The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1908-10-16
HOME FINDING.

HOME FINDING.
= Hditor OF Echoes:
! am sending you excerpts from
m article by Professor g. H. Durand
On the National Children's Home So
iety. which wish you would pub
lish before the meeting OF the State
Federation that the subject may be
better understood.
ALICE PITTINGER,
Chairman Legislative Committee.
'.The National society is fedora
ton OF twenty-nine state societies,
With rescue work extending over
thirty three states and territories. AS
m organization 1t represents the
home-fnding place 90 developed
through an experience Of twenty-five
years, and its application at the pres
ont time over a wide extent OF terri
tory.
Many years before the National
Children's Home Society orgnized its
system Of caring for homeless chill
dren, the plan, In its main feature,
Mad been in operation. In 1883 that
prophet among philanthropists,
Charles Loring Brace, founder of the
New York Children's Aid Society.
began shipping the homeless waits
q New York City out to the western
states. They were sent out In whole
sale lots and distributed with no sys-
tematic plan for supervision by the
society afterwards, yet good results
were confidently claimed. About q
thousand a year were provided for
in that way.
In 1883 the Children's Home So
ciety was founded by Rev. M. Y. b.
Van Arsdale in the State of Illinois.
His plan differed from that of the
New York Society in that he dealt
with children singly. He also organ
lied the state into districts, with
district superintendent, and estab-
lished local advisory boards in COM
nunities, to assist the agents of the
society in their work. The earlier
years of the society were fraught
with difficulties and shaken by
storms, yet the idea of the family
home for the homeless child gradh-
ally gained ground. 1t appealed to
benevolent people as an economical
and practical charity, and as the SIM
pie and natural way of providing for
homeless children. Two plain facts
have always impressed themselves
upon promoters and friends of this
charity, which they believe to have
4 strikingly logical connection: First,
everywhere little children without
homes; secondly, everywhere lonely
homes without children. To serve
just here as kind Of equalizing pro-
whence, helping these two needs to
answer each other in mutual benefit
this has been from the beginning
the ideal OF the National Children s
Home Society. 1t is summed up in
their motto: Two things which
should not be; home without a
child and a child without a home"
The plan, as originally put in OPP
Grafton in Illinois, looked to the ex-
tension of the work in other states
under the one control of the parent
society, which early assumed the
name Of the National Children s
Home Society. But as the state or
CARNATIONS increased in Importance
the plan of central control became
impracticable, and the state societies
proceeded to incorporate under their
own state laws and to take up the
management of their own affairs.
The state societies then united them
selves for mutual help and encour-
agement in the federation, which is
the form of organization now exist
ing.
The plan of the work as it stands
at the present Is briefly as follows:
The national society has head
quarters at Chicago. Its list of di-
rectors and officers include the SUI
perintendents of majority of the
state societies. 1t has thus far no
endowment or working fund, and 1t
exercises no absolute authority over
its constituent societies. Its relation
to them is advisory, rather, its meet
ings and its publications serving as a
clearing house of ideals and methods
by which the work of the separate
societies is benefited. The National
Society also has charge of establish
ing the work In new states where OPP
portunity is found.
1t is by the individual state So
cieties that the, child-saying work is