which I present on all occasions to the Almighty. It goes like this: "Oh Lord, this institution is the only thing in Texas that is supported by the state for the good of the delinquent girl. Oh Lord, don't let it do any harm, Amen." Institutions do do harm, and do harm in exactly the proportion of the use of mass methods, mechanical restraint, invariable routine, to individual handling of each case. The school must not make use of inelastic educational methods. The open mind and sane experimentation are absolutely essential. There may be chemical and electrical experts; there are no children's experts!

We must include in our program every possible wholesome child activity. Girls should not be made to feel that they are out of the world, but rather that new worlds have been opened up for them.

We dare not penalize an act in the institution which on the outside would not be given a second thought. We let our girls whistle! Failure in future adaptation is certain if impossible standards are set up and mountains made out of mole hills.

Can the institution equip the girl for normal, social relationships? Not if it disregards the girl's family ties. The love needs of a child are more important than its material needs, and far more neglected. A girl needs to love a mother even though that mother be unworthy. We have no more right to declare that a prostitute is of no salvage value, and that the love that she has for her child is to be ignored, than we have to disregard any of the other natural laws made by One far wiser than we are. It is not according with the facts to say that adults cannot be changed. One has only to read such a book as Begbies Twice-Born Men to realize the inaccuracy of such a statement. We need family case workers as part of the staff of the girls' training schools.

We must not undervalue the importance of memories. If, in after days, the girl thinks back on her institutional career with a shudder or a shrug, that institution is a failure, no matter how well that girl can scrub a floor, sew a seam, or bake a loaf.

Can the institution equip the girl for normal, social relationships? It can, and if it does not, the reasons are practical and remediable. The situation is full of hope if only we would realize the eternal significance of the advice of Paul: "Brethren, if a person be overtaken in fault, ye, who are spiritually minded, restore such a one in the spirit of gentleness, looking unto thyself lest thou also be tempted." The slave-driver's whip in institutions for children has given place to the shepherd's crook, but in the institution of the future, the shepherd's crook indicative of blind authority, will give place to the orchestral conductor's baton as a symbol. Children will respond to its guidance only because they themselves desire harmony; because they have learned that there is for them "music which is the gladness of the world."

WHAT IS THE TEST OF SUCCESS?

Miriam Van Waters, Referee, Juvenile Court, Los Angeles

In considering institutions so much depends on point of view. Aristotle thought that our miseries are due to defects in human nature; Plato, to defects in our institutions. With Emerson we may view an institution as a lengthened shadow of a great man, or we may say with Kropatkin: "Men are everywhere better than the institutions they have built around them."

Probably nothing is easier to achieve than the running of a model institution. But it is hard to make the institution run if the "inmates" are treated as human beings. If the individual is regarded first, if his present happiness and progress, his ultimate well-being, are considered the goals, then it is exceedingly difficult to run an institution. There is a natural conflict between system, order, authority, and organization and the complex needs and expression of human individuals, particularly young ones.

Today we are speaking of institutions for young delinquent girls. No one knows more about this than Dr. Carrie Weaver Smith. It is her kind of institution that must be considered if we speak in the modern terms of child welfare.

The goals of such a successful institution are derived from the essential needs of the adolescent; sound, vigorous health, this involves not only a good medical program and an inspired department of physical education but a staff interested in health and joy as youth's most precious assets; a modern school with teachers at least as well trained as in public schools outside; a vocational equipment which gives fascinating glimpses into the various industrial and commercial possibilities; a task, or project for the individual girl so that she will gain self-confidence and build a legitimate success attitude. Possibly this is the most important goal of all. It is the completion of an individualized task which brings to the girl that sense of well being-of rested nerves which she so much craves, and for lack of which she becomes, under mishandling, so restless. The successful institution develops team play and furnishes opportunity for learning to live happily in groups, with some competition but not too much between groups. Above all the institution must furnish some leisure. "Children, like soldiers, must have periods off duty," remarked a wise European educator. Strictly speaking, children have no leisure. They are tremendously busy about their own affairs. The important thing is to surround the child with enough space and time for choices. What is there to do around the place in "spare time"? What the girl does of her own choice in her spare time furnishes the clue to her later success or failure. Finally, the institution must give ample scope to forming social relationships, within the school and the outside community.

The institution which follows these goals can never run smoothly, but in so far as it does follow them it is like life, and the girl who "makes good" in such an institution is likely to make a fortunate adjustment outside.

What is the test of success? Betty, aged nine, had been in seven boarding

homes before she was placed by a social agency in a genuine foster mother's care. She learned to sew beautifully. Buoyant with pride, she showed some embroidery to her own languid, alimony-supported mother. "Well," said the mother, "it may be all right, but I think Betty can get by without learning to sew."

Is "getting by" a test of success? Assuredly we expect something more of our delinquent girls. We would like them to achieve the expression of a normal personality, which includes, according to Dr. Rosanoff, inhibition, emotional stability, rational control (a guiding line), and durability.

Let us look at two cases from a small institution, El Retiro, an adjustment or opportunity school for wards of the court. One case, Belle, represents an institution failure followed by community success; the other, Ruth, an institutional record of success ending in apparent collapse outside.

Belle was normal in intelligence and health. In the school she was listless, dirty, unpunctual, slack about work and personal hygiene, discontented, and insolent. After ten months she was removed as an unfit subject. Today she has a four-year achievement of outstanding community success. She is a competent wife and mother. She is a leader in social affairs. Her essential attribute is feminine charm and affection. She is frivolous, as so many clever young women are. With Belle the institution never emphasized the right things. All her personality attributes were penalized. There was no incentive. The world outside accepted her as she was.

