and home appropriates 10c per capita of school population from school Libraries funds for school libraries and constitutes county library boards education with library circuits of not over 10 schools. Thus experiments are being tried in various ways, all aiming to work out a better organization of library interests. The county library is an interesting, but doubtful experiment. It was provided for in the Indiana constitution in 1816 and six acts were passed between 1818 and 1852, but few of the libraries remain. The Wyoming law of 1886 authorized to mill tax for county libraries. Doubtless the principal town of each county may wisely contain a library from which books may be drawn by all residents of that county who naturally come often to the town. The danger is in the effort to make the county the unit for supervisory work or sending out traveling libraries and other work which can be done much cheaper in the central library for the whole state. The money it would cost for necessary stock of books, competent assistants and administrative machinery in all the 61 counties of New York gives many times as valuable service to the state by expenditure through the State Library. Transportation is little more for 200 or 300 miles than for 50. The main expense has been incurred when the books are put on the cars, and it would be a wasteful ignoring of economic laws to try to duplicate in counties any of this state work. But on the other hand there seems to be room for making one library in each county a center in close touch with the smaller libraries, specially equipped with books of local interest and in many ways a representative of library interests in that county. Legislation and experience looking to this end are being carefully watched by students of the library problem. New York has made the provision that after 25 years a gift for educational purposes may be administered by the Supreme Court without literal compliance with its terms, if variation will more effectually accomplish its general purpose. The usual large number of laws pertaining to historical societies and geologic surveys have been passed. Science is claiming more attention and the geologic survey tends to broaden out to a natural history survey, botany and other subjects claiming their place with geology. Movements for preservation of scenic Geology and topo graphy and historic places and objects command public approval, New York passing a law that its trustees may acquire property anywhere in the United States. Cooperation is in the air. New York has authorized numerous consolidations of libraries. Pennsylvania allows cities, school districts and library associations to cooperate in building and maintaining public libraries. Wisconsin authorizes appropriations for libraries outside the municipality, and Maine definitely offers to add 10% to any appropriation made for the use of libraries in adjoining towns. The trend is clearly in the direction of getting "the best reading for the largest number at the least cost," and experience shows that that can be accomplished satisfactorily only by supervisory organization which properly centers in the state library in charge of a board or commission which at once fosters and supervises library and home education interests of all kinds throughout the state, and also for the central collection, which formerly was little more than a collection of law books instead of the chief cyclopedic library for the benefit of the entire state. GEOLOGY AND TOPOGRAPHY1 FREDERICK J. H. MERRILL PH. D. DIRECTOR NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM The laws passed by Alabama, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Wisconsin relate to geologic surveys already existing, and are acts of merely local interest, as they simply modify organic laws of earlier date and affect principally the amount of appropriations and character of publications of these surveys. Certain established geologic surveys, notably those of Maryland, New Jersey and New York, are not mentioned in the Comparative Summary and Index of Legislation in 1901, as no laws specifically affecting them were passed, their expenses being provided for in general appropriation bills. New Mexico and North Dakota [N. M. '01 ch. 79; N. D. '01 ch. 8] authorize certain amounts to be expended in cooperation with the United States Geological Survey, the former making 1See also Comparative Summary and Index, 1901, no. 701-16. 2 Ala. '01 p.54; Kan. '01 ch.60; Mich. '01 ch.231; Mo. '01 p.177–78; Wis. '01 ch.375. sion and this appropriation for geologic surveys, the latter restricting charities: it to such geologic work as will be of direct agricultural value. supervi South Carolina and Vermont [S. C. '01 ch. 395; Vt. '01 ch. 6] poor relief make small appropriations for the establishment of state geologic surveys and provide for the publication of the results of the work of these surveys. Pennsylvania ['01 ch. 424] appropriates $45,000 for the two years beginning June 1, 1901. Of this $40,000 is available for cooperative work with the United States Geological Survey, half the expense to be paid by the state and half by the federal survey. An additional $5000 is set aside for reports on the economic geology of the various counties, these reports to be made by a "person to be appointed by the governor." Wyoming ['01 ch. 45] provides for the appointment of a state geologist and prescribes his duties. Contrary to what has been considered advisable by all other states, the state geologist is not only permitted but required to make reports to private owners on the value of their properties. These reports are to be in the form usually required by mining exchanges for the purpose of obtaining a working