girls, immoral conduct was the main offense charged. Of the child laborers who were before the courts, 44 per cent. were guilty of a first offense and 56 per cent. were guilty of a second or third or more. While among the nonworking delinquents, 61 per cent. were first offenders and 39 per cent. recidivists. These figures for the boys are substantially the same for the girls. To show that these children were not mainly waifs of the street, a table was prepared showing that 55 per cent. came from homes with father and mother living, 25 per cent. were half orphans and 8 per cent. full orphans. And if it be objected that the working children are not to be compared with the nonworking as to their surroundings, it is further shown that 76 per cent. of the delinquent boys who were workers came from fair or good homes, while 21 per cent. of the working boys and 32 per cent. of the nonworking delinquents came from bad homes. Which seems to prove that not all of the homes that send out their children into the world of work are bad homes and that not all the homes from which children go to school are good homes.

Of the occupations from which boys go direct to the juvenile court, the largest per cent. are newsboys, nearly 22 per cent. of the whole number; and next to that occupation are the errand boys and messengers, over 20 per cent. being furnished by this occupation. Nearly half, therefore, of the delinquent boys come from these two trades of the streets, newsboys and errand boys. So many boys from the messenger service are sent to the Fulton County (Georgia) Industrial School, and so many returned to it again, that the Superintendent made as one condition of parole the boy's promise not to enter the messenger service again. The extent of depravity among the messenger boys of the large cities was shown by exhaustive investigations on the part of the agents of the National Child Labor Committee to be so great that several of our States have enacted laws forbididng any minor child to be employed in the night messenger service, and the presidents of the great telegraph companies, with headquarters in New York City, were so overwhelmed with the amount of evidence secured that they forebore any opposition when the Legislature of New York enacted such a statute, though in other States, this

State included, they have been less afraid of the organs of publicity and have succeeded in lowering that age limit.

A study was even made from rather meager statistics of the peculiar juvenile offenses apparently connected with certain occupations. Thus messengers were distinguished for assault and battery, and for immorality; drivers and wagon helpers for burglary; bootblacks for gambling and truancy; office boys and glass workers for larceny and incorrigibility; while among the girl delinquents, taking immoral conduct as the chief offense charged, of those employed in making clothing 30 per cent. of the delinquents were immoral; in domestic service 37 per cent.; 64 per cent. employed in hotels and restaurants; from stores 32 per cent.; from textile workers 32 per cent. John Ruskin said that it was a shame for a nation to make its young girls weary. We have learned something in these later years of the toxin of fatigue and how it affects the moral as well as the physical life of girls and women, by depleting the resisting power. What would John Ruskin say of a nation that makes its young girls immoral, or even allows that waste of girlhood that we see in countless industries today?

I think these facts and figures are sufficient to refute Watts' dictum about Satan and idle hands so far as it refers to children and youth. The idle brain may be the devil's workshop, but an idle brain is not often a possession of childhood. The place for the child is in the school, and if the schools furnish too large a proportion of juvenile delinquents, let us improve the schools. If juvenile delinquency is too largely the result of premature employment, let us abolish child labor. This American Prison Association is set for the prevention of crime, juvenile or adult. And if this presentation of the case against child labor because of its relation to juvenile delinquency will make of every member of this association an ally of the cause of child labor reform, I shall be more than content with the results of this message. The inalienable rights of childhood are the right to play and to dream; the right to the normal sleep of childhood during the night season; the right to an education that there may be the opportunity for developing mind and heart. The state must

see that these rights are not denied the children, for its own advantage, for its future level of good citizenship. The normal place for the child outside of school hours is not the street, but the home. And if there is no home, or if the child, through poverty, is lacking a home or what the home should mean to it of protection, the state must keep the home or give the child a new one. When that is done our problem of adult delinquency shall have been largely solved. And if we are beginning to see that society is largely responsible for the delinquent child, so may we be led to the belief that it is also largely responsible for the adult criminal. For in this as in all other movements of reform, the little child shall lead them.

Adjourned 10:45 p. m.

TUESDAY MORNING SESSION.

CHAPLAINS' ASSOCIATION.

President Leonard opened the session at 9:30 o'clock, after which Rev. C. E. Benson, Chaplain of the Minnesota State Prison, delivered the invocation.

President Leonard: We have with us Charles F. Coffin, the veteran of the Association, and I know we should all be glad to hear a word from him.

Charles F. Coffin, Chicago, Illinois: I have a very vivid recollection of the first Congress held in Cincinnati. Both myself and wife were active workers in it. It was a notable occasion. Three governors were present: Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, Conrad Baker of Indiana, and Governor Haines of New Jersey. There was a large attendance of prison officers and directors and other persons interested in prisons. Altogether the meeting was a very marked one and, I think, laid the foundation for the excellent work that the Association has done since. It has been my privilege to attend a good many of the meetings of the Prison Association, although not in recent years, since I have attained an age when it is more difficult for me to undertake to go away from home. I look back with a great deal of pleasure to the work that has been a part of my life. I was for fourteen years president of the House of Refuge Board. My wife was for about the same length of time president of the Woman's Prison Board in Indiana. She has gone to the better land.

I am very glad to be with you and to meet you all.

President Leonard: I have the pleasure now to turn this meeting over to Rev. D. J. Meese, Chaplain of the Ohio State Reformatory, who will preside.

Mr. Meese: I regret very much that the president of the Chaplain's Association, Rev. H. C. McHenry, is not present.

The first speaker on the program is Mr. A. C. Hill, of the New York State Department of Education, who will speak on the Prison School. I take great pleasure in introducing Mr. Hill.

THE PRISON SCHOOL.

BY A. C. HILL, NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION,

ALBANY, N. Y.

A prison may be regarded as a social entity, having a life peculiar to itself. Like the human body, it has organs through which the life forces accomplish their work. The quality and effectiveness of the social influences in the prison community rest on the action of these organs.

The four vital organs in prison life are typified in the warden, the chaplain, the librarian, and the teacher. These men represent authority, religion, information and instruction, the forces that make the prison atmosphere.

In the human body all vital organs have the same purpose, the conservation and health of the whole body, physical, mental and moral. When in normal condition they perform their functions efficiently and harmoniously; when one or more of them is diseased or inactive the whole body suffers.

The analogy holds good in the social life of the prison. If any of its vital organs are lacking or out of tune the health of the community is impaired or utterly destroyed. Each is essential and all must work together to maintain vigorous life and growth in the social body of the prison.

The term school as applied to a prison should include much more than classroom training. It means an atmosphere that pervades the whole rather than a part or a special activity. Every influence that beats upon the mind and heart of the inmate from the time the prison gate closes upon him until it swings again to let him go free is a part of his schooling. It was the schooling he had on the outside, in the home, in the street, in the atmosphere of crooked business, in the haunts of vice and crime that was largely responsible for bringing him to the house of despair, and it must be the schooling received inside