much less than other tenements, by reason of wide entries and large courts, and while a loss has been entailed by refusal to rent premises for store purposes and for factory labor, these tenements yielded a net income of 4 per cent. in 1890 on capital stock, and a larger per cent. is assured for the coming year. Christian capitalists would do well for themselves and for thousands of others in such investments; and it must rest with such or with others, for whose lack of beneficent motives the law must substitute compulsion, to change this condition of child life which vitiates all others. One obligation of wealth, one serious duty of citizenship, is, indeed, neglected, when one-half the children of our city are compelled to live in tenements whose death-rate is greater than in these better tenements. In 1888 the death-rate in old tenements was 23.06; in new tenements, 22.42; in houses of Tenement Building Company, 14. 28.

EXTENSION OF FACTORY LAWS..

A second duty of the State is the extension of the factory laws to include industries carried on in tenement-houses. Home industries, once a blessing to the home, are now, in the tenement-houses, a curse to its life, because they permit the sacrifice of the health and morals of children to the greed of parents or to the poverty of poorly-paid labor. If home industries are stopped or restricted, there must be a readjustment of wages, which may perhaps cause some temporary distress, but must bring a permanent benefit to tenement-house child life and to society. The State, it may be added, should find another cause for interference here in the danger to the community through the spread of contagious diseases by tenement-made clothing, etc.

MORAL SANITATION.

A further duty is the rigid enforcement of truancy laws and of the fulfilment by parents of their moral obligations to their children. In aid of the former there must be a home to which truants can be sent. The enforcement of the latter is, and will always be, a difficult task for State or private society. It is virtually prescribing, as one has expressed it, “a minimum standard of decency," to which, on the ground of the public good, conformity is made compulsory, if one is to escape punishment or permanent sequestration. This principle of moral sanitation by law has been recognized in the existence of such bodies as the societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, described elsewhere in this number, the Indianapolis Children's Board of Guardians, and other similar societies.

FREE KINDERGARTENS AND HALF-TIME SCHOOLS.

In the fourth place, when the State has done what it can to make the child's home life, physically and morally, a fit place to live in, it should provide the best possible system of free education. This system should include kindergartens for the younger chil dren; for "this is true beyond peradventure. plant

a free kindergarten in any quarter of this overcrowded metropolis, and you have begun then and there the work of making better lives, better homes, better citizens, and a better city." I quote further the opinion of Professor William T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education: "In my opinion, the kindergarten should be a part of the publicschool system of every city in the United States. The ideal kindergarten should take children at the age of four years and retain them for two years. The character of its work is such as to humanize the children in a way that is impossible for the primary school, conducted according to its methods. The great interest in our management of education in the cities of the country is to reach the children of the poorer classes of people, those who have insufficient dwelling accommodation and no yards for the children to play in. The children of the great tenement-houses are obliged to play on the street, and the influence upon them is anything but humanizing." This system of education, it may be added, should also include "half-time" schools, where children who work may spend at least a part of the day.

PERSONAL SERVICE OF THE “PRIVILEGED.”

I have already alluded to the part private enterprise may take with profit to itself and the community-should take, indeed-in the building of better houses for the poor. There is another work that the individual can do, and that is in making homes even under the existing unfavorable conditions. Some of the people who live in the worst part of the city have proved themselves superior to their surroundings, and if the better influences which contact with lives of the more privileged brings were not wholly removed from their lives, the number of such might be multiplied many times. This is the work of the volunteer visitor, the neighbor, the friend. And the scope of volunteer service is almost without limit in any of the directions which I have named in enumerating the duties of the State with respect to the tenement-house child; e.g., in personally superintending these tenements when built, and taking an interest in the well-being of the tenants, as some have done; in bettering the sanitary condition of homes, as voluntary associa tions are doing to-day; in promoting the enactment of wise ordinances and acts, and giving the city or State active support in the enforcement and proper administration of those laws; in undertaking work which the city or State will do only when assured of its practicability and its benefit to the entire community; and, finally, in carrying on the work which private enterprise must always continue to bear. I cannot here even enumerate the many proj ects of volunteer effort which contribute directly or indirectly to the betterment of the condition of the children of the tenements. It must, as a rule, be the work of an individual with an individual or an individual family, for whatever object and under whatever form of organization the workers may be associated.

III. FOR THE CHILD OF THE STATE.

I have spoken of some things the public and the individual may do for the child of the tenementhouse in its home.

