:n be provided through the co-operation of other agencies or institutions. What is en referred to as the "Boston plan of detention" in subsidizing boarding homes, efully selected and supervised, is worthy of special consideration in relation to the ention problem in smaller communities.

Effective probation service is the cornerstone of the juvenile court. Probationary pervision implies the application of the principles of social case work, and requires Lining and compensation at least equal to that demanded for case work with families other specialized work in the social service field. In the majority of courts the protion staffs are handicapped by low salaries and inadequate training. The number of orkers is in most courts far too small. Theoretically, the number of cases that should e assigned to each probation officer is placed at fifty to seventy-five. In practice it requently approaches 200. Probationary supervision can be effective only when the vorker has a chance to deal adequately with each case. Very infrequently one finds a court in which the judge has a definite policy in regard to placing on probation only the pproximate number of cases that can be handled properly by the staff available. The alternative, of course, is that a considerable number of children remain unsupervised, but this is at least a more constructive policy than the one prevailing in a large court in a western city, where practically every child coming into the court, even for the most trivial offense, is placed on probation. One probation officer had over 500 children "on probation"; but they proved to be traffic violators, and "probation" merely implied keeping them in mind in case they got into trouble again. This officer reported four home visits during one month; the greater part of his time was probably needed for recording his accessions of probationers.

The essential principles of case work as developed by family relief agencies are found to be equally applicable to the work of juvenile courts. One even hears of "case supervisors" in a few courts, the work of the investigators and probation officers being guided and assisted by a supervisor, in order that the greatest possible service to individual children may be developed. The study of the case of a child who has come to the attention of the court should include not only the factors in the home and the environment, but the child's personality and his reactions toward the influences that surround him in home and school and community. Few courts are equipped with the necessary machinery for investigation and diagnosis. The notable work that has been undertaken under the auspices of the Commonwealth Fund in training probation officers and psychiatric social workers, and in establishing experimental clinics that may demonstrate the possibilities of preventing delinquency, in addition to developing intelligent methods of treatment, is dealt with in other sessions of this conference. This activity should lead to a more rapid extension of the principles of the study of the child along the lines worked out in connection with the Chicago and Boston courts, and in a more limited way in other places.

Scientific diagnosis can achieve results only if the resources at the disposal of the court are such that there can be the necessary adaptation of treatment to the needs discovered. Too often courts have available only one alternative to probation-commitment to an industrial school of more or less fixed routine. Some communities, feeling the need for a form of intermediate institution, have established "farm schools," "home schools," "parental schools," and similar smaller institutions usually located in the country and caring for a comparatively small number of children. To these institutions are sent children who require a short period of discipline, or whose home conditions

make it desirable to provide temporary care elsewhere. In Los Angeles, an important experiment in training semidelinquent girls has been developed by the juvenile court. Girls who require protection or intensive training are received into-not committed to -a school under the management of the probation committee, and there given an opportunity to live a normal, busy, self-reliant life in a group of about fifty girls who are bound by the code of their self-government association to definite standards and ideals. Supplementing the work of this school is an interesting plan for helpful supervision to aid the girl in finding and maintaining a place for herself in the community. The experiment referred to is of particular interest as demonstrating the use of an institution as a part of the whole program of "saving the child"-a way-station in which a child is given special equipment, rather than a thing separate and of itself as is unfortunately the case with many an institution that lacks co-operation with the agencies that previously knew or cared for the child, and that do not even have a constructive relationship to parole work that follows the period of supposed training. The juvenile court is pointing the way to vital changes in the methods of reconstructive work with children who have gotten a wrong start. On the other side, the court is working back to causes and to conditions in the community that are at fault. In the work of restraining, as well as in prevention, the court is utilizing the various social forces of the community-the home, the school, the church, recreational facilities, and the agencies that exist for the protection and care of children in the community and in the state.

A court cannot become a constructive social agency if the workers immure themselves within their own special interests. In a court dealing with almost 1,000 children each year, I asked the chief probation worker if he was planning to go to Providence for the National Conferences. "No," he said, "I hardly ever go to conferences; the last National Conference I attended was in Memphis (in 1914]. I know what our problems are here, and what should be done about them. It doesn't seem to me to be worth my time to go to meetings and hear people from other places tell of their difficulties." Later in the day I heard the story from other angles. The heads of every child-caring or protective agency visited volunteered information about the difficulties they were having with the juvenile court, because of its unco-operative attitude and its individualistic methods. Incidentally, the meaning of even the word probation seemed not to be known in this court.

