JUVENILE CRIME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15504, 10 January 1914, Page 9

JUVENILE CRIME.

EFFECT OF ATHLETICS.

One of the great values of the extensive system of athletics adopted by American primary schools, said Mr. Pekotto, manager of the American aTTilctic team now in Auckland, in the course of a lecture on athletics last evening, was the fact that it had been attended by a very substantial reduction in juvenile crime. Nearly every school in America now lias its playing fields, which have the effect of keeping the children off the streets and out of mischief. In New York, said the speaker, one million dollars had been spent on a field which was hardly big enough for one baseball game, but the fact that the business for the Juvenile Court in that district had since been reduced by half was proof that the venture was worth while. Social clubs were connected with most of the schools, and these had proved invaluable in keeping boys away from one of the greatest city dangers, the very questionable dancing halls, in which the lads learned to drink and many other practices detrimental to their physique and manhood.