work of their lives. Such a school and home is now in process of erection upon a tract of the finest farm land in Illinois, in extent nearly 1,000 acres, which was bought (by the generous contribution of the citizens of Chicago, aggregating in amount $100,000) and given to the State as a site to erect suitable buildings upon. The general assembly has already given $325,000 for buildings and $50,000 for maintenance and will give more in the future.

Instead of such a home and school as the "St. Charles Home for Boys," above referred to, we trust will soon be, we have had for delinquent boys the John Worthy School, which is, in fact, a part of the city bridewell. True, the school is under the best of supervision, with an unsurpassed corps of teachers; true, a great good has resulted from the care and instruction given these boys there; but the capacity of this school is so limited that it has not been possible to keep the boys there for a sufficient time to get the best results, as it has been found necessary to discharge those who were doing well in order to 'give place to new cases for whom else there would be no room. it is a prison.

FACTS FROM COURT RECORDS.

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Having premised this much I will, in closing, give a few figures taken from the court records to indicate what has been accomplished under the inadequate force of probation officers and in the inadequate John Worthy School.

These figures cover a period of nine months, extending from February 1, 1903, to November 1, 1903. Of 1,301 cases of delinquent boys adjudicated upon by the court within that time, 715 were released and placed under the care of probation officers; 505 (nearly all of whom had before, when first brought into court, been placed under probation officers, but by reason of bad environment at home and the inability of probation officers to give the needed attention to so many had been brought again into court) were sent to the John Worthy School; 58 were dismissed; 17, because of their age and confirmed criminal characters, were transferred to the criminal court, in order that they might be sent to the State Reform School, and 6 were sent to institutions caring for dependent children.

Of the 505 sent to the John Worthy School, 326 went for the second time, 99 for the third time, 33 for the fourth time, 5 for the fifth time, 3 for the sixth time, and 1 for the eighth time.

Had it been possible to keep all of these 326 boys in the school from one to two or three years, I am confident that 90 per cent of the boys brought into court would have been successfully cared for. That largely more than half of them placed under the care of probation officers were not returned to court is, I submit, the strongest indorsement of the humane and parental-care method for delinquent boys provided for under the juvenile-court law.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE JUVENILE-COURT IDEA.

T. D. HURLEY, President Visitation and Aid Society of Chicago.

A new departure from the existing order of things must be successful if it would be popular. Few human beings are so constituted that they care to be identified with a measure of any kind calculated to bring about a radical change to the extent of pushing it against great opposition. Reformers throughout the United States realized that the worm in the bud, the poison that was destroying the life of good citizenship, the moth that was gnawing at the fabric of human society until it was becoming tattered and disreputable was the fact that the rising generation was growing up surrounded by seasoned vice and hardened criminality. They realized, too, that if the crime disease should ever be destroyed the work of fumigation must begin in the homes and with the children, and that they must be cured by being educated and loved out of their ignorance and desolation.

Every person interested in studying conditions and helping people to rise above them knew that nothing could be accomplished along this line without the arm of the State backing them up in the form of legislation which would help them. The need of legislation of this kind was discussed at meetings and before clubs, but no good was accomplished, because there was no strong, guiding hand back of the movement. No battle was ever yet won without a master hand and brain at the head of the army. The necessary leader was lacking among the reformers, and as a consequence while a great deal of ammunition was used most of it was wasted, scattered, and rendered ineffective, because the aim was poor and the mouth of the weapon was not turned squarely upon the enemy, and because the undertaking was such a great one that each State hesitated to take the initiative and lead in the fight against the forces of evil and crime.

At last the Visitation and Aid Society of Chicago, after years of discussion and agitation, drafted a bill relating to child saving, embracing the work that was being done by the child-saving societies, and had it introduced into the Illinois legislature in the spring of 1891. This measure caused considerable discussion and was finally defeated, on the ground that it was advanced legislation. Agitation was continued in Illinois among the societies-child-saving societies, women's, clubs, and other public bodies-until finally, in 1899, the Bar Association of Chicago appointed a committee, of which Harvey B. Hurd was chairman. A determined stand was taken by this committee against the forces of the enemy, and lacking a weapon that would enable them to make an intelligent fight a new law was drafted. The juvenilecourt law was the result. This law went into force on July 1, 1899. Requests for copies of the juvenile-court law began to pour in from all directions. These requests were promptly answered and copies of

the Juvenile Court Record, published by the Visitation and Aid Society, containing the necessary information, were sent to applicants.

Agitation began in other States for a law similar to the one passed in Illinois, and those who helped to form the Illinois law were invited to visit other States to explain the measure and the method of administering the law in Cook County.

The Illinois law proved so satisfactory that many judges throughout the country, not wishing to await the action of a legislature, established branches in their several courts for children cases only, and in the treatment of the cases applied the probate and chancery powers of the court. This was the case especially in Denver, Colo., where Judge Ben D. Lindsey had a complete and well-equipped juvenile court and probation system before the legislature took any action whatever. A like court was subsequently adopted in Indianapolis by George W. Stubbs. The two latter courts were carried on practically in the same way that they have been since laws were adopted by these States. In most of the States the probation officers are volunteers. The judges in Denver and Indianapolis had no trouble whatever in establishing a probation system, because of the volunteer assistance rendered by women's clubs.

