I am expected to present to you this afternoon the conditions which exist here in Vermont in connection with the administration of public charity and to outline the need of legislation which will make our system of poor‐relief more efficient, more economical, and more humane. In doing this I shall confine myself for the most part to a discussion of the facts revealed by a survey of Poor‐Relief in Vermont which has just been published in the form of a bulletin by Norwich University.

You are all aware that our system of Poor‐Relief is purely a local matter. Each of the 246 towns in the state is independent of any higher authority and is a law unto itself. The statutes require no inspections to be made and no reports are submitted either to county or to state. In consequence of this lack of centralization the people of Vermont have known almost nothing of the extent of pauperism in the state, or of the conditions which surrounded the administration of public charity. Matters have been allowed to drift because they were not conspicuous, and in many cases they have drifted into dangerous currents. It was this lack of attention to a matter which deeply concerns the public welfare which impelled me to attempt the survey which has just been completed.

In the making of this survey no attempt was made to include those dependents in the state who are receiving special institutional care at state expense. Complete information regarding these classes is to he had by examining the reports of the State Hospital for the Insane, the Brattleboro Retreat, the State School for Feeble‐Minded Children, and the Industrial School. The aim was to avoid duplication and to secure information which had never before been collected. In 1910 the census bureau gathered data regarding the number of inmates in alms houses, but aside from this I am not aware that any material was available regarding pauperism in Vermont.

On the first of October, 1916, there was sent to every overseer of the poor in the state a questionnaire calling for information regarding the relief of the poor in his town. The questions were so put as to show the number of men, women, children, insane, feeble‐minded, foreign‐born, illiterates, tramps and drunkards who were receiving aid upon that date. Detailed information was also sought regarding the poorhouse if the town maintained such an institution. The number of inmates, the number of children under 16 years of age, the number of diseased inmates, and the extent and value of the property were in this way determined.

In response to these questionnaires reports concerning the relief of the poor were received from 236 cities and towns. The towns of Isle La Motte, Middletown Springs, Poultney, Readsboro, Richford, Rutland town, Sunderland, Victory, West Haven and West Rutland, representing a total population of 14,821, did not report. The totals show that on October 1, 1916, there were 2,418 persons receiving aid from the various towns. Of this number 715 were men, 660 were women, 1,043 were children, 502 were over sixty‐five years of age, 47 were insane, 217 were feebleminded, 232 were foreigners, 267 were illiterates, 34 were tramps, and 27 were drunkards. There were 59 poorhouses in the state maintained by as many different towns and three which were maintained by associated townships, making a total of 62 poor‐relief institutions in Vermont. On the date of the survey there were 364 destitute persons receiving aid in these poorhouses, 38 of whom were children under 16 years of age, and 34 of whom were suffering from disease. There were 11 of the properties reported, upon which no appraisals were made, but the 51 upon which values were placed had a total worth of $305,192.15.

The conditions which exist in the poorhouses of Vermont must he characterized as very bad. During the past two years I have personally visited several poorhouses in different sections of the state and when one sees the sick, the aged, the feeble‐minded, and children of tender years living together in confusion it shows that our system of public charity is fundamentally wrong. Proper classification of dependents is the cornerstone upon which any modern system of poor‐relief should be erected. In this state there is absolutely no classification. The sexes are not separated, the diseased are not segregated, and children are permitted by law to spend the years when environment is all important in an atmosphere which is nothing short of demoralizing. Two or three concrete illustrations may be interesting in this connection.

In August, 1915, I visited the town farm in Chester. I found the superintendent digging potatoes and working with him was a little boy 11 or 12 years of age. During the course of my conversation with the superintendent I asked him how many paupers were being cared for in this institution. Before there was time for a reply the boy, who had been listening, said: “Don't you count me in, I ain't no pauper." Young as he was, he sensed the sting of his environment and asserted a commendable self‐respect. Inquiry revealed the fact that the mother of this boy had been left in destitution by a deserting husband. There were several other children and the poorhouse was the only refuge for this unfortunate group. This same house was also the only refuge for the diseased, the feeble‐minded, and the aged. Do you wonder that the boy resented my question?

During the summer of 1915 I visited the poorhouse in the City of Barre. The property consists of one acre of land and a large brick farmhouse. The building is heated by stoves; there are no bathing facilities, and dry closets are the only toilet conveniences. During my conversation with the matron she told me that in the eight years she had been there she had buried 31 paupers, 16 of whom had died with tuberculosis. During that same period she had taken care of 13 little babies. Can a more terrible thing be imagined, from the viewpoint of public health and public economy, than tubercular patients and little children living together in the same room and eating at the same table? At the time of my visit there were in this same house five little children all under ten years of age, although there were none there at that time, it was legally possible for tubercular dependents at any moment to arrive. The overseer was not to blame for this deplorable situation, nor was the matron. The responsibility is easily traced to the people of this commonwealth who permit public charity to be administered under a poor‐law which is entirely out of harmony with twentieth century standards of social service. It is true that towns are authorized under the statutes to make appropriations for the care of the sick in hospitals but there is nothing to compel the towns to segregate their diseased, and the overseer is helpless in the absence of a mandatory law. If we are to retain our town poorhouses, which I believe we should not do, there certainly should be an inspection by a physician every six months to discover incipient cases of disease and once discovered, they should of course be removed.

