N his new book, The Proper Study of Mankind, Stuart Chase refers to the dominating drive of social scientists "to develop world men who can rise above their culture and see the planetary shape of things." "Such men," he adds, "can be against Martians, or soil erosion, or typhus, or slums or famine but they cannot be against men."

We are living in an era when material force has reached the maximum expression yet known to history. Yet a high degree of moral leadership and social organization had to direct that force in order to win the war against Nazism and Fascism. Today the world is divided. Instead of peace we are in a period of an armed truce, which many careful observers predict will last a long time. During this period it will be necessary for the United States and other western nations to be prepared in a military sense. Yet though we may buy time with military preparedness, the outcome will be determined, not by force but by demonstration of the superior values of democracy and freedom.

To show value of a free social order

In the occupied zones of western Germany the victorious powers have a monopoly of physical force, but they know that the success of their occupation depends upon the extent to which the German people become persuaded of the validity of democratic philosophy and concepts. The "democratization" of German thought and German life has a central place in the objectives of those in positions of responsibility.

We are in the paradoxical position of attempting to use material power to provide an opportunity for the nonmaterial methods of persuasion through demonstration of the superior values of a free rather than an authoritarian. social order. In his book just pub

lished, Education in a Divided World, President Conant of Harvard says:

"If my diagnosis is correct, our fitness to survive in a divided world is related to the power inherent in our traditions. Our future national strength depends to a large measure on wise and intensive cultivation of those elements in our democratic culture which are peculiarly our own. At the same time the responsibilities of world leadership require us to extend the boundaries of our interest and our sympathy as never before. We must formulate the goals of our free society in terms consistent with our past, yet force our imagination to leap two oceans. For if we are to combat the Soviet philosophy on other continents, not only must the morale at home be high but our foreign policy must be farsighted and courageous."

The idea of freedom and the basic reliance upon the power of persuasion over force is inherent, though incompletely expressed, in western civilization.

American democracy, Conant says, is in part a fact and in part a dream, and the latter is as important as the former.

The child must be first

We, unlike the people of many other nations, live in a society that is highly conscious that it is a "becoming" rather than a finished product. And because this is so, highest priority must be given to the persons of that age group which is supremely the period of growthnamely, the children.

To quote President Conant again, "Equality of opportunity means equal opportunity for the youth of each generation; the phrase as applied to adults has little or no meaning."

Given at the Colorado State Conference of Social Work, Denver, November 18, 1948.

If we are to demonstrate our fitnes to survive in a divided world, we mus do everything possible to strengthe the determination of all citizens tha every child born into the world unde the American flag, regardless of race creed, color, geographic location, or eco nomic circumstances, have his fai chance in the world.

Almost 30 years ago Julia C. Lathrop first Chief of the Children's Bureau called child welfare "a test of democ racy."

As others see us

We will be judged by the peoples of other cultures to a large extent by the degree to which we make this cornerstone of the American dream a reality. They will be helped to understand us as they sense our sincerity and our courage in advancing toward our goal of equal opportunity for all youth. They will doubt the inner strength and stability of our civilization to the extent that they see us hesitant, wavering, and confused in relation to our goals for children.

It is not only that through the opportunities afforded to children, and the care they receive, that we must demonstrate our adherence to the principles of freedom, individual worth, and equality of opportunity both before the law and in relation to health, education, and economic and social well-being.

For peace and freedom

The first fruit of our success will be the development in children of those ca pacities to live with themselves and with others that are essential if our children are to grow to be effective instruments for the advance of our civilization and the development of a free and peaceful

world.

We have plenty of evidence in this country that ill-educated, economically disadvantaged, unhappy, and frustrated people have difficulty in getting on with

others in their own communities, to say nothing of the world at large. Mountain feuds, race hatred, anti-Semitism flourish when people are left behind in pockets where isolation leads to backwardness or disintegration.

Peace begins in the minds of men

Education for international understanding and cooperation must begin, not in college, not in high school, not even in nursery school, but in the cradle. Some time ago a regional conference was held in Colorado, under the auspices of UNESCO, to bring home to the people the purpose of this great agency of the United Nations. It is founded on the principle that the basis for peace is in the minds of men. Leaders are beginning to recognize the fact that to establish this basis we must begin with children.

