Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/800

 786 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

are to be committed. The courts may also commit minors who are abused by their parents or guardians to these institutions. 1 The homes are directed by bipartisan, unsalaried boards of four, appointed by the county commissioners, .The boards are authorized to appoint agents to place out such children within or without the state, in the former case reporting their action to the clerk of the township in which the child is placed. The township clerk reports all cases to^thc county visitors (of whom there are three, appointed annually by the probate court), who are to visit the child at least once a year and report to the institution. The township trustee is to visit all such children upon the lists of the township clerk quarterly and report to him, he in turn reporting to the institution. Children not well cared for are to be removed. 2

Until January of the present year the dependent children of Indiana were cared for in the "poorhouses" or boarded with private institutions. The matrons of these institutions were to use due diligence in finding family homes for the children, and were to visit them when placed out. It is needless to say the children were not placed out. As a result of the abuses of this, subsidy system the enforcement of the law was placed in the hands of the state board of charities. Children of sound mind, between the ages of three and seventeen, are not to be retained in the county almshouse longer than ten days. Each county (or two or more counties jointly) is to provide a children's home or make provision with some institution, to which all dependent children suitable for family care are to be sent by the township trustees or the county commissioners. The court may also

1 Sec. 945, Bates' Annotated Statutes, 1897, reads: "Children who are under the custody of parent, guardian, or next friend, and who by reason of neglect, abuse, or from the moral depravity, habitual drunkenness, incapacity or unwillingness of such custodian to exercise proper care or discipline over them, are being brought up to lead idle, vagrant, or criminal lives, may, if the trustees of the township in which they have a legal settlement, after a careful and partial investigation of the condition and facts, as they exist, deem it manifestly requisite for the future welfare of such children, and for the benefit and protection of society, be committed to the guardianship of the trustees of a county or district children's home."

2 930-945, Bates' Annot. Stat.