able progress has been made towards scientific peda- gogy. Inmates are closely studied and valuable observations are made and recorded. The life history of each one, together with a history of his family, is carefully recorded, physical measurements and photo- graphs taken, asymetries and abnormalities noted, the sensibilities and motor activities tested, and the moral sense given careful consideration. In this way classi- fications are made that save much time and annoyance afterwards. Diseased conditions, whether inherited or' acquired, are given prompt medical attention; and mental aberrations and moral obliquities are classified and carefully treated. Thus, a fair working basis is established. Teachers and caretakers are in this way enabled to understand where to take from and where to add to, in order to insure a full, well rounded de- velopment of mind and character. In the public schools there is a maximum of intellect- ual and a minimum of moral training, but in the in- V 22 o AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. stitution this is reversed. In schools and colleges studies are pursued for their own sake, but in the institution they are selected chiefly with a view to their influence on character. If the boy can once be brought to see his acts as a whole, and their consequences, the moral perception which is more complex than mental perception, will usually be awakened. The natural process of the reformation of the youthful offender, therefore, is from right acting to right thinking, and finally to right feeling. Rarely is the inner con- sciousness so awakened as to immediately revolutionize actions and thoughts. Until the intellectual and moral perceptions are trained to harmonious co-opera- tion, reHgious impressions are apt to be superficial and transitory. Though religious training is an important factor in all reform work, as it builds up character and weakens the ties that bind to evil habits and evil thoughts, it is much more likely to have permanent effect when the will is likewise strengthened. Charac- ter thus built upon good habits, good thoughts and a strong will, riveted and cemented together by strong religious convictions, is likely to stand the test of time. To these efforts, at institutional character building, are added the justly popular and much lauded Juvenile Court and Probationary system, whereby young of- fenders, especially first offenders, are given an oppor- tunity to refrain from evil habits, through the vigilance of probation officers and the oversight of the court, REFORMATION. 221 without being sent to prison or reformatories, or even adjudged criminals. We also have, in many places, industrial and disciplinary day schools, where truant, and so-called incorrigible children are sent, returning to their home at night, when this is deemed permissible. In this way it is proposed, at much less cost to the state, to undo some of the evils wrought by the influence of bad environment, and to do what the pubhc schools cannot well do. But it is found that the only hope for the moral regeneration of a large number of delinquent children, is to remove them entirely from the abodes of squalor and want and from the schools of vice and crime, so often called homes, to the institution, or what is far better, to good Christian homes. Neither custodial or correctional institutions are held in the high esteem they were once held. However systematically arranged, luxuriously furnished or humanely conducted, they cannot be endowed with the warmth and earnestness of a mother's affection; with the genial atmosphere, kindly love, and impelling force usually permeating the best Christian homes. Besides, it is coming to be more and more understood that children are not adapted to any wholesale plan of nurture. Although there may be a striking similarity between them, yet each represents a separate and dis- tinct physical and psychical process. Each is a sep- arate child unit and has its own susceptibilities and peculiarities. Each, therefore, must receive its inspir- 222 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. ation to higher, loftier living in its own pecuUar way. Owing to the formal machine-like drill and discipline in the institution, all are, in a measure, reduced to the same level. To the young and emotional child there is a vast difference in saying its prayers at its mother's knee and repeating them parrot-like, at the beat of a drima or tap of a bell. In the institution, spontaneity is, in a measure, paralyzed; individuality is merged into that of the mass, and the child becomes lethargic and mechanical. This is especially true of children brought up in custodial institutions. Hence, the grow- ing demand for better homes for children and better children for the homes. The public conscience is be- coming aroused as never before, to a reaHzation of the awful fact that "Every delinquent child is a defrauded child; that it has been despoiled of its birthright, — the right to be well-bred and well- taught; and that every dehnquent child on the street is a living indict- ment of society for its neglect and indifference"; that, like disease, crime is found wherever the conditions exist, and, like disease, also disappears whenever the causes are removed. In short, that every community has just the number of delinquents that it deserves and deserves just the number that it has. The true mission of philanthropy, therefore, is to dry up the sources