That you may not think me over‐critical of conditions in other places I will very briefly describe the conditions which I found in the Northfield poorhouse when I last visited it. They are probably no better and no worse than those which exist in most of the poorhouses of Vermont. There were six inmates in the institution at that time. One, a woman, was bed‐ridden. In the living room and the kitchen two aged women, an old man, a feeble‐minded woman, and a middle aged man‐‐the most extraordinary character I have every seen‐‐presented a picture not soon to be forgotten. One of the old ladies was in her dotage and was continually muttering meaningless sentences. The other old lady is a notorious character, vulgar and profane to a degree indescribable. The old man was extremely filthy, and the woman mentioned as feeble‐minded was, as a matter of fact, void of all intelligence. The middle aged man was deaf, dumb, and blind. Twice during my visit there he was the victim of some physical disorder which caused him to bite at his knuckles and make noises not unlike the snarling of a dog. Attempts have been made to place this man in the State Hospital for the Insane, but it is claimed that he is not insane. Just how he should be classified I do not know. Now this is a typical picture of the Vermont town poorhouse. It is representative of the environment to which boys, girls, and those unfortunates who come to the evening of life without the means of support are thoughtlessly committed.

Of the 2,418 who were receiving aid from the towns on the first of October, 2,054 were being helped outside the poorhouses. In many cases this outside relief means the giving of a weekly sum, or a certain amount of provisions to a family temporarily in destitution. The dangers which attend this mode of relief by encouraging the voluntary idle to become parasites upon the public are apparent to any one who gives the matter serious thought. Man is weak and when given the chance will follow the line of least resistance. Every student of history knows that the alarming increase of pauperism in England during the decade from 1840‐50 was directly due to ill advised legislation regarding the matter of outside relief. If we except those alone who are actually incapacitated the guiding principle in public charity should be “He who eats must work." This principle is not followed as it should be, and there are scores of families in Vermont who are being aided by the outside method whose heads are indolent and too lazy to work. Clearly, those actually deserving help should be entitled to receive it without stigma. It is equally clear that the helping hand of the state should not be held out as an encouragement to pauperism. The public statutes are silent as regards checks upon this system, and in the absence of a systematic method of reporting cases, there is much extravagant giving and a deplorable overlapping of public and private charity. My observation leads me to believe that as a rule the overseers have exercised excellent judgment in this matter, but it is impossible to deal with the matter intelligently without an efficient method of reporting.

One of the worst conditions in Vermont is the mingling of the feeble minded with the general population. The survey shows that 217 of the paupers in the state on Oct. 1, 1916 were feeble‐minded. It must be remembered, however, that these figures are based upon the judgment of the overseers. As they are not experts in diagnosing mental deficiency it is probably safe to say that the classification is far from accurate, and that the number reported is far too small. It is easy enough for an overseer to report the number of men, women, and children who are being aided by his town, but when it comes to passing upon mental deficiency that is quite another matter. The situation is a serious one. We are with smug complacency tolerating conditions here in Vermont which are potentially as dangerous as those which have given rise to some of the notorious breeds in other states. There is no longer any question about the tendency of defectives to breed defectives, and the community which carelessly permits the mentally deficient to move about freely with the general population may some day find itself burdened with a tribe of paupers, criminals, drunkards and prostitutes. Last November, while visiting a town in the western part of the state, one of the selectmen called my attention to the fact that he had recently had to find a home for an infant born of a feeble‐minded girl in her teens, the father of which was the uncle of the girl. This is one of many cases which might be given to take this matter from the general to the concrete.

Then, too, town officials very frequently in order to free the town from supporting a feeble‐minded woman resort to the most unprincipled and dangerous methods. It is a common practice for a town burdened with such a person to encourage her marriage to some eccentric, but self‐supporting man who is foolish enough to be duped, thus opening the door to feeblemindedness and dependency the next generation to an extent which cannot be measured. I know of several such cases. In fact the feeble‐minded woman in the Northfield poorhouse is the exponent of such a union.

The neglect of children should particularly interest this conference. I want to tell you of two cases which have come to my attention since the first of January. On Christmas morning one of the selectmen in the town of Granville, having heard that a family near one of the lumber camps was in destitution, set out with a neighbor to investigate the case. Upon arriving at the hovel he found six little children, all under the age of thirteen, alone and actually in danger of freezing or starving to death. There was no fire in the stove. Not one of the children had underclothing and only one had shoes upon his feet. The only food in the house was a pailful of dried biscuits. Inquiry into the facts of the case showed that the father had gone into another town sometime before. The mother had collected some money which was due from the town because of the fact that the children had walked to school and going on to Randolph had spent the money for liquor. How long she would have left the children if she had not been located is of course problematical. Recently this group has moved from Granville into the town where the father went some weeks ago. In that town new chapters of misery, neglect and demoralization will be added to the lives of these little unfortunates.

