extending their interference with homes and with parents' wishes. Yet they should have jurisdiction for the sake of even the rare cases arising within the range of normal, so that physical care and moral protection might be assured, in some cases by injunction (against parents or resorts) to prevent imminent damage to children.

GROUP III: DEPENDENT CHILDREN

Chart A.-All children are dependent in a sense. A preferable phrase should be "destitute children," "children of dependent parents," or, "charity dependents." "Dependent," however, is the most usual phrase.

Treatment (right), in the absence of adequate social insurance, consists in an allowance paid of right to the mother or guardian from public or private funds sufficient to maintain a normal standard of living, and an insistence that this standard be lived up to by the parent.

The home, foster-home, or possibly the cottage institution is the agency, working under public welfare bureaux, boards of guardians, or children's aid societies.

So far as the child is concerned, there should never be anything in its dependency as such, to bring it before a court. If a dependent child comes to court, it must be because of some other feature of its condition.

Nevertheless, the family court should have jurisdiction in order to make it possible (a) for destitute parents to appeal for funds over a refusal of the relief agency, and (b) for an agency to appeal for enforcement of the conditions of relief when these are persistently ignored. The latter cases approach the character of neglect.

Chart B.-Many courts now administer widows' pensions, the child being first declared dependent after petition and hearing. The laws to this effect were based partly upon the fear of the admitted dangers of public outdoor relief (though it was staunchly denied that pensions are charity), and partly upon imitation. It should become possible to safeguard such grants by public executive bureaux as adequately as insurance grants under compensation laws.

"Dependency" is also used to gloss over neglect or delinquency, especially of girls. This is well intentioned, but unnecessarily tends to put stigma on children adjudged dependent who are in no way neglected or immoral.

On the other hand, our juvenile courts seem to lack adequate jurisdiction to compel public authorities to give relief if adjudged in the wrong in a previous refusal.

GROUP IV: NEGLECTED CHILDREN

Chart A.-The treatment (right) is family case work, temporary shelter, and physical care, perhaps placing out. These processes are carried out by protective agencies or officers, and boards of children's guardians. If a case prove impossible to adjust on a voluntary basis, any of these agencies, or a private citizen, may petition the family court (left) which should have a session for neglect cases. Neglectful or deserting parents who are also obstinate or defective would thus be brought to the bar. It is not the child who is on trial. (Occasionally the court might adjudge the social worker overzealous, and remand the child to his parents.) If the court decides as the social worker wished, the same treatment which would have been carried out on a non-compulsory basis if persuasion could have accomplished it, may now be carried out as planned by welfare agencies, but under court order.

As in the case of normal adoptions, under the proposed system it should be possible to transfer custody with due public records, but without court hearing unless an irreconcilable dispute is involved.

Juvenile Protective Associations and Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children have their place in the welfare system at present, but their functions might easily be divided between the educational system and a socialized police bureau.

The natural result of past neglect uncorrected may be the unemployable adult (right-hand edge). Employment exchanges should be in direct co-operation or articulation with farm- and trade-training, in which the homeless but educable incompetent may be voluntarily placed for an indeterminate period. The living and treatment should not be so attractive as to draw paupers. If consent cannot be obtained and the case be serious, employ

ment exchanges should then bring the case to the proper court (left-hand edge of left side). If there be children or wife, this would be the same court which deals with desertion and nonsupport; otherwise any court with jurisdiction over vagrancy.

Chart B.-By contrast, the actual practice does not permit transfer of custody of neglected children without court hearing, even by voluntary consent of all parties. The child is made the focus of the hearing, as much as the parents. Most states, however, have laws against abandonment, non-support, or contributing to dependency.

There is also no provision for supervised voluntary commitment of vagrants; the nearest equivalent is "getting into jail for the winter!"

On the other hand, much treatment of the kind appropriately carried on under non-court agencies is now being carried on also under court administration by officers of the court. Certain cases which might have been successfully arranged for without judicial sanction are made court cases. The court processes for neglected children include (by probation officers) investigation, referring back to agencies, or (by court order) judicial hearing upon the child's condition, detention, probation, placement (in certain courts), and commitment.

