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Show i JUVENILE DISCIPLINE i AND EDUCATION. 1 According to a recent survey of the "reformatory" known as the St. Charles (Illinois) Training School, by Director Rodney H. Brandon, maudlin methods, in the treatment of juvenile hard characters are not accomplishing accomplish-ing results. This survey will be a disappointment dis-appointment to many conscientious men and women as well as the over-sympathetic over-sympathetic welfare worker who would substitute soft measures of discipline dis-cipline for the sterner, more practical methods in dealing with such juvenile characters. The Brandon survey of the St. Charles Training School shows thac of 600 boys who were released near the close of 1924 a majority of them were not long in returning to their criminal crim-inal ways. However, a decided difference differ-ence is indicated between the boys who were sent from Chicago and those from other parts of the state. Of the 300 boys from Chicago or Cook county, 217, or 72 per cent, were arrested, ar-rested, tried and convicted for various crimes and misdemeanors. Of 300 boys from other parts of the. state, 121, or just above 40 per cent, were arrested, tried and convicted' for similar crimes and misdemeanors. Doubtless there were a number out of the remaining 28 per cent and 60 per cent of previous pre-vious offenders who were not apprehended appre-hended and brought to justice. It would appear from these figures that more than 50 per cent of the youthful offenders sent to the St. Charles Training School who were grailty of all sorts of crimes and mis-- mis-- demeanors short of murder, are not reformed by sentimental means. Many of our youths, already hardened criminals crim-inals before they are sentenced to our reformatories, are robbers, rapists, thieves, destroyers of property and assaulters whose contempt for the law and good morals is beyond any hope of reform except by the sternest kinds of intelligent discipline. The problem, primarily, is one of education. Many boys and girls are saved from a criminal career by the trained teacher who is able to detect tendencies in children which, if not eradicated by skillful direction, become be-come criminal. The problem of determining deter-mining the kind of discipline to be applied to the youthful offender after af-ter he is sent to the reformatory is also one of education, all of which centers on the need for a department of education provided with means to aid states in adequately training their public school teachers and their directors direc-tors of and teachers in reformatories. |