Worcester morning daily spy. (Worcester, Mass.) 1888-1898, 1898-01-15
LUNACY AND CHARITY.
Annual Reports interesting Remarks
About Investigating Committee and
Proposed Changes.

Boston, Jan. 1.-THE annual report of
the state board of lunacy and charity
was presented to the legislature today
and is important on account of the ut
terances of the board relative to the re-
port of the special commission appointed
10 investigate state charitable interests
and institutions. The report of the COM
mission was submitted to the legislature
last year, but so late in the session that
nothing resulted further than an ami
mated discussion on the matter. The
state board, by the way, was accused
of using its officers and agents to lobby
against the report of the commission,
and an investigation followed which
was carried well along into the summer.
Hence the interest in the report of the
board which appeared today. Here is
what the report says of the work and
recommendations of the commission:
The report and the accompanying
recommendations, made by the commits
sion on the charitable and reformatory
| interests and institutions of the COM
monwealth to the last Legislature, were
presented so late in the session that it
was impossible to give to them the
study and consideration such important
and radical changes as were proposed
! therein deserved, and the board felt
obliged to urge the reference Of the
whole report to the next general court.
The degree of weight and Importance
| to be given to the labor Of the COM
missioners must largely depend upon
the time they were able to devote to
obtaining a full knowledge of what was
required of them. The commission had
! imposed on it from the beginning
task of the greatest magnitude, namely,
that of inquiring into the operations OF
all the charitable institutions of the
state and the laws relating to the gov
eminent of the charities, as well as an
/ examination of the reformatory and
penal institutions of the commonwealth,
and the methods pursued in the govern
ment and management of them. For the
work assigned them the commissioners
should have been allowed at least three
years, but it was made imperative by
the act creating the commission that
the work should all be completed be-
fore the first day of February, 1897.
| The commission at the outset of it's
report, recommends the establishment
of a district state commission for the
care of the minor wards or children OF
the state The reasons given by the
commission for the proposed change are
chiefly that the same board cannot IN
the nature Of things undertake the care
of the state wards, and likewise occupy
| a position of independent criticism OF It's
own work in this direction: and that the
work of caring for the state children
( has grown to such proportions that the
| time has come to create separate de-
/ partments-one to have the care, Gus
| tody and control of the juvenile wards
! of the state and the other to exercise
supervisory powers in relation to the
! work performed; and 1t is also asserted
| that the commonwealth, in provldlns
| for the supervision of the state institu-
tons for pauDers, insane and juvenile
Offenders by a central board, has al
ready adopted the theory of supervision
by distinct and separate authority over
all the charitable work of the state.
The proposed department for children,
or childrens bureau, has been under
discussion during three sessions OF the
legislature The system of visiting ana
caring for the state children OUTSIDE OF
institutions has grown up sraduaily anu
from small beginnings during the last
quarter of a century and more.
Tn 1879 the visiting agency was
merged in the newly established board
of health, 1unacy and charity, ana from
that time to the present the system OF
the supervision and care of the minor
wards of the state has grown IN lmpor-
lance. and wldened in scope, and has
become Justly celebrated throughout the
country. and almost, it may be said,
throughout the world, as the Massachu-
sets system.
II is not claimed by the commission
ers that the present system of caring
for the state children is an improvident
one. or attended with any nut good re-
suits: but that it is incongruous. and
I NOT in keeping with certain theories OF
silnervision. Nor is it claimed by them
that members Of any new
hoard or commission for chill
dren could give any more ad-
ditional time to personal visitation or IN
snection. of the sixteen or seventeen
hundred state children. at the homes in
which they are placed than the mem
bers of the present state board could;
but it is simply advocated that there
should be a new commission created to
do the work now done by the state
board, and that the state board should
supervise 1t.
State supervision was established for
the inspection and examination of state
institutions, such as the lInatic hos
pitfalls and asylums, the state aims
houses, state warehouses; and the state
reformatories 1t is difficult to con-
ceiye how the state children can be bet
ter cared for, or their condition better
ascertained, or supervised, than under
the existing system. If separate con-
mission of five or seven persons were
established tomorrow for the supervise
ion and care # the minor wards of the
state, and such persons were taken
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