Excerpt from Children's Courts in the United States, Vol. 1: Their Origin, Development, and Results If the question be asked, "What is the most notable development in judicial principles and methods in the United States within the last five years?" the answer may unhesitatingly be, "The introduction and establishment of juvenile courts." Never perhaps has any judicial reform made such rapid progress. Beginning in Chicago in 1899, this institution has sprung up in city after city and State after State until it is now established in eight States and eleven large cities. This progress has been made not merely by changes in procedure or legal technique, nor by the introduction of a new method; it is most of all by the introduction of a new spirit and a new aim. In the application of the same repressive machinery which has been traditionally applied to older offenders, children have been sent to the same jails and have often been confined in the same tiers or even in the same cells with hardened criminals; they have been judged by the same laws and in the same spirit. The main question before the court has been, "How much of a man is this child? Did he know that a particular action was wrong, and how much shall he be punished for this particular offense?" In short, the judicial attitude of society toward the child has been that of punishment and repression. The attitude of the juvenile court, on the other hand, is benignant, paternal, salvatory, and for these very reasons is more efficiently corrective. It must not be supposed that the juvenile court is only a smaller court for smaller offenders or simply a court holding separate sessions for such offenders; it represents an altogether different principle. The juvenile court is a life-saving institute in society. It is scarcely necessary to say that child-saving methods, institutions, and organizations have long flourished in the United States. The Northern States have regarded juvenile reformatories as a part of their correctional equipment, and the courts have served as vestibules for such institutions; but they have only been incidentally a part of the process. We have not before realized what the court might be and do before resorting to institutions. The children's court still maintains relations with the reform school, but it represents in itself active and vital forces and invokes a whole range or influence and motives which are personal and formative. It appeals to the reform school not as the first, but only as the last resort. The juvenile court has discovered that the child is a child, and, as Judge Hurley says, "The child should be treated as a child. Instead of reformation, the thought and idea in the judge's mind should always be formation. No child should be, punished for the purpose of making an example of him." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.