As stated already, the Juvenile Court is now an established institution in nearly every part of the United States, and in many countries abroad. It was established in Great Britain by the notable "Children Act" of 1908 (see above), and was instituted that year in several of the German cities. A Press despatch from Berlin, March 15, 1909, reported the opening of a congress in that city, under the auspices of the German Association for the Care of the Young, which aims at the extension of this important reform. "The labors of the society," says the despatch, "seem to have been stimulated by the passing of the English Children Act of 1908, a German translation of which has been distributed to members of the congress. The movement for the establishment of special Courts for juvenile offenders was taken up in Germany later than in some other countries, but has recently made rapid progress. The first children’s Courts were established on January 1, 1908, at Cologne, Stuttgart, and Breslau, and there are now 26 such Courts in Prussia. Official statistics, however, indicate that in recent years the total number of juvenile offenders in Germany has grown about three times as fast as the total number of offenders of all ages. During 1906, 55,211 persons under the age of 18 were sentenced, as compared with 51,232 in 1905 and 49,993 in 1904." At the meeting of the International Prison Commission, at Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1907, it was significant of the deep interest which the children’s court has awakened in Europe that nineteen societies in France, including the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, the General Society of Prisons, and the faculties of law of Paris, Lille, and Montpellier, and several of the most prominent tribunals in France, asked to have the whole subject of the organization of children’s courts elucidated and discussed. A similar interest was shown in Switzerland and Germany. In an extended letter to the London _Times_, published August 19, 1909, Miss Florence Davenport-Hill traced the origin of children’s courts to Massachusetts, and gave the following account of their introduction from that source of suggestion into Australia, and thence, to some extent, into Great Britain. Miss Davenport-Hill’s statements on the subject are, in part, as follows: