_Penal Methods in the United States of America._--It is in the United States of America that penal methods applicable in the case of juvenile offenders have obtained their highest development. Children’s Courts now exist in about thirty of the States; the first of these Courts came into existence in the year 1899. The Children’s Court is either a special department of an ordinary law court, or else a Children’s Court _ad hoc_; in either case it deals with all the punishable offences committed by children, with the exception of very serious crime. In many of the States of the American Union the Children’s Courts deal not only with neglected children and truants from school, but also, and very logically, with certain offences committed by adults; for example, the infliction of excessive punishment upon children, the ill-treatment of children, breaches of the laws regulating child-labour, and the like. In this we see a clear manifestation of the tendency to make the Children’s Court responsible for all legal matters wherein juveniles are concerned. The Children’s Court lays the greatest possible stress upon giving the accused an opportunity, after he has received appropriate instruction, to effect his own amendment without the further intervention of the Court. But should the offence be repeated, a sentence will have to be passed, and the matter of recidivity will have to be taken into consideration. The powers of the Court are the widest possible. It can reprimand the child, punish it, postpone sentence, send it to a reformatory, determining where and how the coercive reformatory education shall be effected, can summon the child before the Court at any time, &c. In many of the States, individualisation and classification have been carried so far that the Courts hold special sittings to deal with truancy from school, the case of neglected children, criminal offences, &c. The judge of the Children’s Court cannot expect to attain any very valuable results in the absence of a staff of assistants possessing the necessary training. But these assistants are not educationalists, nor doctors, nor child-protectors. The right hand of the Children’s Court is the “Probation Officer,” who is appointed by the Court--a thoroughly cultivated person, generally one trained originally as a teacher, who has received theoretical and practical training in a “philanthropical school.” They have no connection with the police, and yet have some of the powers of police officials. It is their duty to make all the investigations needed by the Court; they compile a record of the personal data of all the children who pass through their hands; they furnish reports to the Courts; help the children and their parents by word and deed, both during and after the legal proceedings, in the manner prescribed by the Courts; if necessary, they find suitable foster-parents, and keep under supervision all the children who are placed on probation.