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diff --git a/24841.txt b/24841.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..02b4200 --- /dev/null +++ b/24841.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5135 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Friendly Visiting among the Poor, by Mary +Ellen Richmond + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Friendly Visiting among the Poor + A Handbook for Charity Workers + + +Author: Mary Ellen Richmond + + + +Release Date: March 15, 2008 [eBook #24841] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRIENDLY VISITING AMONG THE POOR*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +Transcriber's note: + + Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in + curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page + breaks occurred in the original book. For its Index, a page + number has been placed only at the start of that section. + + Footnotes have been renumbered sequentially and moved to the + end of their respective chapters. + + + + + +FRIENDLY VISITING AMONG THE POOR + +A Handbook for Charity Workers + +by + +MARY E. RICHMOND + +General Secretary of the Charity Organization +Society of Baltimore + + + + + + + +New York +The MacMillan Company + +London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd. + +1907 + +All rights reserved + +Copyright, 1899, +by The MacMillan Company. + +Set up and electrotyped January, 1899. + +Reprinted November, 1899; February, 1903; + February, 1906; November, 1907. + + + + +{v} + +PREFACE + + +This little volume is intended as a handbook for those who are +beginning to do charitable work in the homes of the poor, whether as +individuals or as representatives of some church, or of some religious +society, such as the King's Daughters, the Epworth League, or the +Christian Endeavor Society. The term "friendly visitor" does not +apply to one who aimlessly visits the poor for a little while, without +making any effort to improve their condition permanently or to be a +real friend to them. Friendly visiting, as distinguished from district +visiting, originated with the charity organization societies, some of +which are indefatigable in training volunteers to do effective work in +the homes of the poor. Though I should be glad to find that my book +was of some service to these societies, it was not prepared for their +use alone, and no {vi} mention is made, therefore, of the organization +of visitors into district conferences. For inexperienced workers, who +need leadership in their charity, there can be no better training than +the meetings of a well-organized conference under a capable chairman, +and even the most experienced, by keeping in close touch with such a +conference, can do more effective work. + +The suggestions herein contained are not to be taken as all applicable +to the work of any one visitor. Friendly visitors that tried to adopt +them all would have to abandon their other interests, and their other +interests make them more useful friends to the poor. Like the words in +a dictionary, some suggestions will be of service to a few workers, and +others will be found applicable to the work of many. + +In addition to the standard authorities mentioned under General +References, a list for supplementary reading will be found at the end +of each chapter. These lists are in no sense a bibliography of the +subject. A handbook such as this is chiefly useful in suggesting +further inquiry, and, for beginners, I have thought best to include a +number of references out of the {vii} beaten track to stories and +magazine articles that seemed illustrative of the matter in hand. + +It will be seen that I have borrowed much in direct quotation in the +following pages from those who have preceded me in writing about the +poor, but my debt does not end here. Whatever I may be said to know +about charitable work--my whole point of view and inspiration in +fact--can be traced to certain definite sources. To some of the +leaders of the Charity Organization Society of London, to Miss Octavia +Hill, Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet, and Mr. C. S. Loch, it will be evident to +my readers that my obligation is great. It will be evident also that I +have been helped by Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell and other workers in New +York, who, against such odds, are making advances in the reform of +municipal abuses; and by that group too who, under the leadership of +Miss Jane Addams, have given us, at Hull House in Chicago, so admirable +an object lesson in the power of neighborliness. But more than to any +other teachers, perhaps, I am indebted to those members of the +Associated Charities who organized Boston's friendly visitors nineteen +years ago, and have {viii} led them since to increasing usefulness. +Their reports have been my most valuable source of information. If I +do not name also my friends and fellow-workers here in Baltimore, it is +not because I fail to bear them individually most gratefully in mind. + +BALTIMORE, January, 1899. + + + + +{ix} + +CONTENTS + + + + +CHAPTER I PAGE + +INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BREADWINNER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 + + +CHAPTER III + +THE BREADWINNER AT HOME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE HOMEMAKER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CHILDREN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 + + +CHAPTER VI + +HEALTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 + + +CHAPTER VII + +SPENDING AND SAVING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 + + +{x} + +CHAPTER VIII + +RECREATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 + + +CHAPTER IX + +RELIEF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 + + +CHAPTER X + +THE CHURCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE FRIENDLY VISITOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 + + +APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 + +INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 + + + + +{xii} + +GENERAL REFERENCES + + +Proceedings of National Conferences of Charities and Correction, 25 +volumes, especially portions containing reports of sections on +Child-Saving and Organization of Charities. The Conference Reports +constitute the best American authority on charities. Special papers in +the Reports are noted in this book after the appropriate chapters. + +Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, Correction and +Philanthropy, Chicago, 1893, especially volumes on "Care of Children" +and "Organization of Charities." Published by Johns Hopkins Press, +Baltimore. + +"Homes of the London Poor," Octavia Hill. For sale by New York State +Charities Aid Association, 25 cents. + +"Essays," Octavia Hill. For sale by Boston Associated Charities; +price, 10 cents. + +"Rich and Poor," Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet. + +"How to help the Poor," Mrs. James T. Fields. + +"Public Relief and Private Charity," Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell. + +"American Charities," A. G. Warner. + +"Hull House Maps and Papers." + + + + +{1} + +FRIENDLY VISITING AMONG THE POOR + + +CHAPTER I + +INTRODUCTION + +There is a certain development in the English novel of which I have +long seemed to be vaguely conscious. At one time I hoped to set myself +the task of tracing it, though I have since relinquished all thought of +this as too ambitious. The movement--if, indeed, there be such a +movement--has always pictured itself to my mind as the march of the +plain and common people into the foreground of English fiction. I +venture to introduce the idea here, though it may appear foreign to my +subject, as illustrating another and equally important movement in the +development of charitable work. + +Should any one ever turn over the pages of our two centuries' stock of +novels, with a view {2} to tracing this gradual development of interest +in the poor and unfortunate, he would find, of course, that facts have +a tantalizing way of moving in zigzags whenever one is anxious that +they should move forward in a straight line; but he would probably find +also that, in the earlier attempts of the novel writer to picture the +poor, they were drawn as mere puppets on which the richly endowed +heroes and heroines exercised their benevolence. Very likely he would +discover that, when at last the poor began to take an important part in +the action of the story, we were permitted to see them at first only +through a haze of sentimentality, so that, allowing for great advances +in the art of novel writing between the time of Richardson and the time +of Dickens, we still should find the astonishing characterizations of +"Pamela" reflected in the impossible virtues and melodramatic vices of +Dickens' poor people. + +To Miss Edgeworth and Scott first, perhaps, and to George Eliot most of +all, we should find ourselves indebted for faithful studies of plain +people,--studies made with an eye single to {3} the object, and +leaving, therefore, no unlovely trait slurred over or excused, yet +giving us that perfect understanding of every-day people which is the +only true basis of sympathy with them. In America we are indebted to +such conscientious artists as Miss Jewett and Octave Thanet for a +similar enlargement of our sympathies through their life-like pictures +of the less sophisticated people of our own time. + +An even more recent development would be found in what is called the +"sociological" novel. Monstrous and misshapen as this must seem to us +often, if considered as a work of art, it would have to be reckoned +with in any investigation of the treatment of poverty in fiction. + +Turning to the treatment of poverty in fact, it is surely not +altogether fanciful to think that we can trace a similar +development,--the march of the plain and common people into the +foreground of the charitable consciousness. Here, too, the facts will +not always travel in straight lines, and the great souls of earlier +ages will be found to have anticipated our best thinking; but usually +the world has failed in {4} any effort to adopt their high standards. +Speaking roughly, several centuries of charitable practice, in the +English world at least, are fairly well summed up in the doggerel +verses of that sixteenth-century divine, quoted by Hobson, who +counselled his flock, + + "Yet cease not to give + Without any regard; + Though the beggars be wicked, + Thou shalt have thy reward." + + +The spirit of the mediaeval church, too, encouraged charitable giving +in the main "as a species of fire insurance." The poor, when they were +thought of at all, were too likely to be regarded as a means of saving +the giver's soul. This view of poverty is either quite dead or dying, +but the sentimental view, which succeeded it, is still very common. We +are still inclined to take a conventional attitude toward the poor, +seeing them through the comfortable haze of our own excellent +intentions, and content to know that we wish them well, without being +at any great pains to know them as they really are. In other words, +our intentions are good, but they {5} are not always good enough to +lead us to take our charitable work quite seriously, and found it +solidly upon knowledge and experience. + +But the century drawing to a close has seen two very important +developments in charitable work in England and America; developments +quite as important in their own field as the advances of the century in +the art of fiction. The first of these is the wonderful growth of the +spirit of individual service, which has found one of its highest +expressions in the work of friendly visitors in the homes of the poor. +The second is the new but vigorous growth of the spirit of social +service, which has found its best expression in social and college +settlements. It might be possible to prove that both these +developments are merely revivals, that at several stages of the world's +history the same ideas have been put forward under other names; but +never before, as it seems to me, have they found such general +recognition. + +This gives us three tolerably well-defined phases of charitable +progress: the phases of indiscriminate relief, of individual service, +and {6} of social service. In the first phase, we are charitable +either for the sake of our souls or else to gratify our own emotions. +In the second, we are charitable for the sake of the individual poor +man. In the third, we are charitable for the sake of the class to +which he belongs. + +Of the dangers of indiscriminate relief, it should not be necessary to +speak, for much has been written on that subject; but the dangers of +individual and social service have not been so frequently pointed out. +These two forms of service are very closely related. It is impossible +to treat the individual poor man without affecting the condition of his +fellows for better or worse, and it is impossible to deal with social +conditions without affecting the units that compose society. The +problems of poverty must be attacked from both sides, therefore, and +though I shall dwell particularly upon individual service in these +pages, we should remember that, unless this service is supplemented by +the work of good citizens, who shall strive to make our cities +healthier and freer from temptation, our school system more {7} +thorough and practical, and our public charities more effective, unless +this public work also is pushed forward, our individual work in the +homes of the poor will be largely in vain. + +I have said that there were dangers in both forms of service. In work +with individual poor families we are likely to forget that these are +part of a neighborhood and community, and that we have no right to help +them in a way that will work harm to the community. We are always +inclined to think that the particular family in which we are interested +is an "exceptional case," and the exceptional treatment lavished upon +our exceptional case often rouses in a neighborhood hopes that it is +impossible for us to fulfil. Then, too, occupied as we are with +individuals, we are likely to exaggerate the importance of those causes +of poverty that have their origin in the individual. We are likely to +over emphasize the moral and mental lacks shown in bad personal habits, +such as drunkenness and licentiousness, in thriftlessness, laziness, or +inefficiency; and some of us are even rash enough to attribute all the +ills of the poor to drink or laziness. On the other hand, those {8} +who are engaged in social service often exaggerate the causes of +poverty that are external to the individual. Bad industrial conditions +and defective legislation seem to them the causes of nearly all the +distress around them. Settlement workers are likely to say that the +sufferings of the poor are due to conditions over which the poor have +no control. + +The truth lies somewhere between these two extremes; the fact being +that the personal and social causes of poverty act and react upon each +other, changing places as cause and as effect, until they form a tangle +that no hasty, impatient jerking can unravel. The charity worker and +the settlement worker have need of each other: neither one can afford +to ignore the experience of the other. Friendly visitors and all who +are trying to improve conditions in poor homes should welcome the +experience of those who are studying trade conditions and other more +general aspects of questions affecting the welfare of the poor. But +they should not permit themselves to be swept away by enthusiastic +advocates of social reform from that safe middle ground which +recognizes that character is at the {9} very centre of this complicated +problem; character in the rich, who owe the poor justice as well as +mercy, and character in the poor, who are masters of their fate to a +greater degree than they will recognize or than we will recognize for +them. To ignore the importance of character and of the discipline that +makes character is a common fault of modern philanthropy. Rich and +poor alike are pictured as the victims of circumstances, of a wrong +social order. A political writer has said that formerly, when our +forefathers became dissatisfied, they pushed farther into the +wilderness, but that now, if anything goes wrong, we run howling to +Washington, asking special legislation for our troubles. Symptoms are +not lacking of a healthy reaction from this undemocratic attitude of +mind. In so far as our charitable work affects it, let us see to it +that we do our part in restoring a tone of sturdy self-reliance and +independence to the Commonwealth. + + +Turning from these more general considerations, it is proposed, in this +book, to treat of various aspects of the home life of the poor as {10} +affected by charity. At the very beginning, however, it may be well to +inquire, Who are the poor? If this were a study of the needs of the +rich, we should realize at once that they are a difficult class to +generalize about; rich people are understood to differ widely from each +other in tastes, aims, virtues, and vices. The great, conglomerate +class of the rich--which is really no social class at all--has included +human beings as different as Lord Shaftesbury and Mr. Barney Barnato. +But it is the very same with the poor; and any effort to go among them +for the purpose of helping them that does not frankly recognize this +wide diversity, must end in failure. The charity worker must rid +himself, first of all, of the conventional picture of the poor as +always either very abjectly needy, or else very abjectly grateful. He +must understand that an attitude of patronage toward the poor man is +likely to put the patron in as ridiculous a position as Mr. Pullet, +when he addressed his nephew, Tom Tulliver, as "Young Sir." Upon which +George Eliot remarks: "A boy's sheepishness is by no means a sign of +overmastering reverence; and while you are making {11} encouraging +advances to him under the idea that he is overwhelmed by a sense of +your age and wisdom, ten to one he is thinking you extremely queer." +The would-be philanthropist, who is very conscious of himself and only +vaguely conscious of the object of his benevolence, is likely to seem +and to be "extremely queer." + +If I were writing about the rich, I should be inclined to divide them, +according to their attitude toward life, into workers and parasites, +but this classification will serve for the poor as well. The motto of +the worker is, "I owe the world a life," and the motto of the parasite +is, "The world owes me a living." When the parasite happens to be poor +we call him a pauper; but there is a world of difference between +poverty and pauperism. The poor man may become destitute through +stress of circumstances, and be forced to accept charity, but your true +pauper, be he rich or poor, has the parasitic habit of mind. When we +ask ourselves then, Who are the poor? we must answer that they include +widely divergent types of character,--the selfish and the {12} +unselfish, the noble and the mean, workers and parasites--and that, in +going among them, we must be prepared to meet human beings differing +often from ourselves, it may be, in trivial and external things, but +like ourselves in all else. + +Some who are ready enough to recognize these rudimentary facts about +the poor, question our right to go among them with the object of doing +them good, regarding it as an impertinent interference with the rights +of the individual. But those who hold to this view seldom have the +courage of their convictions. When they see suffering, they are very +likely to interfere by sending help, though this well-meant +interference, unaccompanied by personal knowledge of all the +circumstances, often does more harm than good, and becomes a temptation +rather than a help. We must interfere when confronted by human +suffering and need. Why not interfere effectively? Why not do our +best to remove the causes of need? + +Many earnest workers in charity feel that social conditions could be +wonderfully improved if, to every family in distress, could {13} be +sent a volunteer visitor, who would seek out and, with patience and +sympathy, strive to remove the causes of need. Such a visitor must +have the courage and self-control to confine his work to a few +families, for it is impossible to know many well, to understand all +their temptations and difficulties, and so help them effectively. To +supply every needy family with a friend may seem an impossible ideal, +but if all who are undoing each other's work to-day by doing it twice +over, and if all who now waste their time in unnecessary charities, +were seriously to put themselves in training, and confine their work to +the thorough treatment of a few families, the problem of how to help +the poor would be solved. + +The introduction to such work might come in many ways. It might come +through our natural relations as employers or neighbors or church +members, or it might come through the district office of a charity +organization society, for these societies usually make a specialty of +training volunteers and of establishing friendly relations between +volunteer {14} visitors and needy families. But come as it may, an +introduction can be made for us, and we need not enter the poor man's +home as an intruder. + +Much has been written about the qualifications necessary for charitable +work. It is possible to exaggerate them. Those who are unfamiliar +with the homes of the poor are likely to think it unsafe to send young +and inexperienced people into poor neighborhoods. As a matter of fact, +there are many good people in the poorest neighborhoods, and young +workers are as safe there as anywhere. In an old note-book I find that +years ago I set down the necessary qualifications of the friendly +visitor to be tact and good-will. If we consider that tact includes +knowledge, either instinctive or acquired, this may still stand. We +cannot be tactful with those whose point of view we fail to understand, +or do not even strive to understand. The best helps toward such an +understanding, and the best training for charitable work, must come +from life itself. If we take no interest in the joys and sorrows of +human beings, if we show {15} neither judgment nor energy in the +conduct of our own affairs, if life seem to us, on the whole, a flat +and unprofitable affair, then no amount of reading will transform us +into good friendly visitors. Given the tactful, kindly spirit, with a +dash of energy added, study and experience can teach us how to turn +these to the best account in the service of others. Our reading must +be supplementary to experience, of course, and can in no wise take the +place of it. + +Leaving all further generalization about friendly visiting for the last +chapter, in the following pages my point of departure will be the +organization of the poor man's home rather than the organization of +charity. The head of the family as citizen, employee, husband, and +father; the wife as homemaker; the children; the family health and +recreations; the principles involved in spending and saving; the +principles of effectual relief; the relations of the church to the +poor,--these will be considered in turn. Necessarily, in a book of +this size, the attempt must be to suggest lines of inquiry and points +of view, {16} rather than to treat adequately any one part of the +subject. + + +Collateral Readings: "Individuality in the Work of Charity," George B. +Buzelle in Proceedings of Thirteenth National Conference of Charities, +pp. 185 _sq_. "Scientific Charity," Mrs. Glendower Evans in +Proceedings of Sixteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 24 _sq_. +Chapters on "Scientific Charity" in "Problems of American Society," J. +H. Crooker. Papers on Social Settlements in Proceedings of +Twenty-third National Conference of Charities, pp. 106 _sq_. "The +Causes of Poverty," F. A. Walker in "Century," Vol. LV, pp. 210 _sq_. +"The Jukes," Richard Dugdale. "Tribe of Ishmael," Oscar McCulloch in +Proceedings of Fifteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 154 +_sq_. "The Rooney Family," see Charles Booth's "Life and Labor of the +People," Vol. VIII, pp. 317 _sq_. "Life in New York Tenement Houses," +William T. Elsing in "Scribner's," Vol. XI, pp. 677 _sq_. "An +Experiment in Altruism," Miss Margaret Sherwood. + + + + +{17} + +CHAPTER II + +THE BREADWINNER + +A conference was held in one of our large cities lately of half a dozen +church and charity workers, who had been called together to make some +plan or agree upon some common principle in dealing with a certain +family, to whom charitable relief had been given in an aimless way for +many years with no good result. Three churches were represented, and +the persons present had visited and relieved the family for periods +ranging from three to ten years. Almost immediately, however, the fact +was brought out at the conference that not one of these visitors had +ever seen the man of the family, or had ever made any effort to see +him. By way of excuse one visitor said she had always understood that +the man was very good-for-nothing. But happily there is no better +dispeller of mental {18} fog than a friendly conference of those who +are in earnest, and it did not take long to convince these conferees +that the man's good-for-nothingness was, in part at least, their own +fault. I shall have occasion to speak more than once, in this book, of +the power of suggestion. Even here, where these relief visitors had +never given the head of the family a thought, they had taught him a +lesson. From their whole line of conduct he must have received the +suggestion that his neglect of his family was an affair of no +consequence. + +In turning to the details of family life among the poor, I take the +breadwinner, or the one who ought to be the breadwinner, as my first +consideration for the reason that he is so often ignored altogether by +charity workers. Especially is this true of church workers. "A church +worker came to me the other day," writes Mrs. Bosanquet, "about a +family of little children, concerning whom he was greatly distressed. +He had visited them for months, and found the woman honest, striving, +and