The court agencies for handling neglect cases are the probation office, the neglect session (sometimes combined with other sessions of the juvenile court) and the detention home. Of these three, the functions of the probation office (except in its investigation function in disputed cases) and the functions of the detention home (except occasionally for observation and clinical functions in disputed cases, or for emergency cases), could appropriately be administered by a non-court agency, with or without court order. The use of a children's aid society to provide detention under court orders in Boston indicates what may be done in this direction, though educational or public welfare authorities might undertake similar functions.

Many cases are handled "unofficially" by the court officers, in respect to one or all of these processes (see Group IX) (with possible exception of commitment). But records and technique

of such work are apt to be inferior. "Unofficial" work is highly unstandardized; yet, being under the aegis of the court, it doubtless discourages preventive case work by agencies of the welfare and educational systems and may lead to the wishing of cases upon the already overworked probation officer. For this and other reasons, unofficial practice in such courts, however well handled, seems to be false social economy.

The existence of this mass of "unofficial" work seems to the writer to constitute an admission that such cases do not call for court action, but for voluntary adjustment through welfare agencies.2

The treatment of neglected children by the juvenile courts includes the remanding of certain children to welfare agencies and institutions for treatment (board of children's guardians, etc.). This is quite proper, if the cases be such as could not have been handled successfully on a non-court basis. It is when the court tries itself to administer, or to control administration of, treatment in neglect cases, that confusion of function begins.

GROUP V: MENTAL DEVIATES

The space on both sides is shaded up to age three or so, as defect is not apt to be recognized or socially provided for before that period.

Chart A.-The treatment for backward, feeble-minded, and psychopathic children is individualized, and consists in clinical observation, investigation, and special adjustments of environment or curriculum in minor cases, and custodial care in more serious

cases.

Cases are discovered and treated through medical inspection, psychological and psychiatric clinics, visiting nurses, visiting teachers, and special classes or schools.

For custodial care or permanent segregation there are hospitals, asylums, and colonies.

All of these agencies, even those involving a transfer of custody, should treat cases without court action so long as agreement

'Cf. articles on this subject: Proceedings of National Probation Association, 1922-23; Journal of Delinquency, November, 1922, January, 1925; Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, May, 1923; Journal of Social Forces, September, 1923.

can be reached by persuasion. On the other hand, it should be equally possible for any of these agencies, even those special services attached to the present educational system,3 to appeal to the family court (left side of chart, neglect session) for sanction in carrying out treatment or securing a change of treatment. It should be possible for the court in disputed cases to order treatment under the appropriate educational or welfare agency, however near normal.

The majority of children being treated by special services of the educational system would thus be on a voluntary basis, but a few would be under treatment by court order; a majority of those (especially the older cases and adults) in custodial care would be then under court order, but a few, perhaps an increasing number, would be there on voluntary commitment. The Boston Psychopathic Hospital has many cases self-committed, or placed by relatives as in an ordinary hospital, though under suitable safeguards.

Proceedings for the proper care of defective children, like cases of neglect, are in behalf of the child, to be sure, and there must be impartial investigation of the child's condition; but the rights at issue are, after all, the claim of the parent to custody as against that of a social agency, or of the state as parens patriae. The parent, therefore, should be the party in whose name the trial is held, not the child.

If "eugenic" laws ever become fully operative, much will presumably have already been achieved in securing eugenic control on a voluntary basis, but family courts would appropriately have jurisdiction in disputed cases.

Chart B.-At present, there is an increasing amount of noncourt treatment of variate types of children, but custodial care ordinarily requires a court hearing with the child in the foreground, and a court order, even where there is general agreement as to facts and treatment. This is always the case for adults, except for a few sanatoria and psychopathic hospitals. The court is assisted in such cases by an expert or jury or commission. A few courts have jurisdiction over mentally and physically defective children.

* And including also the guardians of the child.