New Britain herald., 1929-12-31
C.B. Booth Blames Broken Homes For Youth Filling Up Prisons,
 In Talk to Civic Clubs Today

CTS of such splendid efforts as the Boy Scouts, the Y. M. C. A. the Boys club. and similar boy and gil guiding activities, but our interest should be active and not passive. prompted by the knowledge that their work can only be fully success ful when the business life and social and home life of the community gIves the background of example 10 their teaching of ideal.
 Youth has a right to demand Of age three contributions to spiritual l. becomes a man size job for any man 10 live his daily contacts with the life about him in such a way that he is constantly giving child hood that comes into touch with his life those needed incentives to right thinking. It is just this effort that Big Brother service stresses. The work is done through the carefully planned contracting of the individual selected lay Big Brother, a business or professional man of the com- munity. with some little lad need ing the guidance and friendship that will emphasize in his life the ten- dencies to decency which are or should be an inherent part of his nature
 Effects of Broken Home
 Recently I heard two prctentiols statements closely associated. Tle first came 10 me from a high school principal in d middle western city Nho told of just having completed a survey of the homes of his thou sand students. He had discover%1 that 45 per cent of those boys an1 girls came from homes broken Or disrupted by parental death, separ&- ton or divorce.
 The second was made by that nationally known prison authority, Warden Lawes of Sing Sing prison, New York state He stated that after a most careful and exhaustive study of the early life influences of many hundreds of prisoners under HIS Cdlt- lIt lldu loulll llidI Oc Ptl cent became criminal directly as the result of the adverse influences of the broken homes which had . been theirs in childhood.
 Back of these broken homes is the social and business life of the community. is tendency on the part of some to make sport of the law. is the failure of many indi- Nidual adults to grasp the sacred- ness of their responsibility toward the forming child attitudes of thous- ands who will race with unbeliev- able rapidity toward manhood and Womanhood.
 If we as adults hold our ideals high, and, in our leadership serve with renewed spirit of self sacri- flee. our giving of example will bear rich fruit in finer, truer citizenry for the years to come. and each of us will have caught the vision Of big brothering at least to the extent of so ordering ou lives that they shall make their contribution in finencss to the children of our com- munity.
 This done we will have recog- nized the problem of this small boy of New Britain who IS reaching out toward manhood and through the service of our individual lives made of the formation, and development of that chld's character, a man size job.'
 During the course of his address Mir. Booth told more of the work of the Big Brother and Big Sister fed eration. The federation is national representative of the 800 groups of men or women who are doing this special lay service for children. The emphasis in this work is being placed on reaching the child in early adolescence, and at a time when behavior problems of more serious nature first evidence them selves. Tt is then that the personal interest of the adult is enlisted. and through the friendship between adult and child the tendencies to child delinquency are combatted and eradicated. Ninety-five per cent of all the children contacted never ap- pear in a juvenile court after as- sgnment to this older personal