The hope is that the farming and the making of its equipment, and incidentally the care of the prisoners and their quarters, will profitably occupy practically all the available labor in such manner as to make a man not only fit but anxious to work. It is hoped that a large majority will be improved and many rehabilitated in an environment which favors giving every man all the chance he will use to reform. Moreover, it will thereby be apparent that the government is not only strong, but so merciful and so genuine in its fatherly desire to help each man that in turn he will cease to be “agin” the government; that he will turn from being a consumer to become a producer of taxes, turn from being his own and other’s enemy to become a friend to men. WHAT KANSAS CITY IS DOING E. K. BINGHAM Superintendent Helping Hand Institute, Kansas City, Mo. Kansas City made great strides toward a better handling of its misdemeanants when it created a new municipal department called the Board of Public Welfare, and placed its correctional institutions under its control. The board at first was appointed by the mayor, it is self-elective and some of its members were social workers, some broad-minded business men, and its first president was a most excellent organizer, a philanthropist and a man of great personal devotion to the cause of humanity. The newspapers unanimously supported its policies and consequently it received the popular indorsement which freed it from political handicaps. These facts have been the combination which accomplished results which were unusual in its less than two years existence. Its pivotal activity has been a farm colony (which of course we all agree is the indispensable feature of effective correctional work). Of course, also, like other farms, it builds up the under-nourished, gives care to the physically unfit, and also, whether by farm work or in learning a trade, the work habit which is acquired helps largely in rekindling the spark of ambition in the man whom repeated failure has utterly robbed of the power of initiation and confidence in himself. Another help is that no man is ever released penniless, but is allowed to earn something during the last few days of his imprisonment. But the greatest factor which has contributed to a more successful handling of cases has been the emphasis placed upon the individual man. A careful personal record system with daily notations of a prisoner’s conduct and facts concerning his mental, moral and physical condition permits a scrutiny and a kind of helpfulness otherwise impossible.