clean, but _as usually happens_ he knew very little of the man. He +assured me {19} over and over again that the family was in a pitiable +state of poverty and in urgent need of help; and we at once set to work +to ascertain the real financial position. Result: man earning 35s., +giving 20s. to his wife and keeping 15s. for pocket-money. Obviously, +if charity steps in here, it will not necessarily improve the state of +the wife and children at all; it will merely enable the man to keep a +still larger proportion of his wages for pocket-money." [1] + +But, though the charity worker may ignore the man of the family, there +are others who are wiser. In the first place he is a voter, and the +ward-worker, the policeman, and the saloon-keeper never forget this +fact. + +An illustration of the policeman's interest in the voter as an +applicant for charity may be found wherever the police are allowed to +become distributors of alms. In Baltimore the police have been allowed +to distribute relief intrusted to them by private citizens, and have +been in the habit of making public appeals for such contributions to +aid the poor {20} in cold weather. One policeman, who had a difficult +beat, where there were many toughs and criminals, said that the +distribution of police relief made his work easier, as toughs whose +families had been relieved did not trouble him so much. It is an +interesting fact that, during the hard times of 1893-94, political +clubs vied with each other the country over in distributing aid. +Leaders of Tammany Hall were shrewd enough to urge their followers to +organize relief distributions in every district of New York. + +It is well to realize that much of the political corruption of our +large cities may be traced to the simple fact that the poor man is like +ourselves: he follows the leaders personally known to him, and to whom +he is personally known. He is sometimes a venal voter, but more often +he is only an ignorant voter, who, while innocently following the man +that has taken the trouble to do him a favor or to be socially +agreeable to him, is handicapping himself and his children with dirty +streets, an unsanitary home, an overcrowded school, an insufficient +water supply, {21} blackmailing officials, and all those other abuses +of city government which press with peculiar hardship upon the poor. +The question of municipal reform is inextricably connected with any +effort to improve the condition of the poor in their homes, and no +charity worker can afford to ignore this connection. + +In "Problems of Modern Democracy," Mr. E. L. Godkin says: "Nothing is +more surprising in the attempt to deal with the problems of urban life +than the way in which religious and philanthropic people ignore the +close connection between municipal politics and the various evils about +which they are most concerned. All the churches occupy themselves, in +a greater or less degree, with the moral condition of the poor. +Charitable associations spend hundreds of thousands every year in +trying to improve their physical condition. A conference of Protestant +ministers met in this city two years ago to consider the best means of +reviving religious interest among the working classes and inducing a +larger number of them to attend church on Sundays. Of course these +gentlemen did not {22} seek an increase in the number of church-goers +as an end in itself. The Protestant churches do not, as the Catholic +church does, ascribe any serious spiritual efficacy to mere bodily +presence at religious worship. Protestant ministers ask people to go +to church in the hope that the words which they will hear with their +outward ears may be so grafted inwardly in their hearts that they may +bring forth the fruit of good living. What was remarkable in the +debates of this conference, therefore, was the absence of any mention +of the very successful rivalry with religion which, as an influence on +the poor and ignorant foreign population, politics in this city carries +on. The same thing may be said, _mutatis mutandis_, of the charitable +associations. No one would get from their speeches or reports an +inkling of the solemn fact that the newly arrived immigrant who settles +in New York gets tenfold more of his notions of American right and +wrong from city politics than he gets from the city missionaries, or +the schools, or the mission chapels; and yet such is the case. I +believe it is quite within the truth to {23} say that, as a moral +influence on the poor and ignorant, the clergyman and philanthropist +are hopelessly distanced by the politician." [2] + +It has been said that, in the effort to establish friendly relations +with a poor man, often the greatest lack is a common topic. Here is at +least one topic that rich and poor have in common. Here it will be +found too that they have many grievances in common, and what makes a +better beginning for a friendly relation than a common grievance? +Another common topic, and a related one, is the news of the day. More +often than not, even the very poor read the daily papers. + +Beside the ward politician, the saloon-keeper, and the policeman, there +are others who take an interest in the breadwinner. If he is injured, +or his property is injured, there are third-rate lawyers ready to bring +suit for half the proceeds--an unduly expensive arrangement for the man +that has a good claim. If he would save, there are agents of unsound +financial schemes ready to take advantage of his ignorance. If he +would borrow, there are {24} chattel-mortgage sharks ready to burden +him with a debt at ruinous interest. If he would buy, there are +instalment dealers ready to tempt him into buying more than he can +afford, and ready to charge two prices for their wares. Whole +industries are created to take advantage of his lack of shrewdness, and +every effort of his to get on, to get out of the old groove, is +resisted by such agencies. Surely, if any one stands in need of a +friend, who will patiently strive to see the world through his eyes, +and yet will have the courage to tell him the plain truth, it is the +breadwinner. + +But that picture would be a distorted one which represented the poor +man as friendless save for the politicians. His neighbors and +companions are in no position to protect him from the foes I have +mentioned, but their neighborliness is none the less genuine. Most +patient and long-suffering of neighbors are the small landlords who +sublet. The tradesmen in poor neighborhoods are also heavy losers. +When a family applies for the first time to a church or charity, it +often means that they have been aided most generously for a long {25} +time by neighbors and small dealers. Sometimes one happens upon the +very best and most thoughtful charity given in this way. A Boston +worker tells of a street-car conductor, not only supported through the +winter by his fellow-conductors, but faithfully nursed by them at +night, each one taking turns after the long day's work. Such glimpses +as this show us how queer is our usual charitable perspective, in +which, as in a picture on a Chinese fan, we see the church steeple in +the middle distance and the church visitor looming large in the +foreground, while the poor little object of charity, quite helpless and +alone save for us, huddles in a corner. The fact is that every life +has a background, if we will but take the trouble to see and understand +it: all the barrenness is in our own imaginations. + +When the poor man attempts to be charitable without knowledge, he is +just as clumsy as the rest of us. Writing of "The Attitude of +Workingmen toward Modern Charity," Miss Clare de Graffenreid says: "A +notable instance of reckless giving came under my observation just +after the great strike in the mining regions, {26} when a man who had +lost both arms went begging in Georges Creek Valley. How he was +maimed, whether he was worthy, proved immaterial. Nor does it appear +that he was even a miner; but he asked alms at all the mines. Now the +miners had had no money since they were paid off for April, the strike +having begun on the 7th of May and having lasted until the 1st of July, +while some workers were unable to secure employment until later. After +two months and more of idleness the men had either used their savings +to live on or were deeply in debt, or both. They could hope for no +money until their July labor was paid for in August. In the latter +part of July came this armless stranger, who personally solicited these +big-hearted coal diggers, and received, without investigation on their +part, written subscriptions for various amounts, to be withheld next +pay-day from their wages. From the mines of one company alone the man +presented to the paymaster orders amounting to three hundred dollars; +and the superintendent believes that this one beggar during a short +stay in the Valley obtained fully a {27} thousand dollars, if not more. +Nor did the enterprising mendicant trouble himself to remain to collect +these sums in person. He gave a Chicago address to which checks for +the total amounts subscribed in each mine were sent; and he went away +to 'work' some other field." [3] + +These facts stand side by side. The poor man is often able to do the +very best charitable work, acting, with a full knowledge of the +circumstances, with quick sympathy, and entire unselfishness. On the +other hand, when considerations of public welfare, or conditions +outside his personal experience complicate the situation, his charity +is sometimes reckless and harmful. + +Another fact to bear in mind is that the ties of neighborliness and +mutual dependence among the poor can be weakened by a charity that +leaves such natural and healthful relations out of account. The poor +in rich neighborhoods, or in neighborhoods where alms are lavishly +given, are less kind to each other, and the whole tone of a +neighborhood can be lowered, {28} mistrust and jealousy being +substituted for neighborly helpfulness, by undiscriminating doles from +those whose kindly but condescending attitude has quite blinded them to +the everyday facts of the neighborhood life. There are some who think +it a pity that, out of their slender store, the poor should give to the +still poorer; they feel that the rich should relieve the poor of this +burden. But relief given without reference to friends and neighbors is +accompanied by moral loss; poor neighborhoods are doomed to grow poorer +and more sordid, whenever the natural ties of neighborliness are +weakened by our well-meant but unintelligent interference. + + +Turning to the breadwinner as an employee, we are confronted with the +gravest questions now occupying public attention: with the organization +of labor, the strike, the lockout, the rights of capital, the problem +of the unemployed, and of the unskilled laborer. The truth about these +matters, even if one were so fortunate as to possess the truth about +them, is not to be stated in a paragraph or a chapter. {29} Only in so +far as they directly concern the friendly visitor to the families of +the least fortunate class of workers, can questions of employment be +even mentioned in these pages. The more the visitor studies and thinks +of them, however, the better friend he can be to the poor. Partly +because they are difficult, and partly because our prejudices are +involved, the charitable are too prone to dodge economic issues. + +We should ask ourselves fearlessly the object of all our charitable +work. As Mrs. Bosanquet says: "We need to be quite sure that we really +_want_ to cure poverty, to do away with it root and branch. Unless we +are working with a whole-hearted and genuine desire toward this end, we +shall get little satisfaction from our efforts; but those who share +unreservedly in this desire are comparatively few at present. Only the +other day I heard it said that it was a very doubtful policy to aim at +curing poverty, for that in the absence of poverty the rich would have +no one upon whom to exercise their faculty of benevolence; and I +believe that this was but an outspoken {30} expression of a feeling +which is still very prevalent, the feeling that there is something +preordained and right in the social dependence of one class upon +another. There is the lurking fear, also, that if the working classes +get too independent the rich man may suffer for it. 'It won't do,' +said one wise lady, 'to make them too independent; they go and join +trade-unions, and a friend of mine lost quite a lot of money because +his workmen joined a trade-union.' This is quite in the vein of the +old Quarterly Reviewer, who summed up the current objections to the +Owenite schemes of cooperation as 'the fear that the working classes +might become so independent that the unworking classes would not have +sufficient control over them, and would be ultimately obliged to work +for themselves.'" [4] + +The ability of the friendly visitor to put behind him his own personal +prejudices and selfish interests, and look at all questions of +employment with reference to the best interests of the workers, is of +the first importance. Such questions are often very complicated. {31} +An inquiry was sent out in 1896 to the charity organization societies +of the country, asking whether these societies approved of supplying +workers to take the place of striking employees. The answers, as +reported in the proceedings of the Twenty-third National Conference of +Charities,[5] seem to take it for granted that either all strikes are +equally justifiable or else equally unjustifiable; the fact being, of +course, that some strikes are entirely justifiable, that others are +quite the reverse, and that still others, which are justifiable at one +stage, become unjustifiable at another stage, where the ground of +contention has been shifted. + +It is about such complicated relations as these that we must inform +ourselves when we dare to interfere, and charitable societies cannot +afford to adopt any patent formula with regard to them; they must be +courageous enough and intelligent enough to bear their part in the +solution of industrial questions. The individual friendly visitor may +be called upon at any time to advise an unemployed {32} workman whose +only immediate chance of work is in replacing a striker. His family +may be destitute, and their troubles may press heavily upon the +visitor, who sees in the offered work an easy solution of their +difficulties. But the visitor's duty toward the family does not end +with their material needs, and, unless the man who replaces the striker +is sure that the strike deserves to fail, he will have done an unmanly +thing in betraying his natural allies. All question of the right of +individual contract aside, he will have injured himself, he will be a +meaner man and a less worthy head of a family. Charity cannot afford +to ignore this possible result for any temporary and material +advantage. Nor will it be enough for the friendly visitor to believe +that the particular strike is an unjustifiable one; the man himself +must believe it. + +Other things being equal, a man is stronger and steadier for having a +trade that is well organized, one that has its trade code of ethics. +It is safe to say, therefore, that a visitor is justified in advising +non-union men to join trade-unions, and that he is not {33} committing +himself to an endorsement of every act of every trade-union in so doing. + +But applicants for charity are not usually skilled workmen, and most of +the work of the friendly visitor will be with those whose occupations +are still unorganized, with porters, day-laborers, stevedores, etc. In +spite of many assertions to the contrary, it would seem that, in +ordinary times, there is still work somewhere for those who have the +will and the skill to do it. The charity worker has discouragements +enough without allowing himself to be demoralized by the wild talk +about millions of skilled workers out of work. During times of panic, +even, the number of the unemployed is often grossly exaggerated.[6] + +The fact which most directly concerns us is that a large majority of +those who are thrown upon charity through lack of employment are either +incapable or are unfit for service through bad habits, bad temper, lack +of references, ignorance of English, or through some physical defect. +Experience has proven that a certain proportion of these can be {34} +reinstated in the labor market if we are careful (1) not to make it too +easy for them to live without work, (2) if we will use every personal +endeavor to fit them for some kind of work, and (3) help them to find +and keep the work for which they are fitted. "Character is not cut in +marble; it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something +living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do." [7] +Like our bodies, too, it may be made whole again by skilful treatment. + +Those who are simply incapable, without bad habits or other defects, +are often the victims of their parents' necessities or greed: they were +put to work too early, and at work where there was no chance of +education or promotion. Sometimes they have been wilfully careless and +lazy, but, more often, the fault was either with the parents or with an +economic condition that denied them proper training. Of all this we +shall hear in connection with the children, but our present concern is +with the breadwinner. The man who "does not know how" is the football +of {35} industry; employed in work requiring nothing but muscle, +promptly discharged because easily replaced, he drifts from job to job, +and, at certain seasons of the year, being unable to adapt himself or +easily change from one kind of work to another, he is almost certain to +be unemployed. + +Miss Octavia Hill calls attention to this in "Homes of the London +Poor." [8] "The fluctuations of work cause to respectable tenants the +main difficulties in paying their rent. I have tried to help them in +two ways. First, by inducing them to save; this they have done +steadily, and each autumn has found them with a small fund accumulated, +which has enabled them to meet the difficulties of the time when +families are out of town. In the second place, I have done what I +could to employ my tenants in slack seasons. I carefully set aside any +work they can do for times of scarcity, and I try so to equalize in +this small circle the irregularity of work, which must be more or less +pernicious, and which the childishness of the poor makes doubly so. +They have {36} strangely little power of looking forward; a result is +to them as nothing if it will not be perceptible until next quarter!" + +This plan of equalizing work by saving our odd jobs for dull seasons is +one way of helping. Another is to seek lists of unskilled and seasonal +occupations that do not overlap. Some work is naturally winter work, +and some naturally belongs to the summer season. The ice companies in +Baltimore employ their workers in winter by combining the coal business +with the ice business, and, on this principle, a list could be drawn up +for each community of occupations that do not overlap. No list can be +given here, because the conditions of work vary in different parts of +the country. + +When we furnish work ourselves we must be careful not to confound the +employer with the friend. "A visitor was interested in a woman who +needed work very much, and herself employed her," writes the secretary +of the Boston Associated Charities, Miss Z. D. Smith. "Once or twice +it happened that the woman had to go to court in the morning, and came +at ten instead of eight, or again the visitor {37} let her off early, +but she always paid her for the whole day. The visitor was advised +that in the long run it was unwise not to pay her by the hour, as was +the custom, but she was not convinced until, having got work for her +among her neighbors, they complained that she came at ten instead of +eight, and expected pay for the whole day, and they would not employ +her longer. The relief the visitor gave, disguised as pay, defeated +her efforts to help the woman to self-support." [9] + +Bad habits as a cause of unemployment will be considered in the next +chapter. As to the man who loses his work through bad temper, it is +well to bear in mind that there are many degrees of badness of temper, +and the bad temper that comes from worry or ill health must be +carefully distinguished from innate ugliness. Lack of references, +another cause of unemployment, does not always mean a bad record. +Unskilled workers are often personally unknown to their employers, and +the knowledge that a visitor can acquire by testing a worker may become +a great help to him. When a {38} man has some physical defect, such as +an impediment in his speech, or a crippled arm, only one who takes a +personal interest in him can overcome the prejudice created by his +defect. Often such people have qualities that would recommend them, +but they are awkward in pleading their own cause or in finding their +right niche. + +The following illustrations of timely help in finding employment are +taken from the Twenty-eighth Report of the Charity Organization Society +of London.[10] "One was a quiet, honest young fellow, a gardener, who +had lately come out of a lunatic asylum, his insanity being due, it +appeared, to ear trouble, involving a painful operation. He had been +some months in the asylum, and on coming out was at some loss to obtain +regular employment. The Committee, having thoroughly investigated the +case and satisfied themselves of the safety of recommending the young +man, issued a circular to gardeners and nurserymen, which got him a job +within a week. The other man had been noticed in the infirmary--a big, +strong fellow, {39} most of his life a seaman, and part of it on board +an American man-of-war, till he met with an accident resulting in the +loss of one of his legs. Then he had to come ashore, and a restless, +roving disposition led him to tramp about the country, and brought him +on one occasion before a London police magistrate for attempting to +commit suicide. Inquiry showed that the man could work hard, and, +strange to say of a man over six feet high and broad in proportion, was +handy with his needle at embroidery, etc. The Committee kept him a few +nights at a common lodging-house--for he was homeless since leaving the +infirmary--and then by great good fortune got him work at a tent and +sail maker's, where now, some half a year later, he is earning his 3s. +6d. a day. It is to be noted that neither of these men was +able-bodied. The Society _does not_ try to find work for ordinary, +able-bodied men." + +Ignorance of English has been given as another cause of lack of +employment, but this is not irremovable. "After many days' searching, +work was found for Mr. H. and his son, whose ignorance of our language +was so entire {40} that they failed to get employment, and were in +despair. At the earnest request of the visitor, a furniture dealer +consented to take them on trial; and they proved so satisfactory that +they have now been employed a year, and their pay increased." [11] + +A few cautions are necessary. The charities of a large city often +attract from the country those for whom there is no economic place. +Our immigration laws have allowed many to come to America for whom +there is no place, and charity has kept them alive here, knowing the +while that they are forcing down the standard of living among our poor, +and complicating the problem incalculably at every turn. But, as +concerns interstate emigration, and the migration from country to city, +charity should not be so helpless. It is within our power to refuse, +by charitable aid, to settle the man who cannot settle himself in a +community where he does not belong. It is often doing other workers a +wrong to establish him and find work for him where he has no claim. +The attractions of a large city are great enough without adding {41} +any such artificial help to overcrowding. Our effort, on the contrary, +should be to get back into country life those families that are found +to be really fitted for it. Advertise in country papers, interest +friends in the country in finding places for families, and do not fail +to keep up communication either by letter or occasional visits with +families so placed.