XWX HEN the Department of Public Welfare in Massachusetts was created in 1919 it was not fashioned anew. It replaced the State Board of Charity which had been in existence since 1863. In those early days the State Board supervised all the state charitable and correctional institutions and was the only state board concerned with social work. As the specialties of health, correction and mental diseases developed, they assumed such size in Massachusetts that it became necessary to develop specialized departments for them, and they are, at the present time, too large, we believe, to be combined into a single department. The Department of Mental Diseases has fifteen