In The Proper Study of Mankind, Stuart Chase suggests "a gigantic project to make a plan for permanent peace." As the first step toward such a plan we need a great effort to mobilize our resources for (a) the study of the growth and development of children in the cultures in which they live, and the ways in which they can best be equipped to advance the purposes of our developing American democracy and its contribution to permanent peace, and (b) the development of governmental and voluntary action needed for the application of knowledge in relation to childhood and youth as rapidly as it is accumulated and tested. We hope that

MARCH 1949

preparatory work for the Midcentury White House Conference on Children and Youth and the conference itself will help to awaken the public to an awareness of the urgent need for this gigantic effort and to chart the course that it might take.

To encourage research in child life

To be successful such an effort must enlist the participation of scientists and professional leaders in many different fields, including medicine, psychiatry, psychology, law, education, cultural anthropology, economics, sociology, and social work. The "team approach" is needed in both research and the administration of services. In the past year the Children's Bureau has had a series of conferences with social scientists in many fields, considering the areas in which research in child life is most needed and the ways in which it can be further developed. In accordance with recommendations growing out of these meetings, the Bureau is inaugurating, on a small scale, a clearing house of information on research projects, under way but not yet published, in all aspects of child life and child develop

ment.

Love is essential to the child's health

We know already that the outgoing, enfolding, unselfish love of emotionally mature parents is the soil in which the personal security of the child grows. To this understanding the professions of social work and child psychiatry and

psychology have contributed much. Such security is the basis for successful participation in family and community life and in the affairs of the Nation and the world. A concerted effort to surround all children with the kind of love that is essential to both their physical and mental health, and to provide expert help for parents and their children, if they need such help, could remake the world.

Social order based on dignity of free man

A society that recognizes the rearing of children as its most important task will test all social institutions by their effect upon the emotional security of childhood. Does the care given the newborn infant and his mother directly encourage the warmth of relationship between mother and child which is so important from earliest infancy? Do the conditions of family life, the relationships between parents, their relationships to their children, the housing available to the family, the responsibilities that the mother may have for earning part of the family income, interfere with or promote the fulfillment of the emotional needs of the young child? How can the conditions of family life. be modified so as to make it possible for children to have greater security?

The second need of the child is for an example, a pattern by which he will build as he grows in experience and independence of thought and action. We must not only give children emo

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tional security; we must enable them to identify themselves with parents, teachers, and civic leaders who are united in a great effort to establish a social order throughout the world based of the dignity of the free man and his responsibility for the common good.

Preschool influences affect child

President Conant thinks we need to turn loose a group of young social scientists to study our educational system, and that education must be evaluated in the light of the total situation in a community.

"For example," he says, "the investigators of a given educational situation must ask all sorts of questions about human relations among students and their families; they must also seek information about the unwritten conventions and customs that determine to a large degree the behavior of individuals."

In other words, the make-up of the child as he comes to school, carrying within him the experiences of home and neighborhood, and the example which he finds in those he comes in contact with as they express unwritten customs and conventions are antecedent to the question of the kind of educational program he finds in the school.

Bringing opportunities for general technical and professional education within reach of all, removal of economic barriers to education, and development of adequate guidance services in schools are essential if education is to serve our modern age.

World understanding requires not only appreciation of the values and contributions of cultures other than our own, but also accurate appraisal of the forces making for division and conflict.

In considering the specific ways in which education can promote the aims of democracy, President Conant lists study of Soviet philosophy as "the number one educational need of the present moment."

He also urges study of other countries and world problems. "A knowledge of world geography," he says, "of European history, and of the culture of the Far East must be provided to some degree at every level of the educational process.”

“One of the very difficult problems," he adds, "is how some knowledge of

these complicated matters, involving a mass of detailed facts, can be supplied as part of a general education."

Having considered some of the ways in which enhanced effort for the wellbeing and opportunity of our own children will promote world understanding and the world peace, let us see how the foreign policy of the United States and the work of the United Nations must include in increasing degree concern for the welfare of children.