[12] + +One more caution. It helps a man to know that some one cares and will +help him to find work; but it cripples him to let him feel that he can +sit idle and let his friend do all the searching and worrying. "Send a +man to find work, and go with him to a special place; but never go from +place to place seeking it for him." Develop his resources, show an +interest in all his efforts, and encourage him to renewed effort. + +It has been claimed that only men and men of business experience can be +successful friendly visitors where the head of the family is concerned; +that, in matters of employment especially, a woman visitor is not +capable of giving sound advice. It is undoubtedly true {42} that such +work could be better done if more men, instead of contenting themselves +with service on charitable boards, would take the trouble to become +personally acquainted with a few poor families. This would be better +for the boards and better for the men that are charitable trustees. +But the woman visitor need not despair. It is true that she could do +her work better, as will appear in this book, if she were in her own +person a lawyer, a sanitary engineer, a trained cook, a kindergartner, +and an expert financier; but she may be none of these things and still +be a very good friendly visitor. When legal complications arise, she +will go to some friend who is a lawyer; when the children get into +trouble, she will consult a teacher, or an agent of the children's aid +society, and, in the same way, the matter of employment will send her +to a business man, or some one who can advise her, when her own store +of experience is too scant. The poor man often has a mean opinion of +the judgment of "charitable ladies," and this opinion has not always +been without a degree of justification; but the visitor who {43} takes +the trouble to go on Sunday and get acquainted with the men folk, or +makes occasion for them to come to her house from time to time, who +proves herself, moreover, not without resource or common sense as +emergencies arise, will soon overcome this prejudice and become the +friend of every member of the family. + + + +Collateral Readings: "The Settlement and Municipal Reform," James B. +Reynolds in Proceedings of Twenty-third National Conference of +Charities, pp. 138 _sq_. "Benevolent Features of Trades-Unions," John +D. Flannigan in the same, pp. 154 _sq_. "The Ethical Basis of +Municipal Corruption," Miss Jane Addams in "International Journal of +Ethics," for April, 1898. "The Workers," Walter A. Wyckoff. "Working +People and their Employers," Washington Gladden. "Problem of the +Unemployed," Hobson. "The Unemployed," Geoffrey Drage. "Korbey's +Fortune," William T. Elsing in "Scribner's," Vol. XVI, pp. 590 _sq_. + + + +[1] "Rich and Poor," p. 211. + +[2] pp. 141 _sq_. + +[3] "Charities Record," Baltimore, Vol. I, No. 6. + +[4] "Rich and Poor," pp. 138 _sq_. + +[5] pp. 242 _sq_. + +[6] See Warner's "American Charities," pp. 177 _sq_. + +[7] George Eliot in "Daniel Deronda." + +[8] pp. 22 _sq_. + +[9] "Charities Review," Vol. II, p. 54. + +[10] p. 11. + +[11] Thirteenth Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 42. + +[12] See "Charities Review," Vol. VI, pp. 402 _sq_. + + + + +{44} + +CHAPTER III + +THE BREADWINNER AT HOME + +We have considered the breadwinner as worker, neighbor, and citizen; we +now turn to the breadwinner as husband and father. It has been said +that the home is not only the true unit of society, but that it is the +charitable unit as well, and that when we deal with anything less than +a whole family, we deal with fractions. Much of our charitable work is +still fractional. It not infrequently happens, for instance, that the +members of one poor family will come in contact with dozens of +charitable people representing many forms of charitable activity, and +that none of these will ever have considered the family as a whole. +The Sunday-school teacher, the kindergartner, the day nursery manager, +the fresh air charity agent, the district nurse, the obstetric nurse, +the church almoner, the {45} city missionary, the relief agent, the +head of the mothers' meeting, the guild teacher, the manager of the +boys' brigade or girls' friendly,--all these will have touched the +family at some point, but will never have taken the trouble to make a +picture of the family life as a whole, and of the effect of their +charity upon it. They may have assumed important responsibilities now +and again, home responsibilities that belonged primarily to members of +the family, and helped to hold the family together; but the chances are +that they will none of them have worked continuously or thoroughly +enough to learn from their blunders or to repair their mistakes. + +I have mentioned home responsibilities. Let us consider, for a moment, +what these are. They have an old-fashioned and conservative sound, but +the fundamental facts of life are old-fashioned. The man is still the +head of the normal family, and, as the head, still owes his best +endeavor to secure for the other members of the family the means of +subsistence. The wife's part in the family is to transform the means +provided into a home. The children, {46} for their part, should be +teachable and obedient; and, as their own strength waxes and their +parents' wanes, they should stand ready to provide for father and +mother both the means of subsistence and the home environment. These +are the prosaic but fundamental elements of home life, and, when they +are lacking, neither the marriage ceremony, nor the sanctions of law +and custom, can prevent the home from becoming a sham home, a breeding +place of sin and social disorder. + +It is my misfortune that, in attempting to meet the needs of those who +visit the poor, I must dwell more upon the difficulties than upon the +encouragements of such work. There are many poor homes where every +essential element of home life exists. The home may be of the humblest +sort,--it may be in one room,--but, to the best of his ability, the man +is struggling to provide for his family; the woman is striving to make +the little shelter homelike; and the children are learning that, out of +the simplest elements, a certain measure of peace, orderliness and +growth may be won. The home relation is right, and, though sickness, +{47} industrial depression, accident, or some other of the misfortunes +that assail us from without may have made charitable relief necessary +for a long time, the elements of successful charitable aid are there, +because the home life _works_ with the visitor to win back health and +independence. + +There is a deep satisfaction in protecting such families from the +careless, patronizing charity of the thoughtless almsgiver, whose +unsteady hand would give them a feast to-day and a famine to-morrow. +There is deep satisfaction in cooperating with such families to conquer +difficulties. There is a deeper satisfaction, however, in turning a +sham home into a real one; in teaching the slatternly, irresponsible +mother the pleasure of a cleanly, well-ordered home; in helping a man +who has lost his sense of responsibility toward wife and children to +regain it. Even at the risk of drawing a too gloomy picture, I dwell +in this chapter, therefore, upon the husband and father who is either +lazy or drunken or both. + +The married vagabond has many {48} characteristics of the single +vagabond or tramp, though he is usually less enterprising. His is a +type peculiar to our large cities, where political, industrial, and +charitable conditions have helped to make him what he is. There is a +sense in which he is not responsible for his faults; but there is a +sense in which we are none of us responsible for ours, and when we are +once permanently committed to this view of ourselves, there is no +health in us. To treat the married vagabond as not responsible, is +only to increase his irresponsibility. + +"One man I know who has done hardly a stroke of work for years," says +Mrs. Bosanquet; "during his wife's periodical confinements he goes off +on the tramp, leaving her to take her chance of charity coming to the +rescue, and returns when she can get to work again. I have known +fathers who would send their hungry children to beg food from their +neighbors, and then take it to eat themselves; and one I have known who +would stop his children in the street and take their shoes from their +feet to pawn for drink. The negative attitude of a man to his own +family is {49} an impossible one; if responsibility disappears, it will +be replaced by brutality." [1] + +And again, from the same book: "Take a case which is constantly +recurring. A man has let himself drift into bad ways: he neglects his +work, spends his money for drink, cares less and less about his family; +the children become more and more neglected and starved. At last some +charitable agency steps in. 'The man is hopeless,' it says, 'there is +no question of relieving him of responsibility, for he has already lost +all sense of that, and matters cannot be made worse by our +interference. The children must not be allowed to suffer for their +father's sins; we will feed and clothe and educate them, and so give +them a chance of doing better than their parents.' All very well, if +this were the only family; and we should all rush joyfully to the work +of rescuing the little ones. But next door on either side are men with +the same downward path so easy before them, and to a large extent +restrained from entering upon it by the thought, 'What will become of +the children?' This restraining {50} influence will break down much +more rapidly for the knowledge that Smith's children are better cared +for since he gave up the battle, and so the mischief spreads down the +street like an epidemic." [2] + +The method to be followed in dealing with the family of the married +vagabond must depend upon circumstances, but it will usually be +necessary to let him find out what the charitable community expects of +him, and this he will hardly do unless the charitable withhold all aid +except in the form of work. A visitor will not succeed in bringing +this about until he has taken the trouble to find out what sources of +relief are open to the family, and has persuaded each source to +withhold relief. Visitors often hesitate to urge this radical measure, +fearing that it will bring suffering upon the wife and children; but +the plain fact is that the family of a lazy man must suffer, that no +amount of material relief can prevent their suffering. + +On this disputed point I venture to quote what I have written +elsewhere: "Let us {51} consider the chances that a married vagabond's +children have of escaping suffering in a large city. . . . They are +born into a world where the father is inconsiderate and abusive of the +mother; where cleanliness, fresh air, and good food are not assured to +them; where all the economic laws of the civilized world seem +topsy-turvy; where things sometimes come miraculously, without any +return for them in labor, and where they sometimes do not come at all. +They are born, moreover, with diseased bodies, often with the taint of +alcoholism in their veins; too often with some other inherited malady, +such as epilepsy or unsound mind, as a direct result of parental +excesses. How can we say that we 'do not let children suffer,' so long +as alms keeps together thousands of these so-called homes in our large +cities, and, worst of all, so long as into these homes thousands of +helpless, unfortunate babies are born every year? If I were one of +these same little ones, and could see what the charitable people were +about, I should feel inclined to say: 'Ladies and gentlemen, you have +supplied the doctor, and the nurse, {52} and the fuel, and the sick +diet; doubtless you mean it kindly, but I have been assisted into a +world where you don't intend to give me a fair chance. You know that +my father won't work for me, that my mother has no time to care for me, +and that my brothers and sisters must fare worse than ever, now that +there's one more mouth to feed. Moreover, my nerves are none of the +strongest, and my body none of the stoutest. Unless you intend to do a +great deal more for me, I'm sorry you didn't do less. Frankly, I don't +thank you.'" [3] + +Often when a man finds that charitable people are quite in earnest, +that they really intend to place upon his shoulders the responsibility +of his own family, he will bestir himself and go to work. He is not +likely to stay and let his family starve. In fact, I have often found +that the withholding of relief from the family of the married vagabond +has the immediate effect of improving the material condition of the +family--the man has either found work or left home. This method of +being charitable requires courage, but if {53} people would only see +how wretchedness is perpetuated by the temporizing method, it would +require courage to give small doles. + +In many states there are laws for the punishment of the man that will +not support his family. Some of these enactments are of very little +use, but several of the New England states have effective laws.[4] +When a complete cutting off of charitable supplies fails to bring a man +to some sense of his duty, the visitor should try to have him punished +by the courts. The evidence of one who has faithfully visited a family +for a long time is very valuable in such cases, though conviction is +often difficult to secure for lack of the wife's testimony. If the +married vagabond that has been punished is still incurably lazy and +irresponsible, the visitor should not allow his desire to reform the +man to stand in the way of the best interests of the children, born and +unborn. The wife's duty to her husband is a very sacred one, But so is +her duty to her children. When {54} all other measures fail, the home +should be broken up. + +Only those who have had wide charitable experience will be likely to +consider this separation of man and wife justifiable. Says Mrs. +Josephine Shaw Lowell: "I have not the slightest doubt that it is a +_wrong_; and a great wrong, to give help to the family of a drunkard or +an immoral man who will not support them. Unless the woman will remove +her children from his influence, it should be understood that no public +or private charity, and no charitable individual, has the right to help +perpetuate and maintain such families as are brought forth by drunkards +and vicious men and women." [5] + +It is unnecessary to say that the advocates of separation as a last +resort do not approve of divorce, which would only multiply sham homes. +They recognize in certain cases "the sad fact of incurability," and are +prepared to take courageous measures in order that the innocent may not +suffer with the guilty.[6] + +{55} + +The following history of a Baltimore married vagabond will illustrate +the need of separation in certain cases: Several years ago the +Baltimore Charity Organization Society made the acquaintance of the +family of a good-looking German shoemaker, who had married a plain, +hard-working woman some years his senior. Soon after their marriage he +began to neglect his work, and, depending more and more on his wife's +exertions for his support, he took to drink. Child-bearing often +incapacitated the wife for work, and church and charitable friends +aided at such times. When the sixth child was a year old, he deserted +his family for a while, but came back again, after having been in jail +for disorderly conduct. The Charity Organization Society, seeing no +chance of reforming the man, suggested that his wife leave him, but the +German pastor strongly objected to any separation of man and wife, and +nothing was done. A discouraging aspect of the situation was that the +man taught his children to deceive the hard-working mother. When the +seventh baby was born, and charity had supplied a registered nurse, +baby linen, {56} a doctor, fuel, and food, it was discovered that the +man had sold the fuel supplied by the relief society, and had gone on a +spree. He was a good workman, and could always have work when sober, +but even when at work he neglected to provide properly for his family. +Stung at last into active resistance, his wife had him arrested for +non-support. While the man awaited trial, the Charity Organization +Society removed his family, found work for the wife where she could +keep three of her children, placed one with a relative, and two others +temporarily in institutions. When he was released, he had no family to +attract charitable aid, and was thrown, for the first time in many +years, entirely upon his own resources. + +Many good people may think that to deprive a man of family ties is to +hasten his downfall; but what downfall could be more complete than the +downfall of the man who not only permits his wife to support him, but +abuses her and his children? In making this no longer possible we are +sometimes doing the one thing that can be done to save him from {57} +spreading the contagion of his brutality, and so assuming a still +heavier burden of sin. + + +There are many charitable visitors to whom the very thought of strong +drink is so offensive, to whom everything connected with the saloon +seems so brutal and degraded, that they are unable to make allowance +for national, neighborhood, and family traditions in judging a man's +habits. It sometimes happens that a whole family are condemned as +"frauds" because they drink beer for dinner, or because the man of the +house has been seen to enter a saloon. On no subject, perhaps, are +charity workers so divided as on the question of how best to deal with +the drink evil. Here, if anywhere, fanaticism is excusable, perhaps; +but here, as everywhere, the friendly visitor must be on guard against +personal prejudice and a hasty jumping at conclusions. "At night all +cats are gray," says the old proverb, and it is only the benighted +social reformer that thinks of all who drink as drunkards, and of all +places where liquor is sold as dens of vice. The saloon is still the +workingman's {58} club, and, until some satisfactory substitute is +found for it, all our denunciations will fail to banish it. It is none +the less true that, of all personal habits, the drink habit stands next +to licentiousness as a cause of poverty and degeneration. + +"The problem of intemperance meets us in less than half the families +that we know," says the Secretary of the Boston Associated Charities, +"but it is that half which gives us the most concern. There are many +ways of dealing with the drunkards and with their families, and the +remedy must be separately chosen for each case. Some of our friends +are impatient with all these partial remedies and will use none of +them, waiting until they can sweep out of the State the alcohol which +seems to them the whole cause of the trouble. But if it were all taken +away to-morrow, I feel sure we should find this also only a partial +remedy, and that the same want of self-control which makes men and +women drunkards would drive some of them to-morrow to other and perhaps +worse stimulants. So, while I hope and believe that slowly and +steadily the sentiment of individuals {59} is growing toward total +abstinence, and that in the course of years, generations, perhaps, it +will become the law of the State, I believe in working man to man and +woman to woman in building up and strengthening character as the chief +safeguard against so great an evil." [7] + +The first thing, in dealing with an individual case of drunkenness, is +to find out its history. Is it the cause of poverty and misfortune, or +have poverty and misfortune caused it? Is there an inherited tendency +to drink, or did the habit originate in some other bad personal habit? +Is bad health the cause? Has unhealthy or dangerous employment +anything to do with it? Is bad home cooking one of the causes? Some +one has said that the best temperance lecturer is the properly filled +dinner-pail. Worry from lack of work, and the need of some warm +stimulant after exposure, are frequent causes; and they are both +removable with friendly help. A man who is honestly trying to break +himself of the drink habit {60} deserves all the patience, sympathy, +and resourcefulness at our command. + +When a man is sensitive and proud, the visitor can often be most +helpful by simply showing his sympathy. "A travelling salesman who +became addicted to drink lost a good situation through this habit. He +had a wife and seven children, all the children being too young to earn +anything. The wife was very brave and supported the family as long as +she was able. When the case came to the Charity Organization Society +the rent was in arrears and the landlord threatening. We sent a +gentleman as our friendly visitor in the case, and after great +persistence and repeated failures he succeeded in keeping the head of +the family sober for a few days. The man was proud, and much hurt at +having to accept charity, but his family was suffering, and there was +no alternative. The aid was provided in so delicate a manner that the +man's heart was touched, and he became very grateful to the visitor for +his unflagging and kindly interest. They spent their evenings together +frequently. The man began to drink less, at last stopped altogether, +and {61} now has secured permanent work and is doing well." [8] + +There is diversity of opinion as to the value of pledges. It would +seem unwise, however, when a man has broken a pledge, to encourage him +to renew it. Let him try a promise to himself, and prove that he can +be a man without artificial props. + +In more stubborn cases the law must be invoked. Sometimes it is well +to try several remedies at once, asking the police to threaten arrest, +following this up at once with an invitation to join some temperance +society (preferably one connected with the man's church), and trying at +the same time to substitute some new interest. Milder measures +failing, it will sometimes be necessary to cut off all supplies of +relief, and, this again failing, to take steps to protect wife and +children from the brutalizing influence of the man by breaking up the +home. + +There are many causes of the drink evil, as I have tried to show, but, +after every allowance has been made, the chief cause will often be +found in the selfishness of the human heart. {62} There are men who do +not care to be cured of drunkenness, who feel no shame for the misery +and degradation brought upon their families. Here again the "sad fact +of incurability" must be recognized. It is folly to let such men +discover that, through our charitable interest in their families, we +will either directly or indirectly pay their whiskey bills, or will +assume the burdens that they deliberately shirk. A Committee on +Intemperance, reporting to the Ward VIII. Conference of the Boston +Associated Charities in 1886, called attention to this aspect of the +question. "The committee, however, say that, in their opinion, the +question of moral responsibility on the part of the intemperate, and +also, in its degree, on the part of those who, by gifts or other aid, +make intemperance easy, is too much lost sight of; and they believe +that the refusal of all aid to the families of drunkards, outside the +almshouse, unless in exceptional cases, would bring about a better +state of opinion and a juster sense of responsibility. The committee +add that it will be almost impossible to make kind-hearted people +believe this, since they are more moved {63} by the sight of present +suffering than by the hope of future permanent improvement, to secure +which some measure of present suffering may be necessary." [9] + + + +Collateral Readings: "An Adventure in Philanthropy," Edwin C. Martin in +"Scribner's," Vol. XI, pp. 230 _sq_. "Charity and Home Making," the +present writer in "Charities Review," Vol. VI, No. 2. "Married +Vagabonds," the same, in Proceedings of Twenty-second National +Conference of Charities, pp. 514 _sq_. "Drunkards' Families," Rev. W. +F. Slocum in Proceedings of Fifteenth National Conference of Charities, +pp. 131 _sq_. "The Social Value of the Saloon," E. C. Moore in +"American Journal of Sociology," Vol. III, No. 1. "Substitutes for the +Saloon," F. G. Peabody in "Forum" for July, 1896. "Law and Drink," +Frederick H. Wines in "Charities Review," Vol. VII, Nos. 3 and 4. + + + +[1] "Rich and Poor," p. 105. + +[2] pp. 72 _sq_. + +[3] "Charities Review," Vol. VI, pp. 121 _sq_. + +[4] See Proceedings of the Twenty-second National Conference of +Charities and Correction, New Haven, 1895, pp. 514 _sq_. + +[5] "Public Relief and Private Charity," p. 105. + +[6] See on this subject the Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth National +Conference of Charities and Correction at Toronto, 1897, pp. 5 _sq_. + +[7] Miss Z. D. Smith in Report of Union Relief Association of +Springfield, Mass., 1887. + +[8] "Charities Record," Baltimore, Vol. I, No. 1. + +[9] Seventh Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 39. + + + + +{64} + +CHAPTER IV + +THE HOMEMAKER + +The wife brings us to another aspect of the home, though it cannot be +too often repeated that all aspects are so inextricably interwoven that +they must be considered together. When the wife takes the means +provided, the raw material from which a home is to be made, she engages +in a very complicated form of manufacture, including in its processes +the buying, preparation, and serving of food, the care of the household +possessions, the buying, making, and care of clothing, the training of +children, and many minor departments. These are only processes, +however, and, unless the maker have an ideal picture in her mind of +what a home should be, neither some nor all of these processes will +make a home. + +In dealing with the homemaker, the friendly visitor becomes more +directly a teacher, though {65} it is often necessary that she should +first be a learner. The agent of a New York charity tells of a +friendly visitor who was consulted by the agent about a family applying +for relief. They were found to have an income of $20.00 a week. +"Well," said the visitor, "that is very little money on which to raise +a family." The agent felt that this visitor had not only a great deal +to learn, but a great deal to unlearn. + +Not every visitor is skilled in buying and preparing food, or in +arranging a household budget, and the visitor that is skilful in doing +this on one scale of expenditure may be quite ignorant and helpless in +dealing with another and much smaller scale. One who is really in +earnest, however, in the desire to help another, will never give up +because there are difficulties to overcome. The visitor may not know, +but as compared with the homemaker in a poor family, has far more time +and a greater facility, perhaps, in learning. The visitor's best +teachers are friends that have had experience, and the poor themselves. +One can learn a great deal from the more frugal and industrious of the +very poor, and these are proud to explain {66} their small economies, +when our reasons for wishing to learn are made clear to them. + +Lacking these teachers, there are books, though books have the +disadvantage of never meeting the needs of any one locality. +Variations of climate, custom, and the local markets make specific +suggestions about buying difficult. For this reason I shall not +attempt to go into detail, but suggest that, as our relations with our +poor friends should be as natural as possible, when we do not know +anything, it is always best to frankly say so, and then think out with +them some way of learning. For instance, it would be natural enough +for a visitor to say to the homemaker: "We both feel that there is a +lot to learn about the best way of buying and preparing food. I have +an acquaintance that has made a study of the subject, and, with your +permission, I am going to bring her here, to give us both some +suggestions." + +Scientific dietaries have been prepared with a view to teaching the +poor to use nutritious and economical foods. Professor J. J. Atwater, +Edward Atkinson, Mrs. Juliet Corson, and Mrs. Mary Hinman Abel are +authorities on this {67} subject. The