FIRST ORPHAN ASYLUM ON THE PACIFIC COAST. FOUNDED, 1851 San Francisco Protestant Orphan Asylum, San Francisco. (See p. 87)

PREFACE

HIS volume is a contribution to the fund of facts now being gathered in regard to child-helping in the United States.

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It describes the agencies and institutions of the state of California devoted to the care of dependent, delinquent, and defective children. The book is one of a series specially prepared to present and illustrate the types of institutions and methods of service used in behalf of such children in various commonwealths of the nation.

Three volumes in this related group are by the same authorthe present volume, Child Welfare Work in California; one previously published, Child Welfare Work in Pennsylvania, with its supplement, A Child Welfare Symposium; and one nearly ready for the press, Child Welfare Work in Washington. The fourth volume of the series, by Miss Florence Lattimore, will describe the child-caring agencies of Maryland.

Child Welfare Work in California is both a descriptive survey and a manual of reference, adapted to the needs of social workers and all those who are interested in children's charities. It contains a very complete list of the child-caring agencies and institutions of the state, with brief textual narratives and extended statistical tables. To insure ready reference, a special register is provided following the table of contents, in which the institutions are listed alphabetically by location, with the page and table where the descriptive text or the statistics may be found, and the index at the close of the book includes direct reference to the institutions by their names.

The writer gladly acknowledges his indebtedness to many social workers in California for assistance in gathering the materials for this book. The former secretary of the state board of charities and corrections, W. Almont Gates, and the present incumbent of that office, Stuart A. Queen, were especially helpful. Others, including various state officials at Sacramento, rendered very valuable service both in general suggestions and in personal assist