of misery and vice, and remove the causes of pauperism and crime rather than to punish the criminal and administer to the wants of the poor. CHAPTER XV. PREVENTION. The history of the race has been largely the history of society's conflict with crime, and in this conflict society has thought that to rid itself of the criminal, either by extermination, confinement, exile, or reforma- tion, was to rid itself of crime. For thousands of years judicial and ecclesiastical murder appeared to be the chief business of state and church. Beccaria, the Italian reformer of the eighteenth century, was the first one to arouse public sentiment against the judicial cruelties of the times, while his contemporary, John Howard, the English reformer, was the first to suggest that prisons (which up to that time had been used merely as places of detention for the accused awaiting trial, and the condemned awaiting execution) might be utilized for purposes of punishment, and also for re- formation. Since the era of these two immor- tals, and especially since the impetus given to de- mocracy by the French and American revolutions, the altruistic spirit has exerted a growing influence on society in its treatment of its delinquent classes; but 223 224 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. not until near the close of the nineteenth century was prevention of crime given serious consideration. The greatest change in prison management came at first through the sentimental, or the purely humanitar- ian side of philanthropy. The finer sensibilities of the newer civilization revolted at the cruelties and in- humanities of the past, and in the enthusiasm of the times often overstepped the bounds of reason and judgment. Striking illustrations of the truth of this were seen in the indiscriminate giving of alms, and in the maudlin sympathy so often manifested towards even hardened criminals. Now, while we are learning to be firm without being harsh, we are'^also learning to be merciful without being weak. We have learned that without law enforcement there can be no social progress; that in the interest of society, and not in the spirit of revenge, we must be firm in dealing with the delinquent classes; that officers of the law, who are usually on the side of right and justice, must be loyally supported in their efforts to suppress crime; that apprehended offenders must be given a fair and speedy trial, and if convicted be humanely treated and given an opportunity to reform and make of themselves useful, law-abiding citizens when discharged. As every prison official can testify, the most critical moment in the life of young prisoners is not when they enter, but when they leave the prison gate. Without PREVENTION. ^ 225 home, friends, or money, they return to the world from which they have been shut off, perhaps for years. Though no worse than thousands of those that have never been in the toils of the law, they are shunned by respectable society, and forced to seek employment and companionship among the lowest classes. Unless given temporary aid by friends or Prisoners' Aid Societies, their future can be calculated with almost mathematical certainty. Just what disposition to make of our ever increasing number of discharged convicts is coming to be a more serious problem than almost any one of the many con- fronting present day humanitarians. To provide permanent homes for them, as has been suggested by some well meaning, but over zealous philanthropist, would only aggravate and intensify the situation; but to altogether ignore their claims on society would be to ignore the best interest of society at large. The wiser provision for assistance certainly obtains in giving temporary aid until they can secure employment and become self-sustaining. The situation would be greatly simplified if all prisons would adopt the Elmira plan, not to discharge an in- mate until his complete reformation has been assured, and not even then unless employment with wholesome moral surroundings has been procured for him. To do this it would be necessary to transform many of our state, and nearly all of our county and city prisons 2 26 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. from places of idleness, vice, and crime, into places of comfort and moral uplift; and to substitute competent and trained officials for those incompetent and un- trained, many of whom receive their appointment, not for efficiency and adaptability, but because of political influence. If the standard of all our prisons and re- formatories could be elevated to that of the best of these respective institutions the result, both from the standpoint of morality and economics, would be start- ling in its revelations though even then the conditions might be far from ideal. Penologists concur in the opinion that many youth- ful and adult offenders who are now sent to prison for minor offences, could be placed on their good behavior under police surveillance, to the advantage both of offenders and communities. Wherever this method has been tried it has given eminent satisfaction, as it saves expense, avoids the stigma attached to a prison sentence, and also increases the efficiency of the police by giving them the function of probation officers. This course pursued in our justly popular Juvenile Courts with their probation officers is accomplishing much good, not only in checking incipient evil tenden- cies in wayward youths, but also in purifying delin- quent homes and finding homes for the homeless. It is not claimed, even by the most hopeful, that poverty and crime can be entirely eradicated, yet it is believed that by the general diffusion of knowledge, PREVENTION. 