Bureau of Associated Charities, +Orange, N. J., publishes a leaflet on foods, prepared by Mrs. S. E. +Tenney of Brooklyn. Taking Orange prices, a dietary is given for a +family of six (man, wife, and four children), at a cost of $3.31 per +week. In urging changes in diet upon poor families, it is first +necessary to become well acquainted with the families, and, even then, +to introduce any innovations slowly, one thing at a time. A friendly +visitor in Baltimore has tried the plan of meeting her friends in +market, and pointing out to them the best cuts of meat, the best place +to buy vegetables, etc. But her greatest success in introducing new +dishes has been through the children. She has been wise enough to +secure the cooperation of her cook, and, by inviting the children into +her own kitchen on Saturday mornings, has taught them the best way to +prepare simple dishes. She finds that scientific dietaries too often +ignore the tastes and prejudices of the poor. It is best to begin by +teaching them to prepare well the things that they like. If they are +devoted to strong tea, for instance, we can teach them first of all +that it should not boil on the stove all day. + +{68} + +When we are dealing with questions of taste, whether in manners, diet, +clothing, or household decoration, we cannot afford to take the +attitude of the Rev. Mr. Honeythunder, "Come up and be blessed, or I'll +knock you down!" We may find a preference for cheap finery very +exasperating, but our own example is far more likely to be followed in +the long run if we do not insist upon it too much at first. Begin by +teaching the homemaker to mend and keep the clothing in good order, and +give her some of your own experience as to which materials wear the +best. + +One of the important items of expenditure is fuel, and the first thing +to find out under this head is whether kerosene or any other +inflammable fluid is ever used to start the fire. Experienced +housekeepers say that it is good economy to have stoves with small +gratings and then buy a good grade of pea coal, which, if carefully +used, is cheaper and quite as economical as more expensive grades. The +poor often prefer expensive, free-burning coals because they are little +trouble. A practical engineer says that, in burning pea coal, the fire +must be {69} kept clean, not by violent shaking, but by a straight +poker used on the bottom of the fire only. Remove clinkers through the +top. Add coal in small quantities, and, when not using the fire, give +it a good cleaning at the bottom, spread enough coal to make about +three inches of fuel in all, put on the draught until kindled, add four +inches of fresh coal, allowing the draught to remain on until the gas +is burned off, then shut the bottom draughts, take the lids half-way +off, and open the top slide, if the stove has one. + +In many of the homes into which visitors go, cleanliness seems the +greatest lack. Sometimes the mother has lost heart; sometimes she has +never known what cleanliness was. Tact is necessary here to avoid +hurting the feelings of our poor friends, though some are far more +sensitive than others. The Boston woman whose visitor sent soap, +scrubbing brushes, mop, and pail, with the message that she was coming +on the morrow to use them, took this very broad hint and made the home +tidy for the first time in many months, but it is unnecessary to say +that all poor people {70} could not be dealt with in this way. One +visitor went, when she knew the mother would be absent, and helped the +children to clean the house. Another found that, if the family knew +she was coming, the home was set in order; so she was careful for a +time to come at stated intervals, then tried irregular visits, and was +finally rewarded by finding the home presentable at all times. + +"Mr. William D. Howells, who during his recent residence in Boston gave +much of his valuable time as a visitor for the Associated Charities, +was amused one day to be told, on knocking at the door of a house where +he had studiously endeavored to inspire a sense of cleanliness, that he +could not come in, as the floor had just been washed and he might soil +it again." [1] + +Housecleaning seasons are not always observed in poor homes. The +visitor can call attention to the value of whitewash as a cleaning +agent, and if once taught to do it, the children take pleasure in +putting it on. + +{71} + +It is not merely as the adviser about household matters that the +visitor can be helpful to the homemaker. Many women in poor +neighborhoods lead starved, sordid lives, and long for genuine +friendliness and sympathy. A friend who would be helpful to them must +exercise the same self-restraint that our own friends exercise with us. +The friends who encourage us to exaggerate our troubles and +difficulties are not our best friends: theirs is a friendship that +tends to weaken our moral fibre. But the sympathy that the poor need +and all of us need is the sympathy that makes us feel stronger, the +sympathy that is farthest removed from sentimentality. We should be +willing to listen patiently to the homemaker's troubles, and should +strive to see the world from her point of view, but at the same time we +should help her to take a cheerful and courageous tone. One unfailing +help, when our poor friends dwell too much upon their own troubles, is +to tell them ours. Here, too, indirect suggestion is powerful. The +wife, in her attitude toward husband and children, will unconsciously +imitate our own attitude {72} toward them. As Miss Jane Addams says, +if the visitor kisses the baby and makes much of it, the mother will do +the same. A Baltimore visitor has cured one tired woman of scolding +her husband in season and out of season by diverting her attention to +other things, and by seeking her cooperation in plans for improving the +man's habits. + +A New York visitor tells of a woman living in a two-room tenement who +is regarded as a marvel by her husband's friends because she makes a +point of having a specially good meal one night in the week, and it is +understood that her husband can bring his friends home to supper on +that night without giving her warning. The home is very humble, but +she has learned the wisdom of making it a real home for her husband, +and one that he can be proud of. + +So far, I have ignored the fact that, in the poor home, the woman is +often the breadwinner as well as the homemaker. I wish it were +possible to ignore the further fact that charitable visitors, finding +it difficult to get work for the man or finding him disinclined {73} to +take it, will bestir themselves to get work for the woman instead. One +of the few rules which it is safe to follow blindly is the rule that we +should not encourage any woman to become the breadwinner who has an +able-bodied, unemployed man in the house. "Only harm can result," says +Mrs. Lowell, "if efforts are made to induce the woman to leave her home +daily for work." + +Where the breadwinner is disabled, or the woman is a deserted wife or +widow, work is, of course, necessary. We must distinguish, however, +between the deserted wife and the wife whose husband chronically +deserts her, until her condition attracts the charitable help that he +returns to share. Widows with children belong to a class with which +charity has dealt too harshly in the past. When the woman is incapable +of supporting all her children, and this is usually the case, charity +has either allowed her family to depend upon insufficient doles and so +drift into beggary, or else has put all the children in orphanages. If +the mother is a good mother, capable with help of rearing her children +to independence and {74} self-support, this latter is not only a cruel +but a wasteful method. As charity becomes more discriminating and +resourceful, it will be possible to organize pensions for widows of +this class, though these pensions will need the careful oversight of a +visitor, who should see that the children are taught to bear the family +burden as they become older. + +There is great diversity of opinion about the value of mothers' +meetings for women whose home duties prevent them from attending church +on Sunday. If these meetings confined themselves to providing what the +church service provides,--a chance for spiritual uplifting and +refreshment,--there could be no possible objection to them; but, +unfortunately, many mothers' meetings strive to attract and hold +members by such small devices as paying them for very bad sewing, or +making small gifts, or selling things below cost. These attractions, +small as they are, lead many women to neglect their home duties, and it +is no unusual thing for one woman to belong to three mothers' meetings +of three different denominations, which take her away {75} from home +three afternoons in the week. The atmosphere of patronage and +"sprinkling charity" that is so common in these meetings, distinctly +lowers the self-respect of the women; before very long they learn to +write begging notes or send begging messages to "the ladies" in charge, +and the place that should be for them a source of spiritual strength +becomes merely a source of supplies. + + + +Collateral Readings: "The Lustig's" and "Corinna's Fiametta," Mrs. +Schuyler Van Rensselaer in "One Man who was Content and Other Stories." +"Practical Sanitary and Economic Cooking" (adapted to persons of +moderate and small means), Mrs. Mary Hinman Abel, published by American +Public Health Association, Rochester, N.Y. "Foods: Nutritive Value and +Cost," by W. O. Atwater in Farmer's Bulletin No. 23 of United States +Department of Agriculture. "Dietary Studies in New York City," W. O. +Atwater and Charles D. Woods in Bulletin No. 46 of United States +Department of Agriculture. The Health Department of New York City will +soon publish leaflets prepared by experts, which will contain simple +directions about buying and preparing food. "The Le Play Method of +Social Observation," "American Journal of Sociology," Vol. II, No. 1. +"Treatment of Widows and Dependent Children," Mrs. L. Wolcott in +Proceedings of Fifteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 137 +_sq_. "Girls in a Factory Valley," Mrs. Lillie B. Chace Wyman in +"Atlantic," Vol. LXXVIII, pp. 391 _sq_. and 506 _sq_. + + + +[1] Mrs. Roger Wolcott in Proceedings of International Congress of +Charities at Chicago, Volume on "Organization of Charities," p. 110. + + + + +{76} + +CHAPTER V + +THE CHILDREN + +The visitor in the homes of the poor whose chief concern is with +questions of material relief often overlooks the children entirely, +unless they are large enough to be forced into the labor market and +made to contribute toward the family income. In charity meetings, +where visitors get together to discuss the difficulties of individual +families, it will often happen that the children are not mentioned. On +the other hand, there is a large class of charity workers who concern +themselves with the children only, and a strongly marked tendency of +modern charity is to treat the children of the poor quite apart from +and without any relation to their home life. "We constantly hear it +said," writes Mrs. James Putnam, "that we cannot help the older ones, +but that we must save the {77} children. It seems clear to me that to +help one without the other is usually an impossible task. Their +interests are too closely bound together." [1] + +There is always danger, in our eagerness to help the children, that we +may only encourage parents to shirk their duty. Take the admirable +charities known as day nurseries. If care is not taken to exclude all +except the children of widows, or of women whose husbands are disabled, +these will only encourage laziness in the husband, and help to bring +about that unwholesome condition in which the wife is breadwinner, +homemaker, and child-bearer. + +The first thing that a visitor should observe in a family where there +is a baby is whether the child is nursed too many months and too often. +A child should not be nursed during the night after it is six months +old. Solid food is usually given too soon; tea and coffee are often +given before the child is a year old, and to these is added "anything +on the table." {78} For the children's sake, the visitor should be very +observant. It is difficult, at first, to find out how they are fed, +bathed, and clothed, and whether they go to bed early, in clean beds +and ventilated rooms; but one can learn more by observation than by +direct questions. Ask to see the baby bathed, and notice the condition +of its scalp and skin. If in any doubt, it is always best to consult a +doctor; do not allow your ignorance to make you a non-conductor. Learn +how to sterilize milk, and teach the mother; show her the importance of +feeding at regular intervals, and impress upon her that small children +should never have stimulants, greasy food, green fruit, or cakes, nuts, +and candies. + +In summer, the baby should have frequent airings in the nearest park, +and, in case of sickness, the visitor should know how to use the +children's sanitariums, floating hospitals, free excursions or other +charities provided for sick children. For the older children it will +be possible to procure a country holiday through the fresh air society +or the children's country homes that are provided within easy {79} +distance of all our large cities. Or, better still, the visitor may +know some one in the country, or may have a summer home there, where +the little ones can be entertained. Any one who has once realized how +important it is that every growing child should know and love the +country, will gladly put up with some personal inconvenience to give +this knowledge to the little folk in the family he visits. + +As soon as the children are old enough, connection should be made with +the nearest kindergarten, or if, unfortunately, there is no +kindergarten near enough, the visitor should learn some of the +kindergarten games and occupations, and teach the children. When the +children go to the public schools, the visitor should make the +acquaintance of their teacher. + +"One of our visitors went for two years to visit a widow and her +children without feeling that she accomplished anything, though the +intercourse was pleasant enough in itself. Then she heard that the +girl of thirteen was having trouble in school and was in danger of +being expelled. She went to see the teacher. {80} The girl was always +well dressed, and the teacher had no idea she was a poor girl. After +seeing the visitor the teacher touched the girl at last by talking with +her of the sacrifices her mother had made for her education, and urging +her to do her part, that her mother's hard work might not be in vain. +In this way she persuaded the girl to good behavior and kept her in +school--all because some one had visited the family for a year or two +and could speak confidently of their condition and character." [2] + +No one can work among the poor in their homes without realizing the +need of compulsory education laws. There are still people here and +there who talk about the danger of educating the poor "above their +station," but those who know the poor in our large cities from actual +contact feel that over-education is the very least of the dangers that +beset them. The lack of adequate school accommodations, making it +impossible to punish truancy, is a much greater danger, and, in some +States, the absence of any compulsory education law {81} makes the +child the easy victim of trade conditions and of parental greed. The +visitor should never permit the desire to increase the family income to +blind him to the fact that the physical, mental, and moral welfare of +the child is seriously endangered by wage-earning. Where there is a +compulsory education law, he should cooperate with the truant officers +in securing its enforcement; where there is no such law, every +influence should be brought to bear upon parents to keep children in +school. The Hebrew Benevolent Society of Detroit refuses aid to +families in which the children are kept from school, and all our relief +agencies, churches included, would do well to adopt this rule. + +Some of the most intelligent and devoted workers in child-saving +agencies have sounded the note of warning on the subject of children +wage-earners. "The fact," says Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer, "that the +world of industry has found out and established methods of labor which +can utilize the work of children to profit, gives to that world of +industry, as an upper and a nether millstone, the greed {82} of +employers and the cupidity and poverty of parents, between which the +life of the child is often ground to powder." [3] And Mrs. Florence +Kelley, writing from her experience as a factory inspector in Illinois, +says: "I do not mean that every boy is usually ruined by his work, but +I do mean that, the earlier the child goes to work, the greater the +probability of ruin. I mean, too, that there is to be gained, from a +scientific study of the working child, an irradiating side-light upon +the tramp question, the unemployed question, and the whole ramifying +question of the juvenile offender. . . . One reason that immigrants +cling so closely to the great cities is that they find there far more +opportunity to get money for their children's work. There is probably +no one means of dispersing the disastrously growing colonies of our +great cities so simple and effective as this one, of depriving the +children of their immediate cash value." [4] + +{83} + +Another hindrance to the proper education of the children is the habit +of keeping them from school to run errands, to carry their fathers' +dinners, or to help with the housework. The girls are often taken away +from school very early for trivial reasons. + +Recent developments in child study show that many of the moral and +mental obliquities of children may be traced to physical defects. In +dealing with wayward and dull children, the visitor should bear this +fact in mind, and, either by observation or by the help of a physician, +discover wherein the child is defective. The sooner a defect is +discovered, the easier it will be to cure it, and for this reason the +visitor should learn to apply simple tests for defective sight and +hearing. + +In a very instructive article, which every visitor should read, on +"Child Study," [5] Professor Krohn says that "dull" children suffer +from defective hearing in ninety-nine out of one hundred cases. He +tells of one girl in a class who failed to answer correctly, and was +said by the teacher to be the most stupid child in the {84} school. +"After the class was dismissed, I told the teacher that I did not +believe that the little girl was intellectually stupid; that there was +probably some physical defect clogging the pathway to her active little +brain; and I requested an opportunity to talk to the child at recess, +when I found that she could not hear my stop-watch tick until it was +within nine inches of her right ear, and eleven inches of her left ear. +The average child, under the same local conditions, can hear the same +watch tick at a distance of twenty-one feet. How could the poor child +answer correctly when she could not hear what was asked? Every answer +was a mere guess. After a time any child would become stupid under +such conditions, believing it of no use to attempt to answer at all. +This little girl was, at my suggestion, given a seat not far from the +teacher's desk and especial pains was afterward taken to speak +distinctly to her. . . . She has since manifested such marked +improvement that, at the close of the last school year, she ranked +second in her class." + +In puzzling cases of waywardness, the visitor {85} should seek the +advice of the agent of the local children's aid society, who is often +an expert, and glad to help one who is in earnest in such work. The +Report of the Boston Children's Aid Society for 1896,[6] cites two +cases of truancy due to physical defects. One was a girl of ten years, +whose eyes were found to be defective. After fitting her with proper +glasses, the Society's agent had her returned to school. Another was a +boy of eight, with a slight impediment in his speech. No one had +noticed that his schoolmates teased the child, until he told the agent. +After the boy's teacher had been seen, there was no more laughing and +no more truancy. + +Massachusetts has an excellent system of placing juvenile offenders on +probation for a first offence. This same report contains illustrations +of the work of the Children's Aid Society's probation officer. "A boy, +fifteen years of age, already on informal probation, and apparently +doing fairly well, was suddenly brought into court, charged with +breaking and entering his employer's shop at night. On {86} account of +his past good character, he was put on probation by the court under our +agent's care. He told Mr. Lawrence that he got into this criminal +state of mind by bad reading and by attending low theatrical +performances. With the aid of the boy's Sunday-school teacher he has +been encouraged to do his best, and is now working regularly, taking +good books from the Public Library, and is doing very well." + +The charitable are only beginning to discover the importance of such +personal and preventive work among children, founded upon an intimate +knowledge of their habits and character. Such work must be done in +large measure by volunteers, and the friendly visitor's relations to +poor families render him specially fit for the service. The +illustration just given emphasizes the importance of guiding a child's +reading. It is not enough to teach the children to use the Public +Library; we should know what they are reading and teach them to enjoy +the right books. An admirable system of lending libraries having this +object in view has been established by the Boston Children's Aid +Society. These little Home Libraries in small {87} hanging book cases +are placed in certain homes in poor neighborhoods, and the visitor in +charge of a library meets at regular intervals a group of children of +the neighborhood who form the library circle, explaining the books to +them, playing games, and getting well acquainted. A friendly visitor +might easily establish such a library in any poor neighborhood; the +details of the plan may be had upon application to the Children's Aid +Society. + +Training in citizenship must not be overlooked. Our boys and girls +should know more about our country than their parents can teach them. +The publications of the Patriotic League, 230 W. 13th St., New York, +will be found very useful. The League issues a Young Citizens' +Catechism and a monthly journal, "Our Country." The Sunday-school is +another help to the visitor, and it is well to know not only the +public-school teacher, but the Sunday-school teacher, whose cooperation +should be sought in any plans for the children's welfare. One +Sunday-school is a help, but two or more Sunday-schools for one child +are thoroughly demoralizing, and we {88} should do our best to +discourage any child in whom we are interested from going to more than +one. + +It too often happens that children are sent by their parents to several +churches with the deliberate purpose of making profitable charitable +connections. This habit of thrusting the children forward to excite +sympathy, of sending them to ask help of teachers, clergymen, and +charity agents, is so obviously bad for the children that one wonders +how the charitable can ever have permitted it to become so general. +Children should never be permitted to deliver begging notes and +messages from a family in which there is an able-bodied adult. + +Of all charitable practices that help to manufacture misery and vice, +the practice of giving to child-beggars on the street is the most +pernicious. One boy who has become a skilful beggar teaches another, +and first the money goes for candy and cigarettes, then for gambling +and low theatres. The next step is petty thieving, the next burglary, +and then follow commitment to a {89} reformatory, which often fails to +reform, and, later, a criminal career. I have seen children travel +this road so often that it is difficult to speak without bitterness of +the unthinking alms that led them into temptation. Sometimes parents +connive at child-begging, but often they know nothing of it until the +children have grown incorrigible. A strict enforcement of the laws +against child-begging is very difficult until every one is convinced of +the cruelty of giving money to unknown children on the street or at the +door. + +It sometimes becomes the visitor's painful duty to protect children +from cruelty, criminal neglect, or immorality by legal removal from +their parents' control. Here a society for the protection of children +will often render valuable assistance. Such a society is likely to be +hampered in its work by the unwillingness of charitable visitors to +tell what they know in court. Sometimes this is due to timidity, and +sometimes to a fear of losing influence in the neighborhood. Clergymen +have been known to refuse their testimony for this latter reason. The +friendly visitor, {90} whose interest is centred in only one family in +the neighborhood, need not be so cautious, and his continuous visiting, +extending over many months, makes his testimony very valuable. No fear +of losing influence with other members of the family should prevent him +from speaking out where a child's future is at stake. Just a few +months more in evil surroundings may mean moral death to the child, and +neighbors are notoriously unwilling to tell what they know. + +It is impossible to enter here upon the vexed question of the relative +merits of boarding-out dependent children, of placing them without pay +in country homes, or of committing them to the care of institutions, +though I cannot refrain from quoting, in passing, the opinion of Miss +Mason, for twelve years an English government inspector of boarded-out +children, that "well carried out, boarding-out may be the best way of +caring for dependent children; ill carried out, it may be the worst." +There is a very foolish saying that the worst home is better than the +best