le scruple in turning such
institutions to their own account; and the institutions, being
financially irresponsible, are not in these circumstances scrupulous on
their side to prevent a misdirection of their bounties. "Parents unload
their children upon the community more recklessly when they know that
such children will be provided for in private orphan asylums and
protectories, where the religious training that the parents prefer will
be given them" (Amos G. Warner, in _International Congress: Charities
and Correction_, 1893). Past history in New York city illustrates the
same evil. The admission was entirely in the hands of the managers. They
admitted; the city paid. In New York city the population between 1870
and 1890 increased about 80%; the subsidies for prisoners and public
paupers increased by 43%, but those for paupers in private institutions
increased from $334,828 to $1,845,872, or about 461%. The total was at
that time $3,794,972; in 1898 it was rather less, $3,132,786. The
alternative to this system is either the establishment of state or
municipal institutions, and possibly in special cases payments to
voluntary homes for the maintenance of inmates admitted at the request
of a state authority, as at certified and other homes in England, with
grants made conditional on the work being conducted on specified lines,
and subject to a certain increasing amount of voluntary financial
support; or a close general and financial inspection of charitable
institutions--the method of reform adopted in New York; or payment for
only those inmates who are sent by public authorities and admitted on
their request.

The enormous extent to which children's aid societies have been
increased in the United States, sometimes with the help of considerable
public grants, suggests the greatest need for caution from the point of
the preservation of the family as the central element of social strength
in the community. The problem of charity in relation to medical relief
in the large towns of the United States is similar to that of England;
its difficulties are alike.

LITERATURE.--As good translations of the classics become accessible it
is easy for the general reader or student to combine a study of the
principles of charity in relation to the community with a study of
history. Thus, and in connexion with special investigations and the
conditions of practical charity, social economics may best be studied.
In N. Masterm