for children. Every private agency receiving children, caring for them, or placing them in family homes must be licensed by the state board, and licenses must be secured from that board by all hospitals, of whatever character, which receive patients for maternity care. All child placing agencies must report their placements for the approval of the state board, and in adoption proceedings the court requires a full investigation and report by the state board before a decree is entered. Feebleminded children are committed to the board for institutional or extra-institutional care. The board is charged with the protection of the rights and interests of the unmarried mother and her child. The board may accept the guardianship of all types of children who may be committed to its care, and is charged with the duty of enforcing all laws for child protection. It is directed to co-operate with juvenile courts in the administration of the juvenile court law and to co-operate by investigation and supervision of county allowance, so-called mothers' pension cases, as the juvenile court may direct. Under such a plan there is very broad centralization of duty and responsibility, which is open to the objection that it involves too much concentration and power. However, this objection is met in part by the county child welfare board system in operation by which the board refers, for investigation and report, to the local board cases which arise within its jurisdiction except in the matter of licensing and supervising children's agencies and hospitals. The extent to which this reference takes place will depend upon the efficiency of the local boards and whether or not they are provided with trained assistants. As the board develops its facilities its powers may be broadened and enlarged. The reports and recommendations of the local boards are respected and usually acted upon by the state board, particularly where the local board has attained a high standard of efficiency. At the same time a close watch may be kept upon local methods by the state departments, suggestions may be offered as to case work, policies and standards of general application may be worked out, and the problems of independent board administration may be considered in the light of state-wide experience. The state and county boards maintain a close relationship to the juvenile courts by acting as probation agencies and by assisting in the investigation and supervision of cases of dependency, delinquency, and neglect, as well as county allowance matters. Our law also provides that the county commissioners may employ a county nurse, or nurses, and place her under the jurisdiction of the child welfare board if they desire. This is being done on a broad scale in our largest county at the present time, and as to this work there is no supervision by the Board of Control.

It is reasonable to forecast that Minnesota may eventually enlarge the powers and duties of its state board so as to make it a public welfare department dealing with adults as well as with children, with the power of delegating its enlarged powers to the county boards. While the boards in Minnesota sometimes undertake these broader responsibilities informally, I have felt it unwise to proceed too rapidly and too far in advance of public education and understanding in such matters. In this question, of course, one can only be guided by the conditions as they obtain in his own state. It has seemed to me that until we had done the children's job well, with a high average of efficiency throughout the state, it was unwise to undertake new duties. Moreover, it is an exceedingly difficult matter to secure trained assistants for our boards in their present limited field, and the problem is complicated when family relief and other problems of adult maladjustment are dealt with, each of which

may well require the services of an expert in the particular field. The vision, however, is before us and will be realized in proportion as we do well our present job.

The character of the relationship between state and local public welfare agencies can be determined only in part by law. The statute provides the framework, but the design of the structure itself is a matter of wise administrative adjustment. A state department must recognize the differences which exist in urban and rural life, and the problems of each must be understood and dealt with in accordance with the special needs of the situation. The plan must be flexible and, to be successful, it must be in truth and not in name a co-operative effort. Without a full recognition of the individuality of the local boards and their right to a proper measure of self-determination there will be developed not virile, self-sustaining, and efficient local groups, but a state autocracy which defeats the fundamental purposes of any sound child welfare program. The function of the state is to help communities to a realization of their own responsibilities and to point the way toward effective discharge of the community obligation toward childhood.

B. THE NEW STATE BOARD MOVEMENT IN THE SOUTH-CAUSE,
EXTENT, CONDITION, AND FUTURE

L. H. Putnam, Executive Secretary, State Board of Children's Guardians,
Charleston, West Virginia

Cause.-"Private philanthropy, while exercised today on a scale of unprecedented magnitude, is felt to be wholly insufficient to express the purpose of organized Society. Moreover, it lacks the authority, the disciplinary power, which is so essential an element of all true kindness. The State is, therefore, steadily enlarging the scope of its activities and assuming the initiative in wrestling with the problems of the multitude" —so says Mr. R. Fulton Cutting, president of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor.

It is a recognized fact that the state has definite duties and responsibilities in connection with special classes, such as dependents, delinquents, physical defectives, and the mental deficients. No longer can the state expect private, philanthropic, or church organizations to carry these responsibilities, which are clearly those of the Commonwealth. It is now recognized that state care and supervision of most of the above-named classes of unfortunates is the best method of looking after same, thus relieving private, philanthropic, and church organizations of tremendous burdens and allowing them to fulfill their true functions along charitable lines.

