the people, or appointed by mayors of cities, should be carefully selected from among men who are not political leaders in any sense of the word, who have no political debts to pay and no political ambition to be furthered. They should be men (or women) of character, intelligence and experience, who will find time to devote to the work they undertake and who will take a real interest in it. The terms of the members of all unpaid boards should be long, eight to ten years at least, and the boards should practically have a permanent membership, as consistency and continuity of policy are essential to successful administration. The terms of Commissioners at the head of city departments should be "quamdiu se bene gesserint "* according to the old English formula as to judges. If the public will offer an honorable career to first-class men they will be ready to serve the public in such offices.

All offices, executive and clerical and menial, in all public institutions, from the Superintendent down, should be filled by the strictest competitive examinations. Not that this is the ideal way of filling them, but with a public opinion so perverted on the subject of public offices as that of the people of the United States at present, it is the only way of securing good officers, officers independent of political influence, who would not hold their obligation to an "organization as superior to their duties to the public and to the institution in which they are serving. It is the only way also of making the public believe in the honesty and disinterestedness of the appointing power, and that is almost as important as that it should be honest and disinterested. When the people of the United States have reformed, other systems may be adopted and give better results, but under present conditions the only way to get independent officers into the public service in our country is to adopt a system which acts almost automatically. This does not mean, however, that the managers are to take no

* The translation of this phrase in the Constitution of the United States is "during good behavior."

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interest in the persons who are to be appointed - it is their business to care intensely to get the best men and women possible, and they should take the greatest pains to secure such but this they should do by seeing that the examinations are of such a character and the standards so high that none but the best men and women can pass them, and also by securing such a class of candidates to take the examination as will insure an admirable list of "eligibles." A stream cannot rise higher than its source. If miserable incompetents are the only people who enter into a competitive examination, only miserable incompetents will be presented to the appointing power for selection. A competitive examination has no magic power to convert an ignoramus or a drunkard into a valuable public officer, and unless those interested in public institutions bestir themselves to secure a proper class of competitors to enter an examination and unless the examinations are believed to be really competitive and really fair, there will not be much improvement in the character and intelligence of our public servants under civil service laws over those we had before these laws were passed.

It is absolutely necessary also that merit should control in promotions, and that the positions in public institutions should be practically permanent, continuance in office being dependent only upon continued merit and efficiency. This system would create an honorable career which people of intelligence and character would enter with the expectation of making it a life occupation.

As has been said the method above described is not the ideal one for filling the positions in public institutions. The ideal would be to give to the Boards of Managers absolute liberty to choose men and women whenever they found such as would be exactly suitable for the work. When we have reached the necessary heights of intelligence and morals to avoid such obvious folly and wickedness as the mixing of politics and "charity” or letting politics control our prisons and reformatories, then, but

not until then, will it be possible to trust the managers of institutions and the commissioners of charity and superintendents of the poor with freedom to select their own subordinates.

Meanwhile it is difficult, sometimes impossible, even with all the safeguards of civil service laws and rules, to save the charitable and penal institutions from the poison of "politics," and we are far from being able to secure for our institutions generally the class of men and women who ought to fill the positions in them.

What are the remedies?

An awakened public conscience is the one sovereign cure for the ills from which we suffer. When there is a realizing sense of the wickedness of much that now exists it will be stopped, and the only way that such a realizing sense can be created is by constantly bringing the facts and their results before the public. This is the way in which the State Board of Charities, the State Charities Aid Association, the Prison Commission and the Prison Association have accomplished so much and this is the only way in which further improvements can be secured - this is why this State Conference and the National Conferences are of such great value.

The awakening of the public conscience and the instruction of public opinion upon the weighty problems of charity and correction act in two different ways to secure improvement and must continue so to act in ever increasing degree. Better conditions will be demanded by the public and better people will undertake the work in public institutions. There has been a great deal of self-sacrificing work and a great deal of devotion in the public institutions even when conditions were at their worst, and one cannot honor too highly those men and women who have given their lives to the service of the low and degraded for inadequate pay and under most discouraging surroundings, but we need to have such men and women in all the positions in all the institutions, and that is the ideal toward which we must work, and

which such conferences as the present will help us more and more

In approving generally the admirable report of the Committee, I wish to express the opinion that the "governing boards" of public institutions selected in the careful manner indicated, should be left absolutely free to appoint superintendents and other officers most suitable for the work.

No competitive examination can be devised which will furnish ideal officers for penal and charitable institutions.

I have no objection to the application of such system for clerical and menial employment.

Nov. 4, 1901.

GEORGE B. ROBINSON.

Professor George F. Canfield, President of the State Charities Aid Association, presented a paper on "Politics in State, County and City Institutions of Charity."

POLITICS IN STATE, COUNTY AND CITY INSTITUTIONS OF CHARITY.

The business of caring for the dependent members of society, the beneficiaries of our system of charity, is attended to in this State partly by the State itself or some of its political subdivisions, partly by private corporations aided with public money, and partly by private corporations supported wholly by private contributions. In so far as the State, or any of its political subdivisions, such as the county, town or city, has anything to do with the ad

ministration of charity, or contributes money for the support of it, of course there must be politics in it, and if we mean by politics the science and practice of good government, which is the better meaning of the term, the more politics there is in the administration of charity the better. But when we speak of politics in State, county and municipal institutions, it is generally understood that we use the term in its bad sense, as meaning the science and practice of bad government, a sense in which we have long been familiar with it in this city.

We doubtless all agree that politics in this latter sense of the term ought not to have anything to do with charitable institutions. If the managers of charitable institutions are political appointments in the bad sense, that is, if they are chosen without regard to their qualifications for the duties of their positions, or even with some regard to their qualifications, but primarily as a reward for their services to a political party, or to a faction of that party, or to an individual politician, the danger is that they will not be qualified for their duties, or at least will not perform their duties so efficiently as those chosen primarily with regard to their fitness, and if they are not qualified for their duties and do not perform their duties efficiently, it will follow as the night follows the day that charitable institutions will be badly managed. The inmates will suffer from neglect or unwise treatment, the taxpayer will suffer from a waste of public funds, and the broader interests of society will suffer from the unwise treatment of this large class of dependent people, consisting of the destitute and the physical and mental defectives. There is no need of arguing here that the care of these classes of people requires expert knowledge, and character and executive abilities of a high order. And there is no need of arguing here that these qualifications are less likely, on the whole and in the long run, to be secured, if the narrow partisan interests of a political party, a faction or an individual control in the selec tion of the officials.