It will be the intention of this paper, then, to defend that class of young people who for reasons of environment or heredity or other causes follow the path of desire, delinquency and crime; the class which cannot or does not solve the problem of self-control and fails to organize life on social lines.

Children are born without sin and vice and it is not their natural tendency under normal conditions to take a distinctly unsocial or immoral combination of social impulses. So it will be in defense of the wayward boy or girl if we determine some of the factors which prevent them from favorably adjusting themselves to society. Plenty of facts can be found to indicate that it is during the adolescent period when the individual goes through a definite process in forming ethical standards, a process marked by a breaking up of the old, a trial and reorganization, and finally by an attainment of the standard of his group. It is also during this period that the boy or girl is subject to three important sources of influence at once, namely the home, the community and the school.

We have said that the child is born innocent, furthermore he does not inherit bad habits or incorrigibility in itself. He may, however, inherit certain tendencies toward good or evil, and upon his training depends which shall predominate, the good or the evil. The home, of course, cannot help but be the earliest training camp, and here begins the argument in favor of the incorrigible child. It is probably the results of juvenile court proceedings that prove most conclusively that the delinquent parent is a much more serious proposition than • the delinquent child. It is an established fact that unless the child is defective mentally, it is chiefly a question of the right - surroundings; but the delinquent parent is not of such plastic material, his habits are already formed and he is more impervious to the influences of society, especially corrective influences. A few examples will suffice to show that lack of attention and training at home in most cases brings the blame of incorrigibility back home to the parent.

The mother of one lad who had burglarized six houses in as many weeks explained to the judge that she had been so

busy with social engagements that she had no time to look after her son. The father of another boy who had run away from his home on Riverside Drive, New York, admitted to the judge that his son was gone three days before the servants and the tutor thought it worth while to tell him. The mother was spending the winter in a Florida hotel. Although both father and son slept under the same roof, the father was often so busy that he did not see the boy for a week at a time.

While there are many parents in the alien colonies who. are anxious to railroad their children off to institutions on trumped up charges, and thus shift to the State the burden of maintenance until the law permits them to work, there is a corresponding class of wealthy parents who are just as anxious to rid themselves of their progeny. The institution. chosen by this latter class is, of course, the boarding school. It is astonishing at what an early age many of these young people are shipped away by socially busy mothers. There are many excellent boarding schools that deservedly take high rank among educational institutions; the heads of some of these schools do inestimable good; but the usefulness of some of them has been estimated solely by the rate of tuition.

Ignorance and want and their attendant ills are the causes of much of the parental helplessness found in alien colonies and the congested districts of large cities. None of these excuses, however, can be urged for the parents in materially fortunate homes. But it was neither ignorance nor poverty that led Jakie's mother recently to make a charge of an "ungovernable child" against him. As Jakie stood before the judge his nose just touched the rail of the bench. His mother, fat, hatless, in a filthy calico dress, a shawl over her shoulders, and with large diamond earrings in her ears, had told on the stand all of Jakie's grievous faults. He would not go to school, he often stayed out until two or three o'clock in the morning, he was disobedient, and the mother declared that he was "no good." An investigation of his school record showed that he

had been absent ninety-three days since the beginning of the term.

"Why don't you go to school?" asked the judge.

As Jakie shook his head the tip of his nose rubbed back and forth on the rail. The judge waited patiently. Jakie did not

answer.

"I don't want to send you away, but I'll have to return you to the society until you can make up your mind to talk to me."

The defendant still rubbed his nose back and forth on the rail. This was a new sensation and gave him profound amusement, to judge from the expression of his face.

"Now, Jakie, this is your last chance today. I have many cases waiting-are you going to answer me or not?"

The vibration of Jakie's head did not cease at once, but in a moment he cast a furtive glance at the judge. That was enough, the judge was not to be trifled with. Then he threw back his head and declared desperately, "The teacher says I stink!"

The judge then arose and took a more careful inventory of Jakie. The society's representative declared, "We had to soak and scrub that boy for two hours when he was brought to the rooms this morning and I don't believe we have got all the dirt off yet."

