"The methods of children’s courts, or juvenile courts, as they are termed in some States, differ in different places. In some States the judge is detailed from some other court; in some courts but one judge is assigned to this work. In New York several judges from the court of special sessions act successively in turn as judges of the children’s court. In Maryland and Indiana the judges of the children’s courts exercise this function only, and it is claimed that it is better than the method of rotation, since the judge who confines himself to juvenile court cases becomes a specialist in this work. In Colorado Judge Lindsey is not only judge of the juvenile court, but also of the county court. He finds advantage in the fact that in his first capacity he can protect the child, while as judge of the county court he can also sentence the guardian or parent who is responsible for the child’s delinquency. "An essential feature of every juvenile court is the probation system and probation officers. Their duty is to investigate the case before trial, and, if the child is placed on probation, to exercise watchcare over them until the period of probation is closed. It is in this way that the parental care of the State is exerted." The City of Chicago and the Legislature of Illinois have the honors of the origination of the Children’s Court as a distinct creation of law. The Visitation and Aid Society of Chicago had been laboring since 1891 to secure various measures of advanced legislation bearing on child-saving, without much success, until, as related in a report by Mr. Hurley, of that Society, the Bar Association of Chicago took the matter in hand, in 1899, and appointed a committee to press it. This committee drafted the first juvenile court law ever planned distinctly to that end and secured its enactment by the Legislature of the State. The law went into force on the 1st of July, 1899. The Court was soon opened, and Judge Tuthill, of the Circuit Court of Illinois, who presided in it from the first, has stated the principles of its constitution and action in these following words: "The basic principle of the law is this: That no child under 16 years of age shall be considered or be treated as a criminal; that a child under that age shall not be arrested, indicted, convicted, imprisoned, or punished as a criminal. It of course recognizes the fact that such children may do acts which in an older person would be crimes and be properly punishable by the State therefor, but it provides that a child under the age mentioned shall not be branded in the opening years of its life with an indelible stain of criminality, or be brought, even temporarily, into the companionship of men and women whose lives are low, vicious, and criminal.