institution, but no one who knows how bad a home can be {91} or +how good an institution can be will venture beyond the statement that, +other things being equal, a home is certainly better than an +institution. The friendly visitor should make himself familiar with +what has been written on this subject, and should be prepared, in any +given case, to make the wisest selection of a home that local +conditions make possible, always remembering, of course, that his +responsibility does not end here; that he should continue to visit the +child, if it be placed within visiting distance. + +The visitor should also be familiar with the local laws for the +protection of children. These usually include laws against +child-begging; against selling liquor and tobacco to minors; against +the employment of children as pedlers, public singers, dancers, etc.; +against the employment of children under a certain age for more than a +specified number of hours (or prohibiting their employment entirely); +and against the abduction or harboring of female minors for immoral +purposes. + +What, above the mastery of all these details, {92} should be the +visitor's clear aim? To see to it that the children are better off +than their parents were, and are saved from the pitfalls into which the +latter have fallen; that the boys are better equipped to become +breadwinners, and the girls to become homemakers. The training given +in our public schools will often seem very inadequate, and some of us +look forward to the day when every boy and girl between the ages of six +and sixteen shall be trained to use hand and brain, when manual +training shall be part of the daily instruction of every school course. +Until this day comes, the visitor must make use of such aids as evening +classes in boys' and girls' clubs, people's institutes, and Christian +associations. A child's capabilities should be studied and every +encouragement given to his small ambitions. + +But the best help, after all, is in the personal influence that the +visitor can acquire over the growing child. When we think what +personal influence has done in our own lives, how it has moulded our +convictions, our tastes, our very manner of speech, even, we should not +despair of the children, if we can {93} attach them to us and give them +a new and better outlook upon life. The time when we can be of the +greatest help to them is during the disorganized period that comes +between the school days and the settling down in life. Many a young +life has gone to wreck for lack of a guiding hand at this time, for +lack of a friend to make suggestions about employment, companions, +amusements, and home relations. The failure of philanthropy to make +any adequate provision for this critical period accounts, in part, for +the large number of married vagabonds in our great cities. + + + +Collateral Readings: On care of infants see leaflets of local Boards of +Health. "The Working Child," Florence Kelley in Proceedings of +Twenty-third National Conference of Charities, pp. 161 _sq_. "The +Working Boy," the same in "American Journal of Sociology," Vol. II, No. +3. "Child Labor," W. F. Willoughby and Clare de Graffenreid in +publications of American Economic Association. "Influence of Manual +Training on Character," Felix Adler in Proceedings of Fifteenth +National Conference of Charities, pp. 272 _sq_. "Children of the +Road," Josiah Flynt in "Atlantic," January, 1896. "Family Life for +Dependent and Wayward Children," Homer Folks, volume on "Care of +Children" in Proceedings of International Congress of Charities at +Chicago, pp. 69 _sq_. Story of "The Child's {94} Mother," in Mrs. +Margaret Deland's "Old Chester Tales." "The Wisdom of Fools," Mrs. +Margaret Deland (see, for difficulties in reclaiming girls, the story +entitled "The Law and the Gospel"). Reports of Conventions of Working +Girls' Societies at Boston, 1894, and Philadelphia, 1897. For +pamphlets on School Savings Banks apply to J. H. Thiry, Long Island +City, N.Y. + + + +[1] Proceedings of Fifteenth National Conference of Charities, 1887, p. +152. + +[2] Miss Z. D. Smith. + +[3] Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, Chicago, 1893. +Volume on "Care of Children," p. 7. + +[4] Proceedings of Twenty-third National Conference of Charities, 1896, +p. 164. + +[5] "Charities Review," Vol. VI, pp. 433 _sq_. + +[6] pp. 13 _sq_. + + + + +{95} + +CHAPTER VI + +HEALTH + +About one-fourth of all the poverty that has come within the scope of +charitable investigation is directly caused by sickness. "In both +American and English experience," writes Warner, "the percentage +attributable to this cause sinks but once slightly below fifteen and +never quite reaches thirty. The average is between twenty and +twenty-five. This is one of the most significant facts brought out by +these tables [of the statistical causes of poverty]. It is not one +which the author anticipated when the collection of statistics began; +and yet it has been confirmed and reconfirmed in so many ways that the +conclusion seems inevitable that the figures set forth real and +important facts. Personal acquaintance with the destitute classes has +further convinced him that most of the {96} causes of poverty result +from or result in a weakened physical and mental constitution, often +merging into actual disease." [1] + +This fact gives added importance to all the efforts of modern charity +to secure improved dwellings, open spaces, cheap baths, and better +municipal sanitation for the poor. But improvement in these matters +cannot come entirely from without; "the model tenement implies a model +tenant." As a London authority puts it: "The condition of the house +may degrade its occupants. The careless life and habits of the +occupants will spoil the house, and make it filthy and unhealthy." The +friendly visitor should try to make the family healthily discontented +with unsanitary surroundings, and so prepare them for better quarters. +Removing families from unfit tenements is not enough, however, if these +tenements are almost immediately reoccupied. Their condition should be +reported to the Board of Health, and, if condemned, we should see that +no one else is permitted to move into them. + +I have often noticed that charity agents, {97} who work habitually in +poor neighborhoods, get so accustomed to bad sanitary conditions that +they hardly notice them. Volunteer workers are not so likely to fall +into this error, though it is possible for volunteers to be very +unobservant. They often feel that things are all wrong, without being +able to state the specific difficulties. An observant visitor will +learn the condition of the cellar, walls, yard, plumbing, and +outhouses; will learn to take the cubic contents of a room in order to +find out the air space for each sleeper; will learn the family method +of garbage disposal; will see how the rooms are ventilated; and will +learn all these things without asking many questions. Dampness is a +very common cause of sickness; when the children cough it is a very +simple matter to ask about the cellar, and even get permission to see +it. + +The prejudice against fresh air, especially night air, is a difficult +one to overcome. One mother, who kept her children scrupulously clean, +could never understand the value of fresh air until a visitor explained +to her how air was polluted by the soiled air that we {98} breathed +out, just as water was polluted when we washed our hands in it. When +the children breathed this soiled air in again it made them "dirty +inside"; and this homely statement left such an unpleasant picture in +the mother's mind that her rooms were always well ventilated afterward. + +It is difficult to ventilate a small room without making a draft, but, +next to the chimney, the upper sash is the simplest ventilator, and +should not be immovable, as it is in many small houses. A board about +five inches wide under the lower sash will make a current of air +between the upper and lower sashes, and, better still, two pieces of +elbow pipe with dampers, fixed in the board, will throw a good current +of air upward into the room. Another ventilator can be made by tacking +a strip of loosely woven material to the upper sash and to the top of +the window-frame. When the upper sash is dropped, the stuff is drawn +taut over the opening, and, while permitting air to pass through, +breaks the current. + +Equal in importance with fresh air inside the house is exercise out of +doors. I was {99} shocked some years ago to find that, of six +Sunday-school boys who went with me on a little trip to our largest +city park, five had never been there before. This had not been due to +lack of time or money, though they had very little of either; but its +sole cause had been lack of enterprise. + +There is an impatient and popular saying that soap and water are cheap; +like many other popular sayings, it is only half true. Personal +cleanliness is rather expensive when one takes into account the time, +energy, and frequent changes of clothing required to keep the body +daintily clean. Visitors should realize this in any effort to +introduce a higher standard of personal neatness, and should not be +impatient when they do not immediately succeed. Cleanliness and health +are so nearly related, however, that the effort is very well worth +making. A visitor who hesitated to complain to a mother about her +little girl's neglected condition, borrowed the child to spend the day, +and brought her home at night sweet, clean, and rosy, with her hair +well brushed and curled. The hint was taken. + +{100} + +It would be very unfortunate for the visitor to be an alarmist, for +there are imaginary invalids among the poor as well as elsewhere, but +more frequently the poor neglect the earlier symptoms of sickness +altogether, or else dose themselves with patent medicines. The quack +doctors who advertise in the daily papers draw much of their custom +from the very poor, who are also large consumers of cure-alls and +proprietary medicines. We have seen how children's physical defects +can pass unnoticed at home, and this is the case in a less degree with +the defects and ailments of adults. The very cheap grade of medical +service that is sometimes given by regular practitioners in poor +neighborhoods has a tendency to discourage the poor from taking +sickness in time. The visitor can help them to procure better medical +service at reasonable charges or, when necessary, without charge. The +grade of service in dispensaries varies greatly, but the medical advice +and directions given there with the medicines can be made far more +useful if the visitor will go with the patient and see that the +directions are understood and carried {101} out. Often no adult in the +family can spare the time to go with a sick child to the dispensary. +Here, too, the visitor's service will be helpful. In cases of +contagious disease, see that the Board of Health is notified promptly. + +Other things being equal, an acute case of illness can usually be +better and more economically cared for in a hospital than in a poor +home. In fact, although hospitals were intended originally for the +destitute sick, the practice of sending well-to-do patients there is +rapidly spreading. The prejudice against hospitals, still so general +among the poor, is a survival from a time when hospital care was far +less humane than now. If the visitor has ever been a patient in a +hospital, and can tell his own experience or the experiences of +friends, or if he happens to know some of the doctors or nurses, and +promises to see them about his poor friend, the prejudice can often be +overcome. The dread of the untried and the unknown is natural enough, +and yet it will happen now and then that hospital care is so clearly +the best thing that nothing can take the place {102} of it, and +suffering and loss will be entailed upon the family by their refusal to +let the sick member go. In such cases charitable people may be +justified in helping the family to a right decision by withholding all +relief. + +The prejudice against hospitals is strong in the negro race. In the +first family I ever visited the mother, a colored woman, had been +bedridden for thirteen months. According to her own account she had +been "conjured," and at first the mention of a hospital made her +hysterical. She consented to let a doctor, who was a friend of mine, +see her, and he pronounced her disease sciatic rheumatism. He said she +could never get well at home with four small, noisy children, and, +besides, the walls of her house were damp. After two months of +persuading, I got the mother into a hospital and the family moved into +a dry house. Among the arguments that won her were my own acquaintance +with the hospital nurses, and my promise to visit her frequently while +there; and my further promise to see that the children were well cared +for while she was away. But the argument that tipped the scale was the +{103} promise to take her away to the hospital in a carriage with two +horses. + +Among the cases in which hospital care is not practicable are those of +chronic invalids, of patients too sick to be moved, and of patients +able to be treated as "out-patients" in the dispensaries. Confinement +cases, where there are children in the family who must be placed +temporarily in institutions if the mother leaves home, are best treated +in the home. There are societies that provide a nurse and baby-linen +at such times. Some families are so degraded that they look forward to +times of confinement as times of plenty (see family cited on p. 55), +and in these cases nothing but hospital care should be offered, while +we place the children temporarily in institutions or with neighbors. +For the destitute sick outside of hospitals, district nurses are now +provided in many cities. When these nurses are careful to instruct +well members of the household in the care of the sick, their influence +is especially helpful, and they are often able not only to relieve +suffering, but to raise the standard of living in the home. Diet +kitchens, supplying food specially {104} prepared for the sick either +free or at a nominal cost, are also found in many of our cities. + +With all the charities provided for the sick, there is still need of +better provision in this country for convalescents, who are sent from +the hospitals too weak to resume work, and still needing rest, good +food, and pure air to effect a complete cure. + +Two classes of invalids remain to be mentioned in this condensed +summary. First, accident cases, in which the visitor must be careful +to see that legal redress is obtained when the case is one for damages, +and must, at the same time, protect the victim from lawyers who are +glad to take a sure case for "half the proceeds." Second, incurables, +for whom homes are provided requiring an entrance fee, or for whom, +more often, nothing remains but the almshouse. The visitor can +sometimes secure the cooperation of friends and charities interested, +and so raise enough money to provide the fee for such an invalid, when, +without cooperation, as much money and more would be spent and the +patient remain in the end unprovided for. Charitable people often +{105} get tired; they will do a great deal for a while, and will then +get interested elsewhere, and grudge the help that is still needed. In +view of this failing, it is much better, in making plans for +incurables, to secure a lump sum that will make adequate provision, +than to depend upon the continued interest of a number of people. + +The migration of invalids is the last point upon which I shall attempt +to touch under this head. Any one who has visited California, Florida, +Colorado, or any other part of our country where climatic conditions +are supposed to be favorable for invalids, will realize the +irresponsible way in which charitable people are accustomed to send the +sick where they do not belong. The worst of it is that the sudden +change of climate and the impossibility of securing proper care, so far +from effecting a cure, in many cases hasten death. "The saddest thing +about the life of a Denver minister," writes Rev. Samuel A. Eliot, "is +the number of lonely funerals that he is called upon to attend. Often +I have been hastily summoned to say a prayer over some poor body at the +undertaker's {106} shop, where there would be present just the +undertaker and the minister, with perhaps the keeper of the +boarding-house where the lad died or an officer of the Charity +Organization Society. I look at the youthful victim of ignorant +good-will borne to his neglected grave, I imagine the mother and +sisters in the farmhouse on the New England hillside, whose tenderness +might have soothed his last hours, and I think with bitterness of the +well-meant but misdirected charity which condemned him to a miserable +exile and a forlorn death." [2] + +It must be remembered that change of climate is helpful only in the +earlier stages of disease, and only then when the patient is able to +live in comparative comfort, free from worry and anxiety. To send +invalids to a strange place in the name of charity, without providing +them with the means of subsistence, is the refinement of cruelty. + + + +Collateral Readings: Publications of local Board of Health. +Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, Chicago, 1893, +volume on "Hospitals, Dispensaries, {107} and Nursing." "Instructive +District Nursing," M. K. Sedgewick in "Forum," Vol. XXII, pp. 297 _sq_. +"The Feeble-minded," Dr. George H. Knight in Proceedings of +Twenty-second National Conference of Charities, pp. 150 _sq_. See also +discussion in same volume, pp. 460 _sq_. "The Care of Epileptics," +William P. Letchworth in Proceedings of Twenty-third National +Conference of Charities, pp. 199 _sq_. "Industrial Education of +Epileptics," Dr. William P. Spratling in Proceedings of Twenty-fourth +National Conference of Charities, pp. 69 _sq_. "Destitute +Convalescents: After Care of the Insane," Dr. Richard Dewey in the +same, pp. 76 _sq_. See also discussion on pp. 464 _sq_. + + + +[1] "American Charities," p. 40. + +[2] Proceedings of the Nineteenth Conference of Charities, Denver, +1892, pp. 91 _sq_. + + + + +{108} + +CHAPTER VII + +SPENDING AND SAVING + +There is a new school of philanthropists that are inclined to make +light of thrift, and to class both industry and thrift among the merely +"economic virtues." To this school must belong the settlement worker +who spoke of thrift as "ordinarily rather demoralizing." [1] But +another objection to thrift which has been made by settlement workers +is that it was only good for the working classes "until their employers +discovered that there was a margin to their employees' wages." + +Is it true that industry and thrift are merely economic virtues? We +instinctively feel that they are something more. One has only to think +of a lazy man to get an impression of something essentially +contemptible and {109} cowardly. On the other hand the man that loves +work and throws himself into it with energy is winning more than +material rewards. The thriftless and the extravagant, whether rich or +poor, are often mean and self-indulgent, lacking the first quality of +the unselfish in lacking self-control. In teaching industry and +thrift, therefore,--though these virtues, like others, have an unlovely +side,--we may feel that we are dealing with two of the elements out of +which not only character but all the social virtues are built. + +Nor will the pessimistic theory that the worker must spend as much as +possible on indifferent food and housing in order to keep up the rate +of wages, bear the light of common sense. It is true that the man who +merely hoards for the sake of hoarding, developing no new and higher +wants, no clearly defined aims, will still be almost as helpless as the +most thriftless. But no one is more helpless against the encroachments +of employers than the man who lives from hand to mouth, whose +necessities press ever hard upon him, crippling him and crippling those +{110} with whom he competes in the open market. Then again, successful +cooperation is impossible to the thriftless. The lack of self-control, +the lack of power to defer their pleasures, unfits them for combined +effort and makes it more difficult for them to be loyal to their +fellow-workmen. Visitors can advocate thrift, therefore, for both +economic and moral reasons. + +There is a use of the word "thrift" that may help us to realize its +best meaning. Gardeners call a plant of vigorous growth a "thrifty" +plant. Let us bear this in mind in our charitable work, and remember +that anything that hinders vigorous growth is essentially unthrifty. +Thrift means something more than the hoarding of small savings. In +fact, saving at the expense of health, or training, or some other +necessary preparation for successful living, is always unthrifty. It +is unthrifty to live in damp rooms to secure cheaper rent; it is +unthrifty to put aside money for burial insurance when the children are +underfed; it is unthrifty either to buy patent medicines or to neglect +early symptoms of disease in order to save a doctor's bill; above all, +it {111} is unthrifty to take young children away from school and force +them to become breadwinners. Thrift, therefore, includes spending as +well as saving. + +Charity workers often complain that, in the poor families known to +them, thrift is impossible, because there is nothing to save. More +often than not this means that their relations with the poor have +ceased as soon as acute distress is past, and that they have stopped +visiting at the very time when improved material conditions have made +the best friendly services possible. + +Any attempt to divide the poor into classes is to be deprecated, +because human beings are not easily classified. But, speaking roughly, +and using the classification merely as a temporary convenience, charity +workers will find that the thrift habit divides the poor into three +classes. First, those who are very thrifty, and this is a large class. +Misfortune may overtake the most provident during long periods of +industrial depression, or they may become temporarily dependent through +sickness or some unforeseen accident. The second class includes {112} +those who are willing to work when work is plentiful, but who have +little persistence or resourcefulness in procuring work. In the busy +season they spend lavishly on cheap pleasures and soon become +applicants for relief in troubled times. Debt has no terrors for them, +and, from their point of view, it is useless to save because they +cannot save enough to make it seem worth while. In the third class we +find the lazy and vicious, who shirk work, and, living by their wits, +are better off in bad times than in good. "It is with the second class +that the charitable may work lasting harm or lasting good. To let them +feel that no responsibility rests with them during the busy season, and +that all the responsibility rests with us to relieve their needs when +the busy season is over, rapidly pushes them into the third class. To +teach them, on the other hand, the power and cumulative value of the +saving habit, and so get them beforehand with the world, is to place +them in the first class and soon render them independent of our +material help." [2] + +{113} + +A characteristic of the second class is the habit of buying on credit. +The book at the corner grocery not only tempts the purchaser into +buying unnecessary things, but the prices are higher than the market +rate for inferior goods. A student in a university laboratory, who is +also a friendly visitor, had occasion to use some sugar in one of his +experiments, and, being hurried, purchased it from the nearest corner +grocery, paying more than the usual price. It proved to be badly +adulterated, and the user has been more careful since in advising his +poor friends about purchasing provisions. The credit system is the +natural outcome of uncertain income, and for that reason is hard to +avoid, but in a number of instances it is continued long after the +necessity that caused the buyer to ask credit has ceased to exist. + +Another and less excusable form of the credit system is buying +household goods on the instalment plan. The poor are often teased into +this by glib agents. An old woman, whose income was not sufficient to +keep her alive, contracted to buy a clock on the instalment plan for +$8.00 because she needed one when she {114} occasionally had a day's +job of cleaning. When her visitor remonstrated that a dollar clock +would have done quite as well, she replied triumphantly, "Yes, but this +one is only 25 cents a week!" When payments cannot be made, and the +purchaser is threatened with the loss of the goods, it is possible to +be too hasty in rushing to the rescue. The Fifteenth Report of the +Boston Associated Charities records such an experience. "A family had +purchased furniture upon the instalment plan, when the husband was +suddenly deprived of his job. The furniture was about to be seized, +when generous sympathizers came to the rescue, and redeemed the +articles. Scarcely had the donors time to realize what a financial +relief they had been able to give to the troubled family before the +same bit of folly was repeated, and 'parlor furniture' was added to the +inventory of goods and chattels to be paid for by the week." [3] When +instalment men threaten seizure, it is well to find out whether they +are acting within the law. They have been known to take advantage of +ignorant clients. But the system {115} itself is bad in that it +encourages the purchase of unnecessary things, and at a great advance +upon cash prices. + +When the poor man would borrow, he is often exposed to the impositions +of a class of unscrupulous money lenders, who violate the laws against +usury, but hope to escape punishment or loss through the ignorance of +their customers. The pitiful part of it is that the self-respecting +poor often fall into their traps. A family in pecuniary straits for +the first time is naturally attracted by the specious advertisements of +the chattel-mortgage companies, which offer to lend money on goods that +the borrower keeps in his possession, and promise that