capital," and are to be paid for by the owners according to a regular scale of fees. CHARITIES: SUPERVISION AND POOR RELIEF1 ROBERT W. HEBBERD, SECRETARY NEW YORK STATE BOARD OF CHARITIES Supervision. Whether wisely or not the tendency of legislation appears clearly to be toward a closer central control of the state charitable and kindred institutions. This is shown in part by the establishment of the Board of Control of State Institutions in Iowa in 1898, taking the place of the local boards of managers of the institutions, by the establishment of the Board of Control of State Institutions in Minnesota in 1901 ['01 ch. 122], replacing the State Board of Charities, whose functions were chiefly of a visitorial nature, and the local boards of managers, and by the recent legislation in New York ['02 ch. 26] whereby the boards of managers of the state insane hospitals 1See also Comparative Summary and Index, 1901, no. 4009–47. Charities: supervi sion and poor relief are to be abolished and the administration of the hospitals vested in the State Commission in Lunacy. In place of the managers a local board of visitors is to be substituted for each hospital, which is required to report quarterly to the governor and the State Commission in Lunacy. The laws with relation to existing boards or systems of control in Kansas ['01 ch. 353], Nebraska ['01 ch. 72] and Washington ['01 ch. 119] were also revised in 1901, with a view toward improvement. Much difference of opinion exists as to the virtue of these radical changes. While on the one hand it is admitted that under the most favorable conditions a more direct and businesslike administration of the state charitable and reformatory institutions may be secured, on the other hand it is agreed by those who stand high in the philanthropic world that the abolition of the local boards will to a great extent remove from the care of the unfortunate that altruistic interest which is most essential to their protection and general well being. These questions are ably discussed by Prof. Charles R. Henderson of the University of Chicago, and ex-president of the National conference of charities and correction, in his Study of the dependent, defective and delinquent Classes. There are two different systems of management: one by the kind of board just mentioned, voluntary, unpaid, and specially interested in a single establishment; and the other system, found in a few states, under which all the state boards and asylums are placed under a single board of state officers who control the business of all from the capital. . . Experience in Europe and America proves, on the widest scale, that trustees can be found who are willing to give time and labor freely to such social tasks especially if there are competent and responsible superintendents, if there is a merit system of appointments, and if they are expected simply to decide questions of policy and not of petty details for which the superintendents are responsible. While there should be a genial tolerance of both discussion and experiment, the weight of argument and the authority of experience are at present distinctly on the side of the system under which unpaid boards are employed, in connection with a central state board to review the entire field and represent the common interest. It is important also that the members should not come from the same county, but should represent different localities, and not merely the interests of the neighborhood. If sion and each board is composed of members who retire and are replaced Charities: according to classes, there will be a continuous element of mem- supervibers who have experience. It is not well to have them elected, since appointment by the governor retains all necessary control without the danger of political selection and absence of direct responsibility. In states where state boards of charities or like visitorial bodies are already established, may also be observed a disposition to provide some further independent oversight of the state institutions. This was manifested by legislation in Indiana ['01 ch. 53], authorizing the governor to appoint a bipartizan committee of the General Assembly to visit and investigate state institutions and to report their needs to the Legislature, and in North Carolina, by an act ['01 ch. 424] empowering the governor to appoint three examiners to visit state institutions. without notice and to report conditions and needs to the governor. This multiplication of machinery is to be regarded as unfortunate mainly because it tends to an expensive disorganization of work incident upon equipping several bodies with like powers and duties. It would seem as though the money might be more wisely expended by leaving this authority and the means to exercise it entirely with the state boards of charities of the states mentioned, whose appropriations are always too small to enable them to do the most efficient work of which they are capable. Further than this, investigators appointed in the manner indicated seldom produce the best results. As a rule, they are unfamiliar with the conditions and needs of charitable institutions and are usually influenced to a greater or less extent by political considerations. Poor relief. In many states changes of more or less importance in the laws relating to the settlement and relief of poor persons are made at each session of the Legislature. The statutes enacted in 1901 are readily divisible into two classes; one class designed apparently to bring about better administration with an evident tendency toward centralization of control, the other intended to secure more reliable returns of those relieved. In California, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Vir |