Lecky informs us, the union of England and Scotland, by opening up markets for the products of Scotland relieved that country of more than a hundred thousand paupers, what would a similar policy of opening up the best markets for all that we can produce in every branch of industry do for the people of the United States? This is a problem that calls for statesmanship, rather than politics.

3. Our laws for the distribution of the estates of deceased persons need to be remodelled. The principle of the French law is to limit the proportion of an estate which a testator can dispose of at his discretion by his last will and testament, and to distribute the residue of the estate absolutely among the children of the deceased, or other relatives standing in the same degree of consanguinity, equally, share and share alike. To this equal distribution of estates, more than any thing else, is probably due the fact that France is now a republic. In this country, as in England, this discretion of a testator is unlimited, thus favoring vast accumulations of wealth in single hands, rather than its distribution. Gigantic fortunes rapidly built up are no evidence of national prosperity, but rather of an unjust distribution of wealth; and such mushroom growths always imply a vast extent of surrounding pauperism. The people of the United States will not tolerate an aristocracy of blood, because they regard it as incompatible with the principles of their government; but an aristocracy of speculators, alike ignorant and unscrupulous, is growing up among us, which has all the evils of the other with none of its benefits.

We

call our government democratic, and it is so substantially, but

the danger is that in large cities its character may be changed, and, between speculators at one extreme and tens of thousands of paupers at the other, the balance of power may be sold to the highest bidder, and democratic government degenerate into demagogism tempered by bribery. The tendency of our law, like that of France, should be toward a more equal distribution of wealth, and to discourage vast accumulations in single hands.

4. Christianity was declared by its Founder to be glad tidings to the poor. It has no meaning but to help the helpless, and especially those of them who are trying to help themselves. A Christian Church that will not aid in this work is an impertinence, and has no right to exist. To improve the dwellings of the industrious poor; to aid them in educating their children intellectually, morally, spiritually, and in habits of industry and economy; to

extend its care to the helpless, dependent, suffering, and even the criminal classes, this is especially the mission of the Christian Church in all its branches; and it is in such works of charity and mercy, quite as much as in its preaching and praying and singing, that it is to manifest its true character. Our churches must not be so busy with their theology as to forget Christian charity.

5. Education in common schools should have in view habits of industry and economy, and the preparation of the pupil for some special trade or calling by which an honest livelihood is to be earned. There is danger that our schools, and especially our high schools, may unfit pupils for the hard work of life.

For the prevention of pauperism, then, we would recommend :— 1. That all criminals sentenced to imprisonment, and all habitual criminals, shall be made to earn their living by hard work.

2. That all reformatory and preventive agencies shall, as far as possible, rest upon the cultivation of home influences and education and habits of industry.

3. That a central State Board, assisted by local boards of charities, shall have supervision of, and be in sympathy with, all prisons, jails, preventive and reformatory institutions, and all public charities in a State, with a proper classification thereof.

4. Especially do we need, for the prevention of pauperism, good city governments, access to the markets of the world in our own vessels, a more just distribution of estates by law, working rather than talking churches, and habits of industry and economy as a part of education in all classes for and in some special trade or calling.

DEBATE ON PAUPERISM.

Dr. HOYT (of New York) urged the study of out-door relief. It should be so administered as to keep people out of poorhouses: it should be given promptly, and stopped promptly. The moment the feeling of independence was broken down, a line of permanent pauperism was started. Few persons who entered the poorhouse went out of it. Thoughtless administration of relief, and easy admittance to poorhouses, resulted in successive generations of hereditary paupers.

Mr. SKINNER (of New York) spoke of the importance of inculcating in the minds of children habits of neatness and industry. In his State there were industrial schools in which the element of punishment did not figure at all. They were not reformatories,

but they were institutions of prevention. Boys were taught mechanical and farming labor, and girls were taught every form of domestic work.

Dr. BYERS said that Ohio could not depend so exclusively, as New York did, on private charities; but many of the cities of Ohio had private charities for the care of children that had no superiors in the country. As to out-door relief, Dr. Byers protested against taking all charitable work out of the hands of good people. Out-door relief was just the thing for churches and individuals to attend to.

Mr. LORD (of Detroit) said that Michigan had taken all sound children out of the county poorhouses, and afforded them ample educational facilities and industrial training. These children were sent out from the institution at Coldwater to be adopted in families.

INSANITY AND INSANE ASYLUMS.

