The boy is kept at school for nearly as many hours in the week as many men work, and when he is set free from its restraint he runs wild--if he is not too tired, or if he has not been set tasks which cause him to work overtime at home. He gets into mischief, and is denounced for his misdeeds and the trouble and annoyance he causes; but boys are not more mischievous than they were. There are few adults who have not been a great nuisance to others in their own early days, but too many of them seem to have forgotten all about that. By all means let the boy who has played some mischievous prank be restrained and corrected, but in choosing the method it might not be a bad plan to remember the exploits of a boy who was no better in his day than the culprit is, if no worse. When we show that we recognise a clear distinction between cramming juveniles with knowledge and educating them, they will learn at the school how to amuse themselves without annoying others. At present they are in this respect left mainly to their own devices, and in very few cases is there any serious ground of complaint against them. Considering their imitative tendencies and the incitements many of them have towards wrongdoing, it is wonderful how few go far astray. When a boy is sent to a reformatory he has opportunities given him for play, and the importance of providing different forms of recreation for him is not ignored. This is by some called "putting a premium on wrongdoing," and yet in spite of the reward there are few boys who deliberately adopt a course of law-breaking in order to have the advantages of life in that institution. Either they are too stupid or there is not such a bias on their part towards evil as some would have us suppose. The recreation which forms part of the means adopted to reform the boy who has transgressed might conceivably prevent transgressions if it were placed within the reach of others, especially as the association of boys whose common interest is that they have all been before the courts is not likely to make for their improvement. Whatever its defects as an educational institution, the school has this to its credit, that a better standard of conduct is maintained than could be acquired by many of the scholars if they were left to grow up under the conditions that obtain in their homes. Now and then someone does a particularly shocking thing, and until quite lately when this occurred the offender was liable to be brought to the police court. Now there is a special court for dealing with children, but as there is no change in the judge or in the officials before whom the child appears, all that has been gained is his separation from older offenders. This is something to be thankful for, but it is a minor mercy compared with what ought to be done. He is more a subject for treatment by those whose experience enables them to understand children than a "case" to be tried by a magistrate whose traditions are those of the criminal courts.