Although the deaf and blind are to be found in almshouses, they are largely cases where the defect has developed too late in life to make training effective or necessary.

For the feeble-minded and epileptic, no such adequate provision has been made by the state. The Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-minded now at Elwyn was opened in 1854 and is a semi-state institution. It was not until ten years later that an ordinance of councils provided for the removal of 112 feebleminded children from the Philadelphia almshouse to this institution. Some of its pupils are supported by the state while others are boarded by county commissioners and overseers. Two large state institutions are maintained for the feeble-minded and epiletic, one at Polk, accommodating 1,600 and the other at Spring City, with a present capacity of 500. The fact that in 1911 there were 1,306 epileptics in institutions not fitted to care for them, such as almshouses, insane asylums and jails, together with 2,595 feeble-minded similarly cared for, indicates to what extent these classes have been neglected.20 The policy of state care for defectives has been consistently carried out with one exception. In 1911 the legislature appropriated $200,000 toward a Philadelphia institution for feeble-minded at Byberry, intended to care for imbecile and moron types. This departure from the state's policy is not advocated by the commission on the segregation of the feeble-minded, which recommends21 "the passage of an act defining insanity and feeble-mindedness as forms of mental unsoundness and placing all indigent mental defectives under the care of the state, especially under the supervision of the committee on lunacy, especially requiring reports to be made of all persons committed by the courts and detained in these institutions."

Children

During the provincial government, it was the custom to keep orphans and deserted children in the almshouses until such time as they were able to work. Under the poor law of 1771,22 the members of the almshouse committee, with the consent of the overseer of the poor or two or more of the magistrates, might apprentice 20 Report of the Commission on the Segregation, Care and Treatment of Feebleminded and Epileptic (1913), p. 16.

21 Ibid., p. 55.

22 1 Sm. L. 332.

poor orphans, males under twenty-one, females under eighteen. This was rather a recognition by the law of an established custom than an innovation in the care of children. In Philadelphia a visitor of children was appointed in 1781, thus relieving the overseers of this work. As early as 1804, a private institution for the care of children was established by the Orphan Society of Philadelphia, but it was not until the year 1883 that the necessity of separating children from the almshouse group received state-wide recognition by the passing of an act of assembly23 which provided that "it shall not be lawful for the overseers or guardians or directors of the poor in the several counties, cities, boroughs and townships of this commonwealth to receive into or retain in any almshouse or poor house, any child between two and sixteen years of age, for a longer period than sixty days, unless such a child is an unteachable idiot, an epileptic, a paralytic, or otherwise so deformed as to render it incapable of labor or service."

It was fortunate that the Children's Aid Society of Pennsylvania had been established in 1882 and incorporated in the following year, as it became the most important agency in facilitating the removal of the many children in the almshouses of the state. This new law necessitated a conference between the Children's Aid Society and the guardians of the poor of Philadelphia, in which an offer was made to take children, and put them into private homes where they would be visited and supervised by the society. The offer was accepted for all children not Roman Catholics, and $1.75 per week agreed upon as compensation. In addition the society authorized the president to open negotiations with the county directors of the poor in other parts of the state, and offered to start local children's aid societies, which should take care of the almshouse children of those counties. In 1883, the convention of directors of the poor framed a resolution commending this work of the Children's Aid Society.

"Public meetings24 in the interests of the children of the almshouses have been held in Chester, Northampton and Franklin counties. In all of these counties the warmest response has been made to the call for help in rescuing children from almshouses, and local committees have been formed to find homes, supervise 22 Act of 1883, P. L.

Second Annual Report Children's Aid Society (1884).

and visit the children placed out, these committees acting as agents of the boards of overseers.

"The directors of the poor of Chester county have acted wisely in voting to allow a fair compensation for the board of children, feeling sure of the approval of all taxpayers, in so doing.