The next question is the disposition of those children of whom the State has assumed full charge. It will be necessary first to decide what children there is cause to place under the public authority. I follow a scheme prepared by one of the committees of the International Society for the Study of Questions of Relief, and indorsed by the society, believing that it answers our question fully. 1. Dependent children of three categories: foundlings, abandoned, orphans. 2. The morally abandoned (those who, by reason of infirmities, negligence, the vices of their parents, or other causes, find themselves left to themselves and deprived of an education). 3. Children acquitted as having acted without discernment of right and wrong, and those committed to reformatories up to twenty years of age. 4. Children held in the same reformatory institutions, whether by wish of the parent or as condemned for the commission with their full knowledge of misdemeanors or crimes.

CARE OF ORPHANS AND FOUNDLINGS.

1. As to the first class, the foundlings, the aban doned, and the orphans, there is practical unanimity in the opinion that they should, except when their condition does not permit, be carried back to the country and placed in families. The advantages of this method of disposing of dependent children are obvious, and yet in the face of the "practical unanimity" of opinion on the part of philanthropists and economists as to the wisdom of the placing of children in families, there stand giant institutions for children—some institutions in New York City with one and two thousand inmates-as witnesses to the failure, either from inadequacy of machinery or from hindrances to its workings, of the system so generally recommended. What were intended to be mere stations along the road by which the child journeyed from the home broken up by the death of the parent, or by some other cause, to another home, have grown into great juvenile boarding establishments. Associations organized for transportation purposes chiefly have apparently forgotten their original charters and gone into the victualling business, and instead of devoting themselves to transporting child passengers, they have ceased to put out new lines into the country, and have even abandoned lines already laid. Some roads are now operated, it would seem, for the benefit of the institutionsand this is unfortunately considered identical with the interests of the child-and not primarily for the public good. Sectarian and other inducements encourage parents to send their children to institutions for a few years during the unremunerative period of their lives, while the public pays for their board and clothing. "Discharged to parents" or "discharged to friends" is a most frequent and a very suggestive entry in the register.

INSTITUTIONAL PRIDE.

I

The question is pertinent, Why do these enormous institutions exist and continue to grow? Why is it that we are practically not in advance of people of one hundred years ago in this matter, with all the experience of these years behind us? As it is the greed of landlordism that packs the wretched tenement-house, so, I think, it is in a measure the pride, the unconsciously selfish interests of institutions that fill to overflowing their great structures. cannot better emphasize this fact than by citing this instance: Last winter a bill was introduced in the Legislature of the State of New York which, if enacted, would have emptied in a few months the children's institutions of the State of half their inmates. The measure was objectionable on good grounds; but the objection made to it by a superintendent of a prominent child's institution indicates, I think, the spirit in which at least some of these institutions are managed. "Why," he said, “it will ruin our institution. We are building an extension, and we shall have no children to put in it." This remark must be interpreted not as showing indifference to the children's welfare, but as showing an institutional pride which may be blind to the interests of the individual child.

PUBLIC INDIFFERENCE.

Added to this cause are the indifference of the public and the political interest of some in main taining existing conditions. New York City is paying without official protest, under direction of State laws, the enormous sum of nearly two millions of dollars annually into the hands of private institu tions, many of whose inmates, but for this provision, would not, probably, be dependent at all.

TEMPTATIONS TO PARENTS.

The chief cause is not, however, the public apathy nor the institutional pride and selfishness. It is the inducement which the public holds out to parents and relatives to relieve themselves of the responsibility of their children. Under special and general laws the city is obliged to pay certain sums per capita for all children received and supported in certain private institutions; the number is nearly twenty thousand yearly. I quote from Mrs. Lowell's report to the State Board of Charities, 1889:

The enormous increase in the number of dependent children has been ascribed to the per capita allowance for the maintenance of children from the city funds, and to that provision of the law of 1875 known as the "religious clause." That this law should serve to increase the number of dependent children was to be expected, because it provided exactly the care which parents desire for their children, that of persons of their own religious faith, and supplied ample means for the children's support; while, although the funds were to be derived from public sources, yet, since the institutions were to be managed by private persons, the stigma which fortunately attaches to public relief was removed. Thus every incentive to parents to place their children upon the public for support was created by the provisions of the law, and every deter

rent was removed; for the law demanded nothing from the parent in return for the support of his child, and did not deprive him of any of his rights over the child, although relieving him of every duty toward it

AN OUTLET NEEDED.

