The child is not punished to make an example of him, nor to reform him--but to form him. Reformation implies the change of a character already formed. The child’s character is in an evolutionary period, susceptible to formation but not to reformation. The criminal power of the state metes out punishment for reformation and as a deterrent to other persons who may be tempted to violate the law. The parental authority of the state is exercised to train the boy to be good and to remove him from the vicious environments which chain him to delinquency. Boys are naturally good--not bad. A study of the records of juvenile offenders will show that there are four dominant causes of delinquency, stated here in the order of their importance, for none of which is the boy himself directly responsible, namely: environment, poor training or lack of training, the bad example of parents, and heredity. I do not subscribe to the theory of the “innate cussedness” of boys. The “innate cussedness” of parents, in the last analysis, is usually the propelling factor in juvenile delinquency. The establishment of children’s courts has been significant in the awakening of the public mind to the state’s duty toward those of its children who from parental neglect or otherwise are delinquent or dependent. This moral awakening to the consciousness of governmental responsibility for the child has manifested itself in many states in the enactment of laws for the establishment of juvenile courts, and in others in the revivification and enforcement of sleeping statutes designed to meet the juvenile problem. But the state’s duty does not end with the placing of laws on the statute books; it still remains for them to be made effective by a judge who not only knows the law but who is inspired by a sympathetic understanding of child problems and child-nature; one who is able to ingratiate himself into the confidence of the boy and thereby become his friend, helper, and co-worker in his salvation. A knowledge of adolescent psychology will be of great help in getting the juvenile viewpoint which is so essential for a solution of the problems of wayward children. In a report by the Honorable Samuel J. Barrows, Commissioner for the United States on the International Prison Commission, he has this to say concerning the fitness of a judge of such court: “The personality of the judge, as well as that of the probation officer, is an element of vast importance in the success of any juvenile court. Such a court cannot be run on automatic or mechanical methods. Let it be reduced to a mere technical mechanism of rules and procedure and it will fail altogether. A firm yet sympathetic, tactful man of magnetic personality, as well as of legal knowledge, who understands boys and can secure their confidence is the man needed for this work; and some such men have already been called to this position.”