Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/129

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out the spirit of vengeance; he has tried to make his Court a place where the prisoners at the bar are helped to become good men and useful citizens. His greatest service has been to boys and girls, but that is only because he found in children the most, helpless victims of our machine system of “businesslike justice.” He has created in his Juvenile Court a new human institution, the beauty apd use of which is spreading imitative “movements” all over the land. But, wonderful as his creation is, this man should not be known as the founder of another institution. That might become, like certain societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals or to children, only another “end in itself.”

Judge Lindsey is a man, a brave, gentle man, who is r^-introducing into life, all life, and into all the institutions which he can influence, the spirit or humanity. As he puts it in his “ Problem of the Children,” “these great movements for the betterment of our children are simply typical of the noblest spirit of this age, the Christ-spirit of unselfish love, of hope and joy. It has reached its acme in what were formerly the criminal courts. The old process is changed. Instead of coming to destroy, we come to rescue. Instead of coming to punish, we come to uplift. Instead of coming to hate, we come to love.”