wife immediately set up an unremitting persecution of the poor old man. Our Society found him on a bleak November day housed in a corn-crib and excluded from the comfortable home earned by the sweat of his brow. Of course, proper remedies were provided for this state of affairs.

It would be competent for the private home for the aged not only to take such persons in, to house and feed them, but also to stand for their rights. The criminal code makes abundant provision for the enforcement upon children, and upon others whose duty it is to care for relatives, of the obligations which society has a right to compel them to discharge, but there seems to be no one willing to act in the matter. Let the private home for the aged, through its managers and attorneys, discharge this neighborly duty.

The buildings should be such as will as nearly as possible make real to the inmates the home which is their ideal, and which perhaps they once possessed. Every inmate should have a separate room sacred to him or her alone and secure against invasion or intrusion beyond what is necessary for cleanliness and for the common good of all. In these rooms the idea of the institution should if possible be kept out of sight, and the idea of individual and characteristic ownership should be made most prominent. In case a husband and wife choose such a dwelling place, the home idea can be made even more prominent than in the case of an individual. The inmates should be encouraged to industry, the form being left largely to themselves, but daily effort being as far as possible demanded.

The building should be, if possible, built on the cottage plan, and have not more than one floor above the ground for living purposes. There should be a separate building for a hospital, for the chronic or temporary sick, that their weakness and afflictions may not be a cause of discomfort to others. There should be a community room to which all may resort, if they choose, for

readings, recitations, music and other forms of parlor entertain

ment.

The dining-room should be furnished with tables to accommodate not more than twelve each, and the fare should be abundant, appetizing and nourishing in quality, and varied from day to day in cookery and form.

It will be seen from the idea of a home for the aged that is here presented that it excludes such a class of poor as must be treated in mass. So far as a correct idea may be given, though we may not strictly carry out the idea of a home, we may call it perhaps more correctly a hotel for the aged. It is not primarily a charitable institution, for to call it such and to have it such would defeat its very purpose, and yet it may be also called a charitable institution, because it must be established not as a money-making venture, but rather as a well-ordered contribution on the part of the sympathetic well-wisher toward his fellow-men. The means of support for each member of such a home should be a matter of separate agreement, for which a minimum sum should be named; say, for example, three or four or five hundred dollars, or a weekly stipend, to take it out of the field of poorhouse effort and to put it rather on the plane of service remunerated.

This minimum sum, or the weekly payment, should be provided by endowment, or by payment on the part of the individual receiving the service, or by some one else kept in the background. Personal pride is a social force which society ought by all means to encourage, and ought not to permit to be eliminated. It ought to be understood that a man who permits himself to be supported by another, when he can maintain himself, is a thief and a pattern for thieves. Therefore the effort of the home for the aged will always be based upon self-respect as the primary condition, and exclude every inmate who from any cause can not or is unwilling to show it in his relations to others.

There are many objections urged against the private home for the aged, but these objections spring rather from the abuse than

from the proper use of such an institution. That there is a proper and well-defined field for such an institution, and that the field is even more and more being occupied by the odds and ends of humanity, is apparent to the charity worker.

It is said, for instance, that the home for the aged may be used to help unfilial children to rid themselves of their responsibility toward their parents. But on the other hand, it is unquestionable that old age is apt to bring with it remembrances of business disappointments, treachery of so-called friends and other forms of sad experience which tend to embitter the aged and to render their personality uncongenial, if not positively inconsistent with the happiness of others. That such people have the right to a place in a household where their presence means misery and their absence means comparative happiness cannot, of course, be maintained. The private home for the aged offers a solution of many such social difficulties which meet us at every turn of life.

One final question remains to be treated. Should the private home for the aged be under religious influence? Emphatically yes. Leaving aside questions of the soul, religion may be considered absolutely essential to human happiness in this world. If we may take the period of old age in atheists well known to the world, such as Voltaire, Rousseau, George Eliot and others, we notice one common mark in all- that of profound gloom and melancholy. We might expect of the rotten debauchee Rousseau, the man who abandoned his own children in infancy in order to contribute to his ease and love of vice, that he should be overtaken in old age by the infirmities and misery which a life of vice and childless old age would bring upon him. On the other hand, there is George Eliot, a woman lovable in character, a woman with affection and sympathy for children, even she with her many noble qualities spent her last days in melancholy and constant gloom solely for the lack of religion. Her dream of the "Choir Invisible" brought her no solace. Let us place

over against these distinguished examples of atheism such experiences as we meet in our every-day life, of old people conscious of a life passed in rectitude and virtue, knowing God, considering life as but a means to an end, a painful journey to a country without sickness or sorrow, supported by a firm trust in God's wisdom, and considering the miseries of this life not as evils but as stepping-stones to a higher perfection.

These are familiar examples of the influence of religion upon man in the days when the world recedes from his view and eternity approaches. In the private home for the aged religion will not only create the atmosphere in which its inmates will live, but will open a door of welcome even to the aged unblessed by faith. It will take all such upon trust, seeing in God the Father of all and in every man a brother.

DISCUSSION ON THE FIELD FOR THE PRIVATE HOME FOR THE

AGED.

The discussion was opened by Hon. Michael J. Scanlan, Commissioner of the State Board of Charities.

Mr. SCANLAN. I am sure that all the persons present have been edified or instructed or interested by the admirable paper just read by Father Hendrick. I deplore, as he deplores, the fact that the supply of old bachelors and old maids in Rochester and elsewhere is rather more than the demand. He has pointed out to you clearly, I think, that the public homes for the aged are not in the proper sense homes at all, and it seems to me high time that some consideration should be given to this matter and that the interest of the people should be awakened. I agree with Mr. Keller rather than with the delegate from up the State in regard to this matter. I think that the consideration of homes for the aged, consideration of almshouses as proper places for aged people, has been neglected, and even at the risk of repeating some of the things which have been said here, and said so very well this morning, I am going to begin this discussion. by considering the deficiencies of the public homes for the aged.

In that way I think we will see more clearly the necessity for private homes for the aged.

You have heard Dr. Hill this morning. In studying up this subject I came across something which he said so well about almshouses at the meeting of the County Superintendents of the Poor in June that I am going to read it to you: "Classification by character can be carried out successfully in many of our almshouses where buildings are numerous, and in some whose single building is large enough and so arranged as to permit of extensive classification. Why should a woman who in her declining days is left a poor widow, bereft of children or friends, forced by poverty that is not of her own making to apply for refuge in the almshouse, be compelled to pass her last days in constant association with the diseased wrecks of a life of debauchery? Her own home life was pure, her chosen associations clean and uplifting, all her impulses toward goodness and virtue, yet when sorrows have multiplied upon her head and misfortune has taken away her help, she is placed not only in the same building, but often in the same room with drunken harridans and obscene strumpets sent by some thoughtless justice of the peace to the almshouse that the village streets may be free of their foulness."

At the same meeting Mr. George Blair discussed this matter, as I think, very well. He said: "If I stand alone, I shall ever continue to advocate the organization in this State of a home, or several homes, which will house the respectable poor. I tell you it is an outrage upon the self-respecting people of this State who through misfortune are obliged to come to the State to ask for support that those who have given the best of their lives to contributing their share to the support of the State are to be made inmates of the almshouse in this or any other State in the Union. This is a great subject and an interesting one, and we should ever uphold before those who are engaged in this work that the unfortunate aged are entitled to separation, and that they should not be thrown in contact with confirmed paupers."