142 EMIL MUNSTERBERG 



public poor relief, care of neglected and deserted children, 

 organization of charities, etc. It is characteristic of American 

 conditions that a special committee is appointed to handle 

 the theme of political interference with poor relief. Quite 

 as characteristic is the custom of having a sermon from some 

 preacher. It is intended, as the jubilee report of 1898 de- 

 clares, to strengthen among all participants the fundamental 

 idea that care of the poor and benevolence have a religious 

 basis, and are never to be considered simply from a merely 

 economic or philanthropic point of view. The sermons, which 

 are printed in the reports of the conference, are free from all 

 pious cant and ecclesiastical partisanship, and are earnest and 

 thoughtful incentives to charitable work from a positively 

 Christian foundation. 



A very useful part of the plan is the annually repeated 

 survey of events in the several states. In 1900 there were 

 forty of these reports, so that only ten states and territories 

 were not represented. In each report a brief statement is 

 made of recent legislation and new methods. In 1898 there 

 were thorough discussions of the laws governing inmaigration 

 and settlement, the management of medical relief and its 

 abuses, and the care of crippled and feeble minded children; 

 and in 1899 the organization of charities, public poor relief, 

 prison reform, and care of neglected children were the central 

 topics. The conference of 1900 was occupied with degenera- 

 tion in rural districts, with the housing problem in small cities, 

 with care for the epileptics and feeble minded. At the con- 

 ference of 1901, among other topics were the following: sub- 

 sidies from public funds to private charities and their relations 

 to each other, the activities of personal care of the poor, relief 

 of families in their homes, when the importance of individual 

 treatment and voluntary human devotion to the needy was 

 warmly emphasized. In comparing the American conference 

 with our German union, the question is forced upon our atten- 

 tion whether the custom there, of treating all subjects of relief 

 each year, even if cursorily, is to be preferred to ours, in which 

 every year only certain important subjects are selected, but 

 these are treated with all the apparatus of literary, statistical, 

 and practical materials. Without doubt, the American meth- 



