out that a child's life does not consist in bread alone and that the poor neighbor who takes an unfortunate child into her heart, who lets it run with her own children, half clothed and half starved it may be, but warmed and fed with mother love and care, is far wiser as well as far kinder than we.

But though even a poor home is better than the best kind of an institution for children it is not possible for us with our present imperfect organization to place all dependent children in families. Thousands are now in institutions and thousands more will have to spend a longer or shorter period in them. It becomes necessary then to make our institutional life as nearly normal and homelike as the artificial conditions permit. We must do this not only for the children's happiness, but for their actual growth in mind and body. If we had studied children with half the seriousness with which fancy stock raisers study cattle or good farmers study soils, we should have found certain marks of degeneration in those who have been long in institutions. No one who has observed these children with intelligent and unprejudiced eyes can believe that they enter life as well equipped as do children from family homes, even though the reports state truly that they have been given a good start in some employment or vocation. We know that something is lacking and that they do not average up to our unconscious standards. Institutional children are usually amiable and obedient. They are often responsive and affectionate and may be quite conscientious also but they lack the most essential element in character, that is, a properly self-directing will. So long as their So long as their path is marked out for them they can walk evenly and with careful exactness, but they are helpless without the voice of authority. The thoroughly institutionalized child, who has risen and eaten and exercised and studied and worked for years at the tap of a bell must lose something in initiative. He has not known what it meant to take forty winks too many in the morning or to put off learning his lessons on account of a game of baseball. He has not forgotten to fill the wood box because all the boys were out skating. And he has missed

not only the pleasure of these stolen hours to be stored away for future joy, but also the salutary family discipline which which followed and the long, long thoughts of youth as it sought to adjust itself to the strange conditions of life.

Every child is a Saint George meeting the dragon-which must be subdued or it will destroy him. Alas for him even though he has the sword of sound instruction in his hand if he has a paraIzed arm back of it. Since the one all important business of the world is the making of men and women and the special business of the children's institutions is the nurture and fostering care of children who do not seem to have a fair chance to grow, it is surely worth while for us to inquire whether our methods of child culture are likely to produce the best results.

We shall not need a very exhaustive study of the subject in order to see that next to mothers, play is the one thing in institutional child life noticeable for its absence. Yet we may think a long time before we consider this apparently simple omission the chief cause of our failure to produce forceful men and women out of the perfectly good material in our hands. Not until we have seen with the child's eyes and felt with the child's heart do we realize that in play alone is he an active creative person, and in play alone is he a social being.

Play to a child is not an interlude, a recess between more serious affairs. It is serious self-expression as truly as the building of a bridge or the writing of a book is to a man. If the man had never learned through play he could not. build the bridge or write the book. Children are never frivolous when they are playing. They may fool with one another in the class room or when they should be at work but that is mere idleness, it is not play. The child who plays at all plays with his whole heart and mind and strength until he is tired out. Many a mother and teacher has wished that half the energy and hard work which she thought wasted on a snow fort or a ball game might be put into tasks which she planned instead for the boy. When we remember the intensity and the variety of children's games and plays we can answer nearly all who are ready to

But

siderably lowered. Then again there are men employed sometimes, having charge of boys in these institutions who are unfit for the position for the reason that they are apt to lose their temper too quickly in dealing with the boys. these are matters which can only be ascertained after the man has been employed for some time when these faults may be brought to light. It is only natural, however, to suppose that every Superintendent will try his very best to employ only men whom he has reason to believe to be loyal, faithful and capable, for the Superintendent is invariably the responsible head of the institution and any untoward acts on the part of his subordinate officers will reflect upon his own reputation.

After having myself been an officer in three different State Reform Schools and having visited about a dozen others, I can with all sincerity say that the great majority of officers in our Juvenile Reform Schools are doing good work. They are trying their best to gain the confidence and respect of the boys under their charge. Most of the men are treating their boys fairly and try to befriend them and teach them the better ways in life. A good explanation of the purpose of a Reform School is the following:

"It persuades the willing,
It compels the wilful,

It punishes the obdurate." Let us for a moment try to understand with just what kind of boys we have to deal in the institutions under discussion. We must remember that these schools do not, as a rule, deal with ordinary or average boys, but in too many cases with the most vicious and depraved boys in the State-boys who have been given up by all other agencies and are committed to the school as a last resort. A good many of the offenses committed by inmates in these State Schools are nasty, disgusting and in some instances murderous. Any fair minded man who could actually know of some of these atrocities would feel that the perpetrators of such offenses fully deserve some kind of punishment. When we have to deal with such revolting offenses of which some of these boys are guilty and where too great a laxity

of discipline would invite serious trouble, we must grant that the institution in such cases has to mete out stringent punishment of some kind. Punishment is necessary when admonition fails. Lawbreakers, old and young, will resort to falsehood to justify themselves. They are more apt to act from malicious motives than are the officers whose duty it is to deal with these boys. All the inmates of these Juvenile Reform Schools are there because of evil heredity, parental neglect or degrading environment. While all are to be pitied, it is foolish to suppose that those, who have been accustomed to do evil will immediately learn to do well. Saying to those boys, "Don't, dear," is not always sufficient to restrain those who are young in years, but old in the ways of vice.

If parents would do their duty as regards their children and the public, there would be fewer in our State Reform Schools.

Now, when the parents have failed, the State steps in and takes those incorrigible and delinquent children and tries to make men and women out of them, if possible worthy citizens. One must not think that after a boy's parents have failed with love and pleadings and, perhaps, the strap, that these boys can be handled by strangers without the use of some stern measures to uphold the discipline. The number of officers who would punish boys for the glory of it is very small indeed.

The word discipline is used with various meanings, "A method of keeping order," or "a method whereby a number of people are enabled to co-operate for a common end." We have to remember that discipline for these boys must seek to supply what is wanting in an individual from lack of good home influences, good neighborhood, industrial and wider social influences.

Look into the antecedents of some of these boys, and two reasons for their being in the institution will nearly cover all. First, some of these boys were "mother's darlings," too good to be corrected, consequently went where and when they pleased. Second, the other class of boys. were whipped at home, went cold and