UNDERRATING THE BOY. TREATMENT OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 41, 12 November 1907, Page 3

UNDERRATING THE BOY.

TREATMENT OF JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

f of i:u the mistakes into winch fathers fall is to underrate the son. n ho fails • to make a success at school. It is' perhaps natural, where a father strains every: nqrvo to sond his boy to collcgo, and the lad sticks in the middle or foot of the class, that he sets him down as a dunce and failure. But the probability is that the boy is neither. The man ivho xan do nothing with mathema- ; tics, nor master any language hut his own, may have a sound common-senso," a hearty lovo for his kind, a high integrity, and a cortain magnetism of manner which mayi mako him a lendor of men. Whether he becomes one or not depends greatly on the? faith which tho folks at home have in him Even if he bo weak.and vile he should not. ho made to fcol that tho homo faith has failed him. Many a poor wreck in life has been brought back to uncfulneis and honour hocauso two or throe old people in the far-off home have, despite all, continued to believe in him arid love him. It is a powerful lever jn a boy's life—this belief of tho old folks 1 in him; .it is a sad thing for a hoy when ho rrialisos that tho homo faith in him has N ceiased. '' . ,

Writing of the. State Children Relief Board and its Farm Home at Mittagong for 'the treatment of Wayward boys, the " Sydney Morning Herald" says: "The policy of the board is to. keep tha lads in the Farm

Homo for only a briof period—usually two months—when thoy aro placed with individual /.guardians in the country, where the essentials of a wholosoino home life are preand thoy can be trained under normal conditions to ultimately perform their duties as citizens. The board nolds—with the advanced thought in othor countries—that institutional care of children is'artificial. The proper place for children is not strictly guarded within four walls of a- largo building, but in the general community, under the dirijation of competent guardians—the natural parents when they are competent, foster parents ■in other circumstances —who live., ,tho lifo -with them, extending* advice and sympathy when tho trials of tho child-life appear, as they inevitably do, from day to .day.- Within an institution tho child is artificially protected from these trials until he' (or she) attains tho ago of 16 years.ITe is then sent into the community, tho entire conditions of tho change, are novel, and shorn of tho protecting bricks and mortar, ho is more than ever' liablo to fall a victim to temptation." \