Kindergarten Magazine, April, 1901 Volume XIII April, 1901 Number 8 Editors in charge: Amalie Hofer, Nina C. Vandewalker, Marl Ruef Hofer, Bertha Johnston. Beginning a new Series, known to its publishers as, The Twentieth Century Series. Pertaining to all that concerns the democratic in education, as heretofore. Published by its owners, the newly organized Kindergarten Magazine Co., editorial and publishing offices being in the Fine Arts Building, 203 Michigan Ave., Chicago. Issued monthly from September to June inclusive, and entered at the Chicago Postoffice as second class matter. Copyright 1901. Yearly subscription, S2.00. Single numbers, 20 cents. \o England, 10 Shillings per year. Subscriptions are continued until ordered discontinued, and until arrearages are paid. Address subscriptions, manuscripts, book orders, and all postal or money orders, to the publishers. KINDERGARTEN MAGAZINE CO., Fine Arts Building, Chicago. CONTENTS OF APRIL NUMBER. PAGE Frontispiece — Field Museum, Jackson Park Tolstoi's School for Children . Evelyn H. Walker 411 German Building, Jackson Park, Chicago (Illustration) 416 Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel, a Biographical Study, Bertha Johnston 417 The Play Instinct Henry S. Curtis, Ph. D. 424 Anna E. Bryan — In Memoriam 433 Manual Training, Sloyd and Woodwork 442 Juvenile Delinquency and Dependency 448 I. K. U. Program 454 The Meeting of the Ways 456 Program Suggestions ... 456 Aesthetics for the Children 458 Awakening Processes in the Indian Kindergarten 459 Does the Imagination Need Stimulation 460 Are you at Fault - . 461 One Book and Some Others 463 Notes from the Educational Field 467 'MuslG for 1116 Gtilld World" ''.r.i'^Z °^™"Jf '""? ^f "^^'"^""' T" piled by Man R. Hofer. The selections are taken from the great music masters as well as the modern composers for children. They make pictures of interest to the children, while at the same time they maintain musical ideals. An interpreted description accompanies the selections which are grouped as follows: The morn- ing group, the nature group, the industrial group. The selections are headed by an appro- priate poetical quotation. "Music for the Child World" is being used in the public kinder- gartens throughout the country. Regular price $1.25; to present subscribers of the Kinder- garten Magazine the price is $1.00. With a subscription to the Kindergarten Mag. AziNE ($2.00), $2.60. Address KINDERGARTEN MAGAZINE CO., Chicago. 6U -i^fcY JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND DEPENDENCY. THE February issue of the Commons is devoted to results of an inquiry into Juvenile Delinquency and Dependency in Chicago, and the Juvenile Court Law, which handles cases coming under the above heads. Miss Edith Clarke, a resi- dent of the Chicago Commons, gives an excellent report made after several months' careful and thoughtful investigation of the subject. Richard S. Tuthill, Judge of the Court, tells how the law is working, and two of the Probation Officers, T. D. Hurley and Martha O. Fal- coner, also write on different aspects of the same subject. When the Illinois Congress of Mothers met for the first time last spring, it gave one full evening to addresses upon this law, its impor- tance and efficiency. There are surely few signs more hopeful for the future of the coming generations than are indicated by such wide- spread interest in all that tends toward the preservation and nurture of that divine spark which is inherent in all children. It is interesting to note that those who have been largely instrumental in introducing this law are stanch upholders of the kindergarten. They recognize the latent divinity that is in the child and that is seldom entirely obliterated even after years spent amid evil influences. Miss Clarke first gives a brief description of the youthful criminal's chances, or rather lack of chances, before the passage of this bill. Children nine and ten years old were, less than three years ago, tried and convicted as were men of forty. Those whose crime was per- haps a first offiense were sent to mingle with hardened criminals of the lowest order, and when the sentence had been served and the small sinner was once more free, there was no one to befriend the child, to "point to other worlds and lead the way." Small wonder that the young lawbreaker continued to find his chief joy in breaking more laws. Are we not all more or less inclined to conform to the conventions of that society in which we chance to move ? The dependent children whose parents are unable or unwilling to properly care for them were at this time not much better off. They, too, were in some cases sent to the Bridewell ; in others to the Poor- House. Here they grew up in an unnatural atmosphere of sickness, feebleness and death. It is appalling to think that such conditions JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND DEPENDENCY. 449 can exist in a community supposedly civilized. Fortunately for the credit of human nature and the welfare of the commonwealth, some friends of childhood finally made their voices heard. Several dif- ferent agencies were instrumental in creating a public sentiment that demanded different treatment for the child culprit. In this connection we quote from the Commons as follows : Among those who self-sacrificingly labored to inaugurate the better era now begun, the late Mrs. Alzina P. Stevens (a woman of unflinching fidelity to the working class and of great influence in labor organizations) had so much to do with bettering the conditions of child-life in Chicago, and her recent death was so great a loss that it seems fit to give here a brief account of her remark- able life. She was born in Parsonville, Me., May 27, 1849. At the age lof twelve years she entered upon work in a factory; and when she was eighteen years old she learned the printer's trade in Chicago, where, in 1877, she organized the Working Women's Union, No. i, and was its first president. After- wards she moved to Toledo, where she was engaged in editorial work on a Toledo daily. There she helped to organize a branch of Knights of Labor, called the Joan of Arc Assembly of the Knights of Labor. In 1892 sh« returned to Chicago, and at the World's Fair Labor Congress she was on the Women's Auxiliary Committee. She was appointed Assistant Factory Inspector in 1893 by Governor Alt- geld, and partly through her efl^orts the law of 1897 extending the child labor provisions was enacted. She did much toward the establishment of the Juvenile Court Law in 1899 and also of the Parental School Law. The Juvenile Court appointed her its first Probation Officer and her fidelity to that work was admirable. When she died she had about one hundred and fifty boys under her supervision from that Court. Her faithful work is deeply missed. She was a resident of Hull House for a few years before her death. Very different associations had a hand in the new movement for the chil- dren. The Labor Unions stirred up a feeling against child-labor and called the attention of the public to the conditions of children in factories and other business places. The State Conference of Charities, of 1898, devoted its entire time to the subject of juvenile delinquency and dependency. The State Federation of Women's Clubs and many of the local Women's Clubs discussed it. The Chicago Bar Association adopted a unanimous resolution in favor of suitable legislation and appointed a committee to draft a bill. These efiforts were successful in bringing into operation within the last three or four years four laws, the Child Labor, Compulsory Education, Juvenile Court and Parental School Laws. The Juvenile Court of Chicago was established in July, 1899. Any reputable resident of the County, most often a policeman or school teacher, may file with the Clerk of the Court a petition naming a cer- tain child as delinquent. A summons is then sent to the parents or 450 KINDERGARTEN MAGAZINE. guardian requiring- their appearance with the child when the Court is next in session. When a case is called the boy or boys concerned go to the Judge's desk, the witnesses standing behind them. The proceedings are quite informal, that a boy may not be frightened into silence or falsehood. The Judge talks with and warns the boy in a kind, fatherly manner, and encourages him to make a start in the right direction. The charges mostly brought against boys are for larceny. If it is the first offense, he is allowed to go home, being put under the supervision of a Probation Officer. If it is the second ofifense, or if for any reason the Judge thinks it best, the boy is sent to the John Worthy School. The Probation Officer acts as friend and counsellor to the child. She sees him from time to time, encourages him, assists and advises him in respect to home, school and surroundings. The Court is advised by reports from the Probation Officer of the; boy's attend- ance at school or his conduct in employment, if at work. . In the case of dependent children, petitions are filed and summons served much as in the cases of delinquency. If it is evident that the parents are trying to evade their parental responsibilities, he puts them in charge of a Probation Officer, but does not take the children away. Whenever he is resonably sure that the little ones are neg- lected at home or that it would be hurting them (on account of immoral influences) to leave them with the parents any longer, and that there is no suitable relative or friend to take them, they are declared dependent and are given into the hands of one of the socie- ties which care for children. These societies either have the children adopted into family homes or sent to suitable institutions. The sixteen months' experience of Chicago has proved that the services of a Probation Officer to be valuable must be persistent. Since, however, the law makes no provision for adequate compensa- tion, such help must come from outside sources. There are now over 1,500 children on probation, and since certain authorities con- sider that a Probation Officer should have no more than forty paroled to her at one time, it is readily seen that there is something to be done in the way of increasing the force. The Mayor has helped in this matter at the request of those interested in the workings of the Court by detailing a number fatherly men from the police force, who, in citizen's clothes, without baton or arms or any other outward sign of authority, act as Probation Officers. They have proved of invalu- able assistance in the work. That the new procedure has justified JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND DEPENDENCY. 45 I itself is quite evident when we learn that more than 85 per cent of the children now brought before the Court are practically saved, while under the old regime fully 95 per cent of the boys were lost. Speaking of the Juvenile Court Law, before the Illinois Congress of Mothers, Judge Tuthill said : " The essential part of this law is that no child under sixteen years of age shall be charged with crime, or called or treated as a criminal. This wise and thoughtful Judge fully realizes that the psycho- logical fact that "children are all different, all children vary; they vary as much in their mental and moral characteristics as they do in their physical features ; and so each child is a study by himself, and especially these delinquent and bad children. You have got to know about their homes, about their mothers and their fathers and their uncles and their aunts, everything you can find out, in order to act advisedly in each case." Here is another thought he gave the taxpayer to ponder upon : " I think if I could have twenty-five successful Probation Ofiicers, we could pretty nearly turn our jail into a warehouse, for from the ranks of such children as are brought into the Juvenile Court as delinquents 'nearly all the criminals come.' " Again Judge Tuthill says : " Good habits are of very much slower growth than bad habits ; and so when a boy is really delinquent he ought to be sent to a place to be taken care of for two or three years, or perhaps four, until good habits have been formed, until the old habits have been forgotten and thrown aside and looked upon with disgust