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pupil; the remaining 6 are at a small private institution at Falls Church, Va., where special arrangements are made for each child. The total expense for the year is $4,645.87.

Before the organization of the Board of Children's Guardians the care of feeble-minded children was intrusted to the Secretary of the Interior, who placed children in institutions, upon the recommendation of the president of the Columbian Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. The Fifty-second Congress, however, placed upon the Board of Children's Guardians the duty of placing feeble-minded children; but the provisions of the law were so indefinite as to seem still to require the recommendation of the president of the Columbian Institution. The law in regard to the care of this class of dependents is otherwise ambiguous, and the Board of Children's Guardians desires to have the law made explicit by the enactment of the following legislation:

PROPOSED BILL.

That the Board of Children's Guardians of the District of Columbia is hereby authorized to receive applications on behalf of persons alleged to be of feeble mind who have resided within the District of Columbia for not less than one year immediately preceding the filing of such application, and to cause such children, accompanied by their parents or guardians, to be brought before the board for examination touching their mental condition; and whenever, upon such examination, it shall be shown to the satisfaction of the board that any such person is of unsound mind, or is an epileptic, or is idiotic or imbecile, and, therefore, incapable of receiving instruction among persons of sound mind, the said board may cause such person to be placed in an institution conducted for the special care and training of such persons, at such rate of payment as may be found necessary, not exceeding two hundred and twenty-five dollars per annum.

That whenever it shall be made known to the Board of Children's Guardians that the parents or guardian of any feeble-minded person, who is for the time being supported at public expense, or on behalf of whom an application for public support is under consideration, is able to contribute toward the support of such person, the board shall require such parent or guardian to show, under oath, the extent of his or her income or property, and ability to contribute toward the support of such person, and the board may thereupon order and require the payment to the board, monthly or quarterly in advance, of any sum less than the full amount paid for the support of such person by said board.

In this recommendation the committee concur. The cost of maintenance at Elwyn ($225) is higher than the actual cost ($162.76) of supporting a feeble-minded child at the New York State Institution for Feeble-Minded Children at Syracuse, but the Board of Children's Guardians have secured a reduction of $25 per annum from the rates of 1894–1896, and it is doubtful whether any institution would admit both white and colored children at a lower rate.

The necessity of protecting the community from the propagation of idiots is too well established to need comment here.2 The committee

1 Report of the New York Board of State Charities for 1896, p. 51.

2 For an instance of the bad effects of committing a feeble-minded girl to the almshouse of the District of Columbia see Charity Hearings, p. 65.

suggest that means should be taken to provide not only for feebleminded children, but for feeble-minded adults as well. Idiots are not proper patients for the insane asylum, but much less should they be suffered to go at large and to inflict their offspring on the public.1

INDIGENT BLIND.

Under section 2 of the act of Congress approved May 29, 1858 (11 Stat. L., p. 294), the Secretary of the Interior is authorized to place for instruction in the institution for the blind in the State of Maryland or some other State the indigent blind children of teachable age belonging to the District of Columbia; also the indigent blind children of persons actually engaged in the military or naval service of the United States. Under this authority 21 blind children were under instruction in the Maryland institution for the blind in Baltimore during 1895; 2 were admitted and 2 discharged during the year, leaving 21 beneficiaries at the institution on June 30, 1896.

The cost to the Government for each pupil is $300 per annum, that being the amount charged by the State of Maryland for similar instruction to others. These sums are paid from the Treasury of the United States, the District bearing no part in the support of its own blind. The committee recommend:

That the work of providing for the blind children of the District of Columbia be transferred from the Secretary of the Interior to the Board of Children's Guardians, and that a specific appropriation for the care of the blind be made in the District appropriation bill.

There is no good reason why the District should not take care of its own blind, nor is there any reason for burdening the Secretary of the Interior with the duty of looking after this class of the District's dependents.

DEPENDENT CHILDREN.

Perhaps the most perplexing problem with which the committee has had to deal concerns the dependent children. In this District two systems are at work-the asylum system and the placing-out system. In theory, however, the asylums recognize the placing-out system; each of them has provisions in its charter for the indenture of children, and each practices that system so far as its resources will allow. On the other hand, the Board of Children's Guardians, which makes the placing-out system its foundation, is compelled by the nature of things

The State of New York forbids the retention of any idiot in a hospital for the insane, and by the term idiot is understood "any person who by reason of a condition of the brain, either congenital or acquired prior to the age of 12 years, has his normal functions so far impaired that he is incapable of performing any other than mere mechanical duties under the direction of his guardian." For all such separate institutions are provided.

to use the asylum for the reception and for the preparation of children for homes.

The mutual antagonism of the two systems appears in their practical operation. The placing-out system insists that before a child becomes properly a dependent-that is, a proper charge upon the public-the courts or some other official authority shall investigate the case and decide as to the fact of such dependency. The asylum system-so called for convenience-maintains that it is the duty of the State to assist in caring for children whose parents may for any reason be unable to care for them; and in case the parents become able to resume the care of their offspring, under this system the children may be returned to them. Children are received without official investigation, each institution or organization having its own rules in regard to the admission and dismission of children.

