to follow their guidance, have come into an intelligent, conscious, sympathetic relation to young people otherwise vouchsafed only to those rare personalities known as "born teachers."

The facts connected with the development of the emotional and religious life of youth, ought, and in time will, make it clear to Sunday-school teachers that at the present time nearly all of their time is wasted, because it is spent in trying to deal with religious notion and feeling totally beyond the experience of the little children. They will come to see that religious education, in a formal and intense way, should be put off until the beginning of adolescence and continued thru it in a wholesome way.

The old theological notion that children are conceived and born in sin is dying out, and this phase of child study has hastened its coming extinction.

The Chinese have not been handicapped with such a doctrine, and have wrought on the basis that children are naturally good, and proper education will keep them so. This phase of child-study has brought into prominence, too, the necessity of supplying young people with those opportunities of personal initiative in literature, art, and invention, which correspond to wholesome and legitimate desire on their part. It has emphasized the importance and helpfulness of those teachers who can command the interest and respect of young people thru sympathy and wise adjustments of the demands of life to the ideals characteristic of this period.

THE DEPENDENT AND THE DELINQUENT CHILDREN IN THE HOME ENVIRONMENT AS A SCHOOL PROBLEM

J. K. STABLETON, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, BLOOMINGTON, ILL. This is a study of the work attempted in Bloomington, Illinois, a city of thirty thousand, for the past six years. A statement of the Illinois Compulsory School Attendance Law, the Juvenile Dependency and Delinquency Laws, and the Child Labor Law, is necessary to make clear the conditions under which the work has been carried on.

In brief, the Compulsory School Attendance Law says that every child between the ages of seven years and fourteen not physically or mentally incapacitated for schoolwork, shall attend school the full number of weeks the school is in session in the district in which the child lives. It makes the proper enforcement of this law the duty of boards of education and empowers them with the right of employing attendance officers to look after this work. The aw holds the parents finable for non-compliance with it and on ailure to pay the fine they may be committed to jail.

The State Child Labor Law supplements the Compulsory Attendance Law and takes away the temptation that comes to many parents to take children from school for purposes of gain before the children have had even the minimum of school privileges the state gives them. This law does not permit any child between the ages of seven years and fourteen to be employed

at work for wages during any part of any day while the schools are in session; and holds both parents and employers responsible for violation of the law.

A dependent child is one practically without a home; or the place it calls a home provides but little or nothing for physical, mental, or moral needs of the child. When the child almost or wholly lacks support, it is according to the law, dependent.

The Juvenile Delinquent Law declares a child to be a delinquent when he is incorrigible, does not have home control, is found living in the companionship of wrong-doers; is guilty of petty crimes; and in general is tending to become a criminal.

If the parent or parents are not able to require the proper conduct on the part of the delinquent child; or, in case of the dependent child, cannot, or will not, and cannot be made to support it, as a last resort the court can take charge of the child and place it in the care of a probation officer or commit it temporarily to some institution to be cared for as a state or county charge.

These laws must all be thoroly understood by the school authorities in any Illinois city that attempts to make the schools reach the dependent and the delinquent children in their home environments.

Someone may say at once, is there not more danger of breaking up homes than there is hope of building them up by the enforcement of these laws? Let me say at the beginning that above all things, the school must stand for the unbroken home. Nor do we believe that it is right to think that all homes can in any sense be ideal homes. It will take generations for the evolution of even a common type of a home out of some homes, yet these types of homes that are only a shade better than the brute prepares for its offspring, must be protected in the possession of the children, and the touch of the school must be an inspiring touch, rather than the hand that would snatch away the children to train them in a higher type of a home or institution.

But we must remember that death does not respect the populous home of the poorest-paid day-laborer; that from this home the father or mother, or both, are sometimes taken; or that the bread-winner is striken with a wasting, lingering illness, and that as a result want comes in. And that in every city there are a few children whose parents in some cases care so little for them, or in other cases have so little power of control, that some controlling force outside the home must be exercised to hold back these children from criminal lives and give outlet to their energy in lives that will fix habits of useful activity. It is not the vengeance of the law but a labor of love that is the keynote in all this work; but the fact that there are good laws under which the few extreme cases can be reached makes the labor of love possible in the many cases.

Six years ago there was no systematic effort made to look after the dependents and the delinquents by the school authorities. When children, and especially those of the delinquent type, dropped out of school they were largely left to themselves. At this time the superintendent stated to the board that there was need of an attendance officer to assist in securing the attendance of

many who should be in school, but were not. At first the board questioned the value of such an officer, but finally granted the superintendent's request.

The officer's work soon commended itself to the board so strongly that the board would as soon think of doing without teachers as doing without an attendance officer.

About that time two boys, who were dependents, and had also become sadly delinquent, were brought before the county judge for delinquency. The superintendent of schools petitioned the court to send the boys to the Glenwood Manual Training School for Boys, a private school to which the law of the state gives the county judge the right to commit dependent or delinquent boys entailing on the county from which boys are sent an expense of ten dollars per month for each boy committed. The judge had never before been petitioned to make such a commitment and hesitated, fearing the county board of supervisors would not approve the expense. Finally the judge asked the superintendent to consent to his sending the boys to the State Reformatory, but the superintendent said "No." The judge then said he would send the boys to the Glenwood School to remain there until one month later, when the county board of supervisors would be in session, at which time he wished the superintendent to present the case to the board of supervisors. The superintendent agreed to this since he hoped, if the boys were once placed in this school, the supervisors would have too much heart to take them from there to the reformatory. A month later he met the supervisors, thirty-five in number, and was given opportunity to plead the boys' case. When he had finished speaking a number of the men spoke out and said: "You have won your case.' But action was referred to a special committee and the superintendent did not feel that all was settled, so said to one of the committee to which it was referred, that if there was danger of the committee's not passing favorably on it, to phone to the superintendent's office and he would come at once to the courthouse to talk with the committee. Two days later he was called to meet the committee. He pleaded with them to give the boys a show and not to send them to the reformatory, but all to no purpose. Two of them were from the country districts and did not believe in wasting the county's money on boys. The case was lost; the boys remained at the school doing finely for five months when they were transferred to the State Reformatory, all for the sake of saving the second wealthiest county in Illinois $240 a year.