and loathing, just as they come to look upon their foul clothing with which they come into the school." The Honorable Harvey B. Hurd expresses his views upon the value of beginning early with right influences, as follows : " By the proper looking after, instruction, and attention to the family, there will be less necessity of taking these children away from their homes and putting them somewhere else. * * * Here is this underlying principle or thought in the cases of delinquents, which is the fact that they have one hope above all others, and that is in the kindergarten, which lies at the very foundation of this work. * * * In regard to this work of reforming people, I am reminded of what Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes has said — that a man's birth ought to be ordered two or three hundred years before it took place, 452 KINDERGARTEN MAGAZINE. SO that a man could be prepared to be born right. Yoii commence with children in the kindergarten and you will not have nearly so many dependent children in the courts nor in the institutions, nor in tlie penitentiaries, nor in the reformatories, nor in any place that we call a prison. That is the effect of this work; and that is the ulti- mate final thought of this century on that question. The kinder- garten is the place to begin." In order to successfully cope with a disease, whether of the body personal or the body politic, we must understand the conditions under which that disease has flourished. Miss Clarke assigns several causes leading to the dependency and the delinquency of children. We reprint her statements in full on this subject : Weakness of the marriage tie is at the bottom of a great many cases of dependency. As long as it is an easy thing for men to marry, become fathers and then get divorced, only to leave their families and do the same thing over again; as long as the sacredness of the family relations is made light of, just so long will there be hundreds of little children, in our large cities, homeless and helpless, who will grow up with no happy remembrance of home and no desire to have the right kind of a home when they become fathers and mothers. With just as great vigor as we use to prevent smallpox, philanthropic efforts ought to be directed toward the prevention of dependency caused by this evil. The root of the difificulty is in our industrial organization. In the central portions of our large cities, it is almost impossible for parents to have pleasant homes and to bring up their children well. It is necessary for them to live in these places because machinery has diminished the demand for country labor- ers. They work in the large manufactories ; and because of the long hours and lack of money to pay car fare they must live near their place of business. Rent in that part of the city is very high and consequently they must live in a crowded way and without many of the modern conveniences. Their instincts of sociability lead many people to seek work in large cities and there are other motives that lead them there. Where there are six or seven families in one house and no place for the children to play except in the streets and alleys, when the families are poor and both father and mother are away all day working, the conditions are not conducive to a happy and prosperous home. Probably truancy has as much as anything else to do with landing boys in John Worthy School. Very few of the boys brought into Court had a good school record as to attendance. Eighteen per cent of i8o truants examined in Massachusetts had committed petty crimes. Truancy in 98 per cent of these cases led to vagrancy. Fourteen per cent of the inmates of the reformatories of the North Atlantic States can neither read nor write. In spite of the Compulsory Education Law in Illinois, out of 1,500,000 chil- dren of school age only 1,000,000 of them attend school. A boy who runs away from school invariably falls into bad company and gets into some JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND DEPENDENCY. 453 trouble. He loses interest in his studies and seldom amounts to anything unless something happens to change his course. Often the causes of truancy are inefficient teachers, bad systems of instruction or some physical defect in the child. The number of delinquent children will diminish in the same ratio as the number of truant cases is lessened. The John Worthy School above referred to is in the same yard as the Brideweh, but there is now no association between the prisoners and the boys. There is an average of 200 boys there all the time. As far as class work is concerned it is like a regular graded school. School is in session from 9 to 12 and 3 to 3 :30. After school there is more or less rough play under insufficient supervision. Some may employ themselves in brushmaking, but there is little occupation planned. In this respect the school is still deficient. In the evening a small library is at the service of the boys until bed- time at 8 o'clock. The corresponding school for girls appears to be better organized. It is charmingly located and the teachers in charge are competent and refined. Fewer girls are arrested than boys. The chief charge against them is, alas ! for immorality. The valuable report of Miss Clarke is concluded with the follow- ing summary: The greatest results in any reformatory work are of a preventive character. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the encouragement and strengthening of the home life of a dependent or delinquent child, or upon helping the chil- dren when they are very young before they are confirmed in dishonesty and sin. While there will always be cases where it will be absolutely necessary to remove children from the care and influence of unworthy people, still it is true that the greatest good can be accomplished through the steady education of the poorer classes about their responsibility to childhood. For this reason, the probation system in Chicago, which I have described, seems to me to be a step in the right direction. If the officers had more leisure they could do a wondrous work in this line. I -10 1