all negotiations +shall be strictly confidential. This seems an easy way out of present +difficulties without loss of self-respect or any painful publicity. +But the terms of the contract are far from easy in reality. Through a +system of bonuses, extra fees, or monthly payments for "guaranteeing" +the loan, interest amounting to from 100 per cent to 200 per cent a +year is wrung from the borrowers. Bled dry at last, and unable to pay +{116} such extortionate interest and the principal too, their goods are +seized, and the members of the household become objects of charity. +Whereever these chattel-mortgage companies gain any foothold, many of +their victims are applicants for relief. The law usually furnishes +ample protection, but the companies flourish through the poor man's +ignorance of the law. + +As soon as a visitor learns that the goods of a poor family are +mortgaged, he should, at once, whether the company is pressing for +payment or not, learn the terms of the contract, and get an opinion as +to its validity from some friend who is a lawyer. The usual form of +contract in Maryland is a six months' mortgage, bearing 6 per cent +interest, with the legal charge for recording deducted from the amount +advanced to the borrower. But, in addition to this, notes for from +$2.00 upward, according to the size of the loan, are made payable +monthly to some third party who is supposed to guarantee the loan. +Lawyers advise no payments on these notes, and that principal and legal +interest be offered at the expiration of the mortgage. If this offer +{117} is refused, the company renders itself liable to damage +proceedings in seizing the furniture. In each case, however, it is +better to have a lawyer's advice, as the contracts vary, and ignorant +men, who thought they were signing a six months' mortgage, have been +known to sign a one month's mortgage instead. + +The law against usury can protect those who know enough to apply it, +but the poor man remains unprovided with any satisfactory means of +negotiating a loan. The legal rate of interest is too low to make +loans on chattels profitable. The organization, by public-spirited +business men, of companies that will be careful in taking risks, and +will secure special legislation enabling them to charge not more than a +reasonable rate of interest, is the only remedy. Companies like these +have been organized successfully in Boston and Buffalo by +philanthropists who were also business men and wise enough to realize +the importance of placing such loan agencies on an equitable business +basis. Several advantages are apparent from the working of these +equitable loan companies. Those who cannot {118} properly negotiate a +loan are discouraged from applying, because the loans are made with +great care. Those who get the loans are fairly dealt with, and are +helped at the right time in a way that saves them from becoming +applicants for charity. Best of all, the other loan companies are +forced to reduce their rate of interest, and offer fairer terms. + +The habit of pawning goods has never become general among our native +population, but among the foreign poor of our large cities it is the +common practice; and here, too, the philanthropic pawnshop, started at +the instance of the New York Charity Organization Society, has reduced +the percentage charged by other pawnshops in New York. + +This new interest taken by philanthropy in the poor man as borrower is +still in the tentative and experimental stage, but there is an +encouraging analogy between its beginnings and the early history of the +savings banks. "It is seldom remembered," says Mrs. Lowell, "that the +great scheme of savings banks was originally conceived and put into +operation as a means of helping the poor. The two first {119} savings +banks were started in Hamburg in 1778, and in Berne in 1787, and both +were more or less closely restricted to the use of domestic servants, +handicraftsmen and the like. The Hamburg bank was part of the general +administration of the poor funds." [4] + +When the poor man attempts to save, what inducements have greatest +weight with him? First of all, he is likely to save for some definite +and immediate object, because he cannot spend in any effective way +until he has saved. In teaching shiftless families to put by small +sums, therefore, it is well to keep some definite object in view. For +instance, persuade the children to save to buy needed clothing, or the +parents to save to buy proper clothing, bedding, etc., for the +children. This strengthens family affection and leads the way to a +bank account later, by showing what money can do.[5] + +Next to such immediate inducements to thrift comes the dread of pauper +burial, which is a far more influential motive with the poor than the +dread of either dependence or privation. {120} Respectability is +measured in poor neighborhoods by funerals, and, whether the +neighborhood standards of morality and respectability are ours or not, +we cannot afford, in our charity work, to ignore them. Extravagant +funerals are an evil, and we should use our influence to discourage +extravagance, even where it is rooted quite as much in affection as in +vanity; but an unsympathetic attitude on the part of the charitable, an +inability to understand the neighborhood point of view, has helped to +encourage an extravagant form of saving, namely, burial and child +insurance. + +To enter into a discussion of the merits of industrial insurance, as +furnished in this country to the poor, is outside the scope of this +book, and the matter is treated quite fully, moreover, in another +volume of this series ("The Development of Thrift," by Mary Willcox +Brown), but the most enthusiastic advocates of industrial insurance can +hardly claim for it that it is an inexpensive form of saving. A very +large percentage of industrial policies lapse, and it is a common thing +to find that those who have kept up their payments and have {121} +become beneficiaries, spend everything on the funeral of the insured. +"Of $200.00 insurance received by one widow, $180.00 was given to the +undertaker, and the remaining $20.00 was expended for a mourning outfit +for herself. The family were being aided by the Emergency Society at +that time." [6] In New York, the agents of the Charity Organization +Society regard the following as a typical instance: A woman's husband +was insured for $136.00. When he died, she called the same undertaker +that had buried a child for them. His charges on the former occasion +had been moderate. The woman told him that she wanted a very +inexpensive funeral with only one carriage. This was the only +instruction that she gave. The undertaker asked whether the deceased +was insured, and was told that he was, whereupon he offered to collect +the insurance and to pay over to the widow what was left. His bill +amounted to $102.50. These instances do not indicate any collusion, of +course, between the undertakers and the insurance companies. + +{122} + +We have seen in another chapter that sickness is one of the most +persistent causes of distress, and only in rare instances does a death +occur that has not been preceded by weeks and often months of sickness. +The poor man needs sick benefits more than burial or life insurance, +and the children of the poor stand in need of many other things besides +decent burial. In fact, the money spent in child insurance, which can +be of no possible benefit to the child, is often needed to protect the +child's health or provide for its education. These should be a +parent's first care from no sordid motive, and yet it is a legitimate +view to regard children as an investment. The poor man has a right to +expect support from his children when he is no longer able to work, and +to neglect their best interests is to cripple his own future. + +The beneficial societies and fraternal orders furnish a means of saving +for sick benefits, but they are of such varying degrees of merit and +trustworthiness that it is impossible to recommend them without +qualification. They have not gained the same position that the {123} +friendly societies hold in England, partly, perhaps, because they are +not subject in America to the same legal restrictions and official +inspection. + +Though the savings banks are open to the objection that money is too +easily withdrawn from them, and is not, therefore, always available at +the time of greatest need, yet, after making every allowance for this, +the savings banks remain one of the safest and best means of putting by +small savings. Another way of saving, which is not open to the +objection of too easy withdrawals, is the purchase of shares in a good +building and loan association. + +Some banks provide facilities for small savings by selling special +stamps of small denominations, and, in several cities, charities have +established stamp saving societies to promote the saving habit, +especially among children. When $5.00 has been saved in this way, a +bank account should be opened. One visitor has found that, in getting +children to save, it helps to have a stamp-saving card of one's own, +and show it. As a means of teaching children to save, visitors should +encourage the {124} introduction of stamp savings into our public +schools. + +Another way to promote small savings is to send volunteer collectors +among the poor, who will visit certain families weekly, and collect the +five and ten cent pieces until enough has been saved to open a bank +account. This work may be combined with friendly visiting, though the +collector must visit at regular intervals, and in many cases it is +better for the friendly visitor to visit at irregular intervals. One +visitor always leaves a small bank with her family when she goes away +in summer, and the unlocking of this on her return has become a family +ceremony. + +Saving for fuel becomes an admirable object lesson, when it is used to +establish the saving habit and not allowed to stop with the mere +purchase. During the summer, families can be encouraged to put by +small sums weekly, and, instead of buying coal in small quantities at +very high prices during the winter, can save more than half the cost by +buying a ton or more early in the season. + +In teaching thrift in a careless and shiftless {125} home, we can get +many valuable suggestions from more thrifty families in the same +neighborhood, or with the same income. To effectively advise about +expenditure, one must know the family budget of receipts and +expenditures, and often this is more than the family knows. Learning +to take note of the items is the first lesson in thrift. The most +important thing, however, is our own attitude of mind. "We must not +get into the habit of saying, 'Poor things; they can do nothing.' We +should rid ourselves of the habit of treating them, not as men and +women, people who can look after themselves with strength in their +muscles and brain-power in their heads, but as animals whom we allow to +live in society along with ourselves, taking for granted that they are +deprived of, or cannot exert, those faculties which go to make up the +strength and fibre of men and women. I assure you, those who are +inclined to take a sentimental turn have great temptations put before +them to treat the poor as if they were dependent animals." [7] + +{126} + +Collateral Readings: "The Development of Thrift," Miss Mary Willcox +Brown. "The Standard of Life," Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet, especially the +essay on "The Burden of Small Debts." Annual Reports of the +Workingmen's Loan Association, Boston; the Provident Loan Association, +New York; and the Provident Loan Company, Buffalo. For stamp savings, +see reports of New York Charity Organization Society (Committee on +Penny Provident Fund). + + + +[1] See Report on the Questions drawn up by Present Residents in our +College Settlements, p. 17. Published by the Church Social Union, +Boston. + +[2] Leaflet on "Summer Savings," published by the Baltimore Charity +Organization Society. + +[3] p. 25. + +[4] "Public Relief and Private Charity," p. 109. + +[5] See Fourth Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 38. + +[6] Eighteenth Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 27. + +[7] C. S. Loch in Fifteenth Report of Baltimore Charity Organization +Society. + + + + +{127} + +CHAPTER VIII + +RECREATION + +I have said that the power to defer our pleasures is a mark of +civilization. There is another mark which, in this busy America of +ours, is often denied to the well-to-do as much as to the poor, and +that is the power to enjoy our pleasures after we have earned them. +Charity workers still underestimate the value of the power to enjoy. +They are likely to regard mere contentment as a model virtue in the +poor, whereas that discontent which has its root in more varied and +higher wants is a splendid spur to progress. Professor F. G. Peabody +quotes Lasalle in naming as one of the greatest obstructions to +progress among the poor, "The cursed habit of not wanting anything." +The power of enjoyment seems dead in many a down-trodden, sordid life, +while in many others it wastes itself upon unworthy and degrading +pleasures. + +{128} + +There is a passage in one of Miss Octavia Hill's essays that throws a +flood of light on this question. She says that the love of adventure, +the restlessness so characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon, makes him, under +certain conditions, the greatest of explorers and colonizers, and that +this same energy, under other conditions, helps to brutalize him. +Dissatisfied with the dull round of duties that poverty enforces upon +him, he seeks artificial excitement in the saloon and the gambling den. +It is useless to preach contentment to such a man. We must substitute +healthier excitements, other and better wants, or society will fail to +reform him. In all the forms of play, all the amusements of the +people, though some of them may seem to us coarse and degrading, there +is this same restless seeking to express what is highest and best in +man; not only to express his love of adventure, but his love of social +intercourse and his love of beauty. When we once realize that certain +vices are merely a perversion of good instincts, we have taken the +first step toward finding their cure. + +{129} + +It has been said that a man's pleasures give us his true measure, and +that to change the measure is to change the man. From this point of +view, the subject of recreation is very near the heart of the friendly +visitor's relation with the poor. We may have made a conscientious +study of the family expenses and income, of the sanitary surroundings, +of the work record and diet, but we shall not know the family until we +know what gives them pleasure. One visitor says that she never feels +acquainted with a poor family until she has had a good laugh with them. +A defective sense of humor in the visitor is a great hindrance to +successful work: poor people are no fonder of dismal folk than the rest +of us. When we come to recreations, friendly visiting not only makes +large demands upon what we know, but upon what we are. Our pleasures +measure us quite as much as they measure our poor friends, and, unless +we have kept fresh our own power of enjoyment, we cannot hope to impart +this power to the poor, or to give them new and better wants. + +Granting that we have them ourselves, what {130} are some of the +healthy wants that we should try to pass on to the poor? Taking the +simplest first, we should try to introduce simple games and a love of +pure fun into the family circle. I am indebted to Miss Beale of the +Boston Children's Aid Society for the following list of simple games, +so arranged as to include standing and sitting games for each evening: + + FIRST EVENING. SECOND EVENING. + + 1. Hiding the thimble. 1. Stage coach. + 2. Bean bag. 2. Buzz. + 3. Dominoes. 3. Elements. + + THIRD EVENING. FOURTH EVENING. + + 1. Hot butter blue beans. 1. How, when, and where. + 2. Jack straws. 2. Counting buzz. + 3. Fruit basket. 3. Magical spelling. + + FIFTH EVENING. SIXTH EVENING. + + 1. Go-bang. 1. Tea-kettle. + 2. Spot on the carpet. 2. Musical chairs. + 3. Throwing lights. 3. Logomachy. + + SEVENTH EVENING. EIGHTH EVENING. + + 1. Telling a story. 1. Pigs in clover. + 2. Blowing the feather. 2. I have a rooster to sell. + 3. Authors. 3. Courtesying. + + +In teaching such games it is best to begin with the children, but the +parents can {131} sometimes be induced to join in. Story-telling is +also an unfailing resource in our efforts to amuse the children. + +But, during a good part of the year, there are many outdoor games in +which the children can be interested, and, now that the trolley cars +have brought the country so much nearer, country trips for the whole +family should be planned at frequent intervals. There are few things +more pathetic than the dread with which many of our city poor think of +the country, and to teach them country pleasures is to restore to them +a birthright of which they have been robbed. A love of plants and +window-gardening is another healthful pleasure. Mignonette, geranium, +wandering Jew, and saxifrage grow well in small spaces. To one family, +living in tenement rooms where there was no sun, a visitor gave a pot +of geranium. Later, the woman said: "We have taken it out on the roof +every day when it was pleasant to let the sun shine on it When I +couldn't take it, Mary did; and, for fear it should get stolen, we stay +and sit by it. I take the baby with me too, {132} and the baby likes +the sun as well as the flower does." + +With all the added interest in outdoor exercise, and the freer, +healthier life of our time, we are slow to pass such advantages on to +the poor. The women of the family need much urging, sometimes, to get +them to take any outdoor exercise. Bicycles are becoming cheaper, and +a bicycle would be a good investment in any family where all the adults +are working at indoor occupations. If the visitor find a gymnasium not +too far away, the boys and their father should be induced to go to it. +With these added interests, a holiday will no longer be a thing to be +dreaded by the wife and mother, for there will be interesting things to +do, instead of mere loafing on the corner or at the saloon. One +visitor helped to cure a man of drinking by getting him an accordion--a +fact that has a touch of pathos, as indicating the poverty of interests +in the poor fellow's life. + +The pleasures of books, music, and pictures ought to touch every life +at some point. Some aesthetic pleasures, it is true, are won only +{133} after long study and preparation, but the best art is universal +in its appeal. So far as books are concerned, our free libraries have +made us familiar with this view. The visitor should know the rules of +the nearest library, and should be ready to go there with some member +of the family, in case it is unknown to them. The saloon-keepers in +Ward 10, Boston, complain that the new branch of the Public Library +opened there has interfered with their business. Beside encouraging +the use of a lending library, the visitor should be ready to lend +books, newspapers, and magazines, and should be glad to borrow a book +from the family, when this will help to strengthen friendly relations. + +The refining influence of good pictures is just beginning to be +recognized by the charitable. Friendly visitors cannot always organize +large loan exhibitions, such as are given in the poorer neighborhoods +of London, New York, and Boston, but they can lend a good photograph or +engraving, when they are going away, and can replace it, from time to +time, by another picture. Such loans have {134} been known, like the +Eastlake screen in Stockton's story, to revolutionize the arrangement +of the household. Then, too, a picture often conveys a lesson more +effectively than a sermon can. Mrs. Barnett tells, in "Practicable +Socialism," [1] of a loan exhibition in Whitechapel, where Oxford +students acted as guides and explained the pictures. "Mr. Schmalz's +picture of 'Forever' had one evening been beautifully explained, the +room being crowded by some of the humblest people, who received the +explanation with interest, but in silence. The picture represented a +dying girl to whom her lover had been playing his lute, until, dropping +it, he seemed to be telling her with impassioned words that his love is +stronger than death, and that, in spite of the grave and separation, he +will love her _forever_. I was standing outside the exhibition in the +half-darkness, when two girls, hatless, with one shawl between them +thrown round both their shoulders, came out. They might not be living +the worst life, but, if not, they were low down enough to be familiar +with it, and to see {135} in it only the relation between men and +women. The idea of love lasting beyond this life, making eternity +real, a spiritual bond between man and woman, had not occurred to them +until the picture with the simple story was shown them. 'Real +beautiful, ain't it all?' said one. 'Ay, fine, but that "Forever" I +did take on with that,' was the answer." + +I have lived nearly all my life in a community where, during the last +twenty-five years, there has been a great change in musical taste. +George Peabody left money to found a Conservatory of Music, and a few +music lovers spent time and money to keep alive an Oratorio Society. +Later, the visits of Thomas' Orchestra and of the Boston Symphony +Orchestra added to the strength of these local musical centres; but for +many years the Peabody Conservatory was ridiculed and misunderstood, +and the Oratorio Society was usually in financial straits. I mention +these facts, because persons who are dependent upon the Conservatory +and the visiting orchestras for all the good music they know have said +to me that it must be impossible for poor people ever to appreciate +good {136} music. But for the benefactions of George Peabody, and of +Mr. Higginson (who made the Boston Orchestra possible), and of a few +others, they themselves could never have known the pleasure of enjoying +great and noble music, and, to this extent, at least, they are as +dependent as the poorest; but they are quite sure that the great +composers have no message for the poor. There is difficult music, of +course, which only the scholarly musician can appreciate; but much of +the very best music, if we once have a chance to become familiar with +it, appeals to all of us. Then the artistic temperament is not a +matter of either condition or race, as one of our young American +musicians has pointed out. Lecturing with musical illustrations to +audiences on the East Side in New York, and to audiences of negroes in +Philadelphia, he is convinced that "if good music were accessible to +the masses, it would be appreciated, and go far to elevate them." + +"My boy," wailed a poor mother, "was that fond of music it took him +straight to the bad!" And no wonder, for music--apart from the +tawdriest of gospel hymn tunes--meant for {137} him the saloon and the +low concert hall. We need, to counteract such influences, plenty of +cheap concerts of good music; concerts following the plan of Theodore +Thomas with his well-to-do audiences, who were given first the best +that they liked, and then were taught gradually to like better and +better selections. + +All the higher recreations encroach upon the field of education, and I +am tempted to mention, in passing, some of the most promising +educational efforts for encouraging study among the people. The +American Society for the Extension of University Teaching, which has +its headquarters at Philadelphia, has conducted very successful courses +of lectures in poor neighborhoods. The enormous attendance upon the +free evening lectures given by the Department of Education in New York +school buildings is also significant. The popularity of the +educational classes in working girls' clubs, Christian associations, +and people's institutes is another good sign. But I mention these here +merely to emphasize their importance as tools for the visitor. In +families where an ambition has been aroused, the visitor {138} should +foster it by making connection with some such educational agencies. + +There is a very obvious form of snobbery that we are quick enough to +detect, the snobbery that looks down on people who have to work hard +and wear shabby clothes. But an even more dangerous form of snobbery, +because not so obvious, is the intellectual form, which claims an +exclusive right to culture, and looks down upon the simple and +unsophisticated. The fact is, that, save for a very gifted few, we are +all of us dependent upon the gifts of others for what we know and what +we enjoy. Probably there never was a neighborhood so exclusive but +many were there upon whom education, refinements, and beautiful things +were quite wasted; and there never was a neighborhood so poor but some +were there who longed for beauty, education, and a larger and fuller +life. + +It will be seen in the next chapter that, when we attempt to supply the +poor with the necessities of life, our path is beset with difficulties. +But when we give them those things which, though not necessary to life, +yet refine {139} and elevate it, we can do them only unmixed good. +Gifts of books, flowers, growing plants, pictures, and simple +decorations, or, as in one instance known to me, the present of several +rolls of light-colored wall-paper to brighten a dark room--these help +to express our friendliness, and have an added value as coming from a +friend. Above all, however, we should not hesitate to share with the +poor our delight in healthful and refining pleasures, and should find +it natural to talk freely with them about our own interests. + + + +Collateral Readings: "Parlor Games for the Wise and Otherwise," H. E. +H. "Faggots for the Fireside," Mrs. L. P. Hale. "American Girls' Own +Book of Work and Play," Mrs. Helen Campbell. "Gymnastic Games," +published by Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. "Methods of Social +Reform," W. S. Jevons. "Picture Exhibitions in Lower New York," A. C. +Bernheimer in "Forum," Vol. XIX, pp. 610 _sq_. + + + +[1] pp. 119 _sq_. + + + + +{140} + +CHAPTER