Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 217, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1911 — CHICAGO'S BIG BROTHER AND BIG SISTER LEAGUE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CHICAGO'S BIG BROTHER AND BIG SISTER LEAGUE

IN the Chicago juvenile court a small, blonde, fat-faced boy was accused of having twisted the wrist of a little girl, and taken from it the dollar with which the mother had sent her to the grocery. “Did you do that, George?” asked the judge. George confessed that he had. “And, Mary, what did you do?” asked the judge, turning to the little girl. - “I runned after him, and chased him, but I couldn’t ketch him.” George was a fleet kid, you observe. “What did you do with the money?” asked the judge. George hung his head, smiled slightly, and “I spent It for candy.” Next to George, In the court room, stands his father, a Lithuanian who cannot speak English. For this purpose an interpreter is at hand. George’s mother is dead, father and son board at a little one-horse house, but It is vacation time, and while the father works and earns a paltry amount at the stock yards, George roams the neighborhood and worries the citlsens and the police. Vacation and leisure often hurt a kid’s morals.

Here the interpreter tells the father that the judge decides George shall go Into the country; that the father must pay the farmer $2 a week for the boy’s board. Money Is always a thumbscrew to lax fathers, and they wince under the decision, bht in this Instance the father first pays back the dollar George pilfered, and then agrees to pay the board demanded. As the boy trots off, the judge makes the suggestion that the boy has not been kept as clean as be ought, and suggests that the kid’s ears need a bath.

Many such parents cannot furnish the board money, and even when they promise to do so circumstances cause them to default. Here the Big Brother and Big Sister fieague steps In and helps. It has a salaried mgn to escort George to a proper farm, to see that the board is paid, that George has the necessary clothing, and that he Is brought back when school begins. When there are no parents, or they are too poor to assume these expenses, the league shoulders the burden. Farm life has a civilizing Influence. All that has been lost in the city is often gained amid waving wheat fields and beside running streams. Recently one father wrote thus to she court: “I never/want to see that fellow again.” He referred to his son, eight years of age; who had been tried In court for delinquencies, wbo was placed on a farm, but who for some reason returned. Tbe letter continued: “As far as the girl is concerned (Jo had a sister who had also been provided with a temporary home), I am willing to take her back any day when they get through with her, but never again that dirty thing of a boy, as he is called."

Jo, the young culprit, confessed that he had been untidy at home merely to get back to the farm. He was a second time placed with a farmer at Marengo, Ul., where he became orderly, Industrious and cleanly, and made good In every way. The Big Brother and Big Sister league thus brought about a wholesome reform. There are cases of dependents- In the Juvenile court —minors for whom homes must be found—there are delinquents, who, because of the gravity of the offenses or because of frequent looses from goodness, are trotted off summarily to corrective schools, hut there are “left-over" boys and girls, who oftdn become good men and women In the highways of life, merely by being given a second chance. A case like that of Johnnie Jones, which came np In court the other day, la not difficult to handle, but there are others more intricate. Johnnie, a little curly-headed quadroon, stood before the Judge with not a whit of penitence In his sallow boyish face. His mother Is oolorad and

his white father has long since been lost in the maelstrom of society. Johnnie should work, but he does not; he should save his pennies, but be will not; he should do chores for his mother, but he merely plays. “Is that all true, Johnnie?” asks the judge with a fatherly touch on the boy’s shoulder. The Uttle quadroon is touched by the kindness of the judge, he drops his little eyes, and say’s It is true. “ , » “If I give you another chance, will you work, Johnnie —and will you stay home nights—and will you help your tired mother?” Johnnie promises to be good; there is a ring of honesty In his boyish voice, he goes out Into the world and makes good, and as the mother washes to keep herself and boy in trim, the case does not become a burden to the state. But the next Instance Is different. Jim Murray came before the judge. He had stolen his father’s cuff-but-tons and had skipped. He slept under boxes and sidewalks and In barns. .Jim had a grievance, too. He was obliged to wash dishes and to scrub, and the nickel, the ignoble compensation furnished him for the task by his grandfather, Jim says la taken from him by his father. Jim sayfc it is all true, and he begs the court to send him to a farm until he Is twenty-one years of age. He will be glad to work near to nature's heart, and If he can ride a pony occasionally and can reßt under apple trees occasionally he will make a man of himself. It Is work such as this the Big Brother and Big Sister league of Chicago is doing, as a part of the Illinois Children’s Home and Aid society, and under the direction of the juvenile court.

The work was started in Chicago in Jhly, 1909, by Mr. E. R. Colby. Mr. Colby would rather find a good borne for a child than to race about the country in an automobile, and he has given up splendid business chances for this phase of social work. During the past year 200 children have been looked after, .and the avenues for usefulness are ever widening. There have long been open doors for little fatherless and motherless children, there have long been corrective Institutions (which have not always corrected), but there has been an Intermediate class of boys and girls which has been lost sight of. This class has of recent years been discovered in large cities, and It Is this intermediate class of boys and girls that the Big Brothers and Big Sisters are trying to help over ths roughnesses of life. As may be fancied, work of this kind In a metropolitan city grows by leaps and bounds, and a method of work must be thought out and worked out as facts develop. Good homes must be at .hand to supply the manifold necessities, big and little. The olfice of the league Is at 12T North Dearborn street, Chicago, where the Children's Home end Aid Society of Illinois has for a dozen years maintained Its existence. EMMA E. KOEHLER.