with and sustained by State aid and supervision? An institution so formed is in the control of its truest friends; and, except in cases of mal-administration, outside influences do not interfere with its management. Our Connecticut Industrial School for Girls is established on this plan.

Child-saving work is still in its infancy. The obligations of our States in behalf of the children are great, and are but partially fulfilled. The best thing to be done is to make reform schools less necessary. To this end we have many laws upon our books, but public sentiment does not compel their enforcement. I refer to laws against intemperance, vulgarity, obscenity, profanity, and kindred evils.

Our many agencies engaged in child-saving work, the infant. nurseries, the kindergarten schools, homes for destitute children, orphan asylums, day industrial schools, where food and instruction are provided, industrial boarding schools, where lodging and clothing are added, apprentice schools, State, reform, and industrial schools, all are accomplishing a grand and noble Christian work. But who does not know that in many, if not all our States, there are many unfortunate, neglected, unprotected children, who are unreached by all our organized charities combined?

States differ also as to methods and as to the expenses to be incurred in caring for juvenile delinquents.

Much has also been said concerning the relative value of the congregate and family systems in reformatory schools. The best we could ever do for any child would be to place it in a private Christian home, where it would be received and cared for, trained and educated, as a son or daughter would be by people of ordinary means; and a sufficient sum should be paid by the State, if need be, to secure this treatment of the child. Such a home for the child, with kindly and parental relations, is the only home that can be Iclaimed to be better for the child than an industrial or reform school organized on the family plan, provided such school is characterized by the same kindly, parental, Christian spirit. But such homes, we dare assert, cannot be found in sufficient numbers to receive but a small portion of these children in the condition in which they are usually received in our schools. A home, we admit, may be found that will take the child for the benefit to be derived from its services and the funds to be received on its account; but

few will be found to receive such a child, with all its moral deficiencies, in the true missionary spirit, that seeks its greatest good. And only as such homes are found does the State discharge its duties to the child or are its rights protected and subserved. We most sincerely deprecate the plan of placing these children directly, either from the homes in which they are found or from the street, in families where their rights will not be fully protected, and liberal educational advantages received.

Shall we as a nation grudge all necessary expense in caring for the unfortunate children and youth of our land, while a billion dollars or more are annually spent for strong drink? Shall we as States withhold needed funds for the reformation and eternal good of these children, when from the laboring class alone, in a single county of a single State, eleven million dollars was spent for drink in a single year? We are not poor as States or as a nation. The sun shines on no so prosperous a people. But, were we poor, we could not afford to fail to care for the children to the full extent of their needs; for therein is the nation's strength.

There is nothing in the end so expensive to any people as to neglect to train up the children in the way they should go, as to fail to liberally educate them for the duties and responsibilities of good citizenship.

The thought of making the labor of the inmates of our schools remunerative is dropping out of sight; and nobler and more paternal feelings find expression in the ever-increasing interest manifested by introducing trades and industries, that the inmates may be self-sustaining members of society, wherever they go.

The question is not, How much can these children be made to help the State sustain and educate them? but How much can the State do to make of them good, intelligent, self-supporting citizens?

Several of the prison congresses of the past have declared in favor of a special education of prison officials for their work. They have advocated the establishment, by States, of normal schools or colleges for such purpose. Such an institute was founded at Rome as early as 1873. There is no doubt that this is a step in the right direction. If for prisons and prison reformatories such a preparation is needed for persons who propose entering upon the work, is it not equally desirable that those who are to become the guardians and teachers of the young should receive a preparation for such work which

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with and sustained by formed is

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shall enable them more intelligently and successfully to discharge the duties and responsibilities of their positions, since from the very nature of the case inmates of our juvenile reformatories are more susceptible and teachable than those of older years, who are more hardened in crime?

May God speed the time when, far in advance of our present achievements in child-saving work, in juvenile reformation, every State in our Union shall fulfil her obligations to the only truly hopeful portion of neglected humanity, our neglected children and youth, and, remembering the injunction of our blessed Master when he said, "Suffer the children to come unto me," in the spirit of a true, generous, Christian charity, lift these misguided, unfortunate ones into the purer atmosphere of a practical Christianity, and by example and precepts and liberal educational advantages fit them for usefulness in the life that now is and for the continued service of the Master in the life which is to come!

XI

Immigration and Interstate Migration.

IMMIGRATION.

BY DR. CHARLES S. HOYT, OF NEW YORK.

When the Standing Committee on Immigration and Interstate Migration formulated its programme for this Conference, Congress was in session; and it then seemed probable that before its adjournment there would be important legislation in respect to immigration, calling for an extended paper upon the subject. A number of bills further regulating and restricting immigration were introduced into both Houses early in the session, but no measure upon the subject was perfected and passed. The statutes affecting immigration, therefore, remain the same as in 1893, with the exception of the act of June, 1894, increasing the head tax from fifty cents to one dollar for each immigrant, and making the office of Commissioner of Immigration a Presidential appointment, and the decisions of the Immigration Commissioners final, except in cases of appeal to the Treasury Department. As the subject of immigration and the statutes in relation thereto were considered at length by the committee at the Chicago Conference in 1893, it is not thought advisable to occupy the time of this Conference with an extended paper upon the matter, which necessarily would be largely a repetition of the facts and conclusions then presented. The committee, therefore, decided to restrict the paper on Immigration to the briefest possible space, thus giving opportunity for a fuller and more extended presentation of the closely allied and highly important subject of Interstate Migration.

The decrease in immigration during the past three years seems to require brief mention. The immigrant arrivals in 1892 were 581,827. In 1893 they fell off to 440,783, and in 1894 to 288,020. The arrivals for the first nine months of the fiscal year 1895 were

only 140,980, so that the total immigrant arrivals for the present year are not likely greatly, if any, to exceed 200,000. If we search for the causes of this great decrease in immigration during the past three years, they will be found in the prevalence of cholera abroad in 1892 and early in 1893, and since then in the depressed and stagnant condition of business in this country, with little or no demand for remunerative labor. The more thorough execution of the immigration laws and the deportation of greater numbers of the prohibited classes than in former years, not only by the federal authorities, but also by States and municipalities, have, doubtless, in some measure served to lessen the volume of immigration during this period, by deterring many from leaving their homes with an uncertainty as to their securing a landing and permanent lodgment in this country upon their arrival. During this period there has been a large outflow of alien steerage passengers to various European countries, induced by depressed business conditions in this country, and stimulated largely by the low rate of outward steerage passage. has not been uncommon, within the past two years, for outgoing steamers to be crowded with such steerage passengers, equal with incoming steamers in the most prosperous times and active periods of immigration; and, although we have no exact data as to the number of such departures during this time, it is safe to estimate that they nearly, if not quite, equal the immigrant arrivals.

It

These anomalous conditions in respect to immigration are not likely, however, long to continue. With the return of prosperity and the revival of business enterprises in this country the tide of immigration is certain again to set to our shores in increased volume, with its attendant evils, unless checked and restrained by stringent, wholesome, and wisely administered restrictive laws. Under the depressed conditions of the country following the panic of 1873 the immigrant arrivals fell off from 422,545 in that year to 260,814 in 191,237 in 1875, to 157,440 in 1876, and to 130,502 in the lowest number reached within the last two decades. The se of arrivals began in 1878, rising to 593,703 in 1880, to ,045 in 1881, and to 730,349 in 1882, the highest number ever eached in any single year in the history of the country. It seems fitting, therefore, as we are doubtless on the eve of another heavy inflow of imm

arrivals, as before stated, that we carefully exnto the laws and methods in vogue for the pro