About six months later the case of two other boys came up for a settlement of some kind. They were not bad boys, but boys, for a time at least, without a home. The drunken, beastly sot of a father had been committed to jail for non-support of his family, and after being there for sixty days was perfectly willing to continue to live at the county's expense. The mother's health had failed so she could no longer wash or work; in fact, she herself had become an object of charity. She was anxious to find some home where the boys could be cared for until she recovered sufficiently to help make a home again. No one wanted the boys. The only possible opening for them other

than the street or county infirmary was the Glenwood School, but how to get them there was the problem. The matter was presented to the Associated Charities by the superintendent of schools. Two of the most influential men in the city, who were interested in the charity work of the city, said that they would go with the superintendent, if he would again make a plea before the board of supervisors. This was done. He spoke to the entire board and again to the committee. His plea was granted, and from that day to this, the county judge has been one of the most helpful, interested in a real heartfelt way in all cases that have come before him. He said to the superintendent, "I wished you to educate the supervisors, now you have done it." From that time to the present he has never brought up the matter of expense to the county, when it has been necessary to dispose of an extreme case, nor has the board of supervisors ever offered an objection. While extreme cases are very few, relatively speaking, the certainty that the school authorities can appeal to the court for help in these cases, prevents the possibility of many cases coming into the courts. School authorities in Bloomington, Ill., have during the past six years come into a close working-system with the Associated Charities, parents' clubs, the city physician, the visiting nurse furnished by one of the city's endowed hospitals, and the courts, in trying to help the dependent and the delinquent children in their home environment. The school has been the center from which radiates the influence or energy that calls upon these other agencies to assist in trying to make the best possible conditions for the child. In a city of thirty thousand, where ward schools do not enroll more than six hundred pupils each, it is possible for the principal, with the aid of the teachers and the attendance officer, to know the home environment of almost every child; and the superintendent, with an interest on his part can know the home surroundings of all the most unfortunate cases. He can know these so that by devoting a very small part of his time to a consideration of them he can advise as to the best that can be done. A very few minutes from time to time keeps him in close touch with all the unusual cases that come up to be passed upon. Court cases are called on Saturday afternoon. The truant officer is largely a friendly visitor and is in most cases, so recognized.

There are parents who have no love of offspring. Two or three years ago the attendance officer was called day after day to look up three boys all from one home, and no one of them over twelve years of age. Finally he reported the case to the superintendent. This report was, that the mother was sick in bed, had six children with her, these three boys being the oldest; that she had been divorced from her husband but three weeks, and that they were dependent on charity for what they had to live on. The Associated Charities knew the case well and gave the same report. These three boys were on the street all the time, when not in school, and were at school only when taken there by the attendance officer. They were fast taking on the worst elements of street life. On the advice of the school authorities, as soon as the mother was able, she brought the boys before the county judge

to have them placed in a home of some kind. The St. Charles Home for Boys was the one in view. They were beautiful children. The mother wished to part with them only until she could be so situated that she could take care of them. At the request of the superintendent of schools, the judge declared the children county charges, thus making the county responsible for their control, and he appointed the woman superintendent of Associated Charities, probation officer. The children were permitted to remain with the mother, but subject to the probation officer. The superintendent and the judge advised, and the mother so desired, that the oldest of the three boys be placed in a good private home for the school year, if such a home could be found. Some one connected with the school found a home for the boy where he remained till the close of the school year. From this time on the boys were off the streets and regular every day in school. The mother as she grew stronger, did sewing and, with some little aid from her friends, made a living. The father was wholly worthless. One Sunday, the following spring, a man called at the superintendent's home and asked to speak with him. He was an ill-looking object. He said,

court.

I am the father of the three boys you and the Associated Charities looked after in You understand that my wife left me because I got drunk and would not support them, didn't you? I want to tell you that it is not so, that the only trouble we ever had, was about raising children. We've had nine. The oldest one is living with some people in another county. No, sir, it was not because I got drunk and wouldn't support them. It was all about raising more children. She said she wouldn't raise any more and I told her, we'd have all the Lord gave us, they wasn't idiots and was good-looking, and if we couldn't raise them, somebody else would. That is just all the trouble.

No love of off-spring, no parent responsibility. Not even a brute would so forsake its own.

May I contrast with this another home: a drunken father, an illiterate, dirty mother, a home almost as unkept as a hog pen, yet the mother-love strong and the father-love still burning; a large family, none of whom among the older ones had received any good from attending school. George, twelve years of age, the boy of whom I am speaking, had entered the public school this particular September, had remained there but a day, when he left the public school to enter one of our Catholic parochial schools; but he soon dropped out of that school, and filthy and unkempt was becoming one of the street gang made up of a criminally inclined class of boys beyond the compulsory schoolage limit. The school attendance officer called at the home and talked with the parents explaining to them that the boy must attend school and that if they did not keep him in school, and away from the companionship of depraved older boys during school hours, it would be necessary to compel them to do so. The priest of the parish school talked with the parents and tried his persuasive powers, but all to no purpose. Teachers, attendance officer, and priest, were alike unable to cause the parents to act. The priest finally said he could do no more. The public-school authorities (superintendent) had the parents brought before the county judge to show cause for not taking