Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-06-15
TO BETTER MANKIND
Meeting Of Many Philanthro-
pists at Portland, Me.
THEIR LINES OF WORK
NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF
CHARITIES AND CORRECTIONS.
Views, Work and Experience Of the
Members to Be Dis
cussed.
THEIR LINES OF WORK
pecial Correspondence Of The Evening Star

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
NEW YORK. June ID, 1904.
The great roundup of the year in philan-
thropy comes Off this week in Portland,
| Me. From June 1922 the national confer
| ence of charities and corrections will be in
session there and social workers from all
| parts of the country will be in attendance
| year ago the national conference was
| held In Atlanta, Ga. AS result, the city
| stockade at Atlanta has gone the way of
| all such relics of the past. A Juvenile
| court has been instituted there, new vim
| has been infused into the institutions and
| organized charities of the south and a
| national child labor committee has come
| into existence.
That the Portland program ought to mean
| as much for New England is the editorial
| opinion expressed by charities, charity
workers, settlement residents, prison re-
| formers, institutional men and women,
| alienists. public officials and those who are
| graphing with the tasks OF caring for the
| delinquent and the dependent, and those
| who are pushing some of the most notable
social movements of the day will carry to
| the east with them the message of a years
| stent worked out In. a hundred different
| sections of the country.
Joshua l.. Chamberlain, ex-governor of
Maine, viii give the address of welcome at
| the opening meeting, and he will be fol-
lowed by the president of the conference,
DR.. Jeffrey r. Bracket, who was head of
the mayors committee which carried on
the remarkable relief work following the
Baltimore fire.
Neighborhood Improvement.
The conference is divided into sections.
The newest of these is under the chairman
ship of Miss Jane Adams of Hull House,
Chicago, who has the past week been made
a doctor la ~ he TTpyarSity Wis
consn. Her section Is that of 'NeighbOr-
hood Improvement" and under it there will
be addresses by such social workers as
Prof Graham Taylor of Chicago Commons,
who will speak on recent developments in
| municipal activities in this field; by Mrs.
Mary kingsbury Simkhovitch of Greenwich,
New York. who will urge the enlarged use
of the public school plant. This idea will
be carried further by Joseph Lee of Bos-
ton millionaire and philanthropist, who has
made the development of Fairgrounds and
of boys on Fairgrounds life work. Another
speaker in this section is Robert Hunter.
whose marriage to the daughter of one of
New York's oldest and wealthiest families
at the time that he was an East Side settle
ment worker created much comment
The section on the Treatment of Crmi-
nails is under the craftsmanship of Freder-
lex w. Wines of New Jersey. Mr.. Wines
was assistant director of the census of
1860 and is one of the veterans In cor
rectional reform. A speaker of the same
generation who will take part is z. X.
Brockway, whose name was in every news
paper in the country in the years when-as
superintendent of Elmira reformatory he
was subjected to many attacks for his
methods of administered ton. Since the pro-
gram was made up death has called one
of the group of remarkable men identified
with the advances OF the last twenty-five
years in the treatment of the criminal. DIR.
Charlton 7. Lewis of NorriStOwn, N. j.,
president of the National Prison Associa-
ton, and the former exponent in this coun-
try of the principles of probation and the
indeterminate sentence.
Treatment of Children.
The section on Children under the
craftsmanship Of Amos W. Butler. who has
probably done more for the small fry of
the hoosier state than any other man In
Indiana. will have much of interest. Man
I, ual training as an educational lever in
dea ling with all sorts and conditions of
children will be taken up. I he head of
Massachusetts school for bad boys and
girls will tell what it means in work with
white children; the superintendent of
Kowaliga Institute will tell what it means
to the colored boys and girls of Alabama
and the United States commissioner of In
dian affairs will show how the present-day
ps poOse grows up to the full stature of an
American-through this addition to the
three r curriculum of the reservation school
house. Mrs F'lol ence Kelley, secretary of
the National Consumers League. will tell
of progress In the child labor campaign
Juvenile court judges and probation officers
from half dozen different states will de-
scribe the work of the children's court
The section of Needy Families in Their
| Homes" despite its rather technical title,
| calls out some of the most interesting con-.
tributions to the conference from the eX-
periences of charity workers In such varied
| environments as make UP city life and
neighborhoods in the United States. Ernest
| p Rcknell of the Chicago bureau of char
| tiles is chairman.
The Feeble Minded.
There is an immense amount of work
| ahead in the educa: zion of the public as to
| the defective and the insane, the idotic,
| the feebIe-minded and the epileptlc-what
| they really are, who they are and what
| can be done with them. DIR. Walter E. Fer
| maid, superintendent of the Massa chusetts
| School for the Feeble Minded is head of
| this section on detectives.
Michael ]. Scanlon of New York city is
| chairman of the committee on state super
| visors and administration of charitable in
| stitutions and Frederic Almy of Buffalo of
| the committee on public dependents. Men
| and women prominent in this field of adj
| ministration in Omaha, Washington, Phia-
delphia. New York, Boston and Chicago. in
| Richmond ano in many more of the similar
! cities will take part
| The conference sermon will be preached
| by the Rev Samuel II. Crothers of Cam
bridge, Mass. perhaps the wittiest and most
| author who last month SCI all Boston agog
| with his whimsical portrayal of "A Half
| Hour with Our Prejudices will contribute
something equally sparkling and incisive