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are doing now. They give the most responsible, thorough service now; and they have the least recognition. In our special schools we are relieved of the terrible tyranny of the examinations and promotions. The teacher can do her best without fearing the test from the City Hall. For these special schools we have a special superintendent, who has had a long experience; and she knows all the pupils. Boys, particularly, welcome this stricter discipline and more personal consideration and care, and will sometimes, after they have had three months of excellent reports, and when they are to be sent back to the common school, do something naughty, so that they may be sent back again. The personal contact is excellent. That is the thing that holds: whereas, in the great common school, there is a sense of being held by the great force of public opinion.

We have applied the same principle in our public schools one step further. We have no institution for the feeble-minded in Rhode Island, most of whom are sent to Massachusetts with payment by the State. But we have a day school in Providence for the higher grade of feeble-minded. A good many delinquent children come from those below par intellectually. They are delinquent because they do not know how to obey the rules. They drop below the others. They are troublesome in school, and they do wrong things because there is no mental quality to restrain them. They must be specially trained to do the proper thing. We find that in our school for special instruction for the higher grade of feeble-minded that, after two or three years, sometimes after six months, they can be returned to the ordinary school, and can keep step. The discouraged child who has no special care at home is on the broad road to delinquency.

In talking about delinquent and deficient children, do not let us forget our connection with the public school, which is the great mission station in which we are trying to bridge the chasm between centuries of development and continents of race tendency within the period of a few years. We have special teachers for ungraded rooms in our graded schools. Do not let us ask the regular teachers to do more work for the abnormal children. They have all that they can do. Our school-rooms for the normal should be stations of observation, into which the physician shall enter to find out the children likely to be crippled or deformed, and take them out and help them before they need to go to such hospitals as we have heard about. And, also, take out the undertoned, mentally and morally, and see that they have special drill in schools suited to their needs.

Mr. F. H. BRIGGS, Rochester.- Either a child needs to be in a reform school or he does not need to be there. If he does not need it, keep him out. If he does, send him there. There is no need of sending any child to a reform school who can be cared for outside of it. The children between eight and sixteen years of age in Massachusetts and New York cannot be sent to reform schools: the law

prohibits. Unless the child has so far become a criminal that he has committed an offence for which an adult would be sent to the State prison, he is not sent to the reform school. The training of the reform school does not unfit any child for the duties of life. You might as well say, because the binomial theorem did not fit us for the duties of life, that it does not help us. The reason why reform schools are said to unfit children for the duties of life is because a few feeble-minded delinquents, who would be dependent through life whether they went to reform schools or not, are thus always dependent. You must judge from results. We have trained many men and women there. The question is, What sort of men and women would they have been without it? Many people say, because a man has been to college and turned out a failure, that colleges are not good for anything, that they simply educate fools. If a man is such a failure after he has been through college, what would he have been without the college?

Mr. GEORGE W. JOHNSON, Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I would like to correct the impression probably created by the remarks of the last speaker in reference to the policy of the State Board of.Lunacy and Charity of Massachusetts in recommending the discontinuance of the State Primary School. This school, originally established for the care and education of dependent children, had gradually become, under permissive acts of the legislature, a place for the commitment of a large number of juvenile delinquents who, by their age or by the character or circumstance of their offence, seemed to require a milder discipline than that of the Lyman School.

This practice had been carried to such an extent that nearly, if not quite, one-half of the inmates of the school were of the delinquent class; and the institution had obtained the character of a reformatory, and was so regarded by a large part of the community. As a consequence, children guilty of no offence except that of poverty and misfortune were held in constant association with, and were sent out into the world with, the same tainted reputation as those who had been committed by the courts for a violation of the law. The State Board was of the opinion that these dependent children were suffering a great wrong; and, therefore, acting in unison with the trustees of the State Primary and Reform Schools, it successfully urged upon the legislature the wisdom of a discontinuance of the school.

The people of Massachusetts generally, especially those interested in charitable work, after a varied experience with both systems, have arrived at the conclusion that institution life is not as good for the children as family life, that the best place for the child, the best for his reformation and favorable development, is in a good home; and this fact was also one among other reasons for the abolition of the school. The establishment of the small institution at Berlin, referred to by the last speaker, has proved very useful in providing

for a few (from sixteen to twenty) of the younger delinquents who would formerly have been sent to the Primary School.

Mr. F. H. WINES.- Nothing so appeals to the emotional and sympathetic side of my nature as the aspiration of the negro for a better and a higher life, unless it is, perhaps, the discouragement and despair of the much-misunderstood American Indian. I want to say a word in behalf of our friend, Mr. Smyth, who spoke so eloquently. Mr. Smyth will forgive me if I tell you a little of his personal history. On his maternal side his ancestors have been free for one hundred and fifty years. His father was a slave in Virginia. His mother purchased his father, and so became the owner of her husband. But, under the laws of Virginia, she could not emancipate him; and, dying in this relation, she bequeathed him to his own son. Mr. Smyth then became the owner of his father, to whom he gave his freedom under the laws, not of Virginia, but of Pennsylvania, my native State. He was for nine years the American minister to the republic of Liberia.