IX + +RELIEF + +I have been very unfortunate if, in the foregoing chapters, I have +failed to make it clear that there are many ways of assisting the poor +in their homes besides the one way usually implied by the word +"assistance." To one who knows the real needs of the poor, the relief +of suffering by gifts of food and fuel seems only a small part of the +work of charity; but the fact remains that the majority of mankind are +still little moved by any needs that are not closely associated with +hunger and cold. Their imaginations are sluggish, and the whole +problem of poverty appears to them simpler than it really is. It seems +to them no more than a sum in arithmetic,--"one beggar, one loaf; ten +thousand beggars, ten thousand loaves"; and the charitable loaf is +supposed to have moral and {141} healing qualities that are denied to +other loaves. The truth is that charitable cash and commodities have +no moral qualities in themselves; not even the good intentions of the +giver can endow them with peculiar virtues. Like all other +commodities, however, they may become agents of either good or evil. +The way in which we handle commodities tests us at every turn; tests +our sincerity, our honor, our sense of spiritual things. Material +relief tests us too. If we give it believing that, in itself, it can +carry any blessing to the poor, we are taking a grossly material view +of human life. If, on the other hand, our knowledge of the mischief +done by reckless giving makes us morbidly sceptical of all material +assistance, we are losing a valuable tool; for relief at the right +time, and given in the right way, may be made an incentive to renewed +exertion, and a help to a higher standard of living. + +When the visitor's ingenuity in developing resources within the family +renders material relief from outside unnecessary, the family is +fortunate; but often relief from outside is a necessity, and the +question then arises, How {142} shall it be given? Everything depends +upon the "how." + +First of all--and this is a lesson that visitors are slow to learn--it +is very unwise, especially in the first months of acquaintance, for +friendly visitors to give money or commodities to the families they +visit, though they may find it necessary to see that relief is sent +from some other source. "If one of our visitors finds her family in +dire distress, and there is no time to go to the office and have aid +secured in some other way, she of course, like any one else, furnishes +it at once from her own pocket. But except in these rare emergencies, +our visitors do not themselves give relief to those they visit. We +believe this is a wise rule, and after eight years' experience we would +not change it. If a stranger offered you a gift, you would feel +insulted and refuse it Suppose you were constrained by necessity to +accept it--would it not make a certain bar between you and that +stranger very difficult to break down? Imagine yourself of a different +temper, that you wanted all you could get. Would you {143} not be +likely to talk more freely or truthfully to one who you knew would give +you nothing than to one from whom you hoped a plausible tale would draw +a dollar? For the visitor's sake also the rule is a good one. We are +apt to think our duty done if we have given money, and if we cannot do +that, we are forced to use our ingenuity to find other and better ways +of helping." [1] + +It is eleven years since the foregoing passage was written, but the +experience of almost every practical worker in charity will confirm it. +Friendly visitors are human, and their task, as it has been described +in this book, is not an easy one. It is so much easier to give. But +the history of many volunteers in charity is that, starting out with +excellent intentions, they were tempted to give relief to the families +they visited. First it was clothing for the children, then the rent, +then groceries, then more clothing, and the family's needs, strange to +say, seemed to increase, until, finding their suggestions unheeded, and +{144} the people no better off, the volunteers deserted their post, +and, still worse, carried away a false, distorted idea of what poor +people are like. The poor, too, learn to distrust a charitable +interest that is not continuous. A little self-restraint, a little +more determination to keep their purpose clearly in mind, would save +the charitable and the poor from an experience that is hardening to +both. + +When the friendly visitor has known a family for years, and the +friendship is thoroughly established, it is conceivable that he may be +the best possible source of relief; but the attitude that we must guard +against--creeping, as it does, into all our relations with the poor as +an inheritance, an outworn tradition--is the attitude of the London +church visitor, who said that she could not possibly administer +spiritual consolation without a grocery ticket in her bag. It is good +for the poor and good for us to learn that other and more natural +relations are possible than the relations of giver and receiver, of +patron and patronized. + +Nothing that has been said, however, against {145} permitting the +visitor to become the source of supplies should be interpreted as +meaning that the visitor is not to concern himself with the way in +which relief enters the home, and its effect upon the welfare of the +family. Everything that concerns the welfare of its members concerns +him, and that their energies should be paralyzed by a too plentiful +supply of relief, or that the lack of it should cause unnecessary +suffering, is a matter that concerns him vitally. To administer relief +wisely one needs special training, and an inexperienced visitor should +seek the advice of one who knows the charitable resources of his own +particular community and the standard of living of the family's +particular neighborhood. There are certain general relief principles +that common sense and experience have found to be applicable +everywhere, however, and, avoiding the technical language of charitable +experts, I shall try to state these principles as briefly and clearly +as possible, under six heads. + +I. When relief is needed in a poor home, it should be given _in the +home_ without any {146} publicity, and after conference with the head +of the family, who, if unable to provide the means of subsistence +himself, is still responsible for procuring it. The man of the family, +unless disabled, should do all the asking. This means, of course, that +wives should not be sent to charity offices and private families to ask +assistance, and that every charitable agency, public and private, and +every church worker and every teacher should positively refuse to +receive any message or appeal for relief sent by a child, except in +those rare cases where all the adult members of the family are +disabled. The neglect of this simple precaution has often kept +children away from school, and has tempted parents to use them to +excite sympathy. One sensational item in a Baltimore daily, headed +"Barefooted through the Snow," was the account of thinly clad children +sent to the police station for relief. Their father, upon +investigation, was found to have taken their shoes off, and sent them +out to do the begging for the family, after refusing a good offer of +work. + +{147} + +This newspaper item illustrates the danger of giving publicity to +individual cases of need. The poor read the papers, and when they find +that sympathy is excited by sending children for relief, they are +tempted to use their children in the same way. Few worse things can +happen to a poor family than for their distress to excite the interest +of an enterprising journalist, who publishes an account of the +circumstances with name and address. It brings them an avalanche of +relief sometimes, but the visits from sentimental strangers, the envy +of their worst neighbors and the disapproval of their best, the +excitement and uncertainty, the repeating over and over the tale of +their trouble, and the destruction of all the natural conditions of +family life, leave behind a train of demoralization that lasts long +after the relief has been exhausted. + +In a less degree, the congregating of the poor in any place for a +relief distribution is to be deplored, whether the relief is given out +upon presentation of an order or not. The standing in line, the +jostling and waiting, the gregariousness and publicity, are +demoralizing. {148} Missions, I regret to say, sometimes treat such +free distributions as an advertising spectacle; but "it is of the very +essence of charity that it should be private," and advertising, on the +other hand, presupposes publicity. I have often had opportunities to +give the poor tickets for Christmas dinners, free treats, and general +charitable distributions, but, as I have come to know the poor better, +and to care more for their welfare, I have learned to resent a charity +that would help them in droves, as if they were cattle. A form of +charitable relief that appeals to many good people in cold weather is +the free-soup kitchen, where the poor come with their kettles, and "no +questions are asked." The hot, steaming soup and the cold, shivering +applicants make a striking contrast, and the kind-hearted citizen is +very likely to think of such charity as "practical," and denounce the +people who object to it as "theorists." There is nothing practical +about a free-soup kitchen. It is the cheapest of cheap charity. If +the weather is cold, people must have fires at home to keep them from +freezing, and the gift of cooked food is {149} unnecessary. Soup is +not the most nourishing food to give, moreover, and the "no questions +asked" means that those who need most will get least, and that the +crowd of sturdy beggars always attracted by such distributions will +drive away the shrinking poor, who need help the most. + +_The first relief principle is that relief should be given individually +and privately in the home, and that the head of the family should be +conferred with on all questions of relief._ + +II. A due regard for the self-respect of the poor prompts us, when +relief is needed, to secure it from the most natural source or sources. +A family that still has credit does not need relief at all, and it is +better for them to run in debt to those who still consider them a fair +business risk than to receive charity instead. Next to credit, as a +natural resource, come relatives. Charity weakens natural ties by +stepping in, unless it is certain that relatives have done all that +they can, or unless it has brought pressure to bear, at least, to +induce them to do their part. Sometimes relatives have good reasons, +which the charitable should {150} know and heed, for withholding +relief. The next source of relief is friends, including neighbors and +former employers, and a visitor who is seeking aid for a family may +often discover better ways of helping by consulting with these. The +tendency of indiscriminate charity is to destroy neighborliness. (See +p. 27.) The next source is the church to which members of the family +belong, or fraternal societies of which they may have been members. +Only when all these sources fail, and it is not possible to get +adequate relief from charitable individuals whom we can interest, +should we turn to societies organized for the purpose of giving relief +to the poor, and, even then, special societies, like the St. Andrew's +Society for Scots, St. George's Society for Englishmen, and Hebrew +Benevolent Society for Hebrews, should take precedence of general +relief societies, which were not intended to assume other people's +charitable burdens, but exist to care for the unbefriended families +that cannot be relieved from any more natural source. + +There remains one more source of relief for the poor in their own +homes. Many American {151} cities still give public outdoor relief. +This relief is called "public" because it is voted from funds collected +by taxation, and it is called "outdoor" to distinguish it from indoor +or institutional relief. There are several reasons for regarding this +as the least desirable form of relief. In the first place, it is often +administered by politicians, and becomes a source of political +corruption. But, what is even more important, it is official and +therefore not easily adaptable to varying needs. Private charities can +undertake a large expenditure for one family, when a large expenditure +will put the family beyond the need of charity; but official relief +must always be hampered by the fear of establishing a precedent, and +inadequate relief is often the result of this fear. Moreover, public +relief comes from what is regarded as a practically inexhaustible +source, and people who once receive it are likely to regard it as a +right, as a permanent pension, implying no obligation on their part. +Even where it is well and honestly administered, as in Boston, the most +experienced charity workers regard it as a source of demoralization +both to the poor {152} and the charitable. No public agency can supply +the devoted, friendly, and intensely personal relation so necessary in +charity. It can supply the gift, but it cannot supply the giver, for +the giver is a compulsory tax rate. Some of the sources of information +on this subject are noted at the end of the chapter. It is impossible +to give the question any adequate consideration here, but it will be +noticed that a large majority of those who have worked as volunteers in +the homes of the poor, and have watched the effects of outdoor relief +in these homes, are anxious to see it abolished in all our large +cities, believing that private and voluntary charity can more than +replace it. On the other hand, those who know the poor in another +way--in public offices and from the point of view of the public +official--are often stanch advocates of outdoor relief. + +The fewer sources of relief for any one family the better, though it is +often impossible to get adequate relief from one source. "The +difficulty in giving judiciously is great, even where one person or +society does the whole. But when the applicant goes from one to {153} +another, undergoing repeated temptations to deceive and getting from no +one what is sufficient to meet the full need, each giver feeling but a +partial responsibility in the matter, one giving when another has +desired that relief ought to be withheld, and thus destroying the +effect of the other's action, we believe that the difficulties in the +way of judicious aid are greatly increased. . . . We earnestly hope +that the various relief-giving agencies may adopt the plan, so far as +possible, of a division of labor, each doing all the relief-giving +needed by those within its care and leaving others to do the +relief-giving in other cases." [2] When, however, relief must come +from a number of sources, it does most good if given through one +channel. + +_The second relief principle is that we should seek the most natural +and least official sources of relief, bearing in mind the ties of +kinship, friendship, and neighborliness, and that we should avoid the +multiplication of sources._ + +III. In deciding to give or to withhold relief, we should be guided by +its probable effect upon the future of the applicant. When it is {154} +conceded that we should discriminate at all in giving, the popular +notion is that we should give to the worthy poor, and refuse aid to the +unworthy. The words "worthy" and "unworthy" mean very little; they are +mere catchwords to save us from thinking. When we say that people are +"worthy," we mean, I suppose, that they are worthy of material relief, +but no one is so worthy as to be absolutely relief-proof. If relief is +given without plan or purpose, it will injure the worthiest recipient. +On the other hand, an intelligent visitor can often see his way clear +to effect very great improvement in what are called "unworthy" cases, +and may find material relief a necessary means to this end. Better +than any hard and fast classification, is the principle that our relief +should always have a future to it, should be given as part of a +carefully devised plan for making the recipient permanently better off. +The only excuse for giving relief without a plan is that it is +sometimes necessary to give what is called "interim relief," to prevent +present suffering, until we can learn all the facts and a plan can be +devised. In this, relief work is very much like doctoring a sick {155} +patient. We have very little use for a doctor who does not alleviate +suffering promptly, but, on the other hand, we naturally mistrust the +doctor who does not ask a great many questions, or who fails to make a +plan for getting his patient beyond the need of medicine as soon as +possible. Our relief work is often nothing but aimless dosing. Like +the doctor, too, we should stand ready to change our plan of treatment +when conditions change. "In one family, where a pension was given on +account of the breadwinner's illness, and continued for six weeks after +his death, the daughters have been unwilling to take work offered at +wages they thought too low, because they were not thrown upon their own +resources at once." [3] + +A plan that is not based upon the actual facts is, of course, worse +than useless. Sometimes a charitable person will call at a home for +the first time, will see miserable surroundings, and will feel that the +circumstances are all made plain to him in one visit. Calling at a +relief office, he will urge immediate relief, adding, "I have +investigated the case myself." {156} The word "investigation" means +very different things to different people. Here are some of the +questions that, according to the London "Charity Organization Review," +[4] an almoner should ask himself about any given case: + +"1. Can anything be done to increase the family income? Can the number +of wage-earners be added to? Can those doing badly paid work be taught +better-paid work? Can they be put in the way of getting better tools +or appliances? + +"2. Can anything be done to make the existing income go farther than it +goes now? e.g. + +"(_a_) Is too much money paid away in rent? Could as good +accommodations be obtained in the district elsewhere for less? Or +could the family do with less accommodation. + +"(_b_) Is money wasted? _e.g._ on medicine, or in habitual pawning, or +in purchasing from tallymen, or in buying things not wanted? Do +husband and children keep back an undue share of their earnings? + +"(_c_) Is too much money spent in travelling {157} backwards and +forwards to place of employment? If so, could the family move nearer +to their work without increasing their rent? + +"These are but a few of the questions which the almoner must put if he +wishes to be thorough. In every case he must _think_ about the problem +with which he is dealing, and he must try to make those who are +applying for help think also." + +The best arguments for giving relief upon a definite plan are the +results of haphazard benevolence that are all around us--feeble-minded +women with illegitimate offspring, children crippled by drunken +fathers, juvenile offenders who began as child-beggars, aged parents +neglected by their children. Every form of human weakness and +depravity is intensified by the charity that asks no questions. + +_The third relief principle is that relief should look not only to the +alleviation of present suffering, but to promoting the future welfare +of the recipient._ + +IV. It follows from the foregoing that when we relieve at all we +should relieve adequately. + +"Can any one really approve of inadequate {158} relief? Can any one +really approve of giving 50 cents to a man who must have $5.00, +trusting that some one else will give the $4.50, and knowing that, to +get it, the person in distress must spend not only precious strength +and time, but more precious independence and self-respect? . . . + +"There are many families in every city who get relief (only a little to +be sure, but enough to do harm) who ought never to have one +cent,--families where the man can work, but will not work. The little +given out of pity for his poor wife and children really intensifies and +prolongs their suffering, and only prevents the man from doing his duty +by making him believe that, if he does not take care of them, some one +else will. On the other hand, there are many families who ought to +have their whole support given to them for a few years,--widows, for +instance, who cannot both take care of and support their children, and +yet who ought not to have to give them up into the blighting care of an +institution; and these families get nothing, or get so little that it +does them no good at all, only serving to {159} keep them also in +misery and to raise false hopes, or else to teach them to beg to make +up what they must have. + +"Ought not charitable people to manage in some way to remedy these two +opposite evils?--to do more for those who should have more, and to do +nothing for those who should have nothing, saving money by +discriminating, and thus having enough to give adequate relief in all +cases." [5] + +By adequate relief charity workers do not mean that all _apparent_ +needs should be met. There are often resources that are hidden from +the inexperienced eye, and by ignoring these we destroy them. + +_The fourth relief principle is that, instead of trying to give a +little to very many, we should help adequately those that we help at +all._ + +V. We should make the poor our partners in any effort to improve their +condition, and relief should be made dependent upon their doing what +they can for themselves. Whether we give or do not give, our reasons +should be {160} clearly stated, and we should avoid driving any sordid +bargain with them. For instance, it may be wise sometimes to make +relief conditional, among other things, upon attending church, but to +require attendance upon a church to which they do not belong because it +is our church, or to let them regard relief as in any way associated +with making converts to our way of thinking, is to weaken our influence +and tempt the poor to deceive us. + +_The fifth relief principle is that we should help the poor to +understand the right relations of things by stating clearly our reasons +for giving or withholding relief, and by requiring their hearty +cooperation in all efforts for their improvement._ + +VI. The form of relief must vary with individual circumstances and +needs. Work that is real work is better, of course, than any relief; +but there should be a prejudice among charity workers against sham +work, for which there is no demand in the market. Unless such work is +educational, or is used to test the applicant's willingness to work, it +is often better to give material relief. + +{161} + +A charitable superstition that we should outgrow is the notion that it +saves us from pauperizing the poor to call our gifts loans. We may +know that they cannot repay, and they may know that we know it, but +this juggling with words is still undeservedly popular. When the +chances of their being able to repay are reasonably good, and a loan is +made, we should be as careful to collect the debt as in any business +transaction. + +Another charitable superstition is the prejudice in favor of relief in +kind rather than in money. We think that bundles of groceries and +clothes, and small allowances of fuel, can do no harm, but the fact is +that, where it would be unsafe to give money, it is usually unsafe to +give money's equivalent. Large relief societies find it more +economical to buy commodities in quantities, and so get the advantage +of wholesale prices; but, so far as the poor themselves are concerned, +there is no reason for giving goods rather than cash. On the contrary, +many poor people can make the money go farther than we can. Money +intended for temporary relief should not be used {162} for rent, +however, except in cases where ejectment would seriously endanger the +welfare of the family. Back rent is like any other back debt; +landlords should take their chances of loss with other creditors. Nor +should charitable relief be used to enable people to move from place to +place in order to avoid the payment of rent.