For about 8 years the Children's Bureau has participated in a program of cooperation with the other American Republics in scientific and cultural fields, under the auspices of the Department of State and the Interdepartmental Committee on Scientific and Cultural Cooperation.

To compare experience

In small numbers, people in responsible positions in other American countries have been aided to come to the United States for study and observation of our methods and comparison of their experience with ours; in turn, people on the staff of the Children's Bureau have been made available to other republics, on their request, to assist in the development of their health and welfare programs.

A law enacted January 1948 authorizes similar cooperation with countries of Europe and the Far East.

Similar activities on a world-wide scale are now made possible by the United Nations and its specialized agencies. This year the Children's Bureau is undertaking to give such service to a limited number of persons from Germany. Programs for persons coming to this country for study and observation are made possible only through the generous cooperation of State and community agencies.

Workers find visits helpful

It is impossible to assess fully the value of this kind of international interchange, in child welfare, social security, education, health, and related fields.

Some of the letters that come to the Children's Bureau from observers who have returned to their own countries illustrate how much such programs can mean.

For example, a health worker from

"My country and particularly my State being poor, we need this initial help from you to start the work. I want authentic and scientific literature to be distributed to the various health centers we are building up through the Department of Public Health."

A returned visitor from the Philippines describes in a letter the various responsibilities which have been imposed upon the group which had visited the United States. She writes:

"There is so much work to do and plenty of ground to cover that the job seems endless. However we all feel that our stay and observations in your country have been of much help to us in carrying on our respective work here."

A South American pediatrician visiting child-health and welfare agencies in the United States about the time of the San Francisco Conference which set up the United Nations, wrote in sub

stance:

"In this hour of world organization I have more faith in the international work for the benefit of the child that is being done in many places than I have in Dumbarton Oaks or San Francisco. After all, the latter in fact depends upon a human factor, but the work for children relates to the human factor itself, from its early roots, from its first hours of life."

The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund is proof that concern for children transcends all political barriers, even an "iron curtain." Meetings of the Executive Board of representatives of 26 countries are characterized by a minimum of political debate and a high degree of unity of purpose. Eastern and western countries are cooperating with the Fund in (Continued on page 142)

cared for away from their own homes stand the transplanting better if they go to live for a while, not in a family home, but with other children in a group home.

Take, for example, a child who has never known what it is to take a bath, to go to bed at a regular hour, to sleep between sheets, and to eat three meals a day. Such a child may learn to do all these things with less resistance in a group of children than in the closeness of a family home.

Then there is the child who is devastated by the loss of his parents and his home. Such a child finds in a group home that he is not alone in his experience. Besides, a group home, with its congregate living, is so different from his own home, or any family home, that he is not likely to make comparisons between them. This is true

also for the child who has had to leave a foster home on account of the death

of the foster mother or because the foster parents find him so difficult that they ask to have him taken away.

Sometimes a child who must be cared for away from home has such a strong emotional tie with one or both parentswhether a beneficial tie or a harmful one that he would find it impossible to establish good relations with a foster father and mother. A child of this kind, if placed in a group home, shares a house mother with a dozen other children. He has a chance to be with a number of adults who do not have the emotional stake in him that his own parents have and who do not demand of him as much response as a foster father and mother would.

Given at the National Conference of Social Work, held April 17-23, 1948, at Atlantic City, N. J.

About 40 of these and other types of difficult, troubled boys and girls, 6 to 16 years old, live, in a constantly changing group, for periods ranging from 6 months to a year, in a group home called Cylburn, which is conducted by the Children's Division of the Baltimore Department of Public Welfare.

Cylburn was not started with its present purpose; that is, to place selected children in group care and to give them every opportunity for development until they are ready to live successfully in family foster homes. Instead, it began merely as a shelter home, when no foster homes could be found quickly, for children 2 to 16 years of age who were committed by a court to the department of public welfare. (At that time, in 1943, the Department of Public Welfare had been in existence only 8 years, and the Children's Division only 2 years; and our temporary foster homes had not yet. been developed.)

