JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12550, 18 April 1904, Page 6

JUVENILE OFFENDERS.

TO THE EDItOR. Sir, — am sorry to learn from your report thai, the City Schools Committee had no encouragement to give Mr. Draffin in his laudable endeavour to bring about an improved method of dealing with juvenile offenders. One of the committee seems to think that children are not likely to hear anything objectionable in a Police Court. If that is the case the Police Court must be a different sort of place from what it was in the days when I had to do with it. But however this may be I think there can be no question that our methods of dealing with young offenders' are crude, slovenly, and far from being up-to-date. I trust that Mr. Draffin will not bo discouraged. If the official trustees of the moral welfare of thc> children will not take any action in the matter, perhaps some assistance may be obtained from such of the public as are well disposed to the suggested reform; and the magistrates, if properly approached, might do something in the direction indicated without any legislative enactment. We have to find a solution to many difficult problems, but to none more difficult or urgent than the' question how tc ensure to the coming years that best inheritance, which consists in a new generation of citizens, sound in mind and body, and with broad views and high ideals. It seems to be agreed that the number of our children falls far short of what it ought to be in a young and undeveloped country; we cannot even keep those we have without losing a large percentage from preventive causes ; and of those we do keep how many do wo try to educate by cramming them with information, instead of making it our first object to cultivate in them true manly and womanly characters? And if, of these children, a largo percentage slips across the margin that separates a merely illtrained character from a criminal one, how many more must there be who are perilously close to that margin?—l am, etc., J. Giles. Selwood Cottage, Patumahoe, April 13, 190-I.'