C

ERTAIN events in child welfare work

in Rhode Island show quite clearly

how the application of social case

work to such a job makes possible, without

onerous difficulties, the working out of a

reasonable, adequate and balanced program.

While child welfare conditions in many of

the states are far from what they should be,

in others constructive work of a high order

is being done. Rhode Island, as regards

the state's direct service to needy children,

is coming out of the condition of lethargy

which has bound it for a long time. The

State Home and School is being made to

function in accordance with modern princi-

ples of child care and under its present

leadership bids fair to raise standards in

work with children all over the state. This

school is developing an elasticity in treat-

ment which for many reasons has not been

true of other state homes and schools for

children. The latter have developed the

foster family care aspects of their work.

entirely on a free home and adoption basis.

Rhode Island has now added boarding out

care to its free home work, and is thus

enabled to secure foster family care for a

great many children who would otherwise

have to remain for much longer periods in

the state school. It is thus enlarging its

foster care work and diminishing its in-

stitutional care for dependent and neglected

children. It is even looking forward to

the day when the home will be needed only

as a clearing house for such children as

cannot otherwise be provided for in fami-

lies.

The State Home and School was organized

in 1885, under a law passed the year before,
as a home for dependent and neglected
children who, previous to this time, because
of the few private agencies in the state, had
usually been placed in almshouses, where
they received such care as it was supposed
they required. In plan and scope it was
patterned after such state institutions as
those of Michigan and Minnesota. It is
located on a 100-acre farm just outside
Providence. It opened with a population of
about twenty, grew slowly, and continued
with an average of between 90 and 110 for a
great many years. The population of the
state of Rhode Island was not large in 1885
and it is only 604,397 today, but what it
does as a state has an influence out of all
proportion to its size.

The enabling act authorized the state board of education to be the board of control of the state home, the home to receive vagrant, neglected, and dependent children between three and fourteen years of age on commitment from probate courts on action instituted by superintendents or overseers of the poor throughout the state, the custody of the children to remain with the board until the children were sixteen years of age. The entering age was later changed to four years and the age when custody ceased was changed to eighteen. Mentally defective. and delinquent children were not to be admitted.

In 1888, the enabling act was amended. to permit the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children' to have equal powers with overseers of the poor in bringing neglected and vagrant children to the attention of probate and district courts for commitment to the state home. Later the state home was separated from the board of education and given to a board of seven members of its own. This board which was called the Board of Control of the State Home and School, continued in authority until the spring of 1917, when there was a thorough and much needed overhauling of the state's correctional and charitable work, and complete control over all the state's institutions was centered in a penal and charitable commission. The reorganization and standardization of the state's work for dependent and neglected children may well be said to have begun at this time, and it has continued to progress ever since.

It is interesting to study the fifteen years from 1900 to 1915 in the history of the State Home and School because it shows the original plan-which was good-developing aimlessly and toward the end of the period running directly counter to the spirit of the best children's work in the country.

The reports year after year give the same pictures of the institution buildings. Un

A study of extra legal powers granted to the S. P. C. C. agencies in the various states, following the example of the parent organization in New York, would be of great interest and importance at this time.

supported statements telling of the necessity for this type of state institution also appear from time to time. From 1900 to 1915, the reports present many comments such as:

We need more institution space. We are skeptical of the care given to children in family homes. Placing out is so much a matter of experiment. We placed out sixty-three children-many of the placements were failures. The indenture system followed protects the children in every way.

Forty-nine children were admitted to the institution; 82 were placed out, 59 of these placements being successful. Twenty-three of the 82 children placed out were returned for one reason or another, but largely because of inefficiency and physical and moral defects.

Reference is made to the "scores of children" adopted in happy homes and also to the fact that many relatives come to claim children.

In two later reports it is said that 75 per cent of all commitments to the school were due to the alcoholism of the fathers. A good but destitute mother married to an alcoholic husband evidently had but one recourse the commitment of some of her children to the state home. One of these reports speaks of better foster home standards being worked out. Indentures are praised-for, because of the protection given, children are rarely recalled. The significance of this is not quite clear in the light of the grave abuses that attend the indenture system in other states.

Again, referring to seventy placements which were made, a report states that there is no foundation for the charge that "people take children for what work they can do." Tribute is paid to "scores" of homes that give good care. In proof of this, reference is made to many visits and letters expressing gratitude from children so placed. By 1905 the institution's population had dropped to approximately 110.

A change of management took place in 1905 and shortly thereafter the reports show new points of emphasis. The institution's population began to mount, although a great many children are still reported as being placed out. The "placements on the whole are fortunate and happy," according to a report, and "scores of good homes are in use." In 1909, when 170 children were in