but of the number he has saved. And this has been done at lessfinancial and moral expense to society than was possible under the old methods.

In this report much space has been justly devoted to describing the methods and workings of the juvenile court of Denver because of the original, courageous, and what might even seem audacious experiments which have been successfully tried in that city, and because of the large degree of cooperation, civic, educational, and charitable, which have combined to make the Denver court interesting and unique. While statistics are not lacking, nothing can show better the working of the court and the effect produced than the individual cases cited in Judge Lindsey's picturesque and circumstantial narratives.

Yet no one recognizes better than Judge Lindsey that the methods of the Denver court can not be literally copied in every large city. Their success depends quite as much upon the man who administers them as upon the method itself. Environment is also an immense factor, and what may succeed in a city of 50,000 or 150,000 inhabitants may not be successful in a city of 3,000,000.

But the experience of the children's courts in New York and Brooklyn, as set forth by Judges Mayer and Wilkin, show that the court is certainly as much needed both for the child and society in the large city as in the small one. In a great city like New York the complex conditions of social life and environment have made necessary the valuable study which Judge Mayer has given to "the child of the large city." The eight classes into which he has grouped the children coming to the children's court may doubtless be found with more or less frequency in courts of smaller cities; but nowhere are these classes more complicated, and nowhere is the vigilance, observation, and insight of the judge more severely taxed to discriminate between these causes, or to weigh the responsibility of parents, or the influence of environment than in the juvenile court of New York. As a sociological study, Judge Mayer's paper has a value not confined to the functions of the juvenile court. It opens up the whole range of preventive and educational influences and of parental and social responsibility as to juvenile delinquency. The conclusions of Judge Mayer, based on the first year of experience of the New York juvenile court, are nevertheless founded on a large number of cases and do not differ in character from the conclusions of judges whose experience has been limited to smaller cities, with a more uniform environment. Judge Mayer says:

The essential and underlying purpose of the establishment of this court was the saving and not the punishment or the restraint of the child; and wherever the child itself, the home surroundings, the nature of the offense, and all the circumstances have warranted, the judges have always felt it their duty to give the child at least one chance and try it on parole. The results have been so encouraging that we can look forward with confidence to the years that are to come and feel that many children will have been saved by this system of treatment.

LAWS.

In the Appendix will be found the most important juvenile-court laws of the various States. Some of these laws-for instance, that of Colorado-are the result of experience based on the practical workings of the court. In a number of States the first drafts of the

laws were found unsatisfactory. An endeavor has been made in this report to secure the latest versions of the different State laws. The special features of the Colorado laws are set forth by Judge Lindsey on page 59 of the body of this report, and on page 78 a summary of the Colorado laws is given. For those who are framing new laws it will be well to compare the laws given in the Appendix in order to adjust them to local conditions. Whatever form of law is adopted, flexibility of method is necessary to success.

RESULTS.

When we ask now what are the results of the juvenile-court system it is still too soon to present a great array of statistics and percentages; but facts and figures of much value are presented on pages 125-132, relating to Colorado, and on pages 189-193, relating to New York.

It has been established in the last five years that more than half of those who are placed in the care of qualified probation officers do not need to be brought again into court. In Indianapolis the number of those charged with second offenses is less than 10 per cent. In Denver, out of 554 children placed on probation in the first two years of the court, 39 of whom are girls, but 31, all them boys, were returned to the court because of the hopeless of home surroundings. Out of 715 brought into court it became necessary to commit but 10 per cent to the State industrial school. Before the establishment of the children's court at least 75 per cent of those tried were committed to institutions.

In New Jersey there has been a decided decrease in the number of children brought into court. The number summoned to court does not, however, furnish the most reliable indication of success. It has been found in some places that parents, guardians, or teachers have concluded that the juvenile court could accomplish what they had not been able to effect themselves. The result in some courts has been, as it was in Denver, an increase in the number of children brought before the court. There is another reason in that city why the number before the court has increased while the amount of crime or delinquency in the community has decreased. Judge Lindsey has had phenomenal success in inducing boys to come and confess their offenses without the intervention of the police. Over 150 such boys have come voluntarily to the juvenile court of Denver during the last two years. The boys thus become themselves a great help to the court. Whatever may be thought of any endeavor to get boys to tell upon each other, which might result in a decrease of manliness, we can not fail to see the moral value of an influence which prompts boys to come to court and confess their own offenses and to induce other boys to do the same. The development in the "gang of a sentiment of loyalty to the judge, to the probation officer, and to the community can effect what police power alone could not achieve. So remarkable has been the influence obtained over boys on probation in the Denver court that in the last two years when it has been necessary for a boy who has failed on probation to be committed to the reformatory, he has gone to the institution unaccompanied by an officer.

