wish some one to do for my own little girl were she in a similar position, as she might have been if she had been motherless and friendless at such a tender age.

An interview with the judge and an appeal to be permitted to place the child in a good home that I had secured for her resulted in his granting the request, and now, after five years, she is as sweet, attractive, and good a child as can be found anywhere.

When I remonstrated with the judge for sending such a child to a reformatory, he said he had no choice in the matter, for there was no other place to send her, and they did not want her even there, because of the character of the offense.

The statement revealed a condition I had never before realized, and further investigation into the methods of procedure with children only intensified in my mind the injustice and wrong that was being committed in the name of justice.

Pennsylvania had two houses of refuge, one in the eastern part of the State and one in the western. The latter is a State institution, while the former is a private institution, receiving from the city and State a per capita appropriation for children committed there. In addition to this, the State has a reformatory at Huntingdon for boys over 16 years of age. A law prohibited the retention of children in almshouses for more than two months, but the State provided nothing else for those helpless wards who, often through no fault of their own, were left to the tender mercies of the State for care, protection, and training. Private charities stepped in, and in many cases did good work in saving the children.

For over twenty years the Children's Aid Society has done an excellent work in placing children in family homes, but it was hampered by lack of funds, and it only had branches in a few cities, so that hundreds-yes, thousands-of cases needing special care and attention never came within its influence. Other societies in a limited way did helpful work, but totally inadequate to the deep significance of the subject. There were 500 children ranging from 6 to 16 in Philadelphia County prison in 1900. There were from 2 to 300 children every month passing through the station houses of the city standing in critical need of intelligent direction and guidance, yet receiving nothing. There were children in every county prison throughout Pennsylvania committed for trifling offenses and subjected to influences that could not fail to confirm evil habits. There were over 800 children in each reformatory, and no distinction was made as to the children committed there. Waifs, homeless little ones, children steeped in crime, were indiscriminately sent to the same institution. It was made easy to send them there. The State put a premium on parental irresponsibility and welcomed all who wished to receive education and support at the expense of the State.

Any magistrate could commit a child to a reformatory on the

parent's statement of incorrigibility, and no effort was ever made to prove the parent's statement. The child's side of the case was never heard. The result was that stepfathers and stepmothers, desiring to be freed from care of children, took this method of throwing on the State the duty that belonged to them, and more than half the children in the house of refuge were there because of complaints of parents, usually stepfathers or stepmothers. The stigma of a reformatory was thus put unjustly on hundreds of children and the State was subjected to an expense that was totally unwarranted. The institutions preferred small children, because they could show larger percentage of reform.

The cottage system was used; yet with fifty or sixty children in each house and thirty sleeping in one room there could be little of family life, which is the requisite of the true cottage system. The houses of refuge provided excellent educational opportunities, industrially as well as academically. They provided good food, physical training, and fresh air in abundance, but the association of hundreds of boys committed for every kind of crime, massed together indiscriminately except for size and age, made it a place where, even with the moral stimulus provided by those in charge, the inevitable result to all was a familiarity with crime of every sort.

A sifting process was needed. No sensible mother, as a means of uplifting her boy, would condemn him to the exclusive association of naughty boys because he had committed a fault; yet this was the method the State pursued in dealing with its childish offenders. The reformatory, which should always be a last resort, never to be used until all other methods have proved futile, was in Pennsylvania the only place to send children, except the prisons, and some of the best judges sent children to prison because they were isolated there, instead of being associated with other offenders. Their trial was in the criminal court, and in the cages for criminals the boys and girls waited their turn, listening to things too vile to mention and receiving lessons in evil never to be forgotten. Crowded lists to be gotten through; no one to give the busy judge any information that would help him to judge wisely as to the case. Such were the conditions in Pennsylvania in 1900. Erring children standing at the bar of justice with their eternal future hanging in the balance! Children with infinite possibilities for good or for evil, victims of environment, neglect, or bad homes, yet each one a child of the God who said, "It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." Society ignores them. The churches giving millions to missions, yet blind, unconscious of the need at their very doors. No mother thought for those little ones; only the cold legal procedure of the criminal court.

