above the river level. The buildings, having been erected for other uses, are not entirely well adapted to the needs of the Home, but answer its purposes fairly. It now contains one hundred and twenty-five children, between the ages of two and sixteen, from nine different counties. These children are committed to the Home by the superintendents of the poor of these counties, instead of being sent to the county poorhouses. During the last twelve months there have been

Commitments have kept the average number of inmates about the same during the year; but as the old stock removed from the poorhouses disappears, and is replaced by fresh committals, the average age diminishes, so that an increase of help for the care of children of tender age has been from time to time necessary. There have been but six deaths in the Home during its history, four of which were from an epidemic seven years ago, one from chronic disease, and one from accident during the past year.

The institution claims the especial notice of this convention only as a pioneer effort in the solution of the problem of hereditary pauperism. It had its inception in a suggestion of some members of the present State Board of Charities of New York, and its success has contributed to the passage of a law now in force compelling the removal of all sound children from the poorhouses.

DEBATE CONCERNING CHILDREN.

Mrs. Henry Sayers, the president of the Chicago Protestant Orphan Asylum, gave a very interesting report on the work and aim. of that institution. She said this institution was twenty-nine years old, and was supported by voluntary contributions. It received orphans without regard to race or religion. Last year it received 168 children, and sent out 170. The average number of inmates was 110, and there were four deaths last year.

Mr. Richie made a statement regarding White's Manual-Labor Home, near Wabash, Ind.

J. W. Skinner, superintendent of industrial schools of the city of New York, reported in reference to the work in the Children's

Aid Society in that city. He said that last year Mr. Brace placed out in homes of the West 4,000 children, sheltered 14,234 in lodging-houses, and educated 9,000 in the schools. His assistants went through the city collecting children into schools (giving food and clothes when needed), and six lodging-houses, where food and shelter were furnished at nominal rates to the children engaged in street trades. Mr. Brace long ago organized a system of Western transportation, sending the children at first to Indiana, then to Illinois, and now to Kansas. The boys liked it, and did well. In all, forty-eight thousand children had been sent out from New York. Agents were sent out occasionally to see how these little emigrants were getting on. Every two weeks a party of from fifty to one hundred children left This was checking pauperism and crime. ized in 1853. In 1860 the commitments of youth for vagrancy and small crimes numbered 5,880. The corresponding commitments in 1876 were 1,666. In 1863 1,133 girls were committed for petit larceny, and in 1876 the number was reduced to 496. Local committees were organized in advance in towns where the boys and girls were to be distributed; and this committee attended to sending the children into families, and maintained an oversight over them. Besides, Mr. Fry of Chicago, the general agent of the society, devoted himself to looking after the boys. The children thus sent out were not indentured.

New York for the West.
The society was organ-

Dr. Byers thought Mr. Brace dumped car-loads of children in the West, where the people took them in as a matter of humanity, but without that solicitude for their real welfare that ought to be provided. The reduction of juvenile crime in New York might be attended by an increase of juvenile crime in the West.

Mrs. Louisa Rockwood Wardner said, that in a part of the poorhouses of this State, outside of Chicago, there were over 700 children. In Chicago there were 1,200 children needing immediate attention. She thought the people of the West should find homes for their own poor children before they furnished homes for the 10,000 children sent from New-York City to the State of Illinois. She was satisfied that these children did not stay long in the homes where they were first placed. Many of them became tramps.

Mr. L. P. Alden of the State Public School, Coldwater, Mich., said that his institution had in five years received 731 chil

dren. These children were placed out, care being taken to adapt the children and their homes to each other. In five years 351 children, one at a time, had been placed in homes. In the different counties there were agents who looked after the children, and whose indorsement had to be obtained by applicants for children; Mr. Alden selecting the children according to the condition and disposition of the applicants. In last October Mr. Alden had reports from 176 children in families. All butt hirteen were doing fairly to first-rate. Incorrigible, invalid, and feeble-minded children were returned to the counties. The children were sent by probate judges, and came from the indigent class. Eighty to eighty-five per cent promised to become respectable citizens. A very careful history of each child was kept. Mr. Alden denied that a poor or average home was better for miscellaneous children than the best institutions. He had learned to prefer a good institution for bad children to any homes except the best ones.

Mr. Spalding of Massachusetts described the way that State took care of its criminal children. When a child was arrested for the first time, a representative of the State attended the trial. With the consent of the judge, the boys might be turned over to the State without trial, and placed in a home.

