ties, the Humane Society, the courts, the health agencies, etc. In place of the long waiting lists and inadequate institutional room, it is now possible on the basis of real need to place any children needing institutional care.

Secondly, the Children's Bureau, in accordance with retaining the family ties as far as possible, after a child has once been placed in an institution, aims to follow up the family in order that it may be rebuilt, if possible, for the child's speedy return. After the child has received the training and care for which he was placed in the institution, he should be returned as soon as possible to his own family. In case his family after trial proves hopeless the child should be removed by court action and given a real chance in some other family environment. This follow-up of the child's family is absolutely essential to good social work.

The third function of the Children's Bureau has been to study the children already inmates of institutions, making plans for their care. A large number of children now under care have been studied and plans made for their future. It is hoped that in a few months all children under care more than a year will have been studied and forward looking plans made for their care. The Bureau is extending this study of institutional children as staff permits and the institutions request it.

Through the co-operation of the institutions and child-placing agencies Cleveland is endeavoring to find on the one hand the place of the institution in the community and on the other the place of the child-placing movement in free, boarding, and adoptive homes. The conclusion is slowly being reached that there is a very definite place for both types of child care, that the institution has a tremendous contribution to make in providing care for certain types of children who after training and preparation can be returned to normal family life, either in their own homes, or if that is not possible through placement in free, boarding, and adoptive homes. For instance, most of Cleveland's institutions are now agreeing that they should be used primarily for the temporary care of children. With the case study and planning service now rendered, the turnover of the institutions has been increased, and while the stay of the child is being shortened the institutions are serving a greater number of children. Today the institution is reaching more and more the new children coming under the care of agencies for the first time who through institutional care and discipline can be prepared for return to their own families if possible, or who, after the institution has made its contribution, can be turned over to the Humane Society, the child-placing agency, for placement in free, boarding, or adoptive homes. Also with the increased facilities for medical inspection and correction on entrance, through special arrangements for medical correction, with the development of specialized nutritional care, the institutions are now serving more and more as health agencies and in many cases aid in the health care of children. For instance, we hope in time that from St. Ann's, our only infant asylum, can be removed all of the dependent infants for placement in homes and that the splendid medical facilities of this institution may be used largely for the care of the undernourished and sick infants now in boarding and other homes. Furthermore, we are hoping in time that it will be possible to use the institutions for the discipline and training of children who through environment or bad home conditions would be coming into the juvenile court so that these children through proper planning and institutional training can be saved from a court record. In addition the institution has a large contribution to make in the care of the backward child, retarded all too often by lack of

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edical care, malnutrition, irregular school attendance, or bad home environment. lany of these children not actually feebleminded can, through regular attendance, pecial educational facilities, medical correction, regain their normal place in the comaunity. The institution has a tremendous opportunity through various forms of pecialization to prepare children for return to normal family life. Will it not be posible more and more in the future, with the development of specialized facilities in the nstitution for them to become real training centers for the child just coming under care, for the problem and difficult child, instead of as in the past providing long-time care for the blue-eyed, golden-haired, normal child who can best be provided for in a family home? At least the Cleveland group composed of institutional and child-placing representatives, through common discussion and study of our community's needs, is endeavoring on a broad co-operative basis to find the place of each type of care in our community program.

The Bureau started in April, 1921, with two workers but has grown to ten visitors and four visitors in training. The city has been divided into seven districts, and in addition specialized workers are assigned to individual institutions. Through institutional assignment these visitors understand the problems and difficulties of the institutions and are looked upon as members of the institution staff. In one institution a special case committee composed of board members meets twice monthly to discuss with their visitor the case problems of the institution. This has proved tremendously helpful in working out individual cases and we hope this type of service can be gradually extended in the coming year.

Due to lack of adequately trained workers in the children's field very early arrangements are completed for a joint training course with the Humane Society. Under the direction of the Western Reserve University School of Applied Social Sciences in October a training class was established with a trained children's worker in charge. The students, who must have a college education or its equivalent, receive their theoretical and lecture work under the university, receiving credit toward a Master's degree, but secure practical experience and training under close supervision, handling the problems of the individual agency. This training class insures an adequate supply of thoroughly trained workers for the children's field.