Extent. Recognition of these facts on the part of state officials and the public generally, has resulted in the creation of state boards of charities; boards of public welfare; boards of children's guardians; or child welfare departments in the following southern states, practically all created within the past five years: Delaware, State Board of Charities; Tennessee, State Board of Charities; Kentucky, State Board of Charities and Corrections; Virginia, State Board of Charities and Corrections; North Carolina, State Board of Charities and Public Welfare; West Virginia, State Board of Children's Guardians; South Carolina, State Board of Public Welfare; Georgia, State Board of Public Welfare; Alabama, State Child Welfare Department.

So far as I have been able to learn, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Florida have not created such boards or departments.

Conditions. These boards or departments have been created to meet varied conditions existing in the southern states. Some cover an exceedingly wide scope of work, while others are very limited in their activities. The South is today a vast sociological laboratory, and various experiments, some of which are based upon the experiences of other and older states, and others now under process of pioneer development, are being tried out, with greater or less measures of success.

Due to the ever present race problem, welfare progress in the South is exceedingly difficult and interesting. Up to the present time the efforts of these boards and departments have, in the main, been directed toward the solution of problems affecting the general public as a whole and the white public in particular. However, some unusual and encouraging attempts have been and are being made to study and present solutions of the welfare problems of the colored race.

There is an increasing desire on the part of the progressive element of the whites and the better element of the colored to find a common ground of action pertaining to welfare problems which confront both races. Despite the fact that regrettable actions and incidents occur in the South from time to time, as elsewhere in the United States, there is a sincere and increasing desire on the part of the thinking people to get together and amicably adjust such differences as exist.

In a paper of fifteen minutes' duration it is impossible to discuss these various pieces of work in detail, but we of the South invite your attention, your suggestions, and constructive criticism based upon actual knowledge of the conditions confronting us.

In response to a request made by the writer, asking for a concrete statement regarding the most significant activities of the various boards and departments, the following replies were received by wire:

Virginia. We have supervision of institutions, without executive power; place children in homes and institutions; supervise feebleminded outside of institutions; have supervision of probation officers. Institutions for feebleminded, for delinquent girls, and hospitals for crippled children established. Prison system reorganized according to modern standards.

North Carolina.-State board given executive power 1917. Licenses annually state and private institutions. Doing research work regarding intake and outgo of child caring institutions. County agents, probation officers, enforce child labor law and school attendance law; 100,000 more children in school past year. Plan better organized county work.

South Carolina.-Board supervises penal and charitable institutions, schools for feebleminded and juvenile delinquents, places neglected children. Engineered establishment of schools for feebleminded and for delinquent girls. Responsible for marked improvement of institutions under supervision. Advocates woman's reformatory; abolition of county chain gangs; establishment of district homes for infirm. Alabama.-Alabama is building institutions for feebleminded and strengthening her training schools. New modern training school for girls will be constructed early in fall. The new State Child Welfare Department inspects, issues certificates of endorsement, or permits, to all agencies and institutions caring for children. Prescribes standards and tabulates reports. Licenses maternity hospitals and child placing societies. The department organizes county welfare units, supervises work of probation officers and advises with juvenile judges; receives monthly report of number and class of cases handled; administers the state child labor law, maintaining a staff of inspectors which co-operates with attendance officers.

Tennessee.-Secured law establishing institution for feebleminded, and another law providing supervision, inspection, licensing child caring agencies. Have home-finding department for state institutions Organized State Conference of Social Work, also State Council of Social Agencies. Board was established for purpose of investigating county and state institutions as to care and treatment of inmates. Results more than satisfactory in raising standards of welfare work and injecting into state government principles of accepted standards of welfare work.

Kentucky.-Non-partisan, non-salaried board appointed 1920 to remove state institutions from politics and establish broad, humane, and practical policy in care and treatment of state wards. Board has

employed capable, experienced superintendents and officers; rehabilitated institutions physically; adopted standard food products; modernized parole system; expects to place Kentucky on par with best in country. West Virginia.-The State Board of Children's Guardians receives and places normal dependent children, after careful mental and physical examinations have been made. Is especially interested in aid cases. Gives particular attention to the problem of the unmarried mother. Investigates cases of tubercular and venereally infected children and in conjunction with State Board of Control and State Board of Health provides for care of same in state and private hospitals receiving state aid. Investigates cases of deaf, blind and crippled children in behalf of State Boards of Control and Education. Places same in proper institution or hospital. Board officers and agents supervise paroled youth of boys' and girls' industrial schools. Assists in enforcement of child labor law. Aids in cases coming under Mothers' Pension Act. Studies problems concerning dependent, delinquent, defective and deficient children, and reports to the governor and legislature measures designed to improve conditions surrounding said classes. After July 1st, 1921, will inspect and license private institutions, hospitals, lying-in or maternity homes, associations or societies receiving, caring for or placing children. As a result of activities of State Board of Children's Guardians and Control, a State Mental Hygiene Commission was appointed during 1920. The National Committee for Mental Hygiene was induced to make a complete mental deficiency survey of the state resulting in passage of law authorizing Training School for Mental Deficients. Board worked for law creating Child Welfare Commission. Passage of law raising age of consent. Establishment of industrial schools for colored youth. Improvement juvenile court law. Board is interested and assists as far as possible every legitimate effort to improve conditions surrounding unfortunates.

