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With a wholly inadequate appropriation, all that can be expected, in addition to the administration of the probation department, is at the most, a careful and painstaking investigation of our poor departments; the investigation of complaints and the giving of temporary relief to as large a number of dependent and neglected children as possible. Scientific handling of these cases cannot be accomplished until the State becomes acquainted with the actual conditions and meets them with suitable legislation and an adequate appropriation.

During the past months we have invited and had at our monthly meetings Dr. Hastings H. Hart, Director of the Child Welfare Department of the Russell Sage Foundation; Dr. Frederick H. Knight, Superintendent, New England Home for Little Wanderers; Mr. J. N. Barss, Superintendent, Vermont Industrial School; Mr. Harold W. Slocum, Secretary of the Vermont Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis.

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It is fortunate, indeed, that the legislature included, as one of the duties of the Department of Charities, the inspection of poorhouses. Happily the town system has almost disappeared, for the town unit cannot give the requisite degree of care.

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Perhaps I might illustrate the conditions found in some of our poor departments. In one of our better towns, I inspected the poorhouse, which consisted of eight sleeping rooms for inmates, the general condition of which was very dirty, the beds being inexcusably poor and filled with vermin. The odor about the buildings was disagreeable, and much dirt and untidyness were in evidence. The pantry was poorly kept and dirty, and the whole building unscreened. The bathing facilities were not good, although a bathtub was found. There was no evidence of soap. The clothing of the inmates was extremely ragged. Dinner on the day of inspection consisted of bread and butter and string beans. The matron in formed me that she had meat every Sunday. There were ten inmates, four males and six females, five of whom were children. The town provides for the care of the people by giving the rent, five tons of coal and an average of $9.00 a month for each inmate, the keeper furnishing both board and clothing.

A recent inspection of another poorhouse disclosed, perhaps, the worst condition in the State. While the buildings were good, and the food and clothing excellent, the morals of the place were shocking and wholly inexcusable. This town recently sent a feeble‐minded inmate to our State Prison, for a statutory offense with another inmate, a feeble‐minded girl who had already been a mother. A feeble‐minded daughter of this man is also an inmate of the poorhouse. On the day of inspection the superintendent called my attention to an old man and woman, who while they have separate rooms, were, at the time of inspection, in the same room and have lived together both before and since they came to the farm, without the formality of marriage.

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The "Royalton Case." reported by Professor Flint last year, has been effectively handled. The neglected children were found in a house, vile and dirty, which was a rendezvous for prostitutes and their illegitimate offspring. The father of the children in point was located in New Hampshire. He agreed to give them suitable care and has provided a home approved by the New Hampshire Board of Charities and Correction.

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One of the first cases to come to my notice was in Washington County. The father had been arrested for violation of the terms of his probation, and the evidence given in court indicated that the home conditions might need some attention. Investigation showed that the mother had died at 34 years of age, after having given birth to 17 children, 9 of whom are living. Six of these children were at the house when I arrived.

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The whole place was extremely dirty, unkempt and really heartbreaking. We took these children under an order of the court. One is at Brandon, one at Vergennes, two are being cared for at the Home for Destitute Children, one has been placed in a family in Washington County and the other is being cared for in my own home. It was a hard problem, and one that has not yet been wholly solved.

Another case, that might be mentioned as illustrating the conditions as they are being found by the Board, was found in the southern part of the State. This house is a small building 16 x 18 feet, of one room, occupied by the father, mother and four children: Frank, 2 years old; Annie, 10; Viola, 15, and George, 16.

Inside and outside, the house was filthy, disorderly and shocking. Only two beds and these ragged and dirty provided accommodations for six persons. There was no attempt at privacy, and the fact that a ten and a fifteen‐year‐old girl were compelled to sleep, robe and disrobe in the presence of not only the father and mother, but a sixteen‐year‐old brother, was demoralizing in the extreme. I had the mother and three children brought into court, and I am pleased to be able to state that the father and the boy George are in the House of Correction, Viola is at the school for Feeble‐Minded at Brandon, Annie is at Vergennes and Frank, the two‐year old, is still our problem.

