The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-12-18
COLLEGE, BOYS FRANKS.
Increase i'm Juvenile MisdemeanOrs
Due to Them.
New York Tribune:

New York Tribune:
1.-The exploiting of college boys and their
pranks in the newspapers has made many
boys think that lawlessness is manly" said
Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer to the womens
study class of the Society of Ethical Gull
ture yesterday, in enumerating the causes
which make for the increase in juvenile
misdemeanOrS in this country. The great
publicity given to college boys. the lengthy
accounts of matches, the pictures of the
football heroes, the joking over their eS-
capades, have had an immediate effect ON
the imagination of the ordinary boy from
Maine TO California.
at makes my blood boil" continued Mrs.
Spencer Indignantly, Ito see a group OF
Fast Side boys condemned to the Reforma-
tory for playing some tricks in the street,
and when a crowd of college boys larking
past my house at 2 o'clock in the morning
Goes the very same thing have 1t treated as
a joke and laughed at in the editorial col
umns of the papers next day.
This privilege of the college boy to mis-
bahav is the last remnant of the class
privilege in American life. There are other
countries which retain the class privilege
of the military or the militia, but l know
of none that has held over from the past
in this country except the college boys
class privilege. 1t has its root in the old
idea that the university student forms a
class in himself, and that while he is form
ing into a man he ought TO be allowed TO
act as a boy
Mrs. Spencer's subject was ''Truants and
What TO Do with Them" 1t was the first
in a group of three lectures on delinquent
children. which will be followed by three
on defective children and four on dependent
and neglected children, the whole forming
a course of ten on child care and child
saving
In the course of an address of great earn
estness the lecturer said:
Juvenile delinquency has increased
markedly in this country within the last
thirty years. What are some of the special
causes?
I'm the United States we have unprece-
denied political and domestic freedom,
which affects adults, but children especial
ly. 1t results in the development or the
individual before the development of habit.
1t exerts a pressure on the chid to decide
before the capacity has been gained to de-
eide. 1t is, on the whole, one OF the most
beneicent of disciplines a people can UNI
dergo, but one of the most troublesome.
Its general tendency In America Is danger
Gus to children. 1t encourages Viii, indi-
yiduality, choice, decision before naDlt mas
been grounded into character.
The general difficulty we are laboring
under is how to apply democracy TO the
undeveloped human being. This is the
problem of the age. We have had a fragrant
example of the difficulty of IL right here in
New York in our recent elections. Freedom,
and only the coward, that nearly obsolete
creature. the aristocrat and the fool can
dream of going back to the old order. Free
dom, democracy, give us our trouble with
our children. IL we have more trouble with
our children than other nations have with
theirs it is because our democracy is fur
Their advanced
Another reason cited as a cause of 1uve-
nile delinquency is the change of religious
ideals. This" Mrs. Spencer said, has
been practically universal in America.
Whereas fifty years ago religion exalted
control and obedience, now we exalt the
idea of sympathy and a response to SYM
pathy that shall be entirely voluntary. This
works well with finer natures, but has
great difficulty in appealing to coarser
types
The growth of cities. the damming of
childish energy by city restraints, the
spread of learning without corresponding
development of character, were other rea-
sons assigned.