W. L. BODINE.

One year ago the new compulsory education law became effective on the statute books of Illinois. It has been tried. It has been found true. The compulsory education department has enforced it in Chicago. Principals and teachers of public and parochial schools have informed me that the prosecution of the parents of truants has materially increased the attendance in every school district. It has decreased truancy. It has brought fathers and mothers to a realization of their duty to their children in giving them an educational and moral uplift. It has reformed not only the boy, but the parent.

The child labor law shuts the children of premature age out of the factories, and punishes employers. The Juvenile Court law and the Parental School law reach the juvenile offenders-but the compulsory education law is the only one that reaches the parents. Realizing the official responsibility imposed upon me by the law, I have enforced it. Three hundred parents have been brought to task for not sending their children to school. They have been fined from $5 to $20 and costs. Eight fathers have been committed to jail. The effect in every district has been marvelous. Out of 1,200 warning notices served by truant officers, 900 parents complied, and kept their children in school. Those who did not were arrested.

TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN SENT TO PARENTAL SCHOOL.

In instances where parents were not to blame, but where the boys themselves defied parental control, the habitual truant was brought into the Juvenile Court and 267 of them were sent to the Parental School during the year. We must always have a Parental School because there will always be boys whom their parents cannot control. But the prosecution of the parent is bound to make an impression on the life of Chicago. It means a decrease in truancy in its incipiency today, hence a decrease in habitual truancy and delinquency in the future. The saving of a truant means the making of a man-of a better future citizen of Chicago. Hence, less crime in Chicago in the future.

In the enforcement of the law, I have endeavored to be fair. When principals reported violations of it, by sending me an "indifferent parent" notice I detailed a truant officer to call on the parent to serve a warning notice and report results. If the warning was not heeded, the parent was arrested and fined. law provides:

"That every person having control of any child between "the ages of seven and fourteen years, shall annually cause "said child to attend some public or private school for the "entire time the school attended is in session, which period "shall not be less than one hundred and ten days of actual "teaching. PROVIDED, That this act shall not apply in "any case where the child has been or is being otherwise "instructed for a like period of time in each and every year "in the elementary branches of education, by a person or "persons competent to give such instruction, or whose physi"cal or mental condition renders his or her attendance "impracticable or inexpedient, or who is excused for tempo"rary absence for cause by the principal or teachers in charge "of the school which said child attends.

"For every neglect of such duty as prescribed by Section "one (1) of this act, the person so offending shall forfeit "to the use of the public schools of the city, town or dis"trict in which such child resides, a sum not less than five "dollars ($5) nor more than twenty dollars ($20) and costs "of suit, and shall stand committed until such fine and costs "of suit are paid."

It pertains only to attendance. It is of benefit to the parochial schools as well as the public schools. I have always respected religious liberty.

ILLINOIS LEADS COLORADO.

Judge Lindsay, of Denver, recently declared that Colorado's system of prosecuting the fathers of delinquent boys was the ideal system. Illinois leads Colorado by prosecuting the parent of the truant child, before the child becomes a delinquent. Sociologists agree that juvenile crime originates in truancy. Therefore, Illinois now has an effective law that is better than the Colorado plan, because it strikes at the root of the entire juvenile evil-truancy. Moreover, Illinois now has the best laws in the country to protect its children and the best Parental School in the world. The State has at last awakened. The new compulsory education law is reasonable, timely, just. A parent should be able to control his child to the extent of sending him to some public or private school,-in keeping him away from the evil communications of the street. Day after day, I have been confronted with tears and threats in enforcing this law. But were it not enforced, mothers would in later years, shed tears of greater sorrow and fathers would sit in a cottage of aching hearts-when an unrestrained truant ran the streets until he grew up to become a criminal.

WHY CHILDREN GO WRONG.

Divorce, desertion and dissipation cause many children to go wrong. I have been conducting scientific investigations of the causes of truancy and juvenile delinquency in Chicago, and find that parents and environment are to blame for seventy-five per cent. of the present conditions among our truant, delinquent and dependent children. There are 18,000 divorced women in Chicago. Most of them retained the custody of the children when they parted from their husbands. The city also has thousands of deserted women who have not secured divorces. There is also the pathetic fact that out of the 60,928 widows and 21,224 widowers in Chicago 18,204 widows and 12,632 widowers are under 36 years of age, with the result that there are 49,140 children between the ages of seven and fourteen years of age who are half orphans. Of this number, 36,408 are fatherless and 12,632 motherless. In many of these cases the surviving parent wants to take the oldest girl out of school to remain at home and be the "little housekeeper." Frequently, as soon as the children are old enough they are sent to work in some store or factory, often before they complete the eighth grade. Thus poverty is, in a measure, responsible for involuntary truancy among girls between the ages of twelve and fourteen years, who are kept at home to do housework. The news girl, and the gum vender, is a development of recent years, due to poverty conditions at home, with the result that after school hours, many very small girls are on the streets of Chicago crying their wares, in the piping voice of childhood.

