matter to me very much what the reports were
about. Some of the teachers couldn’t see at first
why they should report on the scholarship of a
boy who was good at school and bad — a thief,
perhaps — out of school. But you can see that
these fortnightly reports were an excuse for keeping up my friendly relationship with the boy,
holding his loyalty, and maintaining our common interest in the game of correction he and
I were playing together. Since we had a truancy
law, the teachers were in touch and thus could
keep me in touch with every boy under school age
in the city, and their reports were my excuse for
praise or appeal.”
Judge Lindsey’s Court of Probation is thus a Court of Approbation. It serves other purposes; indeed, it is everything to the boys of Denver. It is the State, the Law, and Justice; it is Home, School, Club, and Society; it is Friendship, Success, and the scene of Triumphs; it is the place also where Failure goes for Help and for Hope renewed. It is all that Judge Lindsey is; all that he means to the minds of the boys. For the Judge’s personality makes it, his and the boys’, and they made it up out of their own needs.
The boys assemble early, two or three hun- dred of them, of all ages and all sorts, “small
