The following books, among others, are recommended:
“Truths. Talks with a Boy.” Dr. E. B. Lowry, Forbes & Co., Chicago.
“From Youth to Manhood.” Dr. Winfield S. Hall. Association Press. New York.
“What a Father Should Tell His Little Boy.” Isabelle T. Smart. Bodmer & Co., New York.
“What a Father Should Tell His Son.” Isabelle T. Smart. Bodmer & Co., New York.
“The Renewal of Life. How and When to Tell the Story to the Young.” Margaret W. Morley, A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago.
CHAPTER XVII
CHILDREN’S COURTS
NO work on boy-training would be complete without a reference to an instrumentality of recent origin for reclaiming the wayward boy which marks a forward step in the solution of the child problem—the juvenile court. The most notable change in American jurisprudence in the last decade has been the establishment and development of such courts for child saving and the prevention of crime. Before the advent of these courts, all children charged with the commission of offenses were tried in criminal and police courts as criminals and with criminals. While awaiting trial, they were confined in jail with thieves, confidence men, beggars, drunkards, burglars, hold-up men, and murderers, because the state had made no provision for their separate detention pending trial.
Under such conditions the child acquired through association and conversation the viewpoint of the criminal as well as an education in crime which he would put into practice after his release. Amid such surroundings were laid the foundations for the careers of many of the criminals who now crowd our jails and penitentiaries to overflowing. Speaking of such conditions, Judge Richard S. Tuthill of the Children’s Court of Chicago said, “The State had educated innocent children in crime and the harvest was great.” A thoughtful police official once remarked of a boy in such surroundings, “He is on a toboggan, the lower end of which rests in hell.”
The gradual recognition, by an aroused public conscience, of the evil results of such a system put into operation the forces which in many states have abolished the old plan of regarding and punishing the child as a criminal and substituted the principle that the wayward child is a dependent whom the state, like a wise parent, will restrain from evil and educate in the paths leading to good citizenship, through the agency of the juvenile court and its efficient aid, the probation officer.