As a contrast, there is another court in a city of about the same size, two or three states distant, in which the court takes a leading part in community interests. First and foremost, the man who was until recently judge of this juvenile court, and who was responsible for its development, has for many years been a leader in state and city social welfare activities. Under his guidance the court could not be a thing by itself, too jealous of its judicial dignity to work on an equal footing with the other social agencies of the community. Church workers and representatives of welfare organizations and of public agencies were on the friendliest of terms with the staff of the court, and felt that they had a share in the work. A well-equipped children's protective society was used by the court as its agent in the investigation and later supervision of neglect cases. In the mothers' pension work, administered by the court, there was an advisory case committee composed of persons especially equipped to consider the needs of each family. As a simple, but very important, indication of the attitude of this court as a part of the social work of the city, there was held annually under the auspices of the staff of the court a large pincic at which the guests were the other social workers who had related interests.

In the report of discussions on juvenile delinquency, at the sessions of the Second International Congress for the Protection of Children, held in Brussels last year, under the topic "Moral Care of Children and Juvenile Courts" we find as Question 1: "What means should be used to establish close co-operation between juvenile courts and public and private agencies able to aid in the protection of children? How shall this co-operation be organized and facilitated?" The report quotes the judge of the High Court of Appeals of Cairo, Egypt, as follows:

In order to establish close co-operation between juvenile courts and public and private agencies, the following three principles should be taken into consideration:

1. The child offender should be studied before he is called to court.

2. He should be assured, through the proper training of the judge, a correct understanding of his needs, and, if advisable, he should be sent to a suitable institution.

3. There should be centralization of data on the existing institutions and agencies, and of the information collected about each child, so that the judge, supplied with this double information, may know what measures to take.

The delegate from Paris recommends the appointment of salaried investigators, corresponding to probation officers in the United States, as a necessary means toward establishing close co-operation between child welfare agencies. The juvenile judge of Brussels suggests "The extension of the authority of juvenile courts to the protection of the moral and social interests of neglected children, and in general those in danger of delinquency," and recommends "the organization of a children's police for preventive action and also for aiding in the enforcement of laws concerning children."

It is seen that discussion of juvenile court standards is not confined to the United States. Although we may proudly claim distinction in the development of the juvenile court, the recommendations quoted from the delegate from Egypt are several steps in advance of "the minimum requirements" that we might think it practicable to suggest. In this country something of an advance has, however, been made. Judges and probation officers have been interested in comparing methods and formulating standards that should govern their work. The National Probation Association has co-operated with the Federal Children's Bureau through providing a forum for the presentation of its studies of courts hearing children's cases, and for the discussion of standards. A special conference on standards was held last year under the joint auspices of these two organizations, and a committee advisory to the Children's Bureau was nominated. This Committee has made a preliminary report at a second joint meeting held earlier this week, at which an outline of standards was presented for consideration.

The juvenile court, if it is to be a constructive social agency, must be brought into active co-operation with the other agencies of the community for the promotion of child welfare. The "standards" that may be agreed upon in relation to the work of the court are not technicalities; they are vital principles that, put into action, will have a real bearing on the lives of the individual children who are in need of protection or guidance. In the development of constructive juvenile court work the state itself must take an active part. In rural sections, especially, there is need for the promotion and encouragement of courts equipped for handling children's cases, and for raising the standards of work. The past year or two have seen a rapid development in state supervision and assistance in this field. New York and Massachusetts were the pioneers in state promotion of probation work. The past few years have witnessed a marked development of juvenile court work through state boards or officials working with or without special authority of law. Such special activities have been undertaken

or planned in California, Alabama, North Carolina, Minnesota, Georgia, Indiana, Arkansas, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Much of this progress may be attributed to the rapidly developing programs of county oganization for localizing preventive and reconstructive work, under the co-ordinating guidance of a state body. Juvenile court work conforming to standards for the promotion of child welfare must be made available to all children, whether in large cities or in the remotest rural community. The 48 per cent of our children who are living in rural areas have been shown to have about one-seventh of the chance for treatment fitted to their needs, should they come before the courts as neglected or delinquent children, that they would have if they had happened to reside in the largest cities. It may be contended that the need for attention by courts is far less in rural communities. It has yet to be shown how much of this apparent difference may be due to neglect of conditions rather than to absence of difficulties. The results of juvenile court work, whether in cities or in sparsely settled districts, will be measured by the influence it has had on the children who have come before it, and on its accomplishment in preventing delinquency. Equipment, staff, records, or rules of procedure are only means to an end, and "standards" amount to nothing if their application does not mean really vital assistance to each individual child.

RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES IN INSTITUTIONS

R. K. Atkinson, Recreation Department, Russell Sage Foundation, New York The wisdom of providing wholesome recreational and play activities for inmates of custodial institutions is so generally conceded that a discussion of the subject needs to concern itself only with matters of practical procedure. Such an institution in recognizing its responsibility to those who for any reason are in its care, if it has kept up to date, is governed by a desire to provide, as far as possible, the normalities of life. The character-forming and health-giving activities which are a part of a well-rounded recreational system have demonstrated their value by making a large contribution to the realization of this aim.

When, however, as in the present case, we are concerned with correctional institutions, we face a somewhat different situation. Because the inmates of such an institution have violated laws, the recreations which have been provided for them have been severely criticized.

There can be no doubt that in the past ten years, popular education has not kept up with the practical progress that has been made in many fields of social work and unless we are to have a definite reaction we must carefully examine the considerations which are fundamental to our procedure, and in this particular case, inquire as to whether or not we can justify these recreational activities both from the standpoint of theory and of practice.

In theory the correctional institution has a twofold function: the protection of society and the reformation of the offender. In the popular mind the first function is still performed by making crime unpopular on account of the rigor and certainty of punishment, and to many people every report of the humane treatment of prisoners, which newspaper headlines feature as "coddling," is interpreted as a weakening of one of society's safeguards.

The limits of this paper do not allow a discussion of the entire range of penology. We are concerned with the inmates of institutions after they arrive. We may freely grant that if the institution is primarily intended for punishment we are on the wrong track. If, however, its function in the protection of society is the restraint of the antisocial individual so that he will no longer harm society, with the ideal of providing such training as will counteract anti-social tendencies, then every wholesome and humane agency is legitimate.

The evolution of the treatment of delinquents has, according to Robinson, passed through five stages which, in the vernacular might be expressed: one, kill them off; two, lock them up; three, put them to work; four, train them; five, study each case and adapt the treatment. As a matter of general practice, backed up by an intelligent public sentiment, we are, however, a long way from having yet reached stage five. The time will probably come when it will be recognized that no legislative body can specify what degree of penalty shall be fitting for every crime and that no judge or jury can determine what degree of guilt attaches to a specific act. Then we shall see the really indeterminate sentence, under which every convicted person will become the ward of the state until such time as he has shown his ability to live an orderly life. Such a method of handling offenders will be based upon intelligent study of every crime and every criminal. Probation and parole and the whole administration of criminal jurisprudence will be utterly divorced from politics. Then we may hope for a plan of criminal procedure that will prove a real deterrent of crime.

An understanding of this case work method of dealing with the delinquent will come only to those who give intelligent thought to the subject and learn enough of the history of penology to recognize the failure of punishment alone as a reformative measure and whose understanding of the human problems involved will give them an appreciation of the necessity for the adaptation of both work and training to the ability and capacity of the individual prisoner. If a critic, even though he be a legislator or a judge, is as ignorant of the history and philosophy of penology as he is of any conception of recreation except that it may provide pleasurable activities, we can hardly expect him to be seriously improessed with the value of a recreation program, in terms either of health of mind and body, or of training for individual competence and social adjustment or even as an aid to that type of institutional discipline which is based upon intelligent co-operation rather than arbitrary authority.

The recreational activities which now form a part of the program in scores of correctional institutions have not been introduced by faddists or sentimental meddlers. On the contrary they have been gradually given a place after their practical value has been demonstrated by careful experiments.

One of the most thoroughgoing and well-developed recreation programs in use today is found in a reformatory caring for 1,200 young men in one of our largest states. When the present superintendent went to the institution eleven years ago he assumed, in addition to his other duties, the full personal direction of all athletics and other recreational activities. These activities were gradually extended until within three years a physical director was employed and now the program is so arranged that the institution has a recreational program which might be accepted to advantage by many of our colleges. During this time there has been a steady gain in the efficiency of the institution's training and work programs. This superintendent is a doctor and a student of psychology and is an enthusiastic advocate of athletic and recreational