Let us have “more individualized, more skillful, more thorough treatment of the widely diversified causes of dependence” by all means. But let us not forget that the fact of bearing and rearing a child in itself creates a certain, if variable, state of dependence for a woman. No amount of learned reasoning can change the fundamental fact that while the child is coming into the world and is young the mother must forfeit a certain amount of her independence to care for the child. What I do not have patience with is the preaching of that good old-fashioned dogma “the mother’s best place is in the home.” Nothing can be more valuable to the state than the mother’s contribution, but the home has no safeguards other than those which the man, with his willing or unwilling hands can give her. It is the preachers and the social workers, I have thought to myself many times who have waked our sleeping “social conscience.” It may be a good genie that is waked but it wants something to do, and will not be put off with promises. CLARA CAHILL PARK. [Secretary of the Commission to Study the Question of Support of Dependent Minor Children of Widowed Mothers.] Wollaston, Mass. PERSONALS Wilfred S. Reynolds, executive secretary of the Cook County Board of Visitors during its first year has succeeded Prof. Henry W. Thurston and Dr. Hastings H. Hart as secretary and superintendent of the Illinois Children’s Home and Aid Society. A graduate of Earlham College, Indiana, Mr. Reynolds was for six years superintendent of schools and assistant superintendent of the School for Delinquent Boys at Plainfield, Ind. Under Amos W. Butler, he was for four years in charge of the department of the Indiana Board of State Charities for the supervision of dependent and neglected children. The Illinois Children’s Home and Aid Society is devoted to home-finding and the supervision of children in foster homes, the aid and helpful oversight of dependent parents with children, and to the administration of the four institutions conducted by the society in different parts of the state of Illinois. A careful survey of Chicago and of the state at large will soon be undertaken by Mr. Reynolds and his staff to determine anew the specific demands for the society’s work and the scale upon which it can now be undertaken. Its expenditures last year, as reported by the subscriptions investigating committee of the Chicago Association of Commerce, were $62,616. * * * * *