754 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



deal with private hospitals except as subsidiary aids or adjuncts 

 to the public institutions. It stands to reason that so long as 

 there are vacant beds in the city hospitals and the city is at the 

 same time subsidizing private hospitals at a cost greater than the 

 expense of caring for patients in its own institutions, a wrong is 

 being done to the taxpayers. If private hospitals are to receive 

 public assistance at all, payments should be made only at some 

 uniform rate, approximately the same as the cost per capita of 

 maintenance in the public institutions. 



The gravest problem of public charity is the support and train- 

 ing of dependent children, because that has to do with the making 

 of future citizens of the republic as well as the relief of imme- 

 diate suffering. This work is entirely in the hands of private 

 societies and institutions. The rearing of large numbers of chil- 

 dren in either private or public institutions is in itself an evil — a 

 necessary evil — and likely to continue as long as there is extreme 

 poverty, but still an evil, and not to be fostered by subventions 

 of public money in unnecessary cases, when parents are really able 

 to provide for their support. 



To build, equip, and maintain public buildings for the care of 

 dependent children seems to me entirely impracticable. Regard- 

 less of the matter of expense, which would be enormous, all the 

 disadvantages of the " institutional system " would continue, and 

 it is not likely that public employees could be obtained who would 

 rear children as economically, as efficaciously, or with the same 

 devotion and self-denial as is the case with the religious orders 

 and associations now performing this work — in many respects so suc- 

 cessfully. The care of these children by direct governmental agen- 

 cies being therefore practically impossible, in the city of New York 

 at least, and it being recognized that the present system is likely 

 to continue for many years, if not permanently, the most should 

 be made of it. "With the religious training of children the city 

 has nothing to do. Their moral training may also be left safely 

 to those now responsible therefor. On the other hand, the State 

 is vitally concerned with their mental and physical development, 

 and visitation and control for the purpose of maintaining a proper 

 standard in these respects is essential. This form of public charity, 

 like many others, has been abused, and many children are now 

 supported in institutions who probably should not be there. For 

 the rearing of a child into a possible useful man or woman a poor 

 home is better than a good institution, and it is the duty of the city 

 authorities to extend the work of inspection and investigation of 

 such cases until they make it impossible for fraud in the commit- 

 ment and retention of children to escape detection. 



