The  child  who  must  be  brought  into  court  should,  of  course,
be  made  to  know  that  he  is  face  to  face  with  the  power  of  the  state,
but  he  should  at  the  same  time,  and  more  emphatically,  be  made  to  I—
feel  that  he  is  the  object  of  its  tender  care  and  solicitude.  The
ordinary  trappings  of  the  court  room  are  out  of  place  in  such  hear-
ings. The  judge  on  a  bench,  looking  down  upon  the  boy  standing
at  the  bar,  can  never  evoke  a  proper  sympathetic  spirit.  Seated
at  a  desk,  with  the  little  one  at  his  side,  where  he  can  on  occasion
put  his  arm  around  his  shoulder  and  draw  the  lad  to  him,  the  judge
while  losing  none  of  his  judicial  dignity,  will  gain  immensely  in  the
effectiveness  of  his  work.
It  need  hardly  be  pointed  out,  however,  that  it  is  of  far
greater  importance  to  keep  children  out  of  any  court,  than  to
bring  them  into  the  juvenile  court.  In  many  communities,  the
influence  of  the  probation  officers  in  their  immediate  surroundings
has  been  such  that  they  have  become  arbiters  of  the  petty  disputes
and  quarrels  that  in  former  years  brought  not  only  the  children
but  their  parents  into  conflict  and  into  court.
