atively new, but is strictly limited. In France, Germany and the United States it is the presupposition to all action. On it are built the special Children's Court and the whole Probation System, and the use that is made of the various classes of institutions to which children are assigned from the Court. This, as applied to the definite situation, is mediated in the various Juvenile Court Laws of many States of the Union. Nineteen States have such laws and six others have a probation system in operation without the special court. 21 In general the elements of the law are present in the California Law, approved Feb. 26, 1903. In the first section of the law, the "Juvenile Delinquent" is defined, also the "Dependent" who comes under the same law: "This act shall apply only to children under the age of sixteen years not now or hereafter inmates of a State institution, or any reform school for juvenile offenders, or any institution incorporated under the laws of the State for the care and education of children. For the purposes of this act the words 'dependent child' shall mean any child under the age of sixteen years that is found begging or receiving or gathering alms (whether actually begging or under the pretext of selling or offering for sale anything) or being in any street, road or public place for the purpose of so begging, gathering or receiving alms; or that is found wandering and not having any home or settled place of abode, or proper guardianship, or visible means of subsistence; or that is found destitute, or whose home, by reason of neglect, cruelty or depravity on the part of its parents, guardian or other person in whose care it may be, is an unfit place for such child; or that frequents the company of reputed criminals or prostitutes, or that is found living or being in any house of prostitution or assignation; or that habitually visits, without parent or guardian, any saloon, place of entertainment where any spirituous liquors, or wine or intoxicating or malt liquors are sold, exchanged or given away; or who is incorrigible; or who is a persistent truant from school. The words 'delinquent child' shall include any child under the age of sixteen years who violates any law of this State or any ordinance of any town, city or county of this State." Sections follow providing, "for the appointment of probation officers, and prescribing their duties and powers; providing for the separation of children from adults when confined in jails or other institutions; providing for the appointment of boards to investigate the qualifications of organizations receiving children under this act, and prescribing the duties of such boards; and providing when proceedings under this act shall be admissible in evidence." 22 Specifically the recent laws have also made provision for bringing any child who would come under the act to the attention of the court by any individual who judges the child subject for such 21 Charities, Jan. 7, 1905. 22 See "International Prison Commission—Children's Courts in the United States," 1904, House Doc. No. 701, pp. 165 ff. attention, whether that person be a representative of the law in any capacity or not; (23) furthermore that no child under 12 (14 in Colorado) shall be imprisoned in jail under any circumstances; (24) that the religious preferences of the parent shall be respected in the assignment of the child to an institution or family; (25) that the child may under proper conditions, if dependent, be surrendered by the one having the right to so dispose of the child for adoption. 26 More significant, even, than these specific provisions is the general clause appended in practically identical phraseology in all the State Laws: "This act shall be liberally construed, to the end that its purpose may be carried out, to-wit: That the care, custody and discipline of a child shall approximate as nearly as may be that which should be given by its parents, and, in all cases where it can be properly done, the child be placed in an approved family, with people of the same religious belief, and become a member of the family, by legal adoption or otherwise." 27 5. Conclusion. The tendencies observable long before there emerged any special legislation in behalf of juvenile delinquents are now settling down into working order as a part of our legal and institutional equipment. Some may say that very early the child was quite as truly a member of the state as of the family. It is evidently true that as a subject for discipline and general parental oversight he was never a member of the state. That body's first care for him specifically was in protecting him in his property rights from the cupidity of dishonest men. Criminal law of the state never went farther than barely to recognize that he was not an adult; it never defined him. It accorded him confinement in prison apart from adults, and there he waited to be discovered and set up in his rightful place. It was the teacher and the psychologist and the moralist in his many capacities who rescued him. Through the efforts of such it may be said with some justice that the modern sculptor of unfortunate childhood when he carves a child carves a child; not a miniature man, but an embryo man. We have yet to complete the learning of one supreme lesson— the same lesson that our world of labor in all its distress cannot learn, but múst as the alternative to its misery. Law is a resultant thing, only a somewhat more final expression of experience gained, in this case, from long dealing with the child and careful study of his nature and his activities. But law may be persistent, conservative to the point of harmful obstinacy when questioned by a new mass of experience and new judgments even of expert specialists. Such has been the case. We put a halo over law. We must put a halo over something which shall be final authority 23 Sec. 4, Illinois Law. See "Juvenile Courts," 2nd ed. p. 61. Compiled by T. D. Hurley, 1904. 24 Sec. 11, Illinois Law; Sec. 9, California Law. 25 Sec. 17, Illinois Law. 26 Illinois Law, Sec. 15. 27 Sec. 13, California Law. for us. But that halo becomes a dark cloud obscuring truth and right when it imparts to Law absolute finality and perfection. Law is a secondary thing, derived from and generalizing experience. We are getting a tremendous amount of new experience in regard to the child, which must be incorporated into the laws and they must be flexibly enough interpreted and administered to favor child nature. This brief glance at the matter of the status of the child through the ages ought to convince us that progress has been criminally slow. The conservatism of Law has been one reason for this, especially in times since Law began to be expressed more formally. Let this never be charged again. Let Law hold itself open in spirit; let legislators and administrators make and use laws not as an end but as a means. In such times as these it should be a corallary to every law concerning juveniles that it is soon to be remodelled or replaced if the interest of the children and our better understanding of them demand it. If we were to refrain from looking into the future we might say, after tracing the development of sentiment concerning the child and the reluctant assignment to him of the place of a legal person, that our present institutions which really assure him his place are the flower of it all. But already the prophet voice is heard crying the hope that we shall not long have to endure many of the existing features even of the special juvenile court or the probation system, and that the institutions to which we have to send children may soon lose all the characteristics that they have inherited from another regime, and reflect more consistently the spirit of the modern view of childhood unfortunately or accidentally delinquent. In recent years we have come at the matter with a rush, and have swept away injustices and in a multitude of details begun to reconstruct our apparatus. There is great promise that the momentum gained is such that we shall not be condemned to too early crystallization of principle or too finally committed to methods. Progress here as elsewhere consists in a large degree in keeping stirred up into the realm of the questioned and the admittedly improvable everything that threatens to settle down into tradition. We need not fear chaos so long as we are guarded on one side by ultraconservative legislators and on the other by careful, far-sighted specialists who have reverence at once for precedent and for unfound truth. It is in this spirit that today we are beginning to look upon our recent constructions and to reinterpret them in the light of our rapidly growing mass of experience with and appreciation of childhood both normal and abnormal. The first step towards criticism is description. Therefore shall we briefly describe our present machinery for dealing with juvenile delinquents. |