227 practical, moral, and religious, much improvement can be made in the unfavorable sanitary and economic conditions of the less favored social classes, that vicious destitution, the real nursery of idleness and crime, can be reduced to a minimum. There is a vast difference between humble circumstances, or even honest poverty, and vicious destitution. Between the highest and lowest social strata in every civiUzed community there are various spheres or zones merging into and overlapping each other, in which the units are either striving upward or drifting downward, according to their respective capacities and opportuni- ties. In the higher circles, of course, the tendency is towards the highest social standard, and in the lower circles the opposite tendency obtains. A hopeful sign for the future, in this regard, is found in the fact that, throughout the length and breadth of the land our teachers are more than ever before, placing stress on moral training, and are striving more and more to reach the homes of the lower social classes, where the influence of the school has so far scarcely been felt. Much good is also being accomplished by truant schools, special day schools, night schools, and social settlement schools. The remarkable efficiency of the kindergartens in preventing the inception and development of criminal tendencies in children, exposed by their home sur- roundings to evil influences, has given rise to a wide- 228 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. spread demand for their adoption as an indispensable part of our public school system, especially in our cities. Out of eighteen thousand kindergarten children in San Francisco, where the after lives of nine thousand were traced, only one, and he a simple-minded boy, had ever been apprehended for crime. The early co-ordination and correlation of the psycho-physical forces accom- plished by the kindergarten is the surest safeguard against wrongdoing. The increased efficiency in many of our city schools through improved sanitation, and the improved physi- cal, mental, and moral well-being of the pupils, follow- ing systematic medical inspection; and the marked physical and moral improvement of the children of overcrowded city districts, following the reconstruction of tenement houses on modern sanitary plans, show the close relation between sanitary science and social pro- gress. Pure air, sunshine, and wholesome, nutritious diet have come to stand for more than mere physical well being. There are reasons, too, for believing that many of our more far-sighted employers are coming to realize the urgent necessity of a change in the present industrial system, in the interest of both employer and employee, as many of them are adopting the profit-sharing plan, on rather a liberal basis. The more rigid exclusion of undesirable immigrants, and the more general adoption of arbitration in labor disputes — which must ultimately a 1 fD. P O » O H s CL o- o (-) ID t^ ^ 3 g > J-f- X3 3 r+ (^ t-^ ^ 5' ^ r+ Wl w o 3 ^ ?' s V! ct 2 n P W2 D- o 1-1 cr *o n o tr" VI ^ cr S ^ ^ a- p tr ^, w o > 0* ^ ^ B' rt) n n B > s s p 3 n K v; P > <— i. i_i z B. p. o o (jq M o O ffi H-i. > w 3 2; n p B'. ►^ B' 13 Oq O t^ 1 . H ?^ 5 WJ 5 cr p 3 PREVENTION. 229 become universal — will tend to relieve the long standing tension between capital and labor which has for years been a source of much violence and crime, while the vital and widening interest now being manifested in municipal reform will doubtless do much towards re- moving the dens of vice and crime that have so long been the shame and curse of our cities. The New Nationalism as expressed by the awakened moral consciousness of the American people means, more than poHtical and business honesty, and even more than the conservation of our national resources. In its broadest and most comprehensive acceptation it means the conservation of our vital and ethical resources — the physical and moral uplift of the nation. It is true that when we think of the vast amount of evil there is in the world, of the suffering of the poor, of man's inhumanity to man, and of the increased temp- tations for doing evil, especially for the young, through the increased perplexities and complexities of our in- dustrial and social life, we almost despair of the future; but when we contrast the present with the past, and compare the good with the bad, we become enthusi- astically optimistic. At no other time has the demand for the education and social uplift of the masses been so great; at no other time have science, sociology, and penology been so firmly and positively united against strong drink and in favor of temperance reform, and at no other time has the cry from the under-social world, 230 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. and from behind prison bars touched such a responsive chord in human hearts as at the present time. Never since the formation of our government has the spirit of reform in the interest of the common people so per- meated the poUtical and business atmosphere as it does today. This does not mean, however, that the warfare is ended, or that the cohorts of wickedness are less active or less powerful than in the past, but it does mean that the forces of philanthropy