Guild: State Supervision of Charities 



33 



standing of the reason for creating such boards, I do not see 

 how it [the supervisory board] can become a board of con- 

 trol and continue to be a board of State charities To 



secure .... inspection and investigation, boards of State 

 charities have been created, and in the nature of things they 

 must be purely advisory if their functions are to be per- 

 formed with entire impartiality. To give them executive or 

 administrative power is to defeat the purpose of their crea- 

 tion; for a board of control cannot properly investigate its 

 own actions." And many similar expressions are found in 

 the records of the National Conference. 



Another apparent danger in the administrative system is 

 this, — that the administrative board does not have as much 

 interest in the general charity problems of the State as a 

 supervisory board does. Boards of control, created with the 

 motive of efficiency uppermost, have devoted practically their 

 whole attention to the business side of the State institutions^ 

 forgetting that there is a professional side. Mere fiscal effi- 

 ciency may not be of much benefit to the State if the profes- 

 sional side of charity work is neglected, or if the number of 

 inmates in the various institutions is allowed to increase. It 

 is of more importance to seek out the fundamental causes of 

 the State's charity problems, to devise preventive methods 

 and scientific treatment of inmates in order to decrease the 

 State's problem. The State board should lead and direct the 

 popular effort to eradicate the evils which fill the State insti- 

 tutions with an increasing number of inmates. Quite evi- 

 dently a board of business men seeking to put the State insti- 

 tutions on a better financial basis, and chosen for that pur- 

 pose, cannot be expected to realize the importance of the 

 professional side or to sympathize with that side of the 

 charities problem. And hence there is a very grave danger 

 that under the administrative system the State board will 

 set fiscal efficiency on a pedestal and worship that, while 

 the great underlying and vital problems are neglected. That 

 this is not true of certain State administrative boards is 

 shown by experience, but the exception is usually due to per- 

 sonnel. Boards of control are generally considered as pri- 

 marily business boards, and men are appointed who are busi- 



^' Gen. R. Brinkerhoff, National Conference of Charities and Corrections Proceedings, 

 1894, p. 15. 