The Standing Committee on Insanity (Dr. Pliny Earle of Northampton, Mass., chairman) submitted four Reports and Papers; by Dr. Earle, by Mr. F. H. Wines of Illinois, by Miss Dr. Cleaves of Davenport, Ia., and by Mr. H. W. Lord of Michigan. Dr. Earle first read his Report, as follows:

A GLANCE AT INSANITY, AND THE MANAGEMENT OF THE INSANE IN THE AMERICAN STATES.

BY PLINY EARLE, M.D.

In coming before you, pursuant to the appointment for the honor of which I am indebted to the Conference of Charities of 1878, I make no pretension of attempting to present for your consideration any thing new from that special field of labor in which I am employed, a comparatively small, although far from being an unimportant part of the broad domain which legitimately comes within the purview of the association here assembled.

It is proposed to occupy your attention with a very brief consideration of the general subject of insanity in the United States, contemplated as historical, contemporaneous, and prospective; to lay before you the skeleton of an argument by which, through the experience of the past, and a just comprehension of the present,

the subject may be placed in such a light as to render more easy the selection of proper methods of meeting the grave responsibilities of the future.

Fifty years ago, in 1829, there were within the limits of the United States but eight institutions specially devoted to the care and the curative treatment of the insane. Only four of them were State institutions; and two of these had been in operation but a few months, since both of them were first opened in the next preceding year. At about this time the people of the States began, more generally than theretofore, to take an interest in the subject of insanity, to recognize the fact of the measurable curability of the disease, to direct their attention to the condition of the insane, to perceive the inadequacy of provision for their suitable accommodation and treatment, and to discuss the importance of these questions in relation not alone to humanity, but also to the social compact and the governmental autonomy of the State.

The State hospital at Worcester, Mass., went into operation in 1833; and of all the institutions of the kind within the United States, the opening of which was within the half-century preceding the present year, it is the oldest. The time at which it began its work forms an important epoch in the history of the enterprise for the amelioration of the condition of the insane. Its superintendent, Dr. Woodward, was an enthusiast in the specialty; and although perhaps not more devoted than Dr. Wyman of the McLean Asylum, or Dr. Todd of the Hartford Retreat, he gave to the profession and to the world, by his detailed reports, vastly more than they of the results of his observation and practical experience. This information was widely disseminated, and gave to the popular movement in favor of the insane an impulse such as it had never before received, and the importance of the consequences of which, extending as they do to the present day, and as they will through all the future history of our nation, cannot now be estimated.

At a period not much later, Miss Dix began that long and laborious career of philanthropic devotion to the interests of the insane with which her name is indissolubly connected, and to which the annals of all history furnish no parallel. To those two persons, Dr. Woodward and Miss Dix, more than to any other two, are the insane of our country indebted for the awakened interest of the people in their behalf, and consequently for that

rapidity of practical action, manifested in the erection of asylums and hospitals for their benefit, which has in no other country been exceeded, even if it have been equalled.

In the course of the seven years from 1834 to 1840, both inclusive, no less than eight asylums and hospitals were opened for the reception of patients, thus doubling the number within the jurisdiction of the States, antecedent to the hospital at Worcester. Five of the new ones were founded by the States within which they are respectively situated. In the decennium from 1841 to 1850, inclusive, the number of institutions completed and put into operation was nine, of which six were founded by States; and in that from 1851 to 1860 it was no less than twenty, of which fifteen owe their origin to commonwealth provision. The remarkable increase during the decade last mentioned happily illustrates not alone the cumulative influence of agencies already mentioned, but of others which had been brought to bear upon the philanthropic enterprise. Not the least among the latter was the formation of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, an organization which, although sometimes accused of a persistent adherence to the methods of the past, uninfluenced by the results of experience, has nevertheless been a potent instrumentality for good.

The late civil war was, naturally and necessarily, a serious check to the multiplication of curative and custodial institutions, and measurably so to all the activities engaged in the beneficent undertaking for the attainment of the ends of which those establishments are the most important practical agents. Yet, notwithstanding this, the area of the enterprise has continued to expand, and the number of hospitals to augment until, at the present time, we have within our national borders not far from eighty, fold increase during the lapse of half a century.

a ten

Of all those fifty years, the decennium from about 1837 to 1847 was, relatively, more important than any other period of equal length, in respect to the adoption of principles, the introduction of innovations, the establishment of methods, and the general shaping of the then future course of the enterprise. No similar period has been more remarkable for the enthusiasm of the professional men engaged therein, and none more prominent for the intellectual ability of those men. Doctors Woodward, Bell, Awl, Butler, Brigham, Kirkbride, Stribling, Ray, and McFarland I mention them very nearly if not precisely in the chronological