Ruth was handicapped by an inferior physique and three years' mental retardation. Within the school she was obedient, trustworthy, taking the regulations seriously, acquiesing in the program and the standards of behavior, following all suggestions promptly and cheerfully. She graduated with the highest possible number of credits after eighteen months. Ruth has a four-year record of community failure. She is still obedient and acquiescent, but to the standards of an antisocial group. She evades the police because she conforms to certain exterior respectabilities, but she lives an idle, dissolute life. She is still cheerful and courteous. With Ruth the institution followed the line of least resistance: it developed no new possibilities. Perhaps the result could not have been different, but the keynote of her failure was already struck in the school, and could have been observed; it undoubtedly lay in her acquiescence.

The test of success is found in the ability of the girl to maintain responses and attitudes in the outside world of sufficient stability to withstand the innumerable onslaughts of antisocial groups and individuals. This can come about only if she believes in the fundamental righteousness of the standards she is taught in the school, and if she has not developed antagonism toward her teachers.

A study of riots and infractions of discipline in institutions is instructive. Usually correctional schools maintain discipline houses or rooms. In one state school, with a population of 320, the inmates of a discipline house were studied.

In five months eighty girls had been punished by terms of confinement ranging from three to ninety days. Forty-three girls had been previously punished five times; twenty-one, four times; eleven, three times; and the remaining five were in the discipline house for the first time. An analysis of the offenses showed the following: laziness, grouch, insolence, petty disobedience, forbidden communications, notes to other girls, thefts of candy, food, or cigarettes, and running away.

The atmosphere of this school was reeking with settled, deep antagonism to authority. The conditions under which this antagonism had developed were petty. Senseless routine, galling, unnecessary restrictions, trivial rebukes for trivial offenses, deepening into rebellion. The difficulty lay in the fallacy so common to institutions, the special institution fallacy which attributes to a single cause, that of delinquency, all the normal traits of human nature. Viola is sent to a state school because of theft. The institution program is not outlined to "cure" theft (to bring about a highly complex emotional readjustment). But within the institution Viola is punished because she always twitches her left shoulder when her matron speaks to her. The matron has an Intelligence Quotient of about 82, and Viola an Intelligence Quotient of 115, so the matron rather rightly maintains that Viola has a superior attitude. When Viola entered the institution she was frightened and a little sorry. Now, after nine months of "discipline" she is hard-boiled and bitterly rebellious.

The institution that likes to consider itself successful must ask itself, Do we meet the complex needs of adolescence so completely that none are restricted from the group and none develop permanent feelings of antagonism to authority?

What is a practical test of success outside? If this were a just world, it would undoubtedly be keeping out of jails and institutions, that is, there would be no more repeaters supported at public expense. Judged by these moderate standards no juvenile institution reports fewer than 60 to 80 per cent of successful cases. In some state schools ninety out of every one hundred make good.

But this is not a just world. Some are returned to custody for minor violations: going to dance halls, losing jobs, running charge accounts, smoking cigarettes; others live within the letter of the law, and lie, cheat, are disloyal to comrades and indifferent to the suffering of others, and "get by."

We should remember that some of our girls on probation or parole endure struggles beyond anything demanded of the rest of us.

Elsie, aged seventeen, with an Intelligence Quotient of 80, an insane father, and drunken mother, went to work for a cleaning establishment at $16 per week after a period of ten months' training in a correctional school. She regularly paid $4 a week for the board of her baby. One night, on the way home from work, she was summoned to the receiving hospital where her nineteen-yearold brother was dying of gun shot wounds inflicted by the police in a raid. She arranged for the funeral, bore part of the expense, and conducted everything

herself. Later her mother died on the street, literally in the gutter, after a spree. Undaunted, Elsie carried on the stern business of running her own affairs. In two years there were reported of her only three minor violations: she went to a dance with a forbidden companion, again she stayed out till two in the morning, and she bought a white fur coat costing $60 on the instalment plan. She is now in an office earning $19 per week. It is instructive to note that she was given opportunity to make trials and errors without being crushed. Our girls have little discretion. As Morley observes, "in order to attain discretion, one must have destroyed innocence.

The ultimate success of a large proportion of our wards should fill us with humility. It is they who have attained durability, and a guiding line, in the face of handicaps and failure which is often beyond our utmost reach. We should recognize that many who do not achieve a worldly success, who fail in their adjustment to our sordid city streets, have attained those priceless virtues, tolerance, good will, and the will to struggle.

STATE PROGRAMS FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN

Harry H. Howett, Executive Secretary, International Society
for Crippled Children, Elyria, Ohio

Minnesota. From the historical standpoint, Minnesota deserves first place among the states providing for crippled children at public expense. As early as 1896, Dr. Arthur J. Gillette, an orthopedic surgeon, and others aroused the public to the duty of the state to the crippled child.

The first appropriation amounted to $10,000 for two years. The state university provided care for about seventy crippled children in the St. Paul City and County Hospital. In 1910 a county branch of this state hospital was organized for convalescent cases and opened its doors the next year at Phalen Park, with a capacity for about sixty patients. Thus, at the beginning, Minnesota had in reality two state institutions.

Since 1913 these institutions have been merged into one and the capacity has been increased from 130 to 210, the capital invested from $68,000 to over $420,000 for real estate and personal property, and the per capita cost from $300 to over $700. The expenditure for the year ending June 30, 1924, including construction, improvements, equipment, repairs and replacements, current expense, etc., was $213,013.04. The average population is 200, with as many more on a waiting list. Only indigent patients are admitted, but the out-patient department, which is conducted by one paid employee and many volunteers, has contact with some 2,000 children. It is important to note that the superintendent, in her report to the state board of control, in 1924, estimated the additional needs of the institution at $274,000.

A great part of the high-grade professional medical service of the staff of