The economic gain has been great. A comparison between the cost of criminal procedure, jury fees, jailors' fees, mileage, and support of a boy in jail or at the industrial school under the old method has been made by Judge Lindsey and found in one case to be $839, and in another case to be $1,036.76. An expenditure of $11.99 has been sufficient to take boys of the same class and by a change of environment under the probation system to make good citizens of them. The cost of saving boys through probation is small compared with the cost of sending them to institutions. The saving of expense in Denver in proportion to the number of trials and commitments made has exceeded $100,000.

SOCIAL AND PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY.

Another result of juvenile courts has been to reveal the sources of contamination of child life as they were never revealed before. It has been found that the children returned to court and committed are > delinquents owing largely to evil surroundings and the vice and drunkenness with which they are brought into contact. In these cases little can be done without a change of environment. But this conception of parental and social responsibility has led to the passing of a law in Colorado holding parents and others responsible for the moral delinquency of children. This law not only covers cases of parents criminally neglecting their children, or saloon keepers selling liquors to minors, but other forms of theft and depredation. During the first three months of the juvenile court of Denver there were twentyodd cases of brass stealing and similar depredations about the tracks and cars of the railroad companies. There has not been a single case of this character during the last eighteen months. "This clearly demonstrated," says Judge Lindsey," that the trouble is with the adults and not with the children, yet in most courts it is the children and not the adults who are brought in."

The act as first drawn only permitted the punishment of parents, by fine or imprisonment, while they were responsible for the habitual truancy of their children. The present act makes not only parents but all other persons responsible either for the truancy or delinquency of the child. It provides that all parents, guardian, or other persons by any act or in any manner causing, encouraging, or contributing to the delinquency of any child, as defined by the statutes of the State, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and punished by a fine not to exceed $1,000 or imprisonment not to exceed one year, or both. The result. of this law is seen in the fact that out of over 100 parents brought into the Denver juvenile court for the truancy of their children, not less than 5 per cent of such children fail to become regular school attendants. Phases of responsibility which are more distinctly social than parental have likewise been revealed by the juvenile court and led to organization and effort for their correction. The whole range of preventive effort must be enlarged and intensified. Judge Mayer points out that many minor offenses, the result of mischievous acts on the part of children, may be reduced to a minimum by the adequate increase of playgrounds. In some cases physical defects are found to

be the cause of moral delinquency, requiring treatment by the court physician rather than by the judge.

Judge Stubbs, of Indiana, lays great stress upon the prevalence of the cigarette habit as a cause of juvenile delinquency.

In some cases needy children must be relieved.

On pages 122-125 Judge Lindsey gives 13 recommendations for the prevention of delinquency, namely, increased school facilities, with shower baths and club rooms, manual and industrial training, playgrounds, parents' meeting, detention school, boys' clubs for juvenile betterment, a rigid enforcement of laws holding parents and others responsible for the delinquency of children, enforced school attendance, cooperation between the schools and court, the court and the police, and the general development of a spirit of mutual helpfulness.

The juvenile court is regarded by Judge Lindsey as really a part of a number of educational and uplifting movements for the betterment of childhood. In Denver the court has been greatly aided by the formation of a juvenile improvement association and also by the cooperation of the principals of some thirty schools.

LIMITATIONS OF THE CHILDREN'S COURT.

While an effort has been made in this report to show the wide range of influence for good exerted by the children's court, the limitations of such an instrumentality must likewise be recognized. The children's court can not do everything, either for the child or for the State. It can not do the work of the home nor of the school; it can not counteract the effect, even by heavy penalties, of parental neglect, of intemperance, overcrowding in the slums, the lack of playgrounds, amusements, and industrial training for children. Every investigator into the causes of juvenile delinquency has felt that in the work of child saving preventive work must be enlarged and strengthened. The juvenile court is a new beacon light with the same warning. The true function of the court is educational. It educates the child, but it is also educating the community. Heretofore the child at a tender age has been amenable to the State; hereafter the State is to be in an important sense amenable to the child. In this great judicial, social, and educational work represented by the juvenile court, marking a distinctive departure in criminal procedure, the truth of the prophecy has been fulfilled: "A little child shall lead them."

H. Doc. 701, 58-2- -2