Again, the placing-out system is based on the theory that where the natural parents of a child have proved remiss in their duty it may be for the best interests of both the child and society to have the child placed in a new home where it will grow up as a part of the community and in this way be trained in habits of self-reliance and in the duties and privileges of citizenship. Retention in an institution is contemplated only to the extent of training the individual child, so far as may be necessary, in habits of veracity, cleanliness, and order, so as to fit it for entrance into a home. The asylum system practically prolongs the training for years, during which the child is supported by the community; and endeavors in the institution to give such a training as the public schools would provide for persons placed out. Often these institutions are connected with and in part supported by religious organizations. It is the custom also for the Protestant churches to unite in supporting some one or more institutions; while the Roman Catholic Church in every large community maintains a complete system of institutions for child-caring work.

A third difference between the placing-out and the asylum systems is found in the fact that the latter system in effect maintains no supervision over the child after it leaves the institution, whereas it is an essential part of the placing-out system to visit at intervals the children so placed out and to retain control over the welfare and the persons of its wards, to the end that they shall be properly cared for, educated, and trained.

As has been said, the difference in the two systems is rather practical than theoretical, since the asylum does not intend to provide for the unworthy, nor to keep children beyond the time when good homes can be found for them, nor to neglect children placed out. The weak point in the system is that it is not so organized as to protect itself against fraud, to search for suitable homes, or to make systematic visitations. Its entire energies and resources are required to maintain the institution itself.

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE PROBLEM IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

The magnitude of the dependent-children problem as it affects the District of Columbia is seen from the fact that at the end of 1896 there were 1,014 children supported wholly or in part by District appropriations. The movement of this population during the year shows that 611 children were received, and 316 were discharged. The record shows that during the same year 166 children were placed in free homes, 138 died, and 177 were restored to their parents or friends. The committee has reason to believe that there is duplication in the figures showing the number of children placed in free homes; and in general it may be said that on account of lack of uniformity in the answers to the questions propounded there is a certain amount of confusion that of itself would call for a systematic supervision over the whole subject.

THE BOARD OF CHILDREN'S GUARDIANS ESTABLISHED.

Before the establishment of the Board of Children's Guardians the District depended entirely on the several institutions for the care of such children as these institutions might admit. This work was begun in the first half of the present century by the Washington Orphan Asylum and St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum. Neither of these institutions has ever been supported by the Government, and both are still doing a large work. In 1892 the Board of Children's Guardians was established, with the object of bringing about in the District of Columbia those reforms in methods of caring for dependent children that had been successfully worked in other communities. Congress in its wisdom, however, never has seen fit to equip the board with some of the agencies essential to success, and appropriations to it have been made under such restrictions as to seriously cripple its work. For example, the board has had no place in which to care for its wards temporarily, and has even been without the power to place children in an institution supported by the Government without the express permission of the authorities of the institution applied to. Again, the amount allowed for placing out and visiting children has been so small that during several months of the past year this portion of the work of necessity has been suspended.

Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the board has cared for feebleminded and colored children (two classes not welcomed in institutions) and has extended its operations so as to cover all the varied lines of the work. Should the appropriations be withdrawn from every institution in the District the Board of Children's Guardians would be able to care for every child who is legitimately dependent on the public for its support, and the several institutions would then be free to care for those children who, while in no proper sense public dependents, are nevertheless subjects for that charity which churches and benevolent

organizations are accustomed to exercise. Such is the line drawn in many of those States whose systems of aid to public dependents is noted for efficiency and for completeness. In order that resources may be husbanded for proper and adequate care of those really dependent, it has been found to be both prudent and necessary to insist on public control of all children supported at public cost.

THE EXPERIENCE OF MASSACHUSETTS.

The State of Massachusetts has recently had the subject of the organization of charities investigated by a commission, consisting of Messrs. William I. Wharton, Charles I. Folsom, and Davis R. Dewey. After frequent hearings and a thorough examination the commission reported (February 1, 1897) a total of 1,636 juvenile wards of the Commonwealth under the care, custody, and control of the State board of lunacy and charity. The extracts from the report of the commission given below bear upon both the creation of a general supervisory board and also of a board whose peculiar duty it shall be to care for juvenile wards. The work in the District is still so limited as not to require so minute a subdivision of duties as is found necessary in a great State like Massachusetts, so that one general board of charities here may without too much difficulty cover the entire supervisory work, including the supervision of the work of the Board of Children's Guardians.

We believe that it requires no argument [says the Massachusetts report] to show that the same board can not in the nature of things undertake the care of a class of State wards, and likewise occupy a place of independent criticism of its own work in this direction. The only effective supervision is that which is exercised by a board, or by officers who have no part in the duties to be supervised, and the object of supervision-and this is specially applicable to all charitable work-is to inquire into the work done, to suggest improvements, and to correct evils which may be found to exist.

Supervision by a distinct and separate authority of all work done by officers having the care and custody of any class of State wards seems to have been the policy of the Commonwealth, as indicated by the course of legislation. All the State institutions having the care of State paupers and juvenile offenders are governed by boards of trustees, and are subject to the supervision of the State Board of Lunacy and Charity. The three exceptions in this regard seem to be the care and custody of neglected and dependent children and of certain juvenile offenders, of insane puapers boarded in families, and of the Indians who have not acquired settlements in any town in the Commonwealth.

So far back as 1863 Massachusetts provided for a board of charities to investigate and supervise the whole system of public charities and correctional institutions of the Commonwealth, and to recommend such changes and additional provisions as they may deem necessary for the economical and efficient administration of the institutions. This board has full power to transfer pauper inmates from one charitable institution or lunatic hospital to another, and for this purpose to grant admittances and discharges to such pauper inmates. The visiting agent of the board of State charities is charged with the duty of visiting all

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