"At Northampton a meeting of ladies of high social position, as well as the most active charity workers of that county, moved by the needs of the poor, voiceless little ones, met and founded a children's aid society as auxiliary to the Philadelphia one. Since that time all the children have been placed out either in permanent homes or boarding houses and are doing well. It is to the credit of these directors that they furnished every child that came from the almshouse with a good suit of clothes."

Twenty-seven counties have now accepted the Children's Aid Society as their agent for the care of dependent children. In the other counties nearly every possible method of caring for children is represented in the courses chosen. Where the township system is in use, the few dependent children are placed out by adoption or indenture, by the overseers themselves. Several counties have built homes for the children, an expensive method, with no merit so far as the favorable situation of the children is concerned. Some of the overseers place the children in institutions, while others use private homes to some extent, controlling and supervising the children themselves. In an investigation by Mr. Homer Folks, of the placing-out work done by overseers of the poor, he found that the overseers, in replying to questions regarding the supervision of children so placed, did not understand what supervision implied.

"We do not believe that the directors of the poor, men of personal worth but of many business and political cares, are best fitted to the business of placing out children. In this work they make no reports to the heavens above or to the earth beneath and they keep very few records.

"This system of irresponsible placing out by men unaccustomed to such work is radically wrong. A work involving such responsibility and in which so much is to be learned by experience should be placed by statute in the hands of some central authority, or at least be guarded by a system of careful inspection by some higher power. "25

25 History of Child Saving in the United States, p. 144.

But the presence of children in the almshouses of Pennsylvania is not a thing of the past, in spite of the act of 1883. According to the Report of 1911,26 agents of the State Board of Charities on their visits of inspection found 373 children in almshouses, ninety-five of whom were sound in mind and body and had been in the institution more than sixty days, in violation of the law.

The State of Pennsylvania, without taking any part in the care of dependent children or controlling institutions for children, gives large sums for their care. The legislature in the session of 1911 appropriated $306,700.00 to non-sectarian institutions for dependent children. The State Board of Charities visits these institutions and bases its subsequent recommendations for state aid on such visits, but exercises no control over the expenditure of the money or the admission and discharge of children.

Originating in the humanitarian work of the church warden, the charity functions of the Pennsylvania county have developed specialized lines, many of which have passed from local control. The county, by local taxation, still supports in great measure the poor, the sick, the insane and defective but looks to the state for standardization of method and official supervision.

ADMINISTRATION OF LOCAL TAXATION IN OHIO1

BY F. W. COKER, PH.D.,

Assistant Professor of Political Science, Ohio State University.

The problem of reform in general property taxation-the problem of improved methods of assessment and of limitation upon the tax-rate-is a question which concerns principally the corporations of local self-government. The functions of assessment and primary equalization are performed almost universally by officials chosen by the electorates of these local districts; and the revenue from the tax on property constitutes the sole or chief important source of revenue for purposes of local government. Moreover in Ohio this revenue is now left almost entirely to the local communities; for the state levy, except for common schools, university and normal school purposes, has been omitted since 1902; and the proceeds from the levy for the common school fund-over twice the amount for the other two funds-are re-distributed among the local districts to be expended by the school boards. Therefore it falls properly within the field of a study of local government to examine the changes in tax administration that have been recently adopted in Ohio, and to indicate the present problems and the proposals for further reform which they have evoked.

The history of the general property tax in Ohio may be briefly sketched. From 1803, the year in which Ohio was admitted as a state, until 1825, the main source of revenue for state and local

purposes was the land tax. This tax was levied only by the state, but a part of the revenue therefrom was appropriated by the state to the counties. In practice, the tax being paid into the county treasuries, the shares of the various counties were retained by them before the state's shares were paid into the state treasury. The work of assessment and collection of this tax was performed partly In the preparation of this article the writer has been indebted to Professor O. C. Lockhart, of Ohio State University, for many valuable suggestions and corrections. Assistance has been derived, in the historical statements, from Professor E. L. Bogart's "Financial History of Ohio" (vol. i of the University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences); and, in the explanation of the present tax system, from the second annual report (1911) of the Tax Commission of Ohio.