Expense.

It cost about $250 annually for each child at page 13 the Republic. As the average stay is three years the total expense of training a boy or a girl is about $750. This training is permanent. The child is taken at an impressionable age, when his character is forming into its final shape, and influence given during that period have lasting effects. Of over five hundred "citizens" who have gone out from the Republic only twenty have ever been committed to another institution and but one of these left the Republic with the consent of the authorities.

It costs the state of New York between $600 and $700 annually to care for each person under its charge. It costs between $250 and $300 annually for each "citizen" at the George Junior Republic. This sum does not aid in reforming him but merely supports the charge. Thus—it is cheaper to save children than to punish