In order that some idea may be had of the routine work in the juvenile court a few monthly reports are herewith submitted. Indicating, as they do, a great deal of work, they only convey an inadequate idea of the enormous amount of work done. Heretofore such work in a city has been largely neglected or not done at all until criminals are made, when we spend thousands to convict them. A report marked "poor" by a teacher only indicates a breach of some little rule of discipline in school and not a repeated offense. Three-fourths of the "poor" reports are for "whispering" or similar offense. As most boys who get into court are usually lively and mischievous it makes the showing all the more creditable. Boys report at the meetings of probationers with the judge every two weeks. Probation officer's report for February, 1904. Reports from teachers (written, 300; verbal, 23): Good Excellent Fair Poor Total February 27 Good Excellent Fair. Poor Total. Total Boys excused from reporting. Girls excused Boys committed to State Industrial School.... Boys committed after having been placed on probation. Boys committed at time of trial Boys tried in court... Cases settled out of court Complaints heard in office. Letters written to boys.. 121 11 13 9 154 119 12 22 16 169 323 1 3 2 1 61 82 86 283 62 Brought into court by city railroad company for hopping cars, organized into Little Citizens' League for Law Enforcement, and discharged Parents brought into court for contributing to the delinquency of children.. 11 Mothers... Fined Discharged Suspended. Fathers... Discharged 3 0 2 1 8 0 Cases continued Physical examinations by Doctor Hopkins Parents brought into court for contributing to deli que .cy of children Children committed to Woodcroft Home for Feeble-Minded. Baths given 6 6 4 1 295 10 89 42 10 4 153 44 2 4 1 10 4 2 120 PENNSYLVANIA. A CAMPAIGN FOR CHILDHOOD. By HANNAH KENT SCHOFF, President National Congress of Mothers, Chairman Juvenile Court Committee, New Century Club, Philadelphia. CONDITIONS IN PENNSYLVANIA IN 1899. The establishment of the juvenile court and probation system in Pennsylvania had its inception in the case of one little girl, whose arrest, trial, and sentence brought out so terribly the horrors of court procedure concerning children in Pennsylvania that in my heart there could be neither peace nor rest until conditions could be improved. Why the inadequacy and barbarity of our methods of dealing with the helpless and erring little ones never arrested my attention before I can not tell, but the whole subject stood out before me then in all its iniquity and in all its terrible consequences to the children; and as no one seemed to realize it, or to be doing anything to alter it, I was irresistibly impelled to make it my business to stop the spiritual slaughter of the innocents which had been going on for years. One morning in May, 1899, the Philadelphia papers gave an account of the arrest and imprisonment of a little girl for setting fire to a house. Her picture was published, and with startling headlines she was heralded to the world as a "Prodigy of crime." Motherless since she was 2 years old, an inmate of an orphanage, and then a drudge in a city boarding house, with no companionship except that of ignorant servants, there had been little opportunity for moral responsibility or development. Friendless, arrested, imprisoned, tried in the criminal court, and 1 sentenced to the House of Refuge, and only 8 years old! When asked why she started the fire she frankly said, "To see the fire burn and the engines run." Branded as a criminal, sentenced to the companionship of girls. steeped in crimes of far greater menace to her character, what hope did the future hold for her? Subjected to all the horrors of a criminal court and treated as a dangerous criminal at 8 years of age! The horror and the injustice of that poor child's treatment led me to the determination to rescue her if possible, and to do for her what I would |