In the light of true values no cases coming into the courts equal in importance to the community and the State these children's cases.

The treatment given at this time will decide the future of that immortal soul. It will decide whether he shall become a good citizen or a criminal. Is it not worthy the deepest thought, the wisest consideration? Should not the State safeguard the interests of its helpless citizens and provide adequately and wisely for their development physically, morally, and intellectually? The latter duty has been met by our public school system, but the other duties have never received the attention they deserve. The only effective way to check crime is at its source, and that is at the very first downward step in childhood. Wise treatment at this time will save the child, but unwise treatment. or neglect will develop all the bad qualities, and the result will be a criminal against whom society must protect itself and for whose support it will be largely taxed.

A subject of such far-reaching import to the individual concerned and to the community should receive the consideration of which it is worthy in legislative measure and in the careful administration of a State system which protects and fosters helpless, unprotected childhood. Such a system can never be devised or administered unless intelligent women give to the subject the same thought and care that wise, loving mothers give to the rearing of their children. Unfortunate childhood must suffer unless women recognize that a larger motherhood is required of them than to care only for their own children. Until they give to every subject affecting childhood the mother thought and care, we shall see the same old system which has marred thousands of lives and made criminals of children who might just as easily have been made into good citizens.

Such were the conditions in Pennsylvania in 1899, when, with an inward vow to work unceasingly until something better than this could be devised for unfortunate children, I planned the movement which has resulted in the establishment of the juvenile court and probation system in Pennsylvania, and which has influenced its establishment in many other places.

INITIAL STEPS FOR REFORM.

The first step toward this was a personal investigation of what other States were doing for children. In October, 1899, the New Century Club, of Philadelphia, invited me to form a committee of the club and pursue my investigations there. The club is composed of 600 women, and its influence and aid are valuable in many directions, and the invitation to form the committee for investigation was accepted on condition that the work should not end there, but that we should have the indorsement of the club in building up a suitable system of child care in Pennsylvania.

The committee was carefully selected and its purpose clearly stated, and as its chairman I recommended that nothing be done until a thorough study of other States had been made, not only as to their meth

ods but the results both as to expense and as to effectiveness, in saving the children.

With this end in view a study of the laws concerning dependent, defective, and delinquent children in every State was planned, and the Bar Association of Philadelphia generously offered the committee the use of its library for this study.

Members of this committee worked there during the winter, indexing the statutes of each State, and in March that work was finished, and we had compiled "the statutes of every State in the United States concerning defective, dependent, and delinquent children,"a and we had become even more strongly convinced of the necessity for such study, because comparatively few States had given any real thought or care to protecting the interests of childhood. "Convict children" was the title of statutes in some States.

The States which stood out in bold relief in child care were Massachusetts and Michigan, while Illinois had just introduced its juvenile court and probation work.

During the summer of 1900 I visited Massachusetts, Michigan, and Illinois, studying the work done there and meeting the leaders of the work in those States.

An interview with the governor of Pennsylvania and with some of the political leaders won their hearty sympathy and support of the movement. They had felt dissatisfied with the methods in use, and willingly promised to aid us, and in this whole work they have stood by us and done all in their power to further our efforts. For the love of childhood and for its protection busy men stopped to listen and to help and lent their support and influence to this cause.

Our investigation led us to the conclusion that Illinois, in its juvenile court and probation system, had introduced the most valuable and effective method of dealing with unfortunate children, and that it was the first thing to be desired in every State.

SUBSEQUENT ENDEAVORS.

When our committee met in October, 1900, we employed a lawyer to draft bills for the legislature, telling him we would give him the points to be covered, and asking him to make them conform to the constitutional requirements of Pennsylvania.

Two bills were drafted similar to the Illinois laws. These bills embodied the following features:

First, separate time and place for trial of children's cases, and no detention of children in police stations or prisons.

aThrough the generosity of the New Century Club and of two of its members this compilation of statutes was published and widely distributed to those making similar investigations. It has been brought up to date in 1904, and is for sale at the club.