MASSACHUSETTS 



3688 



MASSACHUSETTS 



seems but natural, since in the old days Mas- 

 sachusetts was a strictly Congregational colony. 

 The state has also been the center of the Chris- 

 tian Science movement. 



Charitable and Penal Institutions. At the 

 head of the charities is the state board of chari- 

 ties, which has wider powers than similar boards 

 in most other states. Among the institutions 

 over which they have control are the hospitals 

 for the insane, at Danvers, Medford, North- 

 ampton, Taunton, Westboro and Worcester ; the 

 school for the feeble-minded, at Waltham ; the 

 hospital school for crippled children, at Canton ; 

 the infirmary, at Tewksbury; four state sana- 

 toriums, at North Reading, Rutland, Lakeville 

 and Wakefield; the hospital for epileptics, at 

 Monson, and for lepers, on Penikese Island; the 

 famous Perkins Institution and Massachusetts 

 School for the Blind, at Boston; and several 

 schools for the deaf. 



Penal institutions, under the control of a 

 board of prison commissioners, are adminis- 

 tered very effectively, since degrees of crimi- 

 nality are recognized and reformatory influ- 

 ences are brought to bear on such as have not 

 proved themselves hardened. The state prison 

 is at Boston ; there is a reformatory for women 

 at Sherborn and one for men at Concord; in- 

 dustrial schools for girls and boys, and a prison 

 camp and hospital, at Rutland. 



Government. The state is governed under a 

 constitution which dates from 1780, but a con- 

 stitutional convention was called to meet in 

 Boston in June, 1917, to frame a new consti- 

 tution to supplant the document framed in 

 Revolutionary days. The present one provides 

 for an executive department, which consists of 

 a governor, lieutenant governor, secretary, treas- 

 urer, receiver-general, auditor and attorney- 

 general, each elected for a term of one year, 

 the governor being assisted by a council of 

 eight members. There is a legislature, or gen- 

 eral court, of two houses, a senate of forty 

 members and a house of representatives of 

 240 members, each elected annually; and for 

 a judiciary there is a supreme judicial court 

 and a superior court, and each county has its 

 probate court and court of solvency. All the 

 judges are appointed by the governor, with the 

 approval of the council, and hold office during 

 good behavior. 



The unit of local government is the town- 

 ship, or as it is called in New England, the 

 town; it was in the Massachusetts colony that 

 this form of government originated, the old 

 town meeting having served to teach many of 



the colonists the principles of self-government. 

 Selectmen, elected at the town meetings, are at 

 the head of affairs in unincorporated towns, but 

 cities of 12,000 or more may establish regular 

 municipal governments. The constitution per- 

 mits the commission form of government to 

 any city that cares to adopt it. 



Special Provisions. Massachusetts allows 

 women to vote only for school committeemen. 

 There are on the statute books direct primary 

 laws, strict child-labor laws, laws against the 

 white-slave traffic and statutes regulating the 

 working hours of women. The liquor traffic 

 has been regulated since 1881 by local option 

 laws, and a majority of the towns are prohibi- 

 tion territory. 



History. First Century. Perhaps the coast 

 of Massachusetts was visited by the Norsemen 

 about the year 1000; certainly it was explored 

 in 1602 by Bartholomew Gosnold, and in 1614 

 by John Smith, who made maps of it which 

 long remained in use. But its real history be- 

 gan in 1620, 



When a band of exiles moored their bark 

 On a wild New England shore. 



These were the Pilgrims or Puritans, 102 in 

 number, who had left England because they 

 were not allowed freedom of worship, lived for 

 a time in Holland, and then, determined to 

 found a home of their own, braved the terrors 

 of the little-known seas, and on December 11, 

 1620 (December 21, according to the revised 

 calendar), landed at Plymouth. The suffering 

 of these colonists of the Mayflower was intense, 

 and almost half of them died during the first 

 winter, but in the summer of 1623 their crops 

 flourished, and the next winter was one of com- 

 parative comfort. Others of the Puritans kept 

 coming from Holland, and within twenty years 

 after the first Pilgrims had landed, Plymouth 

 Colony boasted eight towns and over 2,500 in- 

 habitants. 



Meanwhile, in 1629, a royal charter had been 

 obtained for the "Massachusetts Bay Colony," 

 which had sprung up in the vicinity of Salem, 

 and this latter colony grew rapidly between 

 1630 and 1640, when the struggle in England 

 between king and Parliament was making it 

 especially unpleasant for the Puritans. Not 

 until 1692 was Plymouth Colony, which had 

 applied again and again in vain for a royal 

 charter, united with Massachusetts Bay under 

 one charter, and this latter was considerably 

 less favorable than the earlier instrument. 



From the first Massachusetts Bay Colony 

 had a life far less peaceful than that of Ply- 



