school. Some useful things he could have learned had society furnished
the right teachers, surroundings and opportunities to make the most of
an imperfect child. Early in life he does some desultory work in casual
occupations. This of course is not steady, but he picks up what he can
and keeps the job for a short time, sometimes quitting work because he
is discharged and sometimes because, like most boys and men, he does not
like to work. His playground is the street, the railroad yards or vacant
lots too small for real play, and fit only for a loafing place for boys
like himself. These gather nightly and talk of the incidents that
interest most people, mainly the abnormal things of life and generally
the crimes that the newspapers make so prominent to satisfy the public
demand. He learns to go into vacant buildings, steals the plumbing, and
he early learns where to sell it. From this it is only a short step to
visiting occupied buildings at night. In this way he learns to be a
burglar as other boys learn to play baseball or golf.

Naturally he has no strong sense of property rights. He has always had a
hard time to get enough to eat and wear, and he has grown up
unconsciously to see the inequality of distribution and to believe that
it is not fair and that there is little or no justice in the world. As a
child he learned to get things the best way he could, and to think
nothing about it. In short, his life, like all other lives, moves along
the lines of least resistance. He soon comes to feel that the police are
his natural enemies and his chief business is to keep from getting
caught. Inevitably he is brought into the Juvenile Court. He may be
reprimanded at first. He comes again and is placed on probation. The
next time he goes to a Juvenile Prison where he can learn all the things
he has not found out before. He is known to the police, known to the
Court, known to the neighbors. His status is fixed. When released from
prison, he takes his old heredity back into his old environment. It is