In Re Hunter

BURNETT, J.

These minors, of the age of seventeen years, were found to be delinquent and neglected children and were committed to the Boys’ and Girls’ Industrial ' School, at Lytton Springs, conducted by the Salvation Army. The court found that their parents were incapable of exercising over these children proper parental control; that their home, by reason of neglect, on the part of the parents, was an unfit place for them; that for a long period of time they were not properly disciplined or controlled; that they were in great danger of being led astray into bad and immoral practices; that their education has been neglected, due to the indifference or carelessness of the parents; that they are in great need of proper parental training, care and

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control, and that it is for the best interests of these minors that they be declared wards of the juvenile court, and that their care, custody, training, and education be committed to other hands than their parents.

The legal foundation for the action of the court is found in subdivisions 2 and 11 of section 1 and section 9b of the juvenile court law (Stats. 1915, p. 1225.) It is therein provided that among the persons to whom the law applies is one “who has no parent or guardian willing to exercise or capable of exercising proper parental control; or who has no parent or guardian actually exercising such proper parental control and who is in need of such control” and one “who is leading, or from any cause is in danger of leading, an idle, dissolute, lewd or immoral life.” A limitation upon the authority of said court to deprive the parents of the custody of the delinquent is found in said section 9b, as follows: “No ward of the juvenile court as defined in this act shall be taken from the custody of his parent or legal guardian, without the consent of such parent or guardian, unless the court shall find such parent or guardian to be incapable of providing or to have failed or neglected to provide proper maintenance, training and education for said person ... or unless the court shall find that the welfare of said person requires that his custody be taken from said parent or guardian.”

Taking up first the general consideration of the welfare of these girls, it is quite apparent that the determination of the court that their interests, both material and intellectual, would be promoted by committing them to said institution is amply justified. They were taken áway from an abode of abject poverty, encompassed by circumstances utterly unfavorable to comfortable and decent living, the family of five occupying one small room in which all the ordinary functions of the domestic relations, cooking, dining, and lodging were centered, there being only a partition between this room and the shed or stable wherein were boused the horses and cattle. But of more importance is the fact that the education of these girls was not receiving the attention that its importance demands, and they were permitted to associate with men of an alien race, and one of them even encouraged by the parents, if not openly at least tacitly, to become the wife of a Hindu with whom she seems