Turning from the causes which have led to the congested condition of the institutions in cities to the placing out system, its prescribed remedy, I am reminded of Mr. Booth's gigantic scheme. I do not speak of it to discuss it, but merely to say that, however well the project of city, farm, and over-thesea colonies may work, Mr. Booth will be but gathering the scum from the great metropolitan pools. The scum-making conditions remain so long as there is no under the surface outlet. The stream that finds its way from the distant hills into this pool may be never so pure, the flowers that it carries on its surface never so beautiful, the storm that moves its depths never so violent, the scum will not cease to gather if there does not run a current of living water through it. If the money that is spent by the city and by private charity annually in building higher the embankment were expended in digging ditches out into the great fields, turning this stream of children out into family homes in the country, the necessity for Mr. Booth's and other scum-skimming work would undoubtedly be greatly lessened.

PLACING OUT.

I have alluded to the remedy in describing the conditions to be remedied. It is the placing out system that is, the placing of children in family homes, free homes if possible; if these cannot be found, in homes with small payment for board. This system has proved successful in every country where it has been tried. In Ireland the natural temperament of the people has made it especially successful; in Scotland the employment of this method has been attended by a marked diminution of pauperism; in France it has been in vogue from time immemorial; and, indeed, in every European country "there is evidence that from early ages it suggested itself as the natural method for providing for children without parents."

AN ILLUSTRATION FROM GERMANY.

The following description of an admirable placing out system in vogue in some of the cities of the German empire will make clear the plan proposed :

The method pursued is for a visitor in one of the precincts to report, through his chairman, to the central committee that he has found a child whose cir cumstances are such as to require interference. The central committee examines the case; and if the report of the visitor is sustained, the child is taken in charge and placed temporarily in an orphan asylum provided for that purpose. The committee then seeks, through the burgomasters of different villages, to find a family of good character which would be willing for a stated sum-ordinarily about $30 per year-to take charge of a child, whose cloth ing, school books, and medical attendance will be provided for by the committee. It is easy to find families willing to undertake such a charge. The little waif is comfortably dressed and brought to

his new home by one or more members of the city committee, who see the pastor, the school teacher, and the village physician, and solicit their especial care and protection for the child about to be established in their midst. For this care the teacher and physician are paid a stated though modest allowance per annum. The family having the child in charge becomes thenceforth subject to surveillance by three of the foremost citizens of the place, besides occasional visits from members of the committee in the city.

WHAT IS NEEDED IN NEW YORK CITY.

Such a machine requires time for its building and the active and intelligent service of hundreds and thousands of volunteers. It is suggested that in New York City there is needed, first of all, a commissioner to look after her dependent children. Though nearly twenty thousand children are annu ally maintained at the public expense, at a cost of nearly two millions of dollars, there is not a city nor a county officer, except the Board of Health officer, who has legal right of entrance into the houses where they are kept. The city is obliged by State law to pay a per capita sum for each child in most of the institutions, and does not have the right to count the children even. In the next place, until such a machine as that above described can be built and put into operation, it will be necessary to offer inducements to the institutions to place out instead of to retain children.

THE MORALLY ABANDONED.

2. Placing in families is generally recognized as the best disposition of the "morally abandoned," defined in the category above; the placing to be preceded, of course, by careful inquiry into the conduct and character of the child and the condition and morality of its parents.

DELINQUENTS.

3. Concerning the care of the children included in categories 3 and 4 I cannot here speak further than to say that institutions approaching the family home are preferable to large institutions where individual care is likely not to be had-such institutions as the "farm homes" managed by the Children's Aid Society of Massachusetts, and the Burnham Industrial Farm of New York. The Pennsylvania Children's Aid Society is carrying the principle still further by placing this class directly in carefully selected homes.

THE ABOLITION OF THE SLUMS.

I have briefly described the conditions of child life in the tenement districts of New York City. I have indicated some of the processes in the solution of the child problem in that city. Its complete solution means the abolition of the "slums." This will come when the one half, the privileged half, takes enough interest in the other half and in the welfare of society at large to compel the enactment and enforcement of such laws as have been mentioned above, and to supplement State supervision by personal activity in the rescue of the helpless victims of the existing pernicious social conditions.