It was first thought that the children would remain 2 or 3 weeks in Cylburn, and then move into foster homes. But foster homes were as scarce at the end of the allotted time as they were on the day the child was committed. Besides, the workers noticed that some children seemed to profit through living with other children. And so the children were kept in Cylburn longer than had been expected.

It is impossible for any agency that cares for children not to examine fre

quently what it is doing, and to try to improve it. And so Cylburn in its 6 years of life has been constantly changing in concept and in practice. The house and grounds

Cylburn, the 200-acre estate where these children are under the care of the Children's Division, was originally bought by the Park Board of Baltimore for future park purposes. It gives its name to the institution.

Cylburn's lawns, fields, and woods are ideal for children's outdoor activities. But the three-story house on the estate, a fashionable home of the nineties, is an austere stone mansion with large, high-ceilinged, dark rooms that were never meant to house children.

To transform this forbidding house into a welcoming, livable home for chil

dren has taken time, imagination, and money. Old floors have been covered with bright linoleum, and dark walls and woodwork have been painted sunny colors. Though the inside of the house is now hardly recognizable as the Victorian mansion of other days, much must still be done, and some changes that are necessary to make it truly a children's home can never be made.

Finding staff for the shelter in the first place was no easy task, and as the purpose of the institution has changed from giving temporary shelter to providing group experience for certain children, the type of personnel has of necessity changed.

Although the institution is under 6 years old there have been three different superintendents. It was not until June 1947 that a superintendent was found whose chief interest, experience, and training were in the field of group living for children. Needless to say, it is since then that we have made the greatest progress in the care of the children.

All employees come under the city merit system. Qualifications have been set up for each job, and an examination is required of each person meeting these qualifications.

A staff of 11 people is deemed necessary. At present there is the superintendent, who is a man, and the assistant superintendent, his wife; a senior house father with over-all recreational responsibility; four house mothers, a general housekeeping helper, a cook, a janitor, and a laundress. The superintendent is directly responsible to the supervisor of the Children's Division of the Department of Public Welfare and works with her through weekly conferences. Besides having over-all responsibility for the institution, the superintendent works directly with all the house parents through staff meetings and individual conferences. The assistant superintendent is responsible for supervising the housekeeping staff and for purchasing the children's clothing and keeping it in repair.

In addition to having an administrative staff and house parents that have an understanding of children and an ability to live and work with them, it is important that the institution also have a maintenance staff with the same qualities. The cook, for example, not

only has the responsibility of cooking the meals, but works with the children in the part they take in the kitchen chores. Whether the work is a satisfying experience for them largely depends upon the personality of the staff and their ability to get along with children.

The role of case workers

Children like these troubled young residents at Cylburn need the help of a case worker. The institution has no case worker on its staff, but each child does have the help of a case worker assigned to him by the Children's Division. As many as six or eight case workers are likely to be serving Cylburn's children at any one time, and these workers change as the children come and go.

The problem of the best way to give the children case-work help is still unsolved. Question after question on this point arises, among them these: Should the home have a case worker on its staff

to help the children with their living experiences within the institution-to help them get the maximum advantage from everyday living with a group of children? If the home had this staff member, to whom would she be responsible? From whom would she get supervisory help?

Should a child's case worker change

when he enters and leaves Cylburn? (This would happen if Cylburn had a case worker.)

Would the children there get more help from a case worker who gave service only to children at Cylburn or from one who served also children in fosterfamily homes, as under the present plan? If a case worker on the Cylburn staff worked with the children's parents. how could she help solve the whole, many-angled problem of placement?

Having a changing number of case workers serving children constantly (at present seven workers and four supervisors), and having this system work well for the children, poses a problem for the staff at Cylburn. As one way of attacking the problem, case workers and institution staff discuss matters having to do with the children that are their

common concern.

The discussions take place at regular meetings of the superintendent, assistant superintendent, house parents. case workers, supervisors, and the supervisor of the Children's Division of the Department of Public Welfare.

Questions like the following are talked over in terms of individual children: What does a house parent need to know about a child in order to help him live in a group of children? What do the relations between a case worker and a child mean to the child as he lives