and of caring for the blind that should make it effective and that would lift the school where it should be, to the highest plane of usefulness.

A paper on "Juvenile Courts and Juvenile Probation" was read by Mr. Frederic Almy, Secretary of the Buffalo Charity Organization Society, Buffalo:

JUVENILE COURTS AND JUVENILE PROBATION.

Neglected childhood is the chief cause of crime, for neglected childhood means neglected character, and at an age when character is still plastic. Children under arrest for the first time are more peculiarly susceptible to influence than even other children, and the impressions made at this crisis go far to fix their lives. If you catch character young, and at the right moments, you can do almost anything with it. It is even possible to confine the baser parts of a child's life, as the Chinese do the feet of their children, so that the development of these baser parts will be permanently stunted. Swaddling environments, continued with the patience of years, can do much to form character by compulsion, so to speak, and to thwart the growth of what is undesirable. This exclusion of evil is the method of the military school and of the reformatory of the military type. There is something unnatural about it, but there is no doubt that in this way habits can be formed; and there is an inertia of character which makes good habits difficult to break as well as bad ones.

The other method is to leave the natural conditions with as little disarrangement as possible; to let the feet grow, so to speak, and become a support for the whole body; to take the activity which might become crime, and turn it to industry; to take the affection which might become lust and turn it to love; and to do all this as far as possible under natural conditions. It is possible to do this, not by a high wall which wards off all contamination and casts a shadow also on the young life within, but by applying some antiseptic

which will make the contagions of daily life harmless. Those of us who with Milton "cannot praise a fugitive and cloister'd vertue, unexercis'd and unbreath'd," believe that character is better formed by liberty than by force. Antiseptics against temptation are being found by modern charity. If possible I would leave a child undisturbed in its home and trust to the church, the school, the tenement-house law and the settlements as antiseptics against contamination; next to this, I would leave the child at home, but under probation; next, I would choose a foster home, well chosen and well watched; next a reformatory of the free type exemplified in the George Junior Republic, and last, though certainly not least, a reformatory of the more military type, like the admirable State Industrial School at Rochester.

I speak with profound ignorance of matters medical, and shall be grateful to the chair for correction, but where the germ of pauperism or of vice cannot be killed may there not be a treatment by antitoxin, by deliberately helping the poison to run its course in a mild form in order to prevent future attacks? It may be well to let a boy be idle and lazy for a time and suffer all the consequences of hunger and cold; to let him be violent and as a penalty be duly and severely punished by his peers; in fact to give him a brief rehearsal of life under natural conditions which will be very profitable when life arrives in grim earnest. These same lessons are taught effectively in a reformatory of the more military type, but the more voluntary and natural the lesson is, and the more the child can be made to feel that he has chosen his own course, and experienced its natural result, the deeper will be the impress on his life.

This prelude is intended as a plea for natural methods in penology such as are excellently illustrated by the recent juvenile courts and juvenile probation laws. Neither of these has yet more than a foothold in New York State. After January 1, 1902, there will be a children's court in the boroughs of Manhattan and

the Bronx, that is to say in New York city as it was before the consolidation with Brooklyn; and in Buffalo since July 1, 1901, there has been a children's court, and also a juvenile probation law with a three months' term. A review of other States shows that except in Massachusetts these measures are recent, but there are now juvenile courts with probation also in Chicago (July, 1899), in Pennsylvania (June, 1901), and in Milwaukee (July, 1901), and juvenile probation in New Jersey (1899), St. Louis (1901), and the District of Columbia (1901). I believe there is also juvenile probation in Minnesota.*