He also described methods to rescue young offenders from the contaminating influences of imprisonment. A ticket-of-leave system had been carried into effect in the case of women in the Reformatory Prison. There was no trouble about finding places in the best families for these indentured women. Mr. Alden said that no court in Michigan could send a boy to the Reform School without the consent of the local representative of the State Board. Mr. Letchworth pointed out several objectionable features in the Massachusetts system.

On the general question of furnishing care for dependent children, remarks were also made by Mr. Early of Indiana, Mrs. Henry Sayers, Mr. M. D. Follett, Mr. Culver, Mr. R. D. McGonnigle, Mr. Seth Low, Mr. H. H. Giles, Mr. A. E. Elmore, Rev. F. H. Wines, Dr. Cadwallader of Philadelphia, Mr. Lord of Michigan, and Mrs. H. M. Gouger of the Indiana Social Science Association.

Mr. Early said his State had suffered from the children sent out from New York. A large percentage of boys placed in families, who seemed to be "saved," turned up in the State prison. Crime

was a terrible thing, not to be eradicated easily. In many bright boys conscience was wholly extinct.

Mr. Follett of Ohio spoke of the Washington-county Home for Children, which grew out of the philanthropy of Mrs. Catherine Ewing.

Mr. Culver of the Reform School at Pontiac, Ill., said he had heard a good deal about reforming good boys. He wanted to know how to reform bad boys. Boys were sentenced to Pontiac for crime, and had to be treated as criminals. The law didn't allow granting them any liberties. Boys were sent there from Chicago for burglary for only a year or two, and yet the school authorities were blamed for discharging the boys unreformed.

Mr. Seth Low of Brooklyn defended the practice of sending children from New York to the West. Their chances of growing up respectable were far larger so.

Mr. Skinner said Mr. Brace sent Mr. Fry to all the penal institutions of the West, and he found in them only a very few of the boy's sent from New York. New-York papers were complaining that the best boys were being picked out, and sent West.

Mr. Elmore of Wisconsin said that every New-York boy that went to Wisconsin that he knew any thing about, with the exception of one African, had gone to the bad.

Mr. Giles of Wisconsin related some facts corroborative of Mr. Elmore. He knew only one boy who turned out well. New York licensed thousands of saloons to make delinquent children, and it ought to take care of its own delinquent children. In Wisconsin children were not retained in poorhouses.

Mr. Early said, that, when Mr. Brace published the results of Mr. Fry's investigations, scores of his boys were in the Indiana institutions.

Mr. Wines spoke of the exaggerated reports of the number of delinquent children who are reformed. He argued in behalf of homes in preference to institutions.

Mrs. II. M. Gouger of Lafayette, Ind., said the cruelty of officers of institutions was generally found out; but it was otherwise with private persons. Once a car-load of Mr. Brace's children came to her town. The ladies who were notorious for being unkind to servants, snatched up the little girls; and Mrs. Gouger witnessed a case of outrageous cruelty by a fashionable lady on a slender girl ten years old, whom she had taken. Mrs. Gouger preferred institutions to any but good homes.

EVENING SESSION.

JUNE 11, 1879.

At the evening session, Gen. Brinkerhoff in the chair, Mr. W. P. Letchworth of New York, as Chairman, read the following

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON DEPENDENT AND DELINQUENT CHILDREN.

The Committee on Dependent and Delinquent Children have made no attempt to deal with this broad and intricate subject as a whole; but have been content to consider certain branches of it, in those aspects with which some of the members have acquired familiarity through personal experience. From the outset, woman's effort in the work of "child-saving" has been appreciatively recognized; but in this country it is thought that opportunities sufficiently ample have not been given her to teach the world those lessons acquired while in the quiet pursuit of that labor, to which, for many reasons, she has been peculiarly fitted. In Europe, the late Miss Mary Carpenter, and other women distinguished for their labors of love in this direction, have spoken to good purpose of their methods, and have given the work intelligent guidance. In America, women in this field have been mainly workers rather than writers, organizers and founders rather than exponents of methods and systems. For example: in the State of New York, the first institution for orphan children, the Orphan Asylum Society at New-York City, was begun by the energetic efforts of Mrs. Isabella Graham, of honored memory, and a few earnest women, her associates. In Albany, as well as in Utica and elsewhere, work of like character was inaugurated in each instance by earnest women imbued with a true missionary spirit. The Nursery and Child's Hospital, at New-York City, one of the grandest charities of the State, is a monument to the untiring energy of a noblehearted woman; while in Brooklyn, New-York City, Buffalo, and other places, large institutions for dependent children have been established and successfully carried on by sisters of the various orders of the Roman Catholic Church. But these good women, extended as their experience has been, have given us no adequate record of their matured opinions as to how such work may be most successfully conducted.

Your committee interpreted the desire of the last Conference of