through education, so that as nearly as practicable he may become a selfsupporting and a competent citizen; (c) the study of problems of physical defect which his case represents, yielding to the sum of human knowledge all deductions of which the institution authorities are capable, to the end that society may defend itself more completely against such defects.

Let us look at another case. A young man shoots up a grocery store and kills the clerk. He goes to Sing Sing for seven years. What are the functions of the prison with reference to that convict? Society has sent him there in order to protect itself from his crimes. It thinks of his punishment, justly, only as a deterrent to him and others similarly tempted. In committing him it has lost the citizenship service of a potential citizen for seven years. What, then, does it expect of its institution in which he is to spend that seven years? Whatever else the institution may do for him, these obligations seem clear: (a) he shall be kept with all reasonable guaranties against his escape and the consequent nullification of the decree which society has thus passed upon him; (b) his physical powers shall be preserved so that at the end of his sentence he may not be infirm; (c) his intellect and personality are to be dealt with in such manner as may result, as far as practicable, in his being able to go out into the community and earn his way, and so that he may show the will and the determination so to do; (d) his offense and all its attendant circumstances, especially his mental texture and his environment, are to be studied with a view of helping society, by all the conclusions deducible, to set up as perfect a defense system as practicable against the tendencies of its individuals to commit crime.

Let us take even a third case. A young girl is apprehended setting fires under back porches. She is sent finally to an institution for the feebleminded. What are the functions of that institution in her case? She was sent there to protect society from her arson. Whatever else the authorities may do for her, at least (a) she is to be maintained there humanely; (b) she is to be taught as much in the way of a self-supporting occupation as her mentality will permit; (c) she is to be studied with a view of her release back into the community, if and when competent authority is of opinion that the danger from which society has already suffered in her case can be sufficiently guarded against without her longer confinement; (d) the problem of mental defect which she represents is to be studied unremittingly, to the end that there may be set up as complete a defense as practicable for society against the recurrence of like defect among its individuals.

It will be noted in all three of these instances that the function of the institution seems to be to deal with the individual and to use this case as a basis for analytical study of the problem which he and his type represent. The public thinks always of the first of these functions, and almost never of the second. To the man on the street, the public institution is a place where persons who are insane, or infirm, or incorrigible may be sent away. To him it is a depository,

a pickling vat. He never goes near it unless his blood kin is in residence there. He does not realize that its upkeep and maintenance are the chief items in his tax bill.

The social worker, when he thinks, looks upon the public institution as a process. For the most part it is the convenient terminus for many of his case problems. He takes relatively little interest in its progress.

There are few persons, indeed, in any community who think of a public institution as a vast laboratory, a tremendous, far-reaching opportunity for the study of the individual and his case as it bears upon the problems of society. Yet this is its true function. There is nothing genuinely static in the modern state-nothing but the grave. Our public institutions exist for the purpose of the custody, the protection, the reformation, or the relief of the individual, or for the treatment of his physical or mental difficulties, or for the prevention of harms to society which it is believed, on a basis of conduct, that individual, if left free to come and go in the community, will commit. Aside from such basic features as food, clothing, and shelter, this dealing with the individual varies greatly according to the case.

But however necessary be the many processes of dealing with the individual in the public institution, the most important element in institution service is the analytical study of the problems which that institution was created to help correct. An institution is a middle link in a three-link process, no one of which can function properly unless it be coupled to the others. The first of these links is the pre-institution field, occupied by public and private enterprises in social work, carrying on education, prevention, probation, first aid, out-patient service, and various forms of relief; all undertaken to prevent the necessity of sending the individual to the institution. The third of these links is the post-institution period, in which the individual has gone through the institution process and is now adjusting himself to the community out of which he came originally. This is the period of convalescence, of follow-up medical treatment, of case work, of service with family problems.

No public institution can keep an intelligent eye upon the nature of its intake without a close understanding of what other social work agencies in the pre-institution field are doing. Nor can it estimate the value of its own process without following its inmates back into the community to see to it that the same causes which brought them to the hospital in the beginning do not become operative again. In both of these fields there is need of active cooperation with other social agencies. In the institution process itself there is need for the keeping of adequate case records. There is need, all the time, for the constant use of the central index or social service exchange. In the post-institution field it means hospital social service carried on in conjunction with private dispensaries and other agencies. It means friendly visitors to the families of convicts, visitors who are the agents of the public department or of the prison, and who have the

assistance of private agencies constantly at their elbow. It means constant visitation of the families of insane persons and, in particular, of the families of those who are feebleminded.

A public institution which turns a cold shoulder to private social welfare interests, and which is neglected by those private agencies, soon becomes a hermitage, neglectful of its own basic philosophy, busy with the little details of congregate living, filled with the wreckage that nobody wants, a bourne from which no competent traveler returns.

HOW TO SECURE A CONTINUING AND PROGRESSIVE
POLICY IN PUBLIC SOCIAL WORK AND

INSTITUTIONS

Ellen C. Potter, M.D., Secretary, Department of Public Welfare,

Harrisburg

The theoretical solution of this problem is easy to state; its practical realization in terms of every-day administration of public social work is difficult.

The public social work should be defined as the governmental activities, national and state, county and municipal, dealing with the results of, and with the prevention of, dependency, of mental and physical defect, of delinquency and crime.