After our visit to this home we were taken by the town officials to a family that lived in a shack 16 feet square, consisting of only one room. There were a father and mother, boy and girl, the latter being 18 and 20 years of age, respectively, and only two beds. The boy said he slept in one and the father in the other one. This boy and girl have been committed to the State School for Feeble‐Minded at Brandon.

Last Fall my attention was called to Burlington. Investigation showed that there existed several places that might be termed "baby farms." I quote from my report to the Board as follows: "We found a cheap, plain cottage house, consisting of four small rooms and a dark bedroom down stairs. In one room we found nine or ten of the thirteen infants which this woman had in her care. She informed us that twelve of the thirteen were illegitimate and I should judge the oldest one could not be more than twelve or fourteen months old. The place was disorderly, unkempt and dirty. The air was foul and the stench terrific. Some of the children were fairly clean, while others showed unmistakable signs of neglect. When I suggested to her that it must be a task to care for so many during the night, she, without hesitancy, said that the doctor had left a bottle of medicine and that she gave each a little and then everything was all right until morning. I brought this matter before the proper city officials and suitable action has been taken. Daylight has been let in, and these places required to secure a license and conform to such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the health department, or denied a right to exist."

In Windsor County I found a Russian‐Greek Orphanage, where 63 children, all from outside the State, were suffering more or less from malnutrition. The daily menu, according to Mother Paulina, the matron in charge, consisted of:

Breakfast: One slice of white bread and a cup of cocoa. Dinner: Apple soup and meal mush, no bread. Four o'clock lunch for the school children, 50 in number: one slice of white bread and two small apples, no butter being used in the institution. She stated that sometimes they gave the children a little maple syrup at four o'clock lunch. Supper: Soup, no bread.

Meat balls were served every Sunday; these were made from the meat cut from the soup bones during the week.

These conditions have been corrected. Suitable food is provided, and no more children will be brought to Vermont until the conditions are satisfactory to this department.

With a wholly inadequate appropriation it is impossible to do the work which ought to be done. We can, however, study conditions, learn of the cases and be in a position to present them intelligently at the next session of the legislature.

One of the serious problems which we find is the discovery of many cases of neglect, where the parents own property to such an amount as to remove them from the dependent class. Overseers of the poor hesitate, and in many instances absolutely refuse, to give aid or to make any move to remedy conditions, when the person complained of is in such financial circumstances as to be able to care for the dependent and neglected children.

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In Essex County I found the most pitiful and shocking conditions that it has been my ill‐fortune to find during my term of office. The family consists of father, mother and five children, all feeble‐minded and an additional child being born with due regularity. The house was dirty beyond power of language to describe. Filth that I cannot speak of was in evidence everywhere. The children were unwashed and, in one instance un‐clothed. This family presented the hardest single problem that has come to my attention. The two oldest children have been committed to the State School for Feeble‐Minded.

It is impossible to discuss the question of dependent and neglected children, without making mention of feeble‐mindedness, for my experience has already shown me that in a very large share of the cases thus far investigated, feeble‐mindedness plays a very important part. We find large groups of feeble‐minded in some sections of our State.

Another case of this class is the five B‐‐. children in one family, who were committed from the city of Montpelier to the State School for the Feeble‐Minded at Brandon a few weeks ago. Vermont will never solve in a satisfactory manner the problem of the dependent and neglected child until it has made adequate provision by suitable legislative action, and by providing sufficient buildings for the confinement and care of all feebleminded females of child‐bearing age.

Vol. 2, page 15, report of United States Bureau of Education for 1914, says that the public cost per feeble‐minded child each year is $555.42, or twenty times as much as the public expense for a normal child. If the life expectancy of feeble‐minded is but twenty years, the birth of each feeble‐minded child means a public expense of $11,108.40.

