without
the most scientific knowledge of the mental power of the man or woman
concerned, and without utmost care in selection of work-place and
living conditions of the paroled prisoner. The essential thing in all
social effort to do justice to the wayward is to find out about them
and manage for them the essentials of environmental influence. If, as
many think, after careful study of large groups of wayward and
criminal, more than half, almost two-thirds of those who come before
the law for punishment are of less mental capacity than normal
children of twelve years of age, then we must take social care of them
as we would undertake to do if they were really under twelve. And the
parents of prodigal sons and daughters must help with all the might of
their parental affection in inspiring and supporting a public opinion
to that end.

=Rehabilitation of the Competent.=--In the third place, for the
one-half to one-third of criminal and habitually vicious left after
the mentally incompetent are given proper care, we must use all the
rehabilitation methods that society has devised and be more ingenious
than we have yet been in adding to them. When such methods as Thomas
Mott Osborne used fail, they generally fail because they are applied
to those whom we should put under perpetual care, those indicated
above as incompetent to life's demands. To try and make over a nature
too weak in fibre to have anything of will or determination to "stitch
to" is to have a response only when under constant supervision, and
inevitable backslidings follow as soon as self-control is called for.

It is true, however, that many who have gone far wrong make good and
reach to a high attainment of character. They are the "occasional
criminals," the "fallen" who met with extraordinary temptation, the
too hardly used by fate, the too early exposed to evil influences, the
wild natures too strictly curbed by mistaken methods of control, the
orphans without parental love and guidance, the victims of broken
family life, the "under-dogs" that could not make a way out to
successful vocation or to happy human companionship. These occasional
criminals among men, and the women or girls leading to sex
temptations, may be often saved if so as by fire, and live to help all
others to a stronger and better life than they have known. As this
book is written the news comes of the death of such a woman in
Chinatown of New York slums, a girl who had descended to the