“There are many such instances of cruelty to young convicts, white and black, for which the State has provided no better reformatory than the chain gang, and yet people of the South are a humane people, abhorring cruelty. “The final argument for the extension and complete adjustment of the juvenile court system in the South and for the building and proper maintenance of model reformatories is the development of the factory villages of the South, with their system of family labor, including the labor of the child. There are now some seven hundred or eight hundred of these communities in the South, either entirely separate from other communities or forming a separate section of our municipalities. “It has been amply proved that the ranks of our criminal population are not being recruited from the schools, but from the army of neglected children, especially the army of the toiling children. It is a matter of commonest complaint of the managers of our factories where children are employed that both the boys and the girls, especially the boys, so soon become unmanageable. “Their arguments in opposition to child labor laws really amount to the plea that these children of the factory villages must be sentenced to labor in the mills, either by day or by night, in order that they be kept out of mischief. “I hold that the child labor system or the family labor system--in the one case the mother being kept at work and away from the duties of the home; in the other case, the children early developing, as bread-winners, first the spirit of independence, then of irreverence, disobedience and finally hoodlumism--is responsible for this state of affairs. “We are making progress in the South in the correction of this abuse. At the same time there is urgent need for the proper handling of these children of the factory districts, under authority of the law, when they manifest their disposition to recruit the criminal classes.” On the question, “What Should the Probation Officer Do for the Child?” Mr. Thurston said: “Two theories are now in conflict in the United States, one that it is enough to look after the child thirty, sixty or ninety days, keep it out of court, and then discharge it; the other, that if something is wrong with the child’s intellectual, physical and moral adjustment, this must be found and, if possible, corrected. “The delinquent child is an embryo enemy of society as now organized,” he said. “The duty of the probation officer is far more than the collecting of fines, receiving reports and carrying out explicit court orders. He has an opportunity to get in close touch with the youthful criminals as few can. “Of course, the child should be made to obey the law and live up to court orders. There can be no two opinions on this point, but mere external conformity is not real obedience, and the probation officer must strive to reach the sources of the child’s delinquency.