will be more active in the future because they are more alert, more closely united, better fortified, and have come to realize more fully the magnitude and extent of their duties and responsi- biUties. It appears difiicult for the social mind, like the indi- vidual mind, to concentrate on more than one object or purpose at a time. When the death penalty was inflicted for the most trivial offenses, it was beUeved to be all sufficient as a remedy for crime. Then, when torture was added as a means of terrifying evildoers, it was thought that the more cruel the torture the greater the terrifying effect on spectators. Likewise, when im- prisonment came to be the chief form of punishment it was thought that the more convicts that were sent to prison the sooner crime would be eradicated. Finally, when the idea of the reformatory first took shape and became popular, especially in this country, many well meaning people thought that their social responsibilities PREVENTION. 23 1 ceased when they had gathered up all the wayward boys and girls in their respective communities and rushed them off to the reformatories. It was even said that many good people in their enthusiasm almost regretted that there were not more of such children, for these reformatories were such nice places in which to bring them up. Later, people began to think how much better it would be if homeless children, before wayward tendencies had been formed, could be placed in custo- dial institutions where hundreds and even thousands could be brought up according to written rules and regulations, and only those who could not be thus cared for, sent to the reformatories. But after a time even this came to be looked upon with suspicion. Aside from any question of maladministration or incompetency, the results of the very best institutions were not satisfactory. The high death rate, and the continued under size and under weight of those who survived was thought at first to be due to hereditary tendencies, but the improved methods adopted in num- bers of these institutions, and the placing of children in good homes, brought to light the important fact that children vary so much in their powers of assimilation, both of body and mind, that it was impossible to sub- ject large numbers of them to the same regimen of diet, or the same kind of mental training with the best pos- sible results. With the most closely guarded plan of classification, the greatest needs of some will not be 232 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. supplied. Besides it was found that never varying routine in every department of life soon became mon- otonous and ultimately proved fatal to all. The result has been the development of a very strong sentiment in favor of placing homeless children in good Christian homes instead of sapping their vitaHty and crushing their individuality in these custodial and correctional institutions. But the question is now being asked in the interest of both philanthropy and eugenics, with more seriousness than ever before. Why should not the home, where many of these children are born, be made suitable habitations for their bringing up, and finally, why should not people before being permitted to assume the responsibilities of parenthood be quali- fied, physically, mentally, and morally for such respon- sibilities. The whole range of philanthropic and scien- tific thought, therefore, has come to center more and more around the home and the child. Never in the history of the race has the home been held so sacred, or the child been considered of such vast social import- ance as at the present time. Though the social millenium need not be expected, yet if we are to judge the future by the achievements of the recent past, we are justified in the belief that the twentieth century has great possibiHties in store for humanity. The one impelling reason for this belief is that the moral wave now being felt in nearly all parts of the civilized world is so many-sided and far-reaching PREVENTION. 233 that it touches nearly all phases of human life. For- merly such visitations were limited in their scope. They usually assumed some special type by which they were known and characterized. At one time it was reUgious fervor or the spirit of liberty that per- meated the moral atmosphere; at other times it was the demand for popular education, for prison or tem- perance reform, or for some benevolent enterprise; but it has been reseryed for the dawn of the twentieth century to see all these forces and influences joined in one gigantic scheme of philanthropy, engaged in solving, as far as may be, the many vexed social prob- lems of the times. Though this herculean task has scarcely been begun, and though disease, pauperism, and crime still remain, the most profound optimist could not have dreamed half a century ago that so much could have been accomplished in so brief a time. The average duration of human life has been materi- ally lengthened, the spread of many deadly diseases checked, the suffering of the sick and the poor greatly ameliorated, torture and mutilation, as means of terri- fying evildoers, almost entirely abolished; reforma- tories established for juvenile and youthful adult offenders; the deaf and bUnd educated, and the insane and feeble minded hmnanely treated. Indeed, these have been the most noted achievements of modern civiHzation. In no other department of life does the contrast between the present and the past