Important  as  are  the  immediate  services  of  a  juvenile  court
to  the  children  who  are  daily  brought  before  it  for  protection  and
guidance,  because  the  family  protection  has  broken  down  and
there  is  no  family  guidance;  painstaking  as  are  the  court's  methods
of  ascertaining  the  facts  which  account  for  the  child's  trouble,  his
family  history,  his  own  physical  and  mental  state;  hopeful  as
are  the  results  of  probation;  yet  the  great  primary  service  of  the
court  is  that  it  lifts  up  the  truth  and  compels  us  to  see  that  wast-
age of  human  life  whose  sign  is  the  child  in  court.
Heretofore,  the  kindly  but  hurried  public  never  saw  as  a
whole  what  it  cannot  now  avoid  seeing — the  sad  procession  of
little  children  and  older  brothers  and  sisters  who,  for  various
reasons,  cannot  keep  step  with  the  great  company  of  normal,
orderly,  protected  children.  Arnold  Toynbee  said,  "If  West
London  could  know  East  London  there  would  be  no  East  London";
and  so  in  time,  we  may  believe,  the  picture  presented  by  the  juve-

8


INTRODUCTION

nile  court  will  by  repeated  emphasis  so  impress  itself  upon  the  mind
of  the  town  that  new  safeguards  will  be  found  for  adequately
protecting  the  most  precious  possession  of  the  town — its  young
life.
The  results  of  this  investigation  lack  that  precise  definition
which  is  comforting  to  the  reforming  spirit.  The  study  shows
that  there  are  many  elements  combined  in  uncertain  numbers
and  quality,  some,  not  all,  discernible,  none  answering  absolutely
to  quantitative  analysis.  The  question  would  be  comparatively
simple  if  it  could  be  considered  one  alone  of  better  income  for  the
family,  save  in  certain  defined  groups;  for  instance,  in  those
groups  which  include  widowed  mothers  incompetent  to  rear  their
children  even  if  they  had  time.
