But some years ago the juvenile courts were established. It had become apparent that numbers of disorderly children, mainly from broken homes, were being brought into the criminal courts for escapades and sexual offenses, placed in jails with hardened criminals and thereby having the possibility of the formation of a normal scheme of life destroyed once and forever. Certain women were the first to protest and to act, and the result was the formation of a court for children which dispensed with lawyers and legal technicalities, and treated the child as far as possible as an unruly member of a family, not as a criminal. The first of these courts was established in Chicago, and in 1908 provision was made for the study of the child by endowing a psychological and medical clinic,—a practice which has been followed by other juvenile courts. During the past decade some of these courts have reached a high degree of elaboration and perfection. Their service has been very great in checking the beginnings of demoralization. The court is wiser than the parents of the children and incidentally does much to influence home life. These courts have also focused attention on the general questions and methods of reform and have begun to influence both penal institutions and general education. There are many successful formulations of influence developed by women of insight and personality connected with the juvenile courts in numerous localities. An important review of these conditions has recently been made by Miriam van Waters.[96] But perhaps the highest perfection of procedure has been reached in the juvenile court of Los Angeles where Dr. van Waters is herself the referee. 87. In the treatment of juvenile delinquency that comes before the court and involves change in status there should be an integration of the forces that seek to establish new social relationships.... Some mechanism of passing the threshold from ward of the state to the threshold of normal citizenship should be devised with sufficient strength to endure over the period of crisis. An attempt to meet the problem of socialization has recently been begun in behalf of the juvenile court of Los Angeles County. For the girl whose normal relation to the family group has been severed by reason of the permanently broken home, parents dead, imprisoned, incurably ill, or defective and the like—a girl whose behavior-difficulties make it impossible for her to be absorbed in the neighborhood group—there is usually no provision but the reformatory institution. A place of adjustment, a link between the court, the detention home and the community is an important phase of diagnosis and treatment. El Retiro, a school for girls of Los Angeles County, is an experiment toward such solution.