Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/189

 ings about

such things, as he shows by the way he writes of them. The man has humour and heat, but also he has charity and infinite patience. He was as gentle with those parents as he was with their children. Having discovered early that many parents thought less of their children than of what their neighbours might say, the Judge provided privacy. We have seen him calling up boys in his Probation Court by schools, and addressing them by their first or “nick” names. This he does to spare not only the pride of the boy, but the vanity of his father and mother. And so he abolished criminal records in the Juvenile Court, not only to save a boy from growing up with a rogue’s name to burden him, but to shield his family from “disgrace.”

But the best example of his practice of privacy and consideration for both parents and children is his method of dealing with girls. He himself seldom speaks of this part of his work, and the reason is that he finds it is a sex-problem. Some women, who themselves are students of delinquent children and who admire Lindsey’s service with boys, say that he errs with girls.

“Little girls steal, lie, and do all the other things that boys do,” they say. “The police don’t arrest them as often, but the problem of the girls is as various and as complex as that of the boys.”