stand out in 234 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. such bold relief as in the treatment of physical and social ills. This comes as a benediction after so many centuries of man's inhumanity to man. If dark, dank dungeons for the incarceration of human beings still exist, if chains still clank on human limbs, and human flesh still quivers under the cruel lash, it is against the solemn protest of the altruistic spirit of the times, for more than at any other time it is being recognized that cruelty will no more prevent crime than almsgiving will prevent mendicancy, and that man is a social being and character a product of the social soil. This truth is being pressed home to the hearts and consciences of thoughtful people more and more as they see it verified in the lives and characters of those around them, as they see social conditions, good and bad, bringing forth fruit after their respective kinds, with almost the cer- tainty that seed sown in the ground brings forth fruit after their kind. Although prisons and reformatories will probably continue to be factors in our social super- structure they should be ever decreasing and not in- creasing factors. At best they can serve only as places of detention or possibly the reformation of the socially unfit — the social driftwood gathered from the polluted social stream. But, however diligent the gathering, the amount of such driftwood can hardly decrease so long as the stream itself remains polluted. The twen- tieth century problem, then, for both philanthropy and eugenics, is the improvement in social conditions — PREVENTION. 235 purify the social stream — in order that physical in- firmities, mental aberrations and moral obliquities may be reduced to a minimum. The rapid increase of praiseworthy childsaving move- ments in this country, many of which are true epoch making events in the history of child conservation, mark the rapid growth of the altruistic spirit among our people. The fact that so-called "Bad Boys" are making good wherever opportunities are afforded and the further fact that much of the present day philan- thropy is being done by people in their own communi- ties where they can see the fruits of their labor has added new interest to the problem of child conservation. The first great lesson in the wonderful self governing capacity of boys was given to the world by Mr. W. R. George, when he, in 1890, laid the foundation for the establishment of the now famous "Junior Republic" on his farm at Freeville, New York. The citizens of this unique republic were of boys and girls, chiefly the former, from the tenement districts of New York city. Many of them had served terms in prison, others were on suspended sentences pending good behavior, while all were the victims of the vicious system of charity and poHtical corruption practiced in the tene- ment districts of New York city and instead of being trained to obedience and self control, had been trained so far as trained at all, in the very opposite direction. After various experiments and failures for several 236 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. years, to secure order and discipline, with adult help, Mr. George, in 1894, placed boy officers, including judges, sheriffs, policemen, jurors, and prosecuting and defending attorneys, in charge of the colony, with the most gratifying results. Later, a boy legislature, a boy president and other boy officers, were elected by the citizenship of the community and a new republic estabHshed. The marvelous self governing capacity of these boys, their keen sense of justice, their superior powers of discrimination, administration and discipHne, were a revelation to Mr. George and educators and sociologists everywhere. The results were the more surprising since it was shown that the very boys who were leaders of gangs of toughs in the city soon became leaders of their companions for civic righteousness in their new surroundings and that the most hopeless cases came from reformatories and orphans* homes. The many unique republics, patterned after this one and made up of homeless and wayward children, now being estabHshed in various parts of the country are veritable human bee-hives of schools, churches, shops, factories, stores and farms. It is a great comphment to the efficiency of these institutions that many thor- oughly rehabilitated boys and girls are going out from them each year and taking their places in colleges and in positions of honor and trust along by the side of the children of the more favored classes. Another great object lesson in the inherent goodness of boys, when PREVENTION. 237 given an opportunity, was given to the world by Mr. J. E. Gunkle, the well known lover of boys, of Toledo, Ohio, when he, in 1890, established the now famous ^'Boyville News Boys Association" at a Christmas dinner given to the news boys and boot blacks of his city, many of whom were veritable toughs and cigarette fiends. Each member was given a card, which, among other things contained the statement that the holder did not "Approve of swearing, steaHng, lying, drinking intoxicating liquors or smoking cigarettes.'' Each member was also instructed to correct fellow members for doing anything that would tend to bring reproach on the organization. Meetings were at first held in aUies, vacant stores and halls until finally regular Sun- day afternoon meetings were estabKshed in large halls with ministers and other prominent