Future.-Today the clarion call of privilege and opportunity is being sounded to the socially minded of the South. More and more, as vision and breadth of mind increase, do the people of the South appreciate their serious social responsibilities. I believe that the leaders of southern welfare movements, assisted and guided by sympathetic counsellors of other sections, will produce some practical and gratifyingly pleasant surprises as they solve many of their problems.

Dr. H. H. Hart, director of the Child Helping Department of the Russell Sage Foundation, gave the following bit of advice to a worker who has labored in the southern field during the past twenty years. He said: "Remember, five years is an exceedingly short length of time; if in twenty years you have had a small part in the proper development of southern social problems, you will have done a tremendously big piece of work." I believe that the inherently strong principle underlying this statement is generally accepted by southern social workers and that enduring structures are being built, based upon sympathy, knowledge, and practical results obtained; upon thorough work done by the best of workers obtainable as far as means will permit, and upon a sincere desire to "do a good job, not to hold a good job."

THE RELATION OF STATE INSTITUTIONS AND AGENCIES TO PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS

A. A REDEFINITION OF THE PROPER RELATION OF STATE BOARDS OF CONTROL TO BOARDS OF EDUCATION, HEALTH, CHILD WELFARE, AND THE LIKE.

Burdette G. Lewis, State Commissioner of Institutions and Agencies, Trenton, N.J.

For some time we have heard that state governments are inefficient and cumbersome. Apparently they have suffered as has the federal government from the tyranny of well organized and vociferous minorities and from the paralysis of inarticulate majorities. In the Congress of the United States we hav that a handful of wilful men may stop legislation and menace the co

of governmental departments whenever they wish to force their will upon the majority. Something of the same sort has happened upon different occasions in most of our states.

Perhaps we do not recognize so clearly these organized minorities in our states because in many cases their organizers are our own friends and neighbors, or they are so highly placed in the confidence of the people that discretion is the better part of valor and we leave them alone, while the taxpayers foot the bills.

The present status of state government service.-One of the difficulties with our educational system has been that the determination of the subjects to be taught, as well as the manner in which each subject was to be taught, was left almost exclusively to expert educators, whose lives have been confined to teaching work and who have not had the opportunity of becoming familiar with the way business, commerce, and industry are conducted and with the viewpoints of those having had business experience, professional experience, or social service experience. They were therefore improperly prepared to act as dictators in the educational field, charged with determining what subjects should be taught in the public schools. It is, of course, true that they were especially qualified to determine the manner in which the subject was to be taught, but they had no more right than the doctor, the lawyer, the business man, or the trained social worker to exclusive judgment as to what subjects, whether history, science, civics, arithmetic, and the like, should be taught.

The health departments have been slow to recognize that the social workers of the country have a great deal to teach them about how to handle public health education in particular, and about how to improve industrial nursing, social service nursing, and nurses' training school work.

The child, the greatest possibility in the universe, has naturally and justly attracted a great deal of attention. People have been quite properly insistent that everything possible be done to insure him the greatest future, for in doing that the nation is made doubly secure and is wonderfully enriched. It has been understandable, therefore, that special departments should spring up to emphasize the importance of certain fundamental, medical, environmental, social, and training opportunities for children, and that great impatience should be expressed regarding the apparent or alleged failure of the well organized ordinary departments of government, such as the health, educational, institutional, and labor departments, to function specifically and particularly for the child. There have been notable movements for the development of child welfare boards, which have done much good.

Public institutions have been surrounded either by high walls of brick and mortar or by imaginary walls erected by those especially interested in them. While again there are notable exceptions of institutions which have become highly developed in isolation, the evil results of this general li of isolated development have been most serious. Correctional institutions p t during the first ninety years

of the past century, for, as the ins

of the feebleminded were removed i

treatment and training in a special in the epileptic, and the feebleminded, the

was not able to make the progress in the mine opinion prevailing from 1790 to