lts were better when a child was
adopted into a real home, and received a measure of family affection
and individual care. Even where a public institution must continue to
care for dependent children, it is plainly preferable to distribute
them in cottages instead of herding them in one large building. The
principle of child relief is that life shall be made as nearly normal
as possible.

It is an accepted principle, also, that children shall be kept in
their own home whenever possible, and if removal is necessary that
they be restored to home associations at the earliest possible moment.
In case of poverty, a charity organization society will help a needy
family rather than allow it to disintegrate; in case of cruelty or
neglect such an organization as the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children will investigate, and if necessary find a better
guardian; but the case must be an aggravated one before the society
takes that last step, so important does the function of the home seem
to be.

62. =Special Institutions.=--It is, of course, inevitable that some
children should be misplaced and that some should be neglected by the
civil authorities, but public interest should not allow such
conditions to persist. Social sensitiveness to the hard lot of the
child is a product of the modern conscience. Time was when the State
remanded all chronic dependents to the doubtful care of the almshouse,
and children were herded indiscriminately with their elders, as child
delinquents were herded in the prisons with hardened criminals.
Idiots, epileptics, and deformed and crippled children were given no
special consideration. A kindlier public policy has provided special
institutions for those special cases where under State officials they
may receive adequate and permanent attention, and for normal dependent
children there is a variety of agencies. The most approved form is the
State school. This is virtually a temporary home where the needy child
is placed by investigation and order of the court, is given a training
in elementary subjects, manual arts, and domestic science, and after
three or four years is placed in a home, preferably on a farm, where
he can fill a worthy place in society.

63. =Children's Aid Societies.=--Another aid society is the private
aid society supervised and sometimes subsidized by the State. This is
a philanthropic organization supported by private gifts, making public
reports, managed by a board