Hitherto the board of visitors, which the judge of the County Court appoints to report upon the care of children committed to child-helping institutions and agencies, has ordinarily attempted little more than a perfunctory service. The present board with Wilfred S. Reynolds as its secretary, however, had the services of experienced social workers. The first report of the board of visitors to the county judge tells of co-operation and fellowship which has come into being, and of the standardization thus brought about in buildings, equipment, methods and service. Among the recommendations of the report are the following: A full record of all facts concerning the child and its previous environment which are in the possession of the court should accompany all commitments to institutions; Regular and definite reports should be required by the court from all institutions and organizations concerning all children under guardianship; Money which the court orders parents or guardians to pay for the support of children should be paid to the clerk of the court and turned in to the county treasury; The submission of plans for new buildings or improvements should be required of all institutions, so as to secure suggestions and approval from a board of competent ability; A diet should be established upon a scientific analysis of food properties; Assignment of routine work to be done by the children should be strictly upon the basis of the child’s training, not service to the institution; Classes in industrial and special training should be organized, and supplemented by routine work about the institution; Record systems must be complete of the child’s history, its institutional life and the after disposition; Visits to placed-out children should be made as often as once in six months; Adoption should not be consented to until six months after placing; Placements should be kept within the state; and Personal investigations of all applying for children should be made. To estimate fully the importance of the achievements recorded in this report requires some knowledge of the acute disturbance[1] within the field of child-care in Chicago during the year or so preceding the work of this board of visitors. To it is attributed the credit of having brought harmony and efficiency out of the chaos produced by the disruption and antagonism which marked the recently repudiated county administration. THE CONTRACT LABOR PROBLEM IN MISSOURI The Missouri Legislature of 1911 passed a law which provided for the gradual abolition of the convict leasing system. Under this law contracts employing 1,700 prisoners were due to expire December 31, 1913. Before the convening of the next Legislature, January, 1913, many had decided that the law of 1911 by no means solved for Missouri the problem of convict labor. It was discovered that it was most difficult to employ convicts to the satisfaction of all.