WHOLESALE COWARDICE OF WIFE DESERTIONS.

But one of the greatest evils of civilization is the wholesale cowardice of men who marry women only to desert these wives in later days, leaving four or five children for the abandoned mother to look after. The unfortunate woman in these instances is invariably left destitute and forced to go to work and earn a living for herself and children. This means that the children must get to school as best they can, as the mother leaves home early and is away all day with a result that many children run the streets until caught by truant officers. There are 8,000 deserted women in Chicago with the result that fully 15,000 children are without a father's support and care and twenty-five per cent. of them will eventually end in some juvenile corrective institution. Once in a great while (but the instances are exceptional) a wife deserts her husband but the mother love is so strong that she generally takes the children with her.

The kind of men that I love to prosecute is the red-nosed, bulky specimen of humanity who never works but permits his wife to earn a living for the family over the washboard while he sits around with a pipe in his mouth jawing her to give him more money for liquor and tobacco. He is the man who generally makes his headquarters at the corner saloon, picking at his whiskers, sponging newspapers and making long dissertations to his comrades in grog, telling how the country should be run. Frequently, he goes home ill-natured after some debate around a saloon stove, beats his wife and curses his children. He never sets foot in a school house, uses profanity in the presence of his children, whips them black and blue for some trivial offense and has a supreme and profane contempt for truant officers who serve notices on him, When he is arrested as an indifferent parent, and is brought into court he whines that it is all his wife's fault, and when the justice sends him to "school row" in the County Jail, the tears of a mistreated wife are often in the trial of this worthless husband. This class of father never takes an interest in his son, except to brutally whip him, and it is from such homes that many delinquent boys come.

HARD TO STUDY ON EMPTY STOMACH.

Small means and large families seem to go hand in hand, with the result that increased prices of living causes many children to go to school hungry. It is hard to study on an empty stomach, and hence, many children lacking sufficient nourishing food are backward in their studies. Well fed children pass them in promotions to higher grades, the dull child becomes sensitive and envious, and frequently hates to go to school, and this discontent often leads to truancy. From investigations conducted at the John Worthy and Parental Schools, when boys were first committed, physicians found 90 per cent. of the boys were under age, under weight and not normal-due to lack of sufficient nourishing food at home.

The way to reach a boy's heart is through his stomach. If fathers will see that a boy is well fed and will be more companionable to the boy, they will be able to manage him better. It is a mistake for parents to bribe a boy to be good. The arrest of parents under the compulsory education law has brought many boys to realize that they have brought their fathers and mothers into trouble with the result that it appeals to the better side of the boy's life and he goes to school in instances where previous whippings at home only aroused his resentment and stubbornness.

PARENTS ARE SWAYED BY COMMERCIALISM.

Too many people, after they are fathers and mothers, are swayed by commercialism-to get a productive value out of their children-to send them to work in sweat shops and factories at a tender age. Chicago should be thankful that it has such citizens as Jane Addams, Cornelia de Bey, Edgar T. Davies, and Harriet Van der Vaart, who aroused public sentiment to demand a child labor law to check the evils of the child slavery that existed in this city a few years ago. And it should be thankful that it has Judge Richard S. Tuthill and a Juvenile Court.

There is an "absorption" tendency of children at home. The father sets the example for the son. The father smokes. The son soon has a cigarette between his teeth. The father swears at the dinner table-perchance his coffee is cold. The son hears and absorbs profanity. Later the father wonders if the neighbor's big boy taught his son to be so profane. The father sends the boy with a tin pail to a nearby saloon to fetch the beer; he wonders by and by, why the measure grows smaller and the boy begins to acquire the lying habit. The father and mother quarrel in the presence of their children. The little ones listen in silent wonder at an exchange of adjectives and sometimes,

blows, between parents in the heat of anger. Later, the children are soundly thrashed for fighting over their toys.

THE FATHER THE BOY'S IDEAL.

