meeting selected may be changed by the Executive Committee, if satisfactory local arrangements cannot be made.

IV. DUTIES OF OFFICERS.

The President shall be chairman, ex officio, of the Executive Committee, and shall have the supervision of the work of the several committees in preparing for the meeting of the Conference. He shall have authority to accept resignations and to fill vacancies in the list of officers and chairmen of committees, and to fill vacancies in, and add to the numbers of, any committee except the Executive Committee.

The General Secretary shall be ex officio Secretary of the Executive Committee, and Chairman of the Committee on Reports from the States. He shall conduct the correspondence of the Conference with officers, committees, and others, under the direction of the President. He shall have charge of the distribution of all announcements and programmes, and shall direct the work of the Secretaries, and be responsible for the correctness of the roll of members. He shall be the custodian of the unsold copies of the reports of the Proceedings, receive all orders for the same, and direct their distribution.

He shall receive all membership fees and proceeds of sales of the reports of the Proceedings, and pay the same promptly to the Treasurer. He shall receive compensation for his services and an allowance for clerk hire and other expenses, the amount and time of payment of which shall be fixed by the Executive Committee from time to time.

The Treasurer shall receive and disburse all moneys of the Conference, all disbursements to be made only upon order of the General Secretary, approved by the President or by some member of the Executive Committee, to be named by the President.

The Official Reporter and Editor shall report and edit the Proceedings of the Conference. The President of the retiring Conference and the Official Editor shall constitute a Publication Committee, and the work of editing shall be under the direction of the committee.

The Corresponding Secretaries shall be responsible for the annual reports from their several States. It shall be their duty to secure the attendance of representatives from public and private institutions and societies.

V. THE DUTIES OF COMMITTEES.

The Executive Committee shall be the President's Advisory Board, and shall hold the powers of the Conference in the interim between the meetings. The Executive Committee may appoint sub-committees to attend to matters of detail. Meetings of the Executive Committee shall be called by the President of the Conference, and five members shall constitute a quorum, provided that, when the Conference is not in session, three members shall constitute a quorum.

The Local Committee shall make all necessary local arrangements for the meeting, and provide funds for the local expenses, such as hall rent, salary and expenses of the Reporter, and all necessary printing except the Proceedings, in such amount as the Executive Committee may determine.

The President, in consultation with the Chairman of each Standing Committee, shall arrange the programme for the sessions and section meetings, and shall so arrange it as to give opportunity for free discussion; provided that the programme, before final adoption, shall be submitted to the Executive Committee for its approval.

No paper shall be presented to the Conference except through the proper committee, and no paper shall be read in the absence of the writer, except by unanimous consent.

VI. SECTION MEETINGS.

The Section Meetings are designed for familiar discussion. Not more than one paper shall be read at any Section Meeting, and that paper shall be limited to fifteen minutes. If possible, papers shall be printed and distributed beforehand, that the entire meeting may be given to discussion. No afternoon meetings shall be inserted in the official programme.

VII. DEBATES.

In the debates of the Conference, speakers shall be limited to five minutes each, except by unanimous consent, and shall not be allowed to speak twice on any one subject until all others have had an opportunity to be heard.

VIII. AMENDMENTS.

These rules shall remain in force from year to year, unless amended; and all additions or amendments shall be submitted to the Executive Committee before being acted on by the Conference.

Introduction.

THE TWENTY-FIFTH CONFERENCE.

Although only twenty-four years had passed since the National Conference of Charities and Correction first met in New York,-- a fact overlooked by some of the speakers and writers at the Twentyfifth Conference, yet the lapse of time necessary to bring out the annual volume of our Proceedings has made the full quarter-century intervene between the incipience of the First Conference (of 1874) and this brief record of the history of the organization.

On the 8th of October, 1873, Mr. F. B. Sanborn, one of the two original secretaries of the American Social Science Association, was elected General Secretary of that body; and on the 16th of March, 1874, he was re-elected Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities, of which he had been the original Secretary from October, 1863, to October, 1868. In the interval between these dates (Oct. 8, 1873, and March 16, 1874) Mr. Sanborn co-operated with the late Professor W. B. Rogers, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and others in organizing a Department of Social Economy in the Social Science Association, upon the Committee of which he was associated with several eminent gentlemen since deceased, Dr. S. G. Howe, Messrs. Charles Loring Brace, George S. Hale, and John Ayres,- with Mrs. S. Parkman, now dead, and with Mrs. Henry Whitman and Miss Lucy Ellis, of Boston, and Dr. Robert T. Davis, of Fall River, who still survive, and are active in the discussion of social questions. It was decided by this Social Economy Department Committee that a Conference of the Boards of Public Charities in the United States ought to be called together; and measures were taken in the winter of 1873-74 to learn the wishes of the nine State Boards of Charities then existing in the States of Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. Mr. San