Factors influencing American education are numerous, various, and complex; it is impossible to conceive of any single set of factors that adequately explain what is happening in our schools. This volume attempts to describe some aspects of the New York City school system in order to provide a factual basis and perspective for examining and planning educational programs and policies. Staffing, school organization and programs, population change and school enrollment, and permissive zoning are discussed.

Eleanor Bernert Sheldon was sociologist and executive associate at the Russell Sage Foundation. Raymond A. Glazier was chief of the Bureau of Community Statistical Services at the Community Council of Greater New York.

Foundations and charitable trusts receive from society certain privileges, of which tax exemption is the most tangible. In return for these privileges, and also in view of the fact that the ultimate beneficiary is society itself, it seems wholly proper that the foundation or trust should be held accountable for its stewardship. Accountability includes disclosure of the availability of this public trust; provision for its protection against theft, squandering, or unreasonable withholding; and requirement for adequate reporting. However, accountability should not be confused with control. Freedom of operation is as important in welfare as it is in business if social progress is to continue. Some abuses exist, and, as this book points out, in most states even the most rudimentary machinery of accountability does not function. The trend has been toward new legislation, chiefly in states, but on the federal level with respect to taxation. Public Accountability of Foundations and Charitable Trusts traces the development of state regulation under the courts and legislatures and presents an analysis of the regulatory machinery in 12 states, with brief consideration of Canadian and English law; it also offers a recommended program.

Eleanor K. Taylor was associate professor of the State University of Iowa.

This 1932 report presents model architectural plans for the police stations for a metropolitan city (based on the Milwaukee Public Safety Building of 1929), a medium-sized city, and a small city, as well as a fireproof jail for a small village.

Hastings H. Hart was director of the Department of Child-Helping of the Russell Sage Foundation.

This 1961 book presents the findings of an empirical study that explored the attitudes and behaviors of patients who had experience with more than one way of organizing medical practice, and thereby sought to suggest some of the ways in which both lay and professional social structure figure in the utilization of medical care. The data are used to derive a tentative conceptual framework that takes account of structural as well as cultural factors in understanding the behavior of doctors and patients. The net result is a set of ideas that suggest the nature of the medical system that lies outside the walls of the hospitals, in direct contact with the community.

Eliot Freidson, New York University, and Montefiore Hospital

This 1947 bibliographical study presents research related to the urban planning concept of the neighborhood unit. Topics include various U.S. city plans.

James Dahir was a member of the Social Work Year Book Department.

Morbidity in the Municipal Hospitals of the City of New York was the result of a pilot study, undertaken by the Departments of Hospitals and Health of the City of New York in cooperation with the Russell Sage Foundation, to test a plan for hospital morbidity reporting and to evaluate data thus obtained. The study was concerned with procedures for collecting periodic morbidity data from hospitals and with analysis of the statistics of the 121,952 patients discharged from 31 municipal hospitals during a six-month experimental period. Here is a comprehensive analysis of in-patient data, covering race, sex, age, diagnosis, length of hospital stay, condition on discharge, surgical interventions, etc., presented in explanatory text and 56 tables. Including recommended specifications for initiating regular periodic morbidity reporting by all New York hospitals, including cost estimates. Previous experience in hospital morbidity reporting is also summarized.

Marta Fraenkel was assistant to the commissioner and director of medical statistics and records service in the Department of Hospitals, City of New York.

Carl L. Erhardt was director of the Bureau of Records and Statistics in the Department of Health, City of New York.

This book, published in 1944, presents recommendations for the development of adequate standards for child welfare institutions. It examines the history of such institutions, from asylums and orphanages. Topics include foster family care, community resources for meeting the needs of children, qualifications and earnings for staff, physical needs and education and training, costs of institutional care, and structural recommendations for buildings, including sample plans.

Howard W. Hopkirk was executive director of the Child Welfare League of America.

By virtue of its size, New York City was the first American city to encounter the large-scale health problems of rapid urbanization. As a result, it was forced to pioneer in areas of medicine and health, and to relate public health developments to political, economic, and social change.

A History of Public Health in New York City, 1866–1966, is the second of two volumes by John Duffy. The preceding volume traced the development of the sanitary and health problems of New York form the earliest Dutch times to the culmination of the nineteenth-century reform movement that produced the Metropolitan Health Act of 1866, the forerunner of the New York City Department of Health. In this book, Duffy provides a fascinating and beautifully documented short history of many important aspects of life in New York City over the 100 year period—sanitation, water, food, housing, schools, hospitals, clinics, health centers, diseases, medical care, and the general state of medicine. Chapters provide a narrative history of the major developments in the Health Department, followed by several topical chapters dealing with environmental conditions, epidemic diseases, the state of medicine, and maternal and child health.

John Duffy was Priscilla Aiden Burke Professor of History at the University of Maryland.

This book examines the sociocultural dynamics behind food – dynamics such as access to foods at the domestic level, the cultural influences training tastes, or the micro-politics that govern its distribution – through the lenses of three communities: the Oglala, a Southern community, and an Italian-American community. Contributors: Mary Douglas, William K. Powers, Marla M.N. Powers, Tony Larry Whitehead, Judith G. Goode, Karen Curtis, Janet Theophano, and Jonathan Gross.

Mary Douglas was Avalon Foundation chair in the humanities at Northwestern University.

This book, published in 1956, is a comprehensive report of a study that was made of the needs of the elderly through a survey conducted at the Kips Bay-Yorkville Health Center in New York City. An essential need for old people, it argues, is an advisory and consulting service that would be an integral part of the official community health and welfare structure.

Bernard Kutner, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University

David Fanshel, Family and Children’s Service, Pittsburgh

Alice M. Togo, Cornell University Medical College

Thomas S. Langner, Cornell University Medical College