Political parties are perpetuated by the son absorbing the political faith of the father. The boy is anxious to be a man. The father is the ideal; the son, the imitator. If the father and mother take no interest in their boy's education, and never visit a school or encourage regular attendance and studious effort, the boy cannot be blamed for losing ambition. The value of co-operation between home and school is the safeguard of the republic. The father never gives his boy a cent of spending money, and then wonders why the boy was arrested for "swiping" a pocketbook, or selling stolen goods to a junk man. The father never takes his boy to a ball game or for an outing, and then ruminates over the vagaries of boyhood that permits some older boy to lead his boy astray.

TRUANCY MEANS DELINQUENCY.

Truancy means delinquency, and thus the boy "moves on" to John Worthy School and later home again on parole to the same father. Then comes a period of good conduct-later a violation of parole on the part of the boy. Back to the reform school he goes-then to Pontiac he "moves on." He comes out in the world; he seeks employment; he isn't wanted; that word "Pontiac" is ever in his ears; he is discharged for fear that no matter how honest he is now, he might go wrong again. He "moves on" into the streets, through a cold world-a world with a memory.

He is older now-ripe for Joliet. He lacks education, due to truancy in boyhood. He eventually lands in the penitentiary for some crime. Once he dons a convict's garb, his future doom is sealed. His hair is clipped, he is numbered, his picture goes in the rogue's gallery. The police will never forget him. Even when liberty comes to him again, it is a liberty followed by the eye of suspicion-until, at last, he either goes back again or "moves on' into a cold and deep, but charitable grave. His father, now old and bent,-and reminiscent, hobbles through life sighing over the disgrace the son has brought on the family name-when the disgrace might have been averted if the father had taken more interest in his son when he was small.

TRUANCY THE ROOT OF JUVENILE EVIL.

The root of all juvenile evil is truancy. When all indifferent parents are brought to task and compelled to assist in the extermination of truancy, the juvenile problem will, in a large measure, be solved. We will always have corrective institutions, but the punishment of parents will keep them from being over-crowded. Every juvenile executive institution in Chicago is over-stuffed today, with boys who are there largely because their parents have not taken enough interest in their education and training. When boys are paroled from corrective institutions they return to the home environments from which they came. The boy may return good, but the home remains bad. The prosecution of parents tends to reform the homes, and to awaken parents to the fact that they, themselves, will be arrested if they do not do their share toward keeping these paroled children in school, and in giving them a better moral support in life. I am going to continue to enforce this compulsory education law. It is a law for the public good. Any law that all creeds unite on, is evidently a strong one that public sentiment is behind. I pity the political future of any man who ever attempts to have it repealed. It was enacted at the request of the WomIan's Clubs, the Federation of Labor, the Catholic Woman's League, the Teachers' Federation, the Principals' Association, several Lutheran and Jewish societies, the Child Saving Conference, the social settlements, and many more united organizations that will stand by the compulsory education and child labor laws as the laws that save our children, our homes, our Chicago.

JUSTICES ARE FAIR, PATIENT AND JUST.

It is a credit to have such magistrates as Justices Hurley, Caverly and Prindiville on the bench to hear these cases. They are fair, and patient, and just. No hardships have followed in the wake of this law. A fine may cause a poor man to wince, but it frequently saves the future of the child. Too many fathers try to shirk their share of parental duty, and lay all the blame on the mothers if the boys go wrong. In our prosecutions, in the various courts, husbands have often declared it was all the fault of the wife. It has ever been the unreasonable, unfair policy of man to lay all the blame on woman. It was thus when the birds sang in the skies of Eden at the beginning of the world. But the law is just. Man, as a citizen and father, as head of the American family,-must pay the penalty if he fails to do his duty to his son and to his country.

The supervision of works of charity is scarcely less important, in many respects, than the works themselves. So evident has this become that nearly all the states, or at least the most populous states, have made provision for some form of state supervision of charitable work, through the establishment of state boards of charity either by statute or constitutional enactment. The supervision thus exercised should not amount to control, for in no case should the managing body become identical; otherwise the advantages springing from independent supervision will be utterly lost or, at least, be so far nullified as to be of little consequence.

Supervision must not hamper or impede worthy works of charity but, on the contrary, assist and encourage them. How often indeed is the contrary the case when inexperienced inspectors wish to enforce their views of what should be done on persons of right judgment and long experience in the work. Perhaps the new inspector is a well educated man and rich in all the knowledge that books can give, but is lacking in the practical knowledge which only the accumulations of personal efforts and numerous failures can impart. How often does such an inspector set out on his tour of inspection with the feeling, if not the determination, that he must find something wrong with the work under consideration; with the result that his report, while it may give a nodicum of praise is mostly of the censorious character, with trifles magnified into importance. Inspection carried on in such a way could not be beneficial but must be rather harmful and discouraging, particularly when the managers are not convinced that the things suggested are useful or necessary.

