Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-04-27
TAKES UP TOPICS
IN SIX DIVISIONS
Discussions by Members of
Southern Sociological Con-
gress in Atlanta.
PUBLIC HEALTH, COURTS,
CHARITIES AND PRISONS
Addresses by DR.. A. ]. McKelway
and Walter S. Ufford
of Washington.

ATLANTA, Ga. April c6-Today's ses-
sion of the Southern Sociological Con-
gress. In convention here. was given over
entirely to departmental conferences at
which the six divisions of the congress
considered separately the respective
features of social service assigned them
for discussion. Public health courts and
prisons, child welfare, organized chart
ties. race problems and the church and
social service were considered at the va
rious conferences
The public health conference over
which DR.. W. s. Rankin of Raleigh, n.
T., presided. took up in detail the public
health provisions contained in the
statutes of various southern states, and
considered possible methods of reform
Dr. Scale Harris of Mobile, Ala, secre-
tary of the Southern Medical Association,
health officers in conserving the health Of
rural districts.
DR.. ]. H. De Witt of Nashville. Tenn.
who presided at the conference on courts
and prisons, made a plea for the aboli-
ton of convict lease and contract sys-
tens and for the extension and i'm
provement Of juvenile courts and re-
formatores.
The principal speakers before the child
welfare section were DR.. A. ]. McKelway
Of Washington. d. c.. it's chairman. and
Dr. Hastings H. Hart, director of the
child helping department of the Russell
Sage Foundation. New York NJ A.
Auerbach of Little Rock. Ark, and Prof.
Charles s. Potts of the University
of Texas addressed the conference on
organized charities. which was presided
over by J. C. Logan of Atlanta
Race problems were considered at a
conference presided over by Dr. j. H.
billiard of New Orleans. while the rela-
discussed at conference presided over
by DR.. John A. Rice of Fort Worth, Tex.
Tomorrow afternoon the entire congress
will be in general session.
Societies for Organizing Charities.
Walter S. Cfford, secretary of the AS
ISOLATED Charities and of the Association
for the Prevention of Tuberculosis of the
District of Columbia, made an address at
one of the sessions of the convention on
Tests Of Efficiency as Applied to Socie-
ties for Organizing Charity He said
In part:
while the chief aim of societies for
organizing charity is to rehabilitate the
distressed family, no social worker is
satisfied to overlook or leave undisturb-
ed the economic. social or man-made
causes which have plunged the family
below the line of self-respecting indie
pendence A test of the efficiency of such
a society is in the promotion Of such
changes in the industrial structure
through social legislation that man-made
poverty shall ultimately disappear.
Among the things to be championed in
the interest of prospective citizenship are
the elimination Of the feeble-minded and
dangerously unfit by adequate segregation,
vocational training for our boys and girls,
the teaching of social hygiene, the broad
enfng of our school curriculum to include
physical examination of children, care
full record keeping of body growth and
development and expert physical training,
fOllOw-up work in the home through the
school nurse and visiting housekeeper, and
use of the school as a neighborhood and
recreation center. wise direction of the
play and sport instinct and the develop
ment Of the altruistic injunction do a
good turn every day.
In Interest of Children.
"All these are in the interest of the
children who in ten or fifteen years from
now are to be wage-earners and citizens.
The final test of efficiency of a society
for organizing charity is in the kind of
men and women that such societies are
making of the boys and girls in the
families under treatment
Mr.. Cfford emphasized the fact that So
cieties for organizing charity are not
only teaching adequate relief, but ade-
quate friendship. He said 1T is this
spiritual side of the work which, after
all Is of enduring Importance"
Mr.. Ufford divided his address under
the following topics: widows With
Children Deserted Wives" Families
in Which the Wage-earner Has Tuber-
culosis.' Single Women With Chill.
and 1.-The Homeless Man He dwelt at
length on these problems and the best
means of remedying them.
He declared that Efficiency is a
watchword of the age. In manufacture
efficiency expresses itself in the demand
for scientific management. in education
for vocational training, in agriculture for
intensive farming, in philanthropy for
prevention.
Questions Requiring Answers.
The question to be answered is much
the same in the field of philanthropy as
in that of manufacture. education and.
agriculture, namely. What of the product
not only quantitatively. but qualitative
ly? Are our schools fitting for life and cit
iZenship? Is agriculture keeping pace with
the increase of mouths to be fed. Is our
philanthropy decreasing poverty, pauper-
ism and crime? How may we tell? Only
by q careful analysis of aims and meth
DDS, well as accomplishments"
Several Washingtonians are attending
the sessions of the congress. They in
clude Miss Julia Lathrop, chief of the
federal childrens bureau; A. j. Nickel
ways of the national child labor COM
mittee. DR.. Thomas Jesse Jones of the
United States bureau of education, W. H.
Whitaker, superintendent of Occoquan
workhouse. and Jesse Lawson and Wal
ter S. Ufford, secretary of the Associa-
ted Charities and Association for the Pre-