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Show the 2 them often to the building, together with the privileges of the library given to the older children all this is really settlement work in that cosmopolitan section of Yonkers where the institute is situated. In the affairs of th city, the workers have come to be a recognized power. Their cooperation is always available in all good public movements, and their judgment and discretion have proved valuable on many occasions. Yonkers is a factory town, and subject to strikes. At such times the institute has proved a much-prize- d shelter, and its workers have averted violence on the part of strikers. A most important department of the institute is the civic league, organized under the action of the trustees early in 1895. The work of the league was at first educational, and encouraged the study of civic affairs by means of lectures and classes. Afterwards the work of the league developed along more active lines. The city was divided into sections, in each of which a committee was installed. This gave to the educational work of the league the second element of cooperation, the committees being formed of residents of that locality. It has been the policy of this branch of the institute to utilize and develop work already in existence rather than to begin new movements. A prominent worker of the institute says: We do not want ideas and suggestions so much as activity.1 In everything done by the civic league of this institute, the primal idea has been that of forwarding some reform already under way. The beneficial results of this are to be found in the cordial and friendly relations existing between the institute and all the civic authorities in Yonkers. The public school system rents at the institute the finely equipped cooking rooms and sends its classes there for instruction in preference to fitting up individual rooms. The cooperation of the university extension course managers is also worthy of note. The institute has taken out a membership in the state university, thereby greatly increasing its educational possibilities and bringing its library under the state aid act. review. It has an associate the state cm membership, too, with of mittee of the International board ChristWomens and Young Womens ian Associations and the Association is of Working Girls Societies. It in Inclose touch with Pratt and Drexel stitutes and the Teachers College, by the employment of instructors from these institutions, and its relations with the Yonkers Board of Education and the Municipal Council are most cordial and helpiul. From the inception of the institute the enterprise has owed much of its success to the devotion of the Misses These ladies have not only given money freely, but much of their time as well. When the new building Butler. was opened in 1893, there was a mortgage of $ 1 0,000 upon it. This was gradually cleared by good management and the generosity of friends until last spring when a balance of This year Miss $3,500 remained. Butler has come into possession of the unencumbered deed of the institution. This release from financial encumbrance makes the institute more than half The necessary remainder is gladly contributed by self-supportin- g. the citizens of Yonkers who are friends of the institute. The chief officers of the institute at present are: President, Miss Mary Marshall Butler; First and Treasurer, Miss Harriett A. Butler; Second Mrs. William H. Doty; Recording Secretary, Mrs. John Reid; General Secretary and Superintendent, Vice-Preside- nt Vice-Preside- Miss Florence J. Parsons.A. nt, Y, Post, Address by President Will iam $. Steal art at Rational Conference of Charities and Corrections held at pleat York, JWay 19th. Assuming that the state, as a political entity, owes a duty to the dependent, and to the erring also, when and how should this duty be admitted? To what classes should state relief be directly extended? What others may with safety be left to county, municipal, and private care? Should state authorities supervise all charitable ad ministration, not only public, but private? If so, how far shoul this super-qisio- n extend, and by whom should it be exercised? These are some of the leading questions that would seem to invite consideration at a gathering like this. The beginning of public or private charitable work, in any new community, is seldom organized; house to house relief is extended; the wayfarers are sheltered and fed; the sick visited and cared for. With the growth of towns, villages, and cities, their residents are obliged to unite to make public or private provision of an organized kind, for the sick and the unfortunate, in order that the burden of their support may be mjre wisely distributed, and better results achieved. Thus, county, city, or town, almshouses, hospitals, asylums, and the like, in turn take their place in a system of charitable administration. Later, as communities grow larger, and in a sense more prosperous, originate the hospital, orphan asylum, home for the aged, general relief societies, and kindred charitable organizations under private management. The organic law of every state should explicitly acknowledge the obligation of its people to make provision for the destitute insane, idiotic, deformed and epileptic, and the delinquent or criminal. The state owes no higher duty than the protection of its citizenship from the dangers and pollution incidental to the unrestrained commingling of these defectives with the people generally; nor is there a greater evil than the increase of their kind. Wise public policy requires that, for these unfortunate, uniform and suitable custodial care or restraint should be provided by the state. . . . While advanced ground has recently been taken by the state of New York on the subject of state care for the dependent classes, it as yet only recognizes this duty, by the direction to the Legislature to make provision for supervisory boards. The speaker then detailed the provisions in various state constitutions for the care of dependents, holding that no state has reasonably fulfilled feeble-minde- d, infer-ential- ly |