MODERATION RECOMMENDED.

In many

All supervising bodies should see to it that their work is done by their members or agents, with prudence, justice, experience and moderation. Of the four moderation is, perhaps, the most difficult to acquire for the tendency of human nature is to err by excess of defect and, indeed, to these extremes may we attribute the entire evil found in the world. A state board, then, must cultivate this eminent and necessary moderation and aim at the correction of real abuses, if discovered, and the gradual improvement of standards till the most excellent is found. states such principles of jurisdiction prevail and are the grading methods of supervision and where such is the case, the most pleasant relations exist between the boards of management of charitable societies or instruction and the state boards of supervision; and the petty antagonism so often found where these principles are lacking is a thing almost unknown. It behooves state boards, then, to train well in the exact principles of their duty, the supervisor or inspector to be sent to examine and report on the works of others.

SUPERVISION OF DEPENDANT CHILDREN.

This injunction is particularly necessary in regard to the supervision of charitable work done for dependant children, especially when a public charge. There are practically only two methods, with their several sub-dvisions, for caring for juvenile wards. The one is to place them in institutions and the other is to place them in families. Both methods deal with practically the same class of children, with the exception of delinquent children, who are more frequently retained in the institutions. These children range from the new born infant to the reckless youth, and when we consider the vast interests involved in the care of children of any class, and think of the possibilities for good or ill shut up in the lives of these dependant classes, no wonder we are impelled to exert every effort on their behalf that they may become what we wish them to be, good and useful members of society. Indeed we stand, as it were, at the diverging lines of their career, with our hand, so to speak, on the lever that may throw them to either track. Infirmity has limited the possibilities of the aged and the sick may never recover, the insane must dwell in seclusion, but these young buds of manhood and womanhood are fast developing into what must soon become a useful or dangerous element to society.

Surely the task of supervising the work done for them is one of no little moment. That the children in institutions have ample supervision, at least in the great majority of states is selfevident. State boards, local boards, supervisors, officers of the poor, boards of health, boards of education and private associations all have access to them, and there is no scarcity of reports on the inspection of children's institutions and in these reports there is hardly a detail that is not entered into most minutely.

The localities, the sanitary condition of the institutions, their equipments and facilities, the physical and mental condition of the inmates, the efficiency of their management, the cost of their maintenance, their methods of work, and almost every other point that students of sociology could desire. In fact, for the institutions there is more likelihood of over than under supervision.

CHILDREN PLACED OUT IN FAMILIES.

But, alas, the same cannot be said for children placed out in families, though they are equally the care of the state and are exposed to even greater danger. There is scarcely a state in which there is any absolutely independant and official body that protects the interests of destitute children placed in family homes. It is true some states do supervise to a certain extent, this placing-out work, and make visits to the homes of the placedout children, but it is true also that some of these states do placing-out work themselves and that most of their work of supervising is actually devoted to self examination. To have its full effect, the state supervising body should itself have nothing to do with the placing-out. Let it encourage such placing-out if it pleases, either by public officials or private agencies, but it must keep aloof from the work. It should visit and inspect all the home and give to the public as adequate knowledge of the state of placed out children, as it does of those placed in institutions.

It may sound strange, but it seems true, nevertheless, that the most careless placing-out work is done by county poor officials. There are reasons for it that the thoughtful may discover. The poor official, especially in the minor offices, is not always selected with a view to his fitness to the position he holds. The taxpayers who have elected him, especially in rural districts, look to him to lessen the expense of the poor and if the children should be a charge on the town or county, he must get rid of them in some manner and probably the easiest is to give them to whoever is willing to receive them. The cheapest method, therefore, is very often preferred to the best method of dealing with dependant children of the district. Moreover, his successor in office is not going to burden himself with what has been neglected by his predecessor and, in consequence, children placed out by such officials are often living a life of real servitude under the guise of protection.

CONDITIONS IN NEW YORK.

