The Irish standard., 1903-05-16

| their whole natures hardened. They ar
not strong enough to bear up under
the strain. They are away from all
parental and other control and the ten
dency certainly is to learn the vices,
rather than the virtues. Hard work
has blighted their makeup, play and
recreation is denied them and when
| they become little older they seek
to avoid work which has always been
a task imposed upon them. The only
avenue of escape from the hated work
is crime and there many of these child
laborers end up. If you want to verify
this go into any court of petty offenses
in any large city on any morning and
look over the prisoners. You will find
there a lot of boys and girls just over
the school age and many within the
school age, charged with misdemeanors
and crimes running almost through the
entire penal code, but the most common
charges are for crimes relating to tax
ing what does not belong to them, some
thing that can be utilized as means
of support. One wonders how these
children acquired the practice of crime
at such an early age. A few questions
by the magistrate brings out the fact
that while they are children in years,
they are old in the ways of the world.
Their characters have been formed
amidst hard surroundings and under
constant strain, and is it wonderful
that those characters are hardened and
blighted? And this at an age when
if they had had proper training and
education,t they would be just surfing in
to learn some useful trade or occupa-
ton. the state finds itself obliged to
send them to reform schools where
they are maintained at the expense of
the state, and the most unfortunate
part is that they too often do not re-
form but become permanent addition
to criminality. One Of the judges of
the district court in this city was re-
Gently quoted as saying that the num-
Der of juvenile offenders has been in
creasing very rapidly.
President Rabney of the university of
Tennessee, in recent discussion of the
school question in the South, says:
"Our southern states still have to
learn that the first duty of a commun-
ity is to provide schools for it's chill
dren and it's second duty is to see that
| the children attend them. A business
| man in scanning the educational and
criminal statistics of Tennessee would
| be bound to declare that at present we
are devoting too much money to our
| criminal courts and too little to our
schools. For example, in Knox county,
one of the most Intelligent and pros
porous in Tennessee, in population of
74,000 one person out of every twenty
four was prosecuted for crime and one
half of them were of school age. One
half of the money spent in those prose-
cutions would have sent nearly 10000
children to school for the full year.
Our prison reports show that among
the Jail population there are eight IL
literates to every one who can read
and write. and in our penitentiaries
there are six illiterates for every one
that can read and write. Comment is
unnecessary. but you will admit that
the facts prove my propositions
Minnesota has performed it's first
duty well, that of providing schools: it
only remains for the state to prevent
child labor and compel attendance at
school. We believe that if this were
done there would not he such large
proportion of youthful offenders ar
raigned at each term of court. For our
own part, we can bear without much
loss of sympathy to see dishonest pub
lie servants and embezzlers convicted
and punished, but it is hard sight to
see young boys, sixteen to twenty
years of age, before the bars of public
justice for violations of law which only
too often they have never been taught
to respect. Let the state pursue the
former class with merciless persistence
but let it guard and protect the latter
with the most careful and tender care