were public charges, and has exercised a careful supervision over these children, as well as over 375 placed out in preceding years. A special agent is employed to secure children for placing out from institutions and officials in many parts of the State, and to bring to the attention of officials and institution managers the advantages of placing children in families and the best methods of carrying on such work.

c. The work of assisting the Association's county committees in establishing and maintaining agencies for dependent children in coöperation with county boards of supervisors, has been actively prosecuted during the year. In addition to the agencies already organized for the city and town of Newburgh and the counties of Columbia, Rockland, Schenectady and Montgomery, agencies have been started during the year in Oneida, Dutchess and Herkimer counties, and in the town of Oyster Bay, and a large amount of preliminary work toward the establshment of such agencies has been done in Suffolk, Rensselaer,* Washington, Jefferson, Oswego and St. Lawrence counties.

LEGISLATION.

The variety and scope of legislation proposed or enacted, with which the Association was concerned during the session of 1909, is shown in the following schedule:

BILLS THAT BECAME Law.

1. Authorizing the establishment of county hospitals for tuberculosis (chap. 341).

2. Repealing the law requiring the consent of the town board and of the county board of supervisors to the establishment of a tuberculosis hospital, and substituting therefor the joint action of the local health officer and the State Commissioner of Health, or, in case they disagree, the approval of a board composed of three State officers (chap. 171).

3. Providing for the organization of ambulance service in the city of New York (chap. 395).

4. Defining the jurisdiction of various municipal departments in New York City in relation to hospitals for contagious diseases (chap. 342).

* An agency began work in Rensselaer county February 1, 1910.

5. Amending the Poor Law in relation to the support of destitute children by local authorities (chap. 347).

6. Providing for the appointment of county probation officers and permitting local authorities to provide for the expenses, as well as the salaries, of probation officers (chap. 482).

7. Providing for the appointment of a board of managers for the Letchworth Village (chap. 446).

8. Appropriating $30,000 for necessary improvements at Letchworth village (chap. 455).

9. Appropriating $286,000 for doubling the capacity of the New York State Hospital for Incipient Pulmonary Tuberculosis at Raybrook (chap. 154).

10. Authorizing the Commission in Lunacy to select a new site or sites for a State hospital for the insane in the southeastern portion of the State (chap. 433, Appropriation Act).

11. Transferring the site in Washington county acquired for the State hospitals department to the State prisons department, and authorizing the immediate erection of a new prison thereon (chap. 459).

BILLS THAT FAILED.

12. Amending an appropriation bill so as to require $100,000 to be expended for new buildings for the insane on a site unsuitably located in Washington county.

13. Appropriating $636,000 for buildings and improvements for the New York State Training School for Boys.

14. Providing for more adequate treatment of public intoxication and inebriety in New York city.

15. Providing for the establishment of a labor colony for tramps and vagrants.

16. Authorizing the State Commission in Lunacy to exercise supervision over places used for the temporary detention and observation of the insane and alleged insane pending commitment or discharge.

17. Transferring the oversight of the commitment of the insane from local Poor Law officials to local health officers.

18. Providing for the establishment of a State Board of Probation for Children.

19. Excluding probation officers for juveniles from the supervision of the State Probation Commission.

New York State Training School for Boys: For several years this Association has strongly urged the enactment of legislation and such administrative action as may be necessary to secure the prompt removal of the House of Refuge from its obsolete buildings on Randall's Island to a country site with buildings on the cottage system. The secretary of this Association has served as a member of a commission appointed in 1907 to secure a site and submit plans for the construction of buildings. During 1908 a site selected by the commission at Yorktown Heights was acquired by the State for this purpose. The Legislature of 1909 passed a bill appropriating $636,000 for buildings and improvements thereon. Owing to the condition of the treasury of the State the Governor felt constrained to veto this appropriation, though strongly approving of the proposed use of the new site. This additional delay of the removal of the House of Refuge is to be regretted, and it is to be hoped that the Legislature of 1910 will authorize the appropriation for this new construction.