In New York, there are over 1,200 officials of the poor, who have to deal with. dependant children and who have the right to adopt, indenture and board them in families or place them in institutions. Realizing the importance of supervising the home in which such children are placed, and remembering its past experiences with placing-out work, the State Board of Charities has besought three successive legislatures to grant it sufficient appropriation to provide inspectors to devote themselves exclusively to supervising the placing-out work, and the Board's request has not been granted. It is somewhat remarkable that legislators, who individually would make sacrifices for the poor, will not, as a body, be convinced by undisputed arguments of experienced men pointing out a great vital interest of the state that should be provided for, and that they will frequently ignore such appeals till some great public scandal or abuse calls forth a public protest and creates so strong a public sentiment that they dare not resist the demand.

DIFFICULTIES OF SUPERVISION.

The difficultics of supervising the homes of placed-out children and placing-out work in all its details are easy to be perceived. Generally these children are placed in a sparsely populated territory where the inconvenience and expense of travel is very great. Again, many of them are placed outside the state limits and not a few at great distances and where it would be practically impossible for their home state to exercise any supervision.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, the state owes to its helpless poor the protection guaranteed to every citizen. It is not necessary that the State should take upon itself the care of dependent children. Its provision is to make its citizens do their duty. Nature demands that parents afford their children protection, maintenance and education, and where the natural bond is too weak to force these obligations, it is the duty of the State to step in and secure them to the children and only when it is impossible to find another willing to give to the children what

the parent is unwilling or unable to give, should the State itself do the work. The same holds good in regard to the performance of works of charity in general. If private citizens undertake them, they must perform them in a way that will secure the best results for their beneficiaries and for the State.

PRESENT CONDITIONS SHOULD BE IMPROVED.

If then it is impossible for the State to visit the homes of placed-out children through its own inspectors, it should devise some means that would, at least, improve present conditions. The State Board of Charities should require from every person or society that has placed dependant children in family homes, whether they be boarded there at public expense or supported gratis, an annual report of the visits made to such children. The placing-out officers and agencies claim that they do annually visit such children and if their claim be well founded, it will be little hardship for them to file with the State Board of Charities a report of such visits. The State Board usually has, for it is so in our State at least, a history record of every child maintained at public expense and also a discharge record when the children leave the custody of their protectors, so that the report I suggest would keep the records up to date, at least until the dependant child is amply able to take care of itself, provide its own living and safeguard its own interests.

For some fifty years, thousand of children have been placed out from our State, the great majority of them sent to the West, and yet public officials have practically no records of such children or their subsequent careers or whereabouts. The societies that placed them have indeed, some records, but thy are not full or complete. We have no positive assurance that all the family homes in which these children were placed were up to the standard as we require it in the case of institutions. Not every home is a good home for every child as persons engaged in home finding well know. Many a home that is all that might be desired from the standpoint of food and shelter is far from being a good home in the true sense. Quite frequently, too, have the characters of the homes changed, and when they do, the little strangers placed in them are the first to feel the effects, and many of them could tell sad tales of lost affection, neglect and harsh treatment.

The carelessness or indifference with which prominent citizens, even professional men, give flattering references to applicants for children when such persons are little known to them or whose character they are unwilling to declare is often amazing. This is a very grave injustice to the children affected by such references and it greatly increases the difficulties in placing-out work.

NOTION OF TRUE LIBERTY.

The notion of true liberty carries with it the idea that the state was made for the people, and not the people for the state. It guards our international, state and municipal rights; it secures to corporations, its own creations, their integrity, and protects individuals against unjust aggression of what

ever kind. Such being the functions of the state, parents have a right to expect that it will safeguard them in their just claims to their children and unworthy of its high dignity indeed, would be the state that, in return for support, demands from worthy parents the absolute surrender of their children and the relinquishments of all claims to them. The price is too high and no good parent would accept public support for his children at such a cost. Much better, indeed, is the plan that comes to the relief of the needy parent that supports and educates the child, only to return it to its natural home where it may later in life support not only itself but its declining parents as well. So sacred is the relation of parent and child that in ordinary circumstances the law will not permit the adoption of a child without the consent of its parents, and the old English law authorizes the seizure and sale of the parental goods in case of non-support of children, but no mention is made of robbing the parents of all right to the children. In the state supervision of children I will say it is the duty of the state, while it guards its own interests with all reasonable care, to guard also the rights of the children and their parents as well. Among these rights there is none more important or dear to them than their religious belief and sincere Catholics will sacrifice everything rather than part with it. The religious belief of the parent is as much a right to be transmitted to the child by the state as is personal and real property, which in all cases descends to the child in the absence of any expressed wish on the part of the parent. All do not regard religion with equal interest, for I have heard it said in a National Conference that religious training makes weaklings. I ask you who is the weakling, the man who through his religious conviction overcomes himself, curbs his evil inclination and masters his baser nature or the man who, with no religious belief, is as helpless against the onrush of his passions as the beast, and who knows no law but that of self-gratification and selfindulgence in the things that decent men would hesitate to mention. It is true that religion treats of things above earth, but its aim is to secure better living on earth. Whoever, therefore, robs a child of its faith commits a crime, not only against God, but against society.

