158 MORAL CONDITION OF THE CHILD 



for developing the child's physical life? for de- 

 veloping the child's mental life? and has left his 

 spiritual life without plan or care a matter of 

 chance, caprice, magic, miracle, or whim? As- 

 suredly not. Here as elsewhere, nay, more, just 

 here especially God has a right time and a right 

 way. ' ' 



It is probably not sufficiently realized that 

 youth is the great crime-producing period. The 

 County Court of Kings, New York, for the year 

 1908 passed sentence on 950 persons convicted of 

 crime. Of these 491 were under twenty years of 

 age and 283 were between twenty-one and thirty, 

 and only 176 were above thirty years of age. In 

 New York State in one year the superintendent 

 of instruction reported 179,000 arrests of children 

 under fifteen years of age. In France it is noted 

 that during recent years juvenile depravity and 

 criminality have greatly increased. They have 

 passed a law that recognizes that every criminal 

 under eighteen is still a child, and as such unfit 

 for prison. Houses of correction are established, 

 the distinguishing feature of which is, as far as 

 possible to keep those convicted in touch with the 

 home, recognizing it as containing the only suffi- 

 cient elements for character formation. " Pos- 

 sessing as they do the ear, the heart, and the sym- 

 pathy of the child, parents have it within their 

 power to develop the child into almost whatever 

 they may wish. Hence if they would get back to 

 the Hebrew conception of the family, and would 



