Fourth, probation officers in different courts, so far as possible, should avoid overlapping each other’s territory. New Jersey, New York and certain other states have organized the probation service in rural districts with the county as the unit area, and with one or more paid probation officers available to serve in all courts throughout the county. Were each court of a town, village or small city to have its own probation officer, the officers as a rule would be without enough cases to occupy their time, and they would be underpaid and inexperienced. In all probability some would be paid on a fee basis, which is objectionable. Through the use of county probation officers the workers are more expert, and the quality of the work is uniform throughout the county. Fifth, there should be in each state some state board or commission empowered to inspect, supervise, improve and co-ordinate the work of probation officers throughout the state. Three states--New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont--have state probation commissions, and bills for the establishment of similar bodies were introduced this year in the legislatures of Illinois and Pennsylvania. These commissions do such things as these: they collect reports from probation officers, inspect their work, study methods, recommend improvements and uniformity, supply forms for records, hold conferences of probation officers and of judges, aid in securing the appointment of proper officers and the appropriation of proper salaries, publish statistics and literature, investigate complaints, bring about co-ordination among courts and officers in different parts of the state, and promote desirable legislation. Such commissions, or in the smaller states a probation bureau in some other state department, can be of the greatest value in extending and strengthening the probation service. Turning next to the organization of the parole system, I ask your judgment as to whether these five principles should not hold equally with respect to the organization of parole officers. In the first place, we will undoubtedly agree that parole officers like probation officers, should be selected with special reference to their personal fitness for the work. They should have a social sense, and be bent not on spying or intimidating, but on helping. For the same reasons that the dilletante and the policeman fail in probation work, such persons will fail in parole work. Second, the parole officer should be spared from having more cases assigned to his care than his time permits him to attend to as he should. If fifty probation cases are usually enough to occupy a probation officer, an equal number of parole cases is probably as many as the average parole officer can properly look after at any one time.