108 MORAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



standard of character? By heredity and educa- 

 tion. One is born so defective mentally that he 

 can never keep step with society, and we call him 

 an idiot and place him in an institution to be 

 cared for. The aberration of another is not in 

 the same direction, yet he is against the standards 

 of society; will not comply with them; interferes 

 with the rights of others. He is a criminal. Some 

 of these we kill ; some we imprison for life ; some 

 we undertake to reform. What is the matter with 

 them? Why are they as they are? Well, some 

 of them are born with this disposition. Is this 

 disposition a positive element in their nature, or 

 a defect, a minus quantity? Confining our an- 

 swer now to those born with the criminal dispo- 

 sition, we believe it is a minus, not a plus quan- 

 tity. They are not born with a whole human na- 

 ture plus something which we call sin ; but with a 

 human nature in which something is lacking. 

 Miss Maude E. Miner, secretary of the New York 

 Probation Association, says in the Second Annual 

 Eeport concerning the girls coming under the cus- 

 tody of the society: "The large number are not 

 guilty of moral obliquity because they are natu- 

 rally bad, vicious, and depraved. In my work with 

 girls in and out of courts and prisons during the 

 last five years I can truthfully say that I have 

 seen very few girls who could be so classed. In 

 comparison with the total number few have chosen 

 the life deliberately. The general truth is that 

 they have drifted into a life of vice through weak- 



