6 



Indiana University Studies 



nominally an administrative board of one or more persons, 

 sometimes an ex officio board consisting of. regular State 

 officers, sometimes appointed by the governor, with or with- 

 out the advice of the senate; sometimes elected by the legis- 

 lature, or by the people; sometimes partly appointive and 

 partly ex officio; and sometimes selected by still other meth- 

 ods. The administrative board may have varying degrees of 

 control, while more or less of administrative functions may 

 be exercised by some other authority. Some measure of cen- 

 tralized administration may be exercised merely in the super- 

 vision of the financial affairs and in the purchase of supplies, 

 the fixing of salaries, etc. With many variations in practice 

 it is sometimes difficult to determine whether a board is to 

 be classed as administrative or supervisory. The simplest 

 type of administrative board is one responsible for the admin- 

 istration of but one institution. 'State administration', as 

 used in this report, however, is in the main concerned with 

 the work of the central boards which control two or more 

 institutions (and usually all those of a single species in a 

 State), either general, covering all the charities, hospitals 

 for insane, and penal institutions of the State, or confined to 

 one or more of these groups of institutions. 



"By State supervision is meant the functions of boards 

 generally described as advisory, including inspection, advice, 

 recommendation, and criticism of the management, study of 

 the progressive methods in other communities, diffusion of 

 information, the study and promotion of philanthropic legis- 

 lation; but in any case not the responsibility of appointing 

 the executive heads or other officers of the institutions. Some 

 boards are administrative as regards certain institutions, as 

 those of the State, and supervisory as regards others, as those 

 of the county, of the city, or of voluntary organizations."^ 



It is evident from this that there is no question whether a 

 State should have an administrative board for its institutions. 

 It has that, of necessity, in some form or other. The two 

 important questions which do arise, however, are : Should the 

 State have a supervisory board? and. Is a centralized State 

 administrative board preferable to individual administrative 

 boards of trustees for each institution? And in the light of 



2 National Conference of Charities and Corrections Proceedings, 1909, pp. 397, 398. 

 Mr. Fetter's words may well be taken to apply to this paper. 