A juvenile court is, of course, a court for children separately, where they may escape the foul associations of an adult criminal court with its drunkards, prostitutes and hangers-on. It is not a good sight for a child to see, or a good audience for a child to play to. At its best a children's court is in a separate building from the adult criminal courts, with a separate, special judge. Chicago, Buffalo and, perhaps, Philadelphia, most nearly realize this at present. In Chicago the juvenile court law provides that the judges having criminal jurisdiction "shall designate one or more of their number whose duty it shall be to hear all cases coming under this act." Fortunately they have designated one only Judge Tuthill. The Pennsylvania law allows one or more judges as in Chicago. In both Chicago and Philadelphia, however, the juvenile court is not in a separate building. In Buffalo the probation law provides for no children's court, but by voluntary arrangement Judge Murphy of the police court, before whom practically all the juvenile delinquency comes for trial, has transferred his juvenile cases to the room of the county agents for destitute children, several blocks distant from the police court, where he holds his juvenile court two afternoons in the week. In Chicago there are also two sessions a week for juvenile delinquents.

In Illinois there is a state law, but it is applicable only to cities of over 500,000; in Missouri a law applicable only to cities of over 350,000; and in Wisconsin a law applicable only to cities of over 150,000; so that these laws are really local to Chicago, St. Louis and Milwaukee.

In Milwaukee Judge Neelen holds the children's court once a week, in his own courtroom. In New York city the children's court is probably to be held in a building said to be at least a mile from any other court, but it is to be held by various magistrates in rotation.

In Massachusetts, where juvenile probation is an old story, the law requires that juvenile offenders shall be tried "apart from adults." As interpreted in use this means only in a separate session. There is no separate children's court. In what is called the Central Court in Boston, the session for adults is formally adjourned and the room is cleared of all except those who have to do with the juvenile cases. In the district courts in Massachusetts, the session for juveniles is usually held in a separate room, or in the judge's private room. "Unfortunately in all the courts juveniles under arrest are apt to be mixed with adults while waiting, during the hour or so preceding the trial. If not under arrest but only summoned, they may wait in the outside lobbies, but get more or less mixed with the throng about and in the courtroom."* In the Central Court there are seven judges, each of whom presides for a week in turn.

The special, separate judge is better than a succession of judges. It adds dignity to the court, and the judge becomes familiar with the work, with the probation officers, and with the children if they are brought back for warnings or for a second offense.

In Massachusetts and St. Louis the probation officers are paid. In New York the court costs are paid to them. In Chicago, Pennsylvania, Buffalo and Milwaukee they are unpaid, or paid from private sources. It is better to have paid officers, though volunteer assistants can aid their work greatly, but there is much danger of political influences if the salaries are paid from the public treasury, at least before the system is well established. Absolutely unpaid officers cannot always be relied upon. In Chicago

*Charles W. Birtwell.

Judge Tuthill has appointed ninety-six probation officers, but the work is chiefly done by twelve, each of whom has a special district. This district system should be adopted everywhere.

In several states the law prescribes that children shall not be lodged either in the jail or in the police court. If the child is unable to give bail, some place other than the jail or police court must be provided. In Pennsylvania a separate act, passed after the juvenile court law, authorizes the establishment of houses of detention. In Wisconsin it is provided that when a child has been sentenced he must be kept wholly apart from adult prisoners until he is committed. The period after arrest and before trial is also guarded.

It has been well said that the practice of arresting persons accused of minor offenses, who are not in the least likely to fail to appear if merely summoned, is a relic of earlier times and should be abandoned. In Buffalo it is the general practice after arrest to let the child go home under promise to appear in court at the time stated, and as yet there has been no failure to appear.

In many of the courts the proceedings are quite informal, and the children stand close to the judge and talk confidentially with him, without fear. In the Pennsylvania courtroom I am told that the children are at a distance from the judge, as is customary in adult criminal trials.

In New York city, children under sixteen years of age are at present tried in seven different courts. The number of children committed by the courts in one year is about 2,500. Even without a probation law, the separate children's court which will open in January will help this greatly. The effect of a juvenile court, with juvenile probation also, is shown in Chicago, where, during the two years before the juvenile law, the average number of boys committed each year to the Cook County Jail was 565. During the two years after the law took effect the average number fell to twelve.