In the town of Royalton there is a situation even more appalling. Information regarding this first came to me from one of my students whose home is in that town. I have since been able to verify the story by a letter which was sent to Mrs. F. G. Swinnerton, President of the Vermont Parent‐Teachers Association. Two children, a boy of nine and a girl of eight, live with their grandparents in a remote part of the town. The grandmother conducts a house of ill‐fame, and has constantly with her prostitutes, and their illegitimate children. Three children have already been taken away from this house by the town authorities, but the boy and girl just mentioned, and an illegitimate child of one of the girls still remain. Apparently the grandmother is morally insane. She is vulgar and profane beyond description. It is reported that she reads portions of the Bible to the children, a favorite passage being: “Consider the ravens; for they neither sow nor reap: which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls ?" after which she spits upon the Bible, hurls it across the room, and beats the children saying: “If there is a God and he thinks so much of you, let the ‐‐ ‐‐ ‐‐ come down and save you from this beating."

The two cases just cited, although extremely bad are representative of much evil that lurks in these hamlets of the hills. I was born in a rural town of Vermont. During the past ten years I have been in nearly every town in the state, and have studied with great interest the social conditions of our villages and countryside. I am proud of our history and our traditions, but I must confess that in my opinion we have within our boundaries conditions which are every bit as bad as those which are encountered in the great cities. I am aware that this is mere opinion, lacking scientific proof, but there are certain points which cannot be controverted. In the great city crime is subjected to the fire from the great batteries of the social workers, whereas in a rural community like Vermont, it is difficult to bring the social artillery up to a point where it can be used effectively.

Some of the conditions have been mentioned, now let us consider the needs. I am aware that morality and right living cannot be secured by legislation alone, but there are certain mandatory laws which must be put upon our statute hooks before we can hope to see very much improvement.

The deplorable conditions in our poorhouses call for immediate attention. The General Assembly now in session should, it seems to me, pass a law prohibiting the retention of children under 16 years of age in any poorhouse; it should also so legislate that persons having diseases dangerous to the public health will be excluded from poorhouses and provided for in special hospitals. It is extremely desirable that there should be written upon the statute book a law providing for the separation of the sexes in poorhouses. This is almost impossible, however, in the small town poorhouse and this leads me to a point where I wish to consider for a moment the advantages which would follow the abandonment of the township as the unit for institutional relief and the adoption of the state as the proper unit. The few large towns and the cities in the state may be able to provide relief in well appointed asylums, where the sexes can be separated and the diseases segregated, but the burden is too heavy for the smaller places. As time goes on either institutional care will have to be discontinued, or some unit other than the township agreed upon. Advisable as outside relief may be in manycases, there are types of dependents. who for their own good, as well as for the general welfare of society, should have institutional care. The improved conditions which we hope to see here in Vermont cannot be realized if the agency of the asylum is not available for certain classes of the poor. Nor can they be realized with the crude institutions which so many towns are struggling to support.

The entire population of Vermont is slightly greater than that of Westchester County, New York. There is no good reason why Vermont, through the agencies of state institutions, cannot deal with this problem of institutional relief as efficiently as do the great counties of the larger American Commonwealths. The town may well continue to administer outside relief, but institutional relief, demanding as it does peculiar care and proper classification, can be administered more satisfactorily in the larger area. The capital invested in poorhouses in the majority of towns supporting such institutions, is entirely out of proportion to the number of inmates cared for in these places. It is a mal‐adjusted system which makes it necessary for a town to maintain a real estate investment of $8,000.00 in order to care for two inmates. It is reasonable to believe that the money now expended in the different towns of Vermont in the struggle to maintain poorhouses would go a long way towards the establishment of a state hospital for the indigent sick, a state asylum for the adult feeble‐minded, and a state home for aged persons. The wholesome effect of this classification of our poor cannot be overestimated. It was a long step in the direction of social betterment when provision was made for the insane poor in a state institution. It will be an equally long step in the same direction when similar provision is made for the aged, the indigent sick, and the adult feeble‐minded. We are inclined to shrink from the creation of state institutions, because we think of them as associated with increased state expenses, but I believe that they furnish the real solution of our problem.

I believe that we should have a law requiring reports from the officers who administer public charity, but this leads to the very important matter of supervision by a state board of charities, and the need and work of such a board will be discussed tomorrow by Dr. Groat of the University of Vermont.

I have presented to you some of the conditions and needs of Vermont as I view them. In closing let me say that this conference should not adjourn till it has pledged itself to secure legislation from the General Assembly now in session which will bar children and the diseased from poorhouses. I hope it will not adjourn without placing itself on record as opposed to the town poorhouse and the law which permits it.

DISCUSSION

In the discussion of Professor Flint's paper from the floor it was clearly brought out by testimony of Dr. F. W. Sears, Mrs. S. C. Platt, et al., that the type‐cases cited by Professor Flint were fair samples and not isolated, peculiar, or unusual instances.