Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/732

7l8 agent whose duties lie almost entirely outside in visiting the children in families and in finding homes. If he learns that a child is ill treated, he is to remove it and place it in another family or return it to the school. His position requires great zeal, good judgment and delicacy of treatment. His work has very much to do with the success of the school. He visits and reports on all the children once each year, the county agent once, and the foster parents once, such reports as near as may be coming about four months apart. Some cases need more attention and have it from both the state and county agents. Some of the best children in most excellent families need much less supervision. In this way during the minority of the children their interests are watchfully guarded, and whether in families or in the school, in health and in sickness, they have most kind attention. Many never knew kind treatment until they entered the school, and no private charity ever cared for children better than the state has done.

The institution provides for all the admissible dependent children of the state not cared for by private charities. The state in no way restricts the private institutions. There are several laws under which they may be organized and some operate without incorporation. The law does not regulate the manner of admission or discharge. These laws were enacted mainly before the State Public School was established and have been amended from time to time. There never has been any collision between the state and these institutions, the former apparently yielding to private charity all it desired to do. The state school not being sectarian does not seek to place children in families of the religion of the parents but welcomes aid from the churches that desire to do so.

For twenty-two years Michigan, with humane ideas for the children and with thoughts of self-preservation for itself, has been as a parent to these children of the poor. As the lamented Governor Bagley once said in an addres:

The most beneficent and grandest work the state has ever done is the state public school at Coldwater. There we have little