One of the outstanding needs in children's work in Cleveland has been adequate medical care and correction. The Children's Survey showed that of the nineteen institutions sixteen had no adequate physical examination on entrance and none had any periodic re-examination. Due to the varying medical standards of the institutions every effort has been made to have every child before placement thoroughly examined at one of the existing dispensaries. This examination includes not only a negative bill of health, but a thorough examination of throat, heart, lungs, eyes, glands, teeth, ears, nose, nutrition, skin, scalp, etc. The medical report secured is sent in with the child to the institution, which is responsible for the correction and follow-up of the defects found. Due to this thorough examination many times another ty found necessary for the child, in view of the health facts disclosed. It Y year it may be possible to establish for the children's field a clinic with an adequately trained staff in charge, which not only co examinations, but can act in an advisory capacity to the institu problems. This service should be entirely supplemental to existing L

institutions, but should be available for service if institutions wish it. In addition, dental facilities are greatly needed, and it may be possible to provide some facilities along this line to meet the needs of institutional children.

As the Children's Survey estimated, there were over 400 children in Cleveland's institutions with mental problems of various kinds, and special emphasis has been placed on a diagnosis of mental problems of difficult children. During the first five months of 1922, 128 children have been given psychological and psychiatric examinations in order that intelligent plans might be made for their care. Although Cleveland is behind the rest of the country in its facilities for mental hygiene, it is hoped that soon we will be better equipped to diagnose mental problems of children. At the request of their board of trustees, the Children's Bureau removed last fall all of the dependent children formerly cared for in the Children's Aid Society, an institution formerly clearing for normal children. Their board has reopened their plant July 1 as a mental hygiene and diagnostic clinic for backward children. Through psychological and psychiatric examinations, through medical care and correction and behavior studies, it is hoped through this clinic it will be possible to secure aid in developing a thoroughgoing plan for the mental problems existing among Cleveland's dependent children.

However, the most outstanding feature of the past year has been the splendid feeling of co-operation which has developed among the children's agencies. The Children's Bureau committee, composed of one board member and one executive from each institution and agency, has held regular monthly meetings. Through sitting around a table and discussing common problems, contributing one another's helpful ideas, a splendid spirit has been developed. Such subjects as medical care, dental needs, nutrition, mental problems, etc., have been discussed. Statements of minimum standards of medical care and minimum standards of dental care have been worked out and adopted. Suggestive menus for institutional diet have been sent out for distribution. The group is endeavoring to see the child problem of the community as a whole, and through organization or adjustment to meet the needs as study discloses them. Whatever of success the Children's Bureau has achieved or will achieve has been and will be fundamentally founded upon this splendid spirit of co-operation and helpfulness existing between the various institutions and children's agencies in Cleveland.

DIVISION II-DELINQUENTS AND
CORRECTION

THE JUVENILE COURT AS A CONSTRUCTIVE SOCIAL AGENCY Emma O. Lundberg, Director of Social Service Division, Children's Bureau, United States Department of Labor, Washington

The juvenile court movement began as a reaction against dealing with children as criminals. The earlier growth of probation and separate hearings for children furnished the precedents for the change in the legal procedure, and jail detention was one of the immediate causes of the reform.

The work of any social institution depends very largely on the personality of its director. A judge with the right vision and personality may achieve far more in the reconstruction of children's lives than will a court with spendidly equipped quarters and a large staff, but without inspiration for service. It is not equipment, nor system, nor size of staff that counts in the life of the child who comes before the court. Personality, human kindness, and intelligent understanding are the things that are vital. The standards of juvenile court work may be condensed into one sentence: Remember that you are dealing with the life of a child. Upon this all the subsidiary standards must be founded. Upon the results to the individual child the juvenile court will stand or fall.

