Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1907-09-13

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the public $26,0O0,O00 annually, and 1t
Is conservative to estimate the total
population thus supported at 100000
persons.
Consider another phase which at
| first glance appears to be judicial
rather than charitable, but which is
really in point-that of the juvenile
court. The law authorizing this court
in Chicago was the result of long
years of effort on the part of men
and women to lessen juvenile crime
and to furnish some reasonable protec-
ton to children. To this end women,
especially through the women's clubs,
have contributed much, and the secur-
ing of the support of the probation Of
ficers, without whom the law would be
failure, has revolved mainly upon
women. The law, while only a result
ant of much previous experimenting
and of such enactments as the Massa'
chusetts parole law, has attracted wide
attention.
1t has been closely initiated, or Is
being urged in various cities, notably
Milwaukee, Philadelphia, st. Louis,
Denver. And everywhere groups Of
women will be found who are urging
the matter, as in st. Louis, or who
have succeeded as the New Century
club has done in Philadelphia.
The probation officers, almost uni
versally women, are specifically Off
GERS of a court of law. In fact, they
also come in contact with every prob
lem which poverty can breed. They
know the barricades to the progress OF
righteousness which are set by drunk
en- parents, extreme poverty, sickness
and neglect. They must deal with all
the agencies of public and private
charity in discharging their function
as the legal guardians of these chill
dren. The structural usefulness of
such work is only beginning to be rec
ognized, and it is apparently destined
to be widely extended. Wherever 1t
goes it means the employment of wo-
men and their real cultivation of mind
and feeling, their devotion to their
task. will be the measure of the value
of the probation system.
Some years ago the Illinois state
board of public charities made an in
quiry as to attendants in hospitals for
the insane, addressed to superintend-
ents all over the United States. The
replies brought out some facts inter-
esting in this connection. There was
general recognition by the best SUI
perintendents that women could be
used advantageously to greater ex-
tent than at present in the care Of
men patients, that for less money
better quality of ability was in the
market among women than among
men. The experience in certain hos
pitfalls abroad and in this country, in
placing women in charge of men pa
tents, and the success of women in
taking both men and women patients
to board in village colonies, reinforce
the belief that the services of women
under proper medical organization and
leadership could be introduced in the
care of the insane to quite revolu-
tionary degree.
Consider the huddled misery of
county poorhouse, its control let an
nually to the lowest bidder, its loca-
tion set apart and its daily life un-
known and unconsidered by prosper
Gus people. Yet 1t is a place where
intelligence would pay" in the most
commonplace sense of the word. Why
does it's superintendency not invite as
a career?
Now and again some incidents give
a suggestion of what may occur In the
opening of a vocation for educated
women. The head of the New York
reformatory for women and the whole
staff of that institution were selected
by competitive examination designed
to discover special aptitude and culti-
walton. The head is a college graduate
and is said to be particularly success
full. In connection with the effort to
reach a scientific basis for the food of
$4,000 insane wards of New York, edu-
Gated women were placed in charge
of the food department of various of
the asylums.
1t is hard to realize how difficult a
task is the proper feeding of an insti-
tuition. Grant that good supplies are
purchased, the preparation is the
problem; how to combine the regular
ity and economy necessary in great