The work is yet in its infancy, and should be a matter of discussion at all women's clubs and child-saving societies throughout the country until juvenile courts are adopted in every State in the Union. These courts should not apply solely to large cities, but the principles of the juvenile-court system should be applied in all courts where children's cases are heard. The underlying principle is that a child should be treated as a child. Instead of reformation, the thought and idea in the judge's mind should always be formation. No child should be punished for the purpose of making an example of him, and he certainly can not be reformed by punishing him. The parental authority of the State should be exercised instead of the criminal power.

It was never contemplated that the juvenile-court law of Illinois could or should be adopted in its entirety in other States, but some feature of the law can be ingrafted on the laws of other States. For example, a separate court might fit the needs of one State, probation officers another, recognition of child-saving societies others, preventing children from being confined in prisons, visitation of institutions and formal indorsement of the same by some official body of societies and persons engaged in the work still others; last and greatest of all, the section of the law compelling parents, when able to do so, to support their children wherever they may be, which would seem to be useful in every State. The principal feature of the juvenile-court law should always be uppermost in the minds of those interested in securing similar laws in other States, and that is to transfer the care and custody of the person of the child to a court of original and

unlimited jurisdiction, so that the court shall have sufficient power to deal with the difficulties that surround the particular child, not only at the time it is brought into court and becomes a ward of the court, but at any time when it may be brought into court in the future to have its growing wants supplied by the court standing in loco parentis.

Judge Lindsey, of Denver, in his study of the question and as the result of his practice as judge of the Denver juvenile court, succeeded in having the legislature adopt two separate laws in connection with the juvenile-court law of Colorado. These two laws have proved very beneficial. The first law is made to apply to any parent contributing to the delinquency of a child. Penalties are provided and the parent may be made to answer for his neglect of the child or for his direct act which resulted in delinquency or dependency. The second law pertains solely to third persons. A sample case was before the court recently. The child was arrested for drunkenness and the case transferred to the juvenile court. The parent was charged with delinquency in a separate proceeding in the juvenile court, the charge being that the child had been sent to a saloon for liquor, which was a violation of the parental juvenile-court law. The saloon keeper who sold the liquor to the child was charged in a separate proceeding with contributing to the delinquency of the child by selling liquor to it. A fine of $25 was imposed on the mother and suspended pending good behavior. A like fine of $25 was imposed on the saloon keeper and suspended on condition that he would sell no more liquor to minors. The saloon keeper was an honest German who conducted an orderly place and was very much surprised to know that he had contributed to the delinquency of a boy. He not only promised that he would not sell to minors, but that the suspended fine would not be collected, as he would never violate the law again in that respect. Judge Lindsey informs us that he has faithfully kept his promise. The mother was likewise surprised that she could be charged with delinquency and a fine imposed. The child was placed on probation in the care of a probation officer.

It will be seen at once that the Colorado juvenile-court law is an improvement of the entire system. It not only deals with the child, but goes at once to the cause of delinquency.

NEW YORK.

HISTORY OF THE JUVENILE COURT OF BUFFALO.

By Hon. THOMAS MURPHY, Police Justice.

to

To save children from lifelong consequences of childish errors, check their feet at the very entrance of the downward road and to set them upon the gently graded pathway leading to usefulness and happiness, to let them expiate a fault at their own homes under the surveillance of kindly probation officers, and to accomplish these ends without the publicity that tends to blast later attempts at welldoing, as well as to save young souls from the taint of contact with matured criminals, these were the purposes sought to be accomplished in the establishment of the juvenile court of Buffalo.

HISTORY AND LEGISLATION.

The necessity of some such an institution was very apparent when I assumed the office of police justice in Buffalo on the 1st of January, 1900. At that time police magistrates had it at their option to conduct the trial of juvenile cases apart from those of other criminal cases, under section 291, paragraph 7, of the Penal Code, which provided:

All cases involving the commitment or trial of children for any violation of the Penal Code in any police court or court of special sessions may be heard and determined by such court at suitable times to be designated therefor by it, separate and apart from the trial of any other criminal cases, of which session a separate docket shall be kept. All such cases and cases of offenses by or against the person of a child under the age of 16 years shall have preference over all other cases before all magistrates and in all courts and tribunals of this State, both civil and criminal.

At the first session over the court at which I presided I announced that thereafter children would be tried separately and apart from adults, the latter in the morning and children in the afternoon, and I insisted that at the trial of the children the court room be cleared of all spectators. No one was allowed to be present at the trials but the defendants, the complainants, and the court officers and witnesses. In this I had the hearty cooperation of the principal newspapers of the city, since the best of them had made a practice of excluding from their columns, for some years previous, all stories of children's offenses. And thus originated the juvenile court of Buffalo.]