It is the large institution under private or religi ous auspices, managed by a self-perpetuating or appointed board, but supported by state or muni cipal appropriations, which is most difficult to keep human and educational, to keep within reasonable bounds as to size, or within reasonable bounds as to its subtle influence on state and municipal affairs. The subsidy or contract system continu ously grows by what it feeds on. It represents an unsound principle of divorcing control from sup port. One body directs the affairs of the institu tion ; another pays the bills. The result is a divi sion of responsibility and neglect of the child. In such an institution children are apt to be re ceived irresponsibly, eagerly, without any due sense of the corresponding obligations. From them go disciplined, in a narrow sense religiously instructed, but still half-educated children. Where the sub sidy system is not already firmly established it should be shunned, for it is demoralizing and sub versive of the most elementary child-caring prin ciples.
The chief defense of the institution, aside from financial economy, in which, for a given number of children, it has an advantage over cottage homes or a boarding system, is in its superiority on the side of religious and moral instruction. In view of the fact that these children are deprived of their nat ural home influences there is force in the contention that to place them in a state school, organized like the public day schools, without religious instruction, would be unjustified and abnormal. Foster and boarding homes, or at least small cottage institu tions, could largely meet this requirement, how ever, if we were willing to pay the price. The question, therefore, comes back to that of cost and to our estimate of the value of a natural home life as against an artificial, hot-house environment.
I make no attack upon any particular type of institution, much less upon those of any particular church. I stand upon the conclusions of the White House Conference of i9o9: i. Except in unusual circumstances, the home should not be broken up for reasons of poverty, but only for considerations of in efficiency or immorality.
2. The most important and valuable philan thropic work is not the curative, but the pre ventive. We urge upon all friends of children . . . to improve the conditions surround ing child life.
3. As to the children who for sufficient rea sons must be removed from their own homes, or who have no homes, it is desirable that, if normal in mind and body and not requiring special training, they should be cared for in families whenever practicable.
4. Institutions should be on the cottage plan. . . . Existing congregate institu tions should so classify their inmates and segregate them into groups as to secure as many of the benefits of the cottage system as possible, and should look forward to the adoption of the cottage type when new build ings are constructed.
5. The state should inspect the work of all agencies which care for dependent children.
6. Educational work of institutions and agencies caring for dependent children should be supervised by state educational authorities.
7. Complete histories of dependent children and their parents should be recorded for guid ance of child-caring agencies.
8. Every needy child should receive proper medical and surgical attention and be instructed in health and hygiene.
The placing of dependent children in foster homes has its own difficulties, dangers, and abuses. Whether in free foster homes or in boarding homes, placed-out children and the families in which they are placed require supervision, expert, efficient, conscientious, and continuous. If these children are to be protected from exploitation, taught and nurtured as wards of the state should be, to have a chance at the vocation for which they are fitted, to be developed into physically sound, useful citi zens and neighbors, the state or the placing-out agency must be prepared to meet the expense and do the work required to this end.
We are justified in accepting in most matters the usual standards of a community in which the chil dren are placed, provided they are placed in a com munity which has normally high standards. But through reports and inspections and a readiness to resort, when necessary, to disciplinary measures, including the summary removal of children for cause and their replacement as often as is necessary, the enforcement of reasonable standards should be assured. We have at present in the child-caring agencies of the country the great advantage of free competition, a generous rivalry between institu tions and placing and boarding-out societies or institutions. We are not far enough along to de cide that either should be abolished. The new and better ones, or the old ones made better, should not suffer on their account. The institutions have an advantage in being able to organize their medical, optical, dental, orthopedic, and other services in ways that would be impracticable for isolated chil dren, scattered in many families. They can experi ment with vocational training, trade schools, do mestic science, and so on, adopting methods which are tried and found satisfactory. They can or ganize, as it were, the whole life of the child: edu cational, religious, social; so far at least as the re sources and limitations of the institution permit. These advantages, which are shared in part by cottage-type and congregate institutions, and in part possessed in superior degree by institutions of the cottage type, have enabled the institutions, when they are progressive in spirit and adequately financed, to make their own contribution to the problem of caring fol. dependent children.