citizens as speakers. Although ofiicered, at first, by well known leaders of toughs, the organization grew in public favor until in two years it numbered fifteen hundred members and in four years became the nucleus of a national organiza- tion. Instead of being looked upon with suspicion and distrust, by respectable society, as was formerly the case, the news boys and boot blacks of Toledo soon came to be recognized as the city's greatest workers for social upHft. Numerous instances are reported by the good people of this city of boys who had been terrors in their respective communities, growing up under the 238 AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. guiding influence of this organization and becoming honored and respected citizens. The, ''Juvenile Court'' estabhshed both in Chicago and Denver about the same time (1899) is another manifestation of the growing altruism of the times. The purpose of this law is to save the child. Youthful offenders are no longer cast into prison with hardened criminals and only as a last resort are they sent to custodial institutions but instead are placed under the watchful care of the court and probation officers and given an opportunity to reform. The result has demonstrated that, with comparatively few exceptions, when a boy who has been kicked and cuffed by all with whom he comes in contact once comes to understand that some one cares for him, really and truly loves him and is anxious to help him in his struggles against ad- versity, he instinctively thinks of better things and better conduct and strives, in his weak way, to come in closer contact with such person. But it requires more to convince such a boy of one's friendship than the mere statement of the fact. He needs many tangible and enduring evidences of such facts. But when this is once accomphshed he is soon on the highroad to social reconstruction. If he fails in his efforts it is often due more to the lack of tact and patience on the part of the friend than to perversity on the part of the boy. The "Big Brother" movement, the national and local PREVENTION. 239 childrens' home associations and other kindred organi- zations are rendering invaluable aid to juvenile courts in their rescue work. It is said that one man, Hon. George L. Sehon, of Louisville, Kentucky, has, with his own hands, placed ^yq thousand homeless children in good Christian homes. If the favor with which the ^'Boy Scout" movement has been received by the pubHc is a true test of its merits it may do much towards solving the boy problem of the future. Although it is in no sense, either a military or reform movement it is pre-eminently a boy conservation movement as it takes the impressionable boy at the critical psychological period of life, between twelve and twenty years of age, when the emotions and sensibiUties overbalance reason and judgment and guides him past the quicksands and pitfalls of adoles- cent life. It supplies a want in the hfe of the boy that so far has not been suppHed by either the home, the school or the church. It supplements, connects, and correlates the work of all of these and it adds much that they fail to supply. In many respects it is to the adoles- cent boy what the kindergarten is to the child. The association of out door sports and games with the study of nature and the accumulation of useful knowledge on nearly every phase of Hfe helps to develop, co-ordinate and correlate all the physical and psychical forces while the moral nature is amply provided for in the Scout law. 24 O AMERICAN BAD BOYS IN THE MAKING. oath and motto. When one comes to understand, therefore, that a whole army of boys are receiving such daily instruction in this country he cannot help but be hopeful of the citizenship of the future. The increasing demand for manual and industrial training in our public schools, especially our city schools, also argues well for the future. This is true, not merely because such training prepares for gainful trades and occupations, nor altogether because it com- bines harmonious physical culture with mechanical skill, but chiefly because of its high moral and socio- logical value. It brings a consciousness of self suffi- ciency, encourages self rehance and individual initia- tive. The educational value of a knowledge of size, dimen- sion, proportion and symmetry, gained by a familiarity with models and forms, the advantage in delicacy of touch, precision and accuracy gained by handling edged tools and doing skilled handiwork and the aesthetic value gained through a desire for the true and beautiful, can scarcely be estimated. Much good, too, is expected to come from the almost universal cry "Back to the farm" and the unprece- dented interest manifested in scientific farming, as it promises to check the rush to over-crowded cities and bring greater contentment on the farm. PREVENTION. 241 "Tis weary watching wave on wave, And yet the tide heaves onward; We build, like corals, grave on grave, But pave the pathway sunward; We're beaten back in many a fray, Yet ever strength we borrow. And where the vanguard rests to-day, The rear shall camp to-morrow." ^i»«sfeCtSl. ,*t>v*r UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. "'^ iO ,S48 ' I4Dec'59CT REC'D LD •481S DEC 26 1959 JUN 6 1394 'i^^^-^'-''^:.J\'' i \r>.i, i": MAY 7 19531 JUAA^T, l^'^^ NOV 2 2006 JUN imi^ i : •' LD 21-100m-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 It: u.c BERKELEY LIBRARIES ^ I CDH77bD7fi3