THERE IS SUCH ROBBERY.

And is there such robbery? Yes, and it is the chief reason why charitable societies and religious denominations cannot work in harmonious co-operation. It is the duty of the State in its supervisory work, not only to discourage conspiracies against truth, but to punish them, and it will never have done its full duty till it not only secures to every person the freedom of worship guaranteed by the constitution, but the protection to him of the faith in which, is his heart, he desires to live.

Lastly, for effective supervision, the representatives of the State must be clothed with all the authority necessary to enforce their just demands and all persons must recognize the fact that dependant children are not chattels, but helpless citizens protected by the strong arm of civil power.

WASHINGTON, PA., JUVENILE COURT

The Juvenile court recently authorized and organized is now firmly established in Washington county, Pa. Quarters have been secured and fitted up in the county jail and a matron is Miss S. V. Dickey, of Germantown, Philadelphia, a former Washington county woman. Miss Dickey now has charge of any youthful criminals placed in the care of the Juvenile court or detained there until some dispensation of them can be made.

Miss Dickey is a native of Donegal township, but for 30 years has resided in the eastern part of the state. At Germantown for years she conducted a private school and has had considerable experience in slum and alley work.

The quarters turned over to the Juvenile court are convenient and handsome ones. They are on the top floor of the county jail in the south wing where was formerly located the jail hospital. Here are four rooms with a large and well equipped bath room. One room, the largest of the four, is the matron's office and the library and reception room. The other rooms are sleeping quarters for any prisoners detained.

Accommodation have been made for eight or 10 prisoners, but many more can be cared for. In each of the sleeping rooms cots have been placed for sleeping accommodations. A library which is to be constantly increased has been placed suitable for boys and girls young in years and under the supervision of the matron they are allowed the use of these books. It is hoped to make the Juvenile court in Washington county a

success.

IN GOOD HOMES.

A decrease of twenty-nine per cent. in the number of commitments for violation of the provisions of release on parole; a mean decrease of seventeen per cent. in parole cases involving arrests for grand larceny, disorderly conduct and "disorderly child," and an increase of twenty-two per cent. in the number of suspensions of sentence, during the quarter ending this date, tell more plainly than fine words that the effort spent in probation work is well worth while. Your Chief Probation Officer recognizes the fact, however, that the work could not possibly be done without the assistance of his large corps of trained workers of both sexes, a great part of whose time is taken up in hundreds of parole investigations every week, and without any expense to this, or the several departments of justice in the Borough of Manhattan exercising the right to parole children in his custody. And the work of these assistants is done in addition to their duties as officers of The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The work of that Society for the month of May covered 1,071 cases-the greatest month's work in its history. The number of parole cases before this Court during this quarter was 427, which were variously disposed of, and of which 123 are now on parole.

I must again acknowledge the splendid assistance rendered me by the committee of ladies representing different religious persuasions at the Children's Court, and by school principals and teachers, whose reports, very frequently, go a great way in determining what disposition I recommend to the Court.

The children now on parole, and many upon whom sentence has been suspended, are being constantly visited, that they may know that interest is still being taken in them. Most of the children, and all of their parents, appreciate this, and parents have frequently testified to the good so done. Respectfully submitted,

(Signed) E. FELLOWS JENKINS, Chief Probation Officer.

Far from their former evil associations, a number of boys from the Philadelphia Juvenile court and others, who have been ill-treated by their parents, are learning to become useful citizens at the Fretz Valley Industrial School in Bedminster township, Pa., which Miss Lucy Burd, a former Bucks county teacher, has started.

Miss Burd opened the institution at this farm a few months ago as the result of her work among the children of the juvenile court and congested districts of Philadelphia. She has interested the Mothers' Congress of that city and several prominent men in the movement and support, both financial and moral, has been promised.

When the boys enter the school they are set to work on the farm to pass their idle hours not devoted to studies. The course of instruction includes all the elementary branches taught in the public schools, and the study of Nature's charms plays no small part in this juvenile training.

The school is situated in an ideal spot. The old farmhouse where the boys are quartered stands on a hill which overlooks one of the most fertile valleys in the county.

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