The court in its thorough examination finally discovered that the mother and father were human leeches, "leassors," as they are known to the poor tenement victims. They were the extortion agents who ground the rent out of the tenants of two big houses. The real owner lived up town in one of the fashionable neighborhoods. The diamond earrings of Jakie's mother attested the success with which she and her husband carried on the business. They were not satisfied with their income and it was the parents who were responsible for the boy's being out so late each night; they forced him to sell papers. They cared little whether he went to school or not, and because of the loss of sleep the boy found school work so hard that he had been "on the hook," as he confessed, most

of the time. The mother and father had absolutely no regard for his physical condition and although the rooms they occupied were comfortable and there was no scarcity of water in their apartment as there was throughout the other flats in the house, Jakie could not remember when he had had a bath or even had his face washed at home. It is little wonder that his presence in the class during the few days which he did attend was rather disconcerting to the teacher and to the other pupils. The truant officers had long been struggling with these parents, and when the parents saw that it would no longer be possible to profit from the boy's paper sales they decided to send him away and rid themselves of his support. But it did not work out as they had expected. Not only Jakie, but his two brothers and a sister were committed to an institution because of improper guardianship. And to the immense surprise and dismay of the parents an order was entered by the court against the father to pay to the city $2.35 a week for each of the four children, exactly what it cost the city to keep them in the institutions to which they were committed.

The responsibilities of the parents become more grave during the period of adolescence. One of the problems from the social standpoint is to provide an environment wherein the child can try out his own social impulses, and the aim of the parent should be to keep the associates and the suggestions of home life of such a nature that the solution of the problem will be the one socially desired. The significance of this period of trial and choice to the child is the formation of character which when finally established will be one of his own personal choosing. In such a way only can real character be developed.

With so much in favor of the wayward boy in a casey against a delinquent parent, it seems advisable to pass on to what is probably a greater offender, the community. The community is culpable because it is responsible for the unwholesome environment which young people must face when they begin to adjust themselves to social conditions. The community in a broader sense is culpable because it is re

sponsible for many of the wrongs which dwarf the physical growth and warp the intellects of our future citizens. Such wrongs prevail in the overcrowded tenements, the mines, the sweatshops, the factories, etc.

There are more than one million children in this country whose future efficiency is being imperilled by labor that is forced upon them before they are old enough to work.* The exploitation of child labor is a national crime. The bones of these children are not yet hardened, their muscles and their brains are still undeveloped; yet they labor at loom and furnace sacrificing future health and happiness under the pressure of man's greed. Extreme fatigue results in muscular degeneration and mental depravity, and the result which we often see in the adult is a dangerous revolt against our social standards. This vast army of child toilers suffers from a triple affliction; the selfishness of the employers, the ignorance of the parents, and the neglect of the community or State. In our great cities thousands of children are being transformed into old men and women before they are out of their teens by the strain of piece work done in their homes. The industry in which the children of the tenements are exploited chiefly is that of finishing ready-made clothing. New York is the great garment-making center of the world, but in a great city like New York there are various other enterprises as well in which the labor of children is employed.

The manufacturers who profit by home labor are very ready to struggle against any proposition which aims at the

"In the United States in 1920 over one million (1,060,858) children 10 to 15 years of age. inclusive, were reported by census enumerators, as 'engaged in gainful occupations.' This number was approximately one-twelfth of the total number of children of that age in the entire country. The number of child workers 10 to 13 years of age, inclusive, was 378,063. These numbers reported by the census do not include children merely helping their parents at household tasks or chores, or doing irregular work about the home farm, for the census enumerators were directed not to count such children as employed; and as the census was taken in January, children employed only during the summer vacations on farms or at other seasonable work were not included. The census does not report the number of working children under ten years of age, but it is known that such children are employed in large numbers in agriculture, and in smaller numbers in many other occupations, such as street trading, domestic service, and industrial home work."-U. S. Department of Labor, Children's Bureau, Bureau Publication No. 114 (Third Edition), "Child Labor in the United States," page 5.