I appeal to you, ladies and gentlemen, who have seen him and heard him speak, whether the splendid manhood which he exhibited in his person, his manner, and his address, is not equal to any which has been manifested on this platform in the presence of this audience. I trust that the generosity of the American people will respond to the inspiration which has come to him, doubtless from a higher source, and will enable him to write his name by the side of that of Booker T. Washington as a benefactor of his own race. There is nothing which is so much needed, from a sociological and political point of view, as the elevation of the negro, but he can only be elevated by his own efforts under negro leadership. I hope, therefore, that the people of the United States, especially of the enlightened, liberal, and wealthy cities of New York and Boston, will give this man the moral and pecuniary support to which he is entitled.

Dr. WALK.- One of the means of bridging over the life of a child from the disciplinary institution and the life of the home is this plan. In a certain institution with which I was connected, we tried this plan. A large number were homeless and had no family relations; and, as they found places to which they were adapted outside, the boys were allowed to board in the institution, following employment outside. These boys were extremely anxious to reform. They had board given to them at actual cost, about two dollars per week. The attempt has been so successful that the railroad company has said that it would employ every boy who comes recommended by the institution. I know that to be a fact. I also know that one of our most distinguished citizens, trying to enter his son with this company, said, "Of course, I know that my boy has not had the training which the boys have that you get from that school; but I have done the best I could."

Mr. McLaughlin suggested that one great reason for the degradation of people was the lack of proper nourishment. The first violation of nature's laws in failing to supply the body with suitable nourishment is responsible for many evil consequences.

Adjourned.

ELEVENTH SESSION.

Tuesday night, May 24.

The Conference was called to order at eight o'clock by the • President, who introduced Professor Charles R. Henderson, of the University of Chicago, as the president-elect of the Twenty-sixth Conference, who spoke as follows:

Prof. HENDERSON.- We have enjoyed a gracious reception here — I speak for my Western colleagues as well as for myself — in this city, this great commercial, literary, scientific, and philanthropic metropolis. We have enjoyed every hour of it. We have enjoyed the meetings in the hall, the gatherings in the homes and in the hotel, the greetings on every hand, the renewal of old acquaintanceships, and the meeting with the younger workers, who are making discoveries that have to be rediscovered every year, who are learning the new lessons in philanthropic matters which we have talked over a great many years, but which come with the surprise of a splendid revelation to those who come upon them for the first time.

We are here to learn, to reconstruct opinions, to speak for those that are neglected as having found a friend,— yea, hundreds of friends. We are seeking here, out of the enthusiasm of generous sentiments, to learn how to turn those sentiments of benevolence into acts of wise and well-directed beneficence. I thank you from my heart for the great honor you have done me. Since 1884, as often as possible, I have shared in these Conferences. It is a great joy and a great honor to serve upon your committees, to toil with other coworkers, to find out the facts on which our judgment might be based. That is an honor and a joy to us all. So we hope — I speak now for the West- that the people of the farther West will join with our generous and hospitable friends of Kentucky, and others from the sunny and hospitable South, in giving you as warm a welcome in Cincinnati as we have received here.

The chairman of the evening, Mr. John M. Glenn, was then introduced, the subject for the evening being "Charity Organization.” Mr. Glenn asked Mr. E. T. Devine, of New York, to say a word.

Mr. DEVINE.- The Charity Organization Societies desire to make a contribution, however modest, to the advancement of professional

standards and improvement in charity work. A training class has therefore been arranged from June 20 until the end of July, in which it is proposed to give the best assistance that we can to those who wish to prepare themselves for professional work in applied philanthropy of any sort. There will be no charge for tuition. The only expense will be the living expenses and railroad fares. We cannot take care of a large number. We can probably take fifteen. Eleven acceptable members have already registered, so that there is room for three or four more. It is not the establishment of a professional school in any large manner, such as has been agitated, and such as the Charities Review in the May number discusses and indorses. It is simply a beginning, an experiment toward that end. We ask the interest of those who care about the larger plan, which may possibly be established eventually.

Mr. GLENN.- I will now mention the names of the committee appointed to revise the Statistical Blank. Messrs. Philip W. Ayres, Hugh M. Fox, Professor S. M. Lindsay, Professor Richmond MayoSmith, Miss Mary E. Richmond, Miss Z. D. Smith, Chas. F. Weller.

The first address was by Rev. James M. Pullman, D.D., of Lynn (page 486).

An address followed, by Daniel C. Gilman, LL.D., president of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (page 430).

The Committee on Organization reported. The whole report was unanimously adopted, and the officers and committee declared elected. (See page 483.)

DISCUSSION.

Mr. ROBERT TREAT PAINE.- If I have any word, it is a word of exultation. It has been a great pleasure to hear these two eminent men describe this theme from different points of view. I should like to bring the two together, and show it is from the union of these two ideas which we have heard outlined to-night that the momentum is given, to be increased for the next two hundred and fifty years. If co-operation is the triumph of our age, may we not look to see this great movement carried forward in the future? Must it not be in the co-operation of those two forces, that which President Gilman has described and those which Dr. Pullman has described? It was a great pleasure to us all to witness the splendid celebration on Sunday evening at Grace Church, the most interesting church service in connection with our Conferences which it has ever been my privilege to witness. The underlying thought, the supreme idea which Dr. Huntington gave us was that it is the spirit of religion which underlies, and which gives potency to, the causes in which we are engaged. As a Churchman, I have written a paper on the "Relation of the Associated Charities to the Church," in which I have en

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