Father and mother, both shiftless, begging people who will not work; father periodically deserts family, who were all in Home for the Friendless at one time and who are often destitute and a public charge. Father is now in old soldiers’ home and three of the children are in a soldiers’ orphans’ home.
A family of six children, one girl delinquent; home dirty and untidy with two beds in parlor; mother has a bad reputation, drinks habitually and always has the house full of men. Father deserted at one time, and family has been helped by a charitable society constantly for two years.
A family of seven children; father, an habitual drunkard, supposed to be a fruit peddler but really a common tramp; deserts periodically but always comes back; very brutal to wife and children when he is at home, and responsible for demoralization of two older girls; family a county charge and on records of three relief societies.
A very degraded home; father drunken and immoral, abused girl’s mother shamefully before her death; criminally abused girl when she was only seven and then abandoned her. Girl brought to court at the age of twelve on charge that she was “growing up in crime.”...
Lillie, a German girl, seven years of age, whose father, now dead, is said to have been as near a brute as a human being could be, whose mother is insane, and whose sister is abnormal, was brought in as incorrigible and immoral.
Vera, a seventeen-year-old girl, whose father’s address is unknown, and whose mother is insane, found employment as a barmaid in a concert hall, and afterwards became a prostitute.
Rosie, a sixteen-year-old Russian Jewess, whose mother is in the hospital for the insane, and whose father abandoned her, was brought into court on the charge of immorality.
Annie, a fifteen-year-old girl, whose father was frozen to death and whose mother is of unsound mind, has two brothers who are imbeciles. She is herself feebleminded, and has been the mother of three illegitimate children—probably the children of her imbecile brothers.[[100]]
The gradual realization of this condition through the experience of the juvenile courts and the schools and also the desire to avoid any court procedure in connection with a child whose morals are endangered has led many teachers and social workers to the view that the child should be taken in charge by society as soon as it shows any tendency to disorganization and that the school should have this function and should gradually displace or incorporate the juvenile court, or such functions of the juvenile court as remained would be transferred to the court of domestic relations. Eliot took this position as early as 1914,[[101]] and the conviction has been expressed frequently in various forms. The following is an extract from one of the most systematic proposals.
... Each city, probably each county would require an extension or reorganization of its personnel to include a department of adjustment to which teachers, policemen and others could refer all children who seemed to present problems of health, of mental development, of behavior or of social adjustment. For good work this would require the services of doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, field investigators, recreational specialists....