It is a truism that success in this field of governmental activity (as well as all others) depends fundamentally on the intelligent functioning of the citizens of a democracy who have it in their power to elect to public office men and women of high caliber, who are free from political entanglements, these elected officials being responsible, through properly qualified subordinate personnel, for the administration of sound laws enacted by representative legislative bodies, which have also made adequate appropriation for the service required.

These ideal circumstances are rarely met, and the problem before us is to wrest from the unfavorable conditions of a careless populace and politically entangled executives, the type of organization, social legislation, and personnel which will insure a "continuing and progressive policy in public social work."

Public social work should be kept out of politics! One may approximate this for the state by the adoption of the commission type of organization, with commissioners, five or nine in number, appointed by successive governors for overlapping terms of service, these commissioners to be responsible for the appointment of an executive secretary who, with the commission, shall help to develop policies, and who shall be held responsible for their execution. The commissioners so appointed should not, during their term, hold any other public office, and their service should be rendered without compensation, save only their legitimate expenses incurred in the transaction of their business. This lack

of compensation removes, to a considerable degree, the positions from the category of "political plums."

In county and municipal welfare work the commission plan on a nonpartisan basis, without compensation, is capable of adaptation to the need of the smaller community with great advantage.

In a state, the governmental organization of which is federalized, there is one great disadvantage to be reckoned with in the commission form of organization, and that is the comparative lack of direct approach to the governor by the executive head of the commission, but this is more than offset by the greater permanence of policy, which, because of the interposition of the commission between the governor and the executive secretary, is unlikely to undergo radical change as administrations come and go, and by the greater probability of public support because of more widespread public understanding through the citizens' commission. (The governmental organization of Pennsylvania is federalized, with the secretary of welfare appointed by the governor, while the state welfare commission has a purely advisory function. Three of the nine members of the commission are the heads of state departments-health, labor and industry, and welfare and there is therefore a lack of disinterested citizens' support in times of need.) You will therefore note that I am not holding up as a model the organization of Pennsylvania's department of welfare in its upper levels.

Public confidence in any branch of governmental activity is based upon general public belief in the ability and integrity of the personnel which functions on behalf of the department. The selection of the executive secretary, the subordinate personnel, and the development of policy is therefore a matter of supreme importance in the building up of a department which it is hoped to make permanent. Publicity (not propaganda) relating to every step of the work of the department is essential to this end.

The secretary should be socially minded; not too highly specialized in the social field, a good organizer and executive, a good judge of people, in order to select personnel wisely, should be familiar with sources of information in the social field in general, should have a publicity sense in order to present personally or by other means the methods and aims of the department to the public and to public officials, should have, or be able to acquire, a knowledge of political technique in order effectively to function in a world in which political understanding is one important factor in relation to success.

Having selected an executive, the next step is the development of organization along clear-cut lines, with job analyses for each line of service, so that the staff, as it is assembled, shall have a sense of entering into an efficient, coordinated mechanism which is definitely progressing toward an objective. (I have personally found it to be a great advantage to set down in black and white the whole scheme of organization which it was hoped in time to develop, together with an outline of the functions to be performed, doing this even though no money is available to carry out the plans proposed, for by this method it is

possible for every new employee to vision himself in relation to the mosaic as a whole.)

It is desirable to secure the participation of the subordinate staff as it is assembled in the development of technique and details of policy, since in that way a "sense of belonging" and of being something more than a cog in a machine is developed throughout the staff. This promotes a sense of solidarity in the organization, and pride in its accomplishments.

Our experience in Pennsylvania indicates that it is a wise policy to select only trained men and women of maturity to fill executive and field positions. Adequate salaries must be provided in order to secure such persons. Especially is the need great for trained personnel in the early months and years of a newly established department, for there is too great risk of creating unnecessary antagonisms by immature and ill-advised suggestions and criticisms of agencies subject to the supervision of the department, and time does not permit of training inexperienced workers when there is a large volume of work to be done over widely scattered territory in a short space of time.

The salaries offered should be sufficient to enable the state agency to compete successfully with private agencies in securing trained, mature service, and there should be a range within the various grades of service, so that one does not face the loss of an experienced staff member because of lack of future increase of salary in the grade or of promotion to a higher class with the resultant future prospects. In Pennsylvania we have recently completed and adopted a classification and standardization of positions and salaries throughout the state service, from that of the humblest day laborer or domestic to that of the head of a department, which gives the greater satisfaction to all of us, and which meets the specification, noted above, about which I shall have something to say later.

Salary, however, is not the only inducement to offer in securing personnel for the state service, and particularly is this true in the field of social work; the challenge of a big vision, with a great service to be rendered, is often sufficient to bring into a department those who, regardless of salary, would otherwise be deterred by the hardships, trials, and uncertainties of such a state job.

In addition to salary and the challenge of a real service, an inducement to permanence is to be found in a retirement system with pension. This factor has become part of the Pennsylvania system within the last four years.

Perhaps you raise the question as to the advantage of civil service in securing a continuing and progressive policy in public social work. Taking our experience in Pennsylvania, where we have no civil service, and contrasting it with that of other jurisdictions, I should much prefer to take my chance for a "continuing and progressive policy" in a system dominated by full publicity in relation to job specifications, qualifications of the individual candidate, with a chance for a real house-cleaning when needed, than to be forced to continued operation with the accumulating dead wood of mediocrity and superannuation which may result from some types of civil service administration. One takes