Wiser Provision for Inebriates: The committee on hospitals of this Association, at the request of the Charity Organization Society, undertook a year ago a study of the effects of existing laws, practices and institutions dealing with persons convicted of public intoxication. After a careful consideration of the existing situation in this city and of new methods recently tried in several other states in the Union, the committee proposed a bill which received the approval of the board of managers and which was submitted to the Legislature, providing for the establishment of a hospital for inebriates, and containing various provisions tending to prevent the unnecessary commitment of unsuitable patients thereto. The measure was introduced too late in the session to receive extended consideration, although a widespread interest in the subject was developed. An amended form of the bill simply authorizing the acquisition of a site for such a hospital would undoubtedly have become a law could it have reached the Senate calendar a few days earlier, thus obviating the necessity of securing unanimous consent for its advancement.

Farm Colony for Tramps or Vagrants: A measure was introduced at the instance of the Charity Organization Society and the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor and supported by a considerable number of charitable agencies, including this Association, providing for the establishment of a State farm and industrial colony for tramps and vagrants. The measure was favorably regarded in many quarters, and the unusual demands. upon the State treasury in connection with the State educational building and several new State institutions was undoubtedly responsible for its failure to become a law.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN.

When, through the joint efforts of this Association and the State Board of Charities, the commitment of destitute children to poorhouses was forbidden in 1875, it was provided that the children might be either sent to private institutions, orphan asylums, etc., or placed in families. As a mattter of fact most of them were sent to private institutions, and partly as a result of this system the number of these children has become very great. They are now, and have been for many years the largest class of public dependents, and number over 33,000. They are also naturally the class who are most powerfully influenced by the environment chosen for them. Our other institutions may have comparatively little effect upon those admitted to them, as their characters are already largely fixed. But as to this small army of needy children, their entire careers in most cases will be determined by the environment in which we place them. The care of children is by far the most important branch of public charity, and would naturally be one of the very first objects of concern on the part of this Association.

When the children were removed from almshouses and went to private institutions they were no longer under our direct visitation, for we do not visit private institutions. There remained. three possible ways in which we could assist these children:

1. We might by pressure, by publication, by legislation, or by friendly interest seek to improve the institutions, though we do not visit them.

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2. We might seek to increase the number of children placed in families, by impressing upon local officials the benefits of this method, and by assisting them in carrying it into effect.

3. We might endeavor to prevent children from becoming public charges.

During the past year we have done something in each of these three lines. The greatest need on the part of the institutions themselves is, without doubt, their removal to rural sites, and the erection of buildings on the cottage plan. The only objection raised to this plan, which as yet has been adopted by only a very small proportion of the institutions, is its cost. At our suggestion an inquiry has been undertaken by the Russell Sage Foundation as to the comparative cost of the cottage and the congregate systems. The results of this study, when published for general distribution, should be a most valuable factor in securing the adoption of the cottage plan. Lately, by correspondence and other ways, we have endeavored to secure its adoption by the Buffalo Orphan Asylum, which has planned to remove to a new site.

The second and most important part of our work during the past year has been coöperation with local officials in actually finding good homes in which destitute children can be placed for adoption. The local officials have always had authority to place children for adoption in families; what they lacked was the machinery. Had they undertaken the work themselves, with all the other work they had in hand, it would have been extremely difficult for them to carry on the work in an efficient manner, and discredit might have been brought upon the plan. The only practicable way to secure a large use of the placing out system with sufficiently careful methods, seemed to be to actually carry on the work in close coöperation with local officials, and local institutions, explaining to them in detail as we went along the various steps of investigation, selection of home, and subsequent supervision, thus gaining year by year wider support and larger confidence in the plan. This work was begun in June, 1898. During the eleven years, 934 children have been placed in homes, an average number of eighty-five per year. The growth of the work was indicated by the fact that the number of children placed