The past few years have witnessed in some quarters considerable opposition to the work of the juvenile court. This awakening to the court's problems may be taken as a sign of progress, though the criticisms may involve unfair attack based on inadequate knowledge. It was inevitable that an institution as complex as the juvenile court should develop in various ways in different localities, and should attain varying degrees of success. Here one excellent feature has developed, and there another, and one court has failed where another has accomplished notable work. In one court the procedure is in the greatest possible contrast to the criminal, while in another, operating under the same law and confronted with similar problems both in volume and in kind, an observer may find it difficult to realize that he is in a so-called juvenile court, and may even suspect that the judge himself is hardly cognizant of the principles of the juvenile court as distinguished from the other type of court session over which he presides. Yet the fundamental problems with which the juvenile court deals and the kinds of service it is called upon to render are essentially the same in all communities, and all courts must meet certain standards if they are to carry out the purposes for which they have been created.

What features should a juvenile court have in order to be a constructive social agency? In the first place, adequate jurisdiction including a sufficiently high age limit and original and exclusive jurisdiction over all offenses committed by children. It should also have the associated adult jurisdiction over non-support, desertion, and contributing to delinquency and dependency. As a general principle, the juvenile court should have jurisdiction over all cases involving the relationship between adults and children-including adoptions, commitment of feebleminded children, and custody of

children in divorce cases. Where it is not practicable to centralize these various jurisdictions within one court or division, or in branches of the same court, the resources of the juvenile court for social investigation and supervision should be utilized in cases in other courts involving the welfare of children. The work with reference to custody of children in divorce cases such as that being done for other courts or branches of the same court by the juvenile courts of Denver and Omaha, should be extended to other types of cases, of which adoption cases are perhaps the most important. The Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Portland, Oregon, in which is lodged adoption jurisdiction, the Juvenile Court of Salt Lake County, Utah, co-operating with the district court, and the Minnesota Children's Bureau, directed by law to inquire into adoptions before the courts can make a final decree, have demonstrated the value of this type of protection.

In order that the court may be able to do the most effective work, it is essential that the judge shall be a man or woman with the right attitude and the necessary qualifications. He must have sufficient time at his disposal. The frequency of hearings has a close relation to detention; the more frequent the hearings, the shorter the detention periods required. Where, as is the case in all but a few of the larger courts, the judge who hears children's cases must devote the major part of his time to the other branches of the court over which he presides, the situation is very unfortunate. This situation is to some extent being remedied through the increasing use of informal adjustment of cases by the staff of the court-a type of work which has large possibilities, but which must be safeguarded by adequate information concerning the needs of the child, and must be in the hands of persons of judgment and ability. It is generally agreed that girls' cases should be heard by a woman, though this plan is followed in but few courts. Los Angeles has the only woman referee whose appointment as a paid officer is authorized by state law and who gives her entire time to cases of girls and of boys under thirteen years of age. In Chicago, Cincinnati, and San Francisco there are women referees, and in some other courts women probation officers give the judge special assistance in girls' cases.

It seems at times as if one of the fundamental things in the development of juvenile court work is to "socialize" some of the judges. In an important county seat in the Middle West, not a hundred miles from one of the leading juvenile courts of the country, the so-called "juvenile court" is presided over by a judge who claims to have gained his ideas through spending a week in a large city court from which he might have gained much inspiration. It is something of a shock to find that in his court cases of delinquent children are heard in the same sessions as adult cases coming before the county court of which the juvenile court is supposed to be a separate branch. The children are in the court room while adult cases are disposed of, and there is no exclusion of the public while juvenile cases are being heard. Public jury trials of girls' cases were reported. In spite of the laws that exist in most states prohibiting detention of children in jails, this is by no means an uncommon practice. Scratch the surface of the situation in a great many communities in all parts of the country, and you will find that this fundamental principle of the juvenile court is violated. Detention pending hearing and for short periods during the adjustment of a case is one of the most difficult problems directly affecting the court. In general, the only safe policy is not to detain a child if it can be avoided, and so to arrange the court's business that detention periods may be reduced to a minimum. In rural communities and small cities, detention facilities can