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For the first six months of the existence of the Board, we took under our custody and care 31 children, and provided temporary or permanent homes for them. Upon our petition, 10 children were sent to the Vermont Industrial School, seven to the State School the Feeble‐Minded at Brandon. Fifty poorhouses have been inspected; in several, very serious conditions have been found, which in nearly every instance have been relieved. A large number of places have been investigated, involving some two hundred children, who were living in homes so filthy and degrading as to seriously endanger their future, and in nearly every instance the conditions have been corrected or materially improved. We now have in our files 241 cases of this class for investigation.

On January 1, 1918, the overseers of the poor reported that they were giving aid to 3,239 persons, and that 1,324 are under 16 years of age, 74 are feeble‐minded females under 45 years of age, 120 are feeble‐minded men, 29 are suffering from venereal diseases, 25 from tuberculosis and 7 from epilepsy. These figures cover 242 of the 246 cities and towns of the State.

One of the most serious problems that confronts the Board, and one that seems to seriously interfere with our work is the lack of provision for a temporary shelter or receiving home. A place to which we may take children for the cleaning‐up process, when committed to our custody, and where they may remain pending an investigation of applicants who are offering a home. This is much to he desired and in fact practically essential to the development of a complete policy of child care and protection.

During the existence of the Board we have received many applications from persons offering homes for children which we have been wholly unable to consider, because we had no children available, in a condition that would warrant the State in placing them. I am very glad to be able to say that a movement is now under way which promises a speedy solution of this problem, through the generosity of our people.

When the present law was enacted creating the Board of Charities and Probation, it took over the work which was being done by the probation commission and the fourteen county probation officers.

On January 1, 1918, we had 622 persons out of prison on parole or upon probation by the courts, 622 persons who have been found guilty of some crime, and have been committed to the care and custody of this Board with the hope that we can materially assist them in regaining an honorable place in society and in becoming useful and desirable citizens. That many of these are feeble‐minded and a large number defective, there can be no doubt.

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DISCUSSION.

Secretary Jeffrey's address was followed by a lively general discussion in the course of which the following items were emphasized and generally agreed upon:

(a) There is great need for a temporary Receiving Home in which neglected children may be placed, for a period of three months at least, to undergo such training and observation as are desirable before they are "placed out" in private homes. General cleaning up, instruction in manners and habits of life, and careful observation to detect defects or peculiarities are indispensable if the work of placing children in homes is to be effective. An adequate Home could be built for about $8,000. (b) There is great need of a home for dependent and neglected girls similar to the Kurn Hattin Homes for boys. Neglected and abused children taken from home by the State should not be confined in a home for delinquents. The danger of contamination by evil associates is too great. Yet at present the only institution open to neglected or abused girls is that at Vergennes.

ABSTRACT OF ADDRESS: THE NEEDS OF THE UNFORTUNATES J. E Weeks, Director of State Institutions.

Judge Weeks emphasized the responsibility of the community for those unfortunates who after seclusion in an institution for a few months or years are returned to life in the world again. Who meets the erring one who returns? he asked. Too often his or her own kind. If they are to be prevented from drifting back into old ways, after‐care which will provide suitable companionship, guidance, etc., are required. He declared that in only one case in all his wide experience had he failed to find an avenue of approach to the erring individual. The work to be accomplished is an affair of personality; it involves the influence of one life upon another. The aim of the head of a penal institution should be to get into personal touch with his inmates and convince the individual of his interest in him or her personally.

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DISCUSSION.

The discussion of this address evoked the fact that at present Vermont has no Woman Probation Officers. Honorable Elisha May of the Board of Charities and Probation explained this as due to lack of funds. The Board plans to seek the necessary appropriation from the next legislature. Mr. Jeffrey spoke of this need as one of the greatest importance. Mrs. E. L. Wyman suggested that while awaiting State action, the situation might be effectively met by Volunteer Women in each county, who would serve as Deputy Probation Officers.