Los Angeles herald., 1906-11-06
BLAMES REFORM
SCHOOL TO WOMEN
LACK OF INTEREST is CAUSE,
SAYS WILBUR
Juvenile Court Judge Asserts DEPART
ment Does Not Amount to Much
and Will Not Until Con-
ditions Arc Changed

The members of the 11bell club ma, had
the boy question put before tneI'l i.ra
bly, yesterday by Prof. 70. q Moo,e'
superintendent of the public schools;
and Judge G.. d. Wilbur. They hau an
phases of the boy nature snoWh w
them. and Judge Wilbur even went so
far as to say: .ho rofor,n
sobnoi co., and other like bodies are
djrect1v responsible for not hndlng
thorn good homes when they needed
fheno 4" he further startled his hearers
by declaring, -. soosr4 or,o,,nt
to ANYTHING and 1t never Will wlthouc
tbe hearty cooperation of every one.
when we consider what bundle of
nernlexities. what a mass of impossi-
hilities there are in boy, we are dis
maved, but there are two things that
must be done in Los Angeles. We
must help the boys to become men and
we must give every boy chance
Judge Wilbur was very emphatic
about the little good the penitentiary
and reform school did to men and boys
sent there, declaring that in most cases
1t completely demoralized them. lie
gave one instance of man in Folsom
penitentiary who, through his long resi-
dence there and good behavior, had be-
come trusty and held one of the most
enviable positions in the jail that
prisoner could attain. He was personal
valet to the Jail warden, and in this
capacity when his master was absent 1t
was his duty to take visitors through
the prison. On one of these occasions
he was heard to remark:
Thankful of Guilt
"It's an awful thing to be in prison,
an awful thing, but it is still more
awful to be in prison and be innocent,
and / thank God every night of my
life that am guilty" In telling of the
causes Of the child's demoralization he
said:
"The depravity of the parent con-
tributes to the delinquency of the child
in nearly every case, and although we
try to punish the parent, it is not very
salutary. Now all we can do is to
compel the parent to attend court ev-
cry so often and hear his faults aired,
but that does not do much good in the
more hardened cases, and there should
be some better way.
"It all comes through the child not
having had the chance.
when he Is still almost baby he is
sent to work and never has chance to
do anything for himself. He becomes
mere machine and by the time he is
man he is usually a criminal, as it is
the only outlet for his submerged
mind.
Some Have No Chance
"a child that has no home is usually
the one that fares worst. Either the
mother or father has left or been di-
vorced, and the home, bad as it is but
still a good influence, is broken up and
the child is on the streets. If the hus-
band has deserted his wife, the woman
has to send her children to work, and
their decentralization has begun, and as
1t is now there is no way to bring the
10 iuGfina chn111d hn q
national law making it a felony for a
man to desert his wife.
"Truancy is usually the first symp-
tom OF delinquency, and the problem of
the juveline court is to keep the chill
dren in the public schools
Prof. Moore told of the child labor
question and its abuses, relating many
pitiful instances of the inhuman treat
ment Of children in their work, and
stating as his opinion:
'The two remedies for it are a ma
tional child labor law and compulsory
education. Compulsory education is as
old as the hills, even Aristotle saw it's
advantages; and now certainly we in
our advanced civilization should be able
to do something.
Children Exploited
"Children do not work because they
want to, nor in most cases because
their parents want them to, but when
ever you find children working where
they should not, harming themselves in
body and SOUL and against the law of
the land, you can depend upon it that
somebody is making money out of
them. 1t is the same with the tene-
ment question. There would be no ten
ements If some one did not want to
usurp all the money they could possibly
lay their hands upon.
MANY mothers and fathers, when we
come after the children to make them
go to school, ask what right we have,
and II the children do not belong to
them? But that is just where they are
mistaken, for they are only the trustees
for the children, and their sons and
daughters have far greater rights over
themselves than they have and the
state has its right. too, for If our chill
dren were not educated where would
the state be? We would have none,
and its only preservation lies in the
children.
II think if we could find some way,
or as they do in Paris, have all the chill
dren registered in the police records of
every precinct, and in that way find out
who is going to school and who is not,
we would find that the truant question
would be obliterated and incidentally
the need of the reform school"
Civics was the subject before the club
yesterday, in charge of Mrs. Augustus
Hine, assisted by Mrs. J. w. Van CIeve.