The House of Refuge offered food, shelter, and education to the homeless and destitute youth of New York and removed juvenile offenders from the prison company of adult convicts. However, the reformers combined attitudes of both benevolence and hostility, and the House of Refuge was actually a part of an increasingly repressive emphasis in the penal system. The next major reform, the 1899 Illinois Juvenile Court Act, resulted from the desire of child welfare advocates for better living conditions for children in custody and not from a desire to change from formal to informal procedures for juveniles. Thus, it largely perpetuated the 19th century system. Much of this system had disappeared before the Gault decision and other decisions concerning juvenile justice in the 1960's. However, in the Gault decision, the Supreme Court accepted the inaccurate portrayals of the history of juvenile justice and added the myth that rights present before 1899 were being restored to youths. However, many social and psychological problems must be addressed if procedural change is to be accomplished. 240 footnotes.