[6] + +When institutional care is clearly not only the most economical but the +most adequate form of relief, we are sometimes justified in refusing +all other forms. + +In cases where institutional care is not practicable, and relief will +be needed for a long period, it is best to organize a private pension, +letting all the natural sources of relief combine and give through one +medium an adequate amount. + +_The sixth relief principle is that we must find that form of relief +which will best fit the particular need._ + +Though the foregoing six relief principles could easily be extended to +twenty, yet a {163} bookful of such generalizations would be of no +value to the almoner without a detailed knowledge of the neighborhood +into which relief is to go, and an intimate acquaintance with the lives +of the poor. It is evident, therefore, that a beginner in charity +should not decide relief questions except in consultation with an +experienced worker. For instance, a new visitor going to the house of +a widow supporting her aged mother and two children, may find the woman +sick, and receiving only a small pittance in sick benefits from the +society to which she belongs. There is no apparent suffering, but the +visitor at once concludes that the income is insufficient, and applies +to the nearest relief agency, asking that coal be sent. As a matter of +fact, the family income is as large as the average income of the +neighborhood, and the woman has never thought of asking relief; if fuel +is sent, the neighbors all know it, and, immediately, there is a +certain expectancy aroused, a certain spirit of speculation takes the +place of the habit of thrift. There seem, to the simple imaginations +of these people, to be exhaustless stores of relief, which {164} are +somehow at the command of visiting ladies. Take another instance of a +more difficult kind. A family has long passed the stage of receiving +relief for the first time; the man is a heavy drinker, the household +filthy, the children neglected. They appeal at once for assistance. +The children need shoes to go to Sunday-school, the rent is overdue, +the coal is out. Confronted with such misery, the beginner is very +likely to give, and to compound with his conscience by giving "a +little." This is the very treatment that has brought them to their +present pass, and only an experienced and intelligent almoner can tell +how far it is wise to let the forces of nature work a cure, and how far +it is wise to prevent extreme suffering by interference. + +One trouble in the past has been that the agents employed by relief +societies have not always been intelligent, but there have been great +advances made in this regard, and now, in many communities, the agents +of charitable societies are active, intelligent men and women, who have +received special training for the work. These agents are often in +communication with {165} many sources of relief, and can save us from +duplicating relief to the same persons--from sending it, that is, where +others are meeting the same need already. There are many reasons, +therefore, for doing our charitable work in consultation with an +experienced almoner, and friendly visiting, where it has failed, has +usually failed through the visitor's unwarranted assumption that the +giving of material relief was a simple and easy matter, about which +charity workers made an unnecessary lot of trouble. + + + +Collateral Readings: "The English Poor Law," Rev. T. Fowle. "The +Beggars of Paris," translated from the French of M. Paulian by Lady +Herschell. "Outdoor Relief," see Warner's "American Charities," pp. +162 _sq_. "Economic and Moral Effect of Outdoor Relief," Mrs. +Josephine Shaw Lowell in Proceedings of Seventeenth National Conference +of Charities, pp. 81 _sq_. "Outdoor Relief: Arguments for and +against," in Proceedings of Eighteenth National Conference of +Charities, pp. 28 _sq_. "Relief in Work," P. W. Ayres in Proceedings +of Nineteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 436 _sq_. "Is +Emergency Relief by Work Wise?" the same in Proceedings of +Twenty-second National Conference of Charities, pp. 96 _sq_. + + + +[1] Miss Z. D. Smith in Report of Union Relief Association of +Springfield, Mass., 1887, p. 12. + +[2] Fifth Report of Boston Associated Charities, pp. 31 _sq_. + +[3] Eighth Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 25. + +[4] Vol. II, New Series, p. 224. + +[5] Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell in Proceedings of Twenty-third National +Conference of Charities, New Haven, 1895, p. 49. + +[6] See Fifteenth Annual Report of the New York Charity Organization +Society, pp. 44 _sq_., and p. 55. + + + + +{166} + +CHAPTER X + +THE CHURCH + +Relief agents working in our great cities usually find that, in answer +to direct questions, the poor are likely to claim connection with some +one of the large denominations, though further acquaintance will often +reveal the fact that this connection is merely nominal. There are, of +course, many poor people that are active church members, but in spite +of the wonderful activity of all branches of the Christian church +during the last fifty years, in spite of the multiplication of missions +and the devotion of many good men and women to their upbuilding, the +fact remains that many of the very poor are still outside the churches. +In trying to explain this, we have to take into account certain +external conditions, such as the natural shrinking of the less +fortunate from social contact, and the migratory habits of the poor; +{167} but another very important factor in this alienation is, I +believe, the preoccupation of the church with material relief and with +those who clamor for it. + +Some of the very poor are ready enough to connect themselves with the +church, but, attending its services and receiving its ministrations +with the one idea of getting assistance, it is not too much to say of +them that they are "pious for revenue only." And yet, in saying this, +it is necessary to qualify it at once by the statement that the fault +rests not so much with the ignorant poor as with the multiplied and +rival church agencies that tempt them to hypocrisy and deceit. If the +church could only have a good, wholesome, terrifying vision, and see +itself as the poor see it! + +"A friend of mine," writes a London charity worker, "heard two very +respectable women talking. One said, 'Well, Mrs. Smith, how have you +fared this Christmas?' 'Oh, very badly; I had very little relief.' +The other replied: 'Well, Mrs. Smith, it is all your own fault; you +will go and sit in the side aisle of the church, where nobody ever sees +you. If {168} you would sit in front, you would be helped as we all +are.'" Writing of conditions too common in America, Rev. George B. +afford says: "Families transfer their connection from one church to +another, or, with an impartiality rare in other relations, distribute +their representatives among several Sunday-schools or churches, gaining +by pseudo-devout arts what they can from each: Methodist clothing; +Baptist groceries; Presbyterian meat; Episcopalian potatoes; Roman +Catholic rent; Universalist cash, available for 'sundries,'--all are +acceptable to the mendicant pensioner of religious charity. One +family, now at last well advertised, in an eastern city found its +numerous youthful progeny effective leeches as applied to the several +Sunday-schools among which they were distributed. The 'widowed' mother +underwent frequent conversion; the children enjoyed the benefit of as +frequent baptism. On a certain gathering of clergymen of different +churches, when one after another had told the story of his +discomfiture, all joined to congratulate the single representative of +the Baptist denomination present on his happy escape {169} from the +imposture, under which several others had in turn baptized the +children. But from him came the sad confession that he had baptized +the woman herself." [1] In my own city, a family made a small child +not their own a source of income by having it baptized frequently in +different churches, so that three charitable members of three Episcopal +churches were astonished to find, on comparing notes, that they shared +the responsibility of being the child's godmothers. + +But it is needless to multiply illustrations; almost every church has a +collection of such experiences, and the bad effects of successful +deception upon the deceivers are apparent enough. I pass to the +important fact that this class of the poor, though numerically +insignificant by comparison with the poor in general, are yet so much +in evidence as the objects of Christian zeal, and the church wastes so +much time in coddling them, that the self-respecting poor often hold +aloof. It is a common thing to hear a poor man say that he is not +going to attend church, and be suspected of {170} trying to get +something. It does not increase his respect for Christians to find +them easily deceived, and it outrages his sense of justice to see that +laziness, drunkenness, and vice are rewarded by church workers. Even +among tramps, the variety known as the "mission bum" is looked down +upon by his fellows, and there is a lesson for the mission worker in +this simple fact. + +In writing thus frankly of home missionary work, I am not unmindful of +all the difficulties with which Christian ministers have to contend. +Many of them are as much alive to the dangers of indiscriminate relief +as any one can be, and many of them have risked unpopularity and +misunderstanding to lift their churches out of the tread-mill of +ineffectual, dole-dispensing charities into vital contact with the +needs of the poor. The difficulties of Christian ministers are +twofold. Their first duty is to develop the charitable instincts of +church members, to overcome the selfishness and inertia of the natural +man. When they have succeeded in arousing a desire to do something for +somebody else, they must also furnish ample opportunity for {171} the +exercise of this newly awakened impulse. Now the charitable +development of the individual follows the development of the race; the +individual outgrows slowly, if at all, the sentimental and patronizing +view of poverty. To carry church members beyond this phase and make +them effective workers, genuine powers of leadership are needed, and it +is much easier to let them follow their own devices. We have seen in +the last chapter that relief work, if well done, is the most difficult +of all charitable work, but nine inexperienced workers out of every ten +will think it the best and easiest means of helping the poor--the only +means, in fact. + +A difficulty to be reckoned with, and yet one with which it is hard to +have any patience, is the rank materialism that regards relief as a +legitimate means of attracting people to the church. Relief as a +gospel agency has done far more harm than good: you cannot buy a +Christian without getting a bad bargain, and yet, competition among +rival churches working in the same poor neighborhood is so sharp that +even now, in these days of cooperative {172} effort, we find that the +sordid appeal is made. "I call it waste," wrote the late Archbishop of +Canterbury, "when money is laid out upon instinct which ought to be +laid out upon principle, and waste of the worst possible kind when two +or three religious bodies are working with one eye to the improvement +of the condition of those whom they help, and with another eye directed +to getting them within the circle of their own organization. When each +of those religious bodies does so work, say upon a single large family, +and, feeling quite sure of one member of the family, nourishes great +hopes of the rest of the members of the family that they will become +true and orthodox members of their own community, I call that not only +waste--I call it demoralization of the worst conceivable kind, for a +reason which the poet puts thus, 'What shall bless when holy water +banes?' The demoralization produced is the worst possible, because the +highest possible thoughts are used as mere instruments for low ends." +[2] + +{173} + +One result of using relief as a bribe is that the gift no longer has +for its sole object the relief of distress, or the restoration of the +receiver to independence, and is likely, therefore, to be inadequate. +"One clergyman with whom I remonstrated on the uselessness of giving +1s. when 20s. was needed, said it was impossible for him to do as we +did and give adequate relief, as it would cause jealousy amongst both +district visitors and parishioners if he gave more to one case than to +another, so 2s. 6d. was generally the limit." [3] + +In enumerating the natural sources of relief, I have mentioned the +church after relatives, friends, and neighbors. The church is not a +natural source of relief when it becomes a general relief agency, +giving inadequate doles to large numbers of dependents. It is a +natural source of relief for those who have sought its ministrations +from religious motives; when these become dependent, it is the church's +privilege to aid them privately, {174} tenderly, and adequately. Even +beyond its own membership, the church can safely undertake the giving +of material relief, when this is incidental to the carrying out of +other plans for the benefit of the poor; incidental, for instance, to +the work of friendly visiting, with a view to furthering a visitor's +plans for improving a family's condition. But the gift must be free +from the suspicion of proselytizing. + +Protestants often criticise the Roman Catholic church for expecting the +very poor to pay toward the support of the church. They criticise, in +their ignorance, one of the wisest measures taken by the Church of Rome +for strengthening its hold upon the people. Poor Roman Catholics are +far more likely than poor Protestants to think of the church as +belonging to them, as a power which exists not only for them but +through them. Wherever the Protestant church has gained an equally +strong hold upon the poor, it has made equal demands upon their loyalty +and self-sacrifice. + +After all has been said in objection to past {175} and present methods +of church charity, we must realize that, if the poor are to be +effectually helped by charity, the inspiration must come from the +church. The church has always been and will continue to be the chief +source of charitable energy; and I believe that, to an increasing +degree, the church will be the leader in charitable experiment and in +the extension of the scope of charitable endeavor. In the church or +nowhere we must find acceptance for the methods advocated in this book. +In the church or nowhere we must seek the organized devotion that shall +protect the children of the poor from greed and neglect, that shall +advance sanitary and educational reforms, that shall supply purer and +higher amusements for the people, and shall bring to them more and +more, as time goes on, of the advantages of modern life. The church +has already been the pioneer in such work. In cities where +kindergartens are now a part of the public school system, the first +free kindergartens were supported by the churches, and large charities, +now secularized, were supported by {176} churches until they had passed +the stage of experiment. Secular agencies are still dependent upon the +churches for workers that can bring the right spirit to charitable work. + +Instead of multiplying agencies needlessly, the city churches will find +it to the advantage of their spiritual work to keep up vital connection +with city charities. A clergyman who has an active church in one of +our eastern cities, has abandoned the plan of starting separate church +schools, societies, or institutions, realizing that many of these are +unnecessary, and that many others, necessary in themselves, are +inadequately supported. His people are sent instead, according to +their aptitudes, to hospitals, children's charities, societies for +visiting the needy, alms-houses, and homes for the aged. It may be +objected that the shoulder-to-shoulder contact, the strength of +concentration, is lacking in such a plan. But the church holds +frequent congregational meetings, where all who have been detailed to +serve as friendly visitors, hospital workers, etc., report to the +church and to the minister. Each one learns in {177} this way from the +work of the others; weak points in the city's plans for dealing with +the poor are made apparent; and the church is able by united effort to +obtain needed reforms. The work is understood to be a practical +application of the gospel as taught from the church pulpit, and there +is a natural and vital connection between the spiritual and social life +of the church community. Two other advantages are apparent. The +elasticity of the plan makes it possible to find work adapted to many +varying capacities, and all denominational rivalry, all petty jealousy +is avoided. + +The friendly visitor from such a church will not visit the poor with a +view to winning them away from other churches to his own. On the other +hand, he will see the importance of some church connection, and will +strive to restore church relations, if they have been severed, by +urging attendance upon the services of the church and Sunday-school to +which the family naturally belongs. He will seek the help of this +church's minister in any plans he may make for furthering the family +{178} welfare, and, in this way, a spirit of cooperation between +churches of different denominations will be encouraged. + +I cannot leave this part of my subject without mentioning one other +matter, though it is only indirectly connected with friendly visiting. +The training of ministers in our theological seminaries should include +a thorough course of instruction in charitable work. This would enable +ministers to guide the work of their people in the best channels, and +it would save them, moreover, from the discouragements of the +conscientious worker who is striving to improve social conditions +without any clear conception of the scope and limitations of such +service. There are many clergymen whose experience and opportunities +for study fit them for leadership in an attempt to establish systematic +training, in the seminaries. A demand from the laity for more +experienced direction in church charity would also help to hasten the +introduction of regular seminary courses in applied philanthropy. + + + +[1] "Charities Review," Vol. II, pp. 26 _sq_. + +[2] "Occasional Papers of the London Charity Organization Society," p. +35. + +[3] Miss Pickton in London "Charity Organization Review," Vol. X, p. +538. + + + + +{179} + +CHAPTER XI + +THE FRIENDLY VISITOR + +I have tried to make a number of specific suggestions in the foregoing +pages, but it is needless to say that only a few of these are likely to +be useful to any one visitor, and it would be fatal to apply them all +to one family. In the effort to be specific, I fear that I may have +been as exasperating as the cook-books, which, in a similar effort, +will suggest, "take a salamander," or "take a slip of endive," when +neither is obtainable. Cook-books have their modest uses, however, and +the cooks who are most skilful in skipping recipes not intended for +them will turn the others to the best account. + +In avoiding the danger of representing friendly visiting as a pleasant +diversion, I may have gone to the other extreme, and represented it +rather as an arduous and {180} exacting profession. It is so far from +being this, that professional visiting can never be friendly. In fact, +friendly visiting is not any of the things already described in this +book. It is not wise measures of relief; it is not finding employment; +it is not getting the children in school or training them for work; it +is not improving sanitary arrangements and caring for the sick; it is +not teaching cleanliness or economical cooking or buying; it is not +enforcing habits of thrift or encouraging healthful recreations. It +may be a few of these things, or all of them, but it is always +something more. Friendly visiting means intimate and continuous +knowledge of and sympathy with a poor family's joys, sorrows, opinions, +feelings, and entire outlook upon life. The visitor that has this is +unlikely to blunder either about relief or any detail; without it, he +is almost certain, in any charitable relations with members of the +family, to blunder seriously. Visitors have said to me that they could +not see that they had been of any special service, though their +friendly feeling for certain families made it impossible to stop +visiting. These visitors {181} who have no story to tell have often +done the greatest good. "One of the women we had not seen since she +first came to us some four years before," writes Miss Frances Smith, +"and we remembered her distinctly as quite ordinary then. Imagine our +surprise in finding that a certain dignity and earnestness, akin to +that of the visitor, had crept into this woman's life, and found +expression in her face and bearing. Such transfigurations cannot take +place in a few weeks or months; they are of slow growth, but they are +the best rewards of friendship." [1] + +The rewards of friendly visiting and the best results of such work are +obviously not dependent upon the suggestions of a handbook. As Miss +Octavia Hill has said, success in this depends no more on rules than +does that of a young lady who begins housekeeping. "Certain things she +should indeed know; but whether she manages well or ill depends mainly +upon what she is." Life, therefore, is the best school. +Meddlesomeness, {182} lack of tact, impatience for results, +carelessness in keeping engagements and promises, will be as fatal here +as anywhere. + +When we are depressed by a family's troubles and are striving earnestly +to find a way out, theirs seem quite unlike any other troubles. In a +sense, it is true that they are unlike; but there are certain +resemblances between human beings, even when a continent divides them; +and, unsafe though it may be to administer charity by rule, it is more +unsafe to administer it without reference to certain general +principles. Many of the suggestions of this book are not of universal +application, but, in bringing it to a close, I shall endeavor to state +a few principles that apply quite universally to friendly visiting. + +1. The friendly visitor should get well acquainted with all the +members of the family without trying to force their confidence. A +fault of beginners is that they are unwilling to wait for the natural +development of trust and friendliness. "They expect to make a half +dozen visits on a poor family inside of a month," says Miss Birtwell, +"and see them {183} helped. Now, which one of us ever had our lives +strongly influenced by a friendship of a month's standing? . . . I +once heard a sermon which made an impression on my mind that has +remained with me for years. One of its main ideas was to get your +influence before you used it. Many people seem to think that if they +can visit a poor family, by virtue of their superior education and +culture, they must immediately have a very strong influence. They do +not get it that way. They must get it just as our friends get an +influence over us, by long, patient contact, and by the slow, natural +growth of friendship." [2] + +Patience is difficult where we see so many things to be done, and it is +particularly difficult where there is actual need; but the visitor does +not go to act as a substitute for the forces, charitable or other, that +have kept the family alive so far. He must confer with sources of +relief that are or can be interested, but beyond this he must have the +courage to {184} do nothing until he knows what is the right thing to +do. + +It is not possible to visit many families, but there are definite +advantages in visiting more than one--the usual limit should be not +less than two nor more than four. An advantage in visiting two +families is that the visitor is less likely to be feverishly active +during the earlier stages of acquaintance, and the contrasts and +resemblances between the two give the visitor a better grasp of +principles. Not only is a new visitor liable to err in overvisiting a +family, but some families have too many charitable visitors. The New +York visitor, who refused to go to a family on whom three charity +workers had lately called, was wise. There are families so clearly +overvisited that all who are charitably interested in them should be +persuaded to let them alone for a while. + +It ought to be unnecessary to add that the winter is not the only time +for charitable work. Our poor friends need us quite as much in summer, +though many charities are less active then. When we are away in summer +we can {185} write, and when we are in town for a short while we can +often find time for a visit. Charitable work suffers from the +tradition that the only time to be charitable is when it is cold. + +Next to uninterrupted visiting as a means of getting acquainted, comes +the power of taking our own interests with us when we visit. "In our +contact with poor people we do not always give ourselves as generously +as we might. Intent upon finding out about them, we forget that they +might be interested to hear about us. Would it not be well if, instead +of always giving sympathy, we sometimes asked it? It is often +striking, if we tell them about the joys and sorrows of our friends, to +note how they respond, often inquiring about them afterward. Such +mutual relationship broadens their meagre lives, and makes our contact +with them more human. A visitor, who has undertaken during the summer +the families of another too far away to visit, wrote: 'I want to tell +you what a matter of interest and pleasure it has been to me, in +visiting your families, to find that what they {186} really seemed to +value was your personal friendship for them, and how they treasured any +little incident you had told them of yourself and your travels.'" [3] + +One who visits in this spirit always wins more of pleasure and of +profit from the work. In fact, it is never the visited only that are +benefited. + +2. In getting acquainted, the visitor has the definite object of +trying to improve the condition of the family. This is impossible +unless he has a fairly accurate knowledge of the main facts of the +family history. Charity workers often come to me for advice about +individual families, and reveal in a few minutes' conversation that +they have no knowledge of the condition of those they would help. The +head of the family is sick, it may be, and they expect prompt advice as +to the best way to help him; but they have not taken the trouble to see +the dispensary doctor who attends him, or to find out in some other way +the nature of his disease; or perhaps the boy is out of work, but they +have not seen his {187} former employer and know nothing of his earning +capacity or references. Charitable skill is not a sort of benevolent +magic; it is based on common sense, and must work in close contact with +the facts of life. In other friendly relations we recognize this, and +in our charity work too, whether by investigation of a trained agent or +by our own inquiries, we must have the facts before we can find out the +best way to help. One advantage of visiting under the guidance of a +charity organization society is that a thorough investigation has been +made of the family circumstances before the visitor is sent. + +The following is a brief outline of the facts that should be known, if +a plan is to be made for the family's benefit: + +(a) _Social History._--Names; ages; birthplaces; marriage; number of +rooms occupied; education; children's school; names, addresses, and +condition of relatives and friends; church; previous residences. + +(b) _Physical History._--Health of each member of the family; name of +doctor; habits. + +(c) _Work History._--Occupations; names {188} and addresses of present +and former employers; how long and at what seasons usually in work; how +long out of work now; earning capacity of each worker. + +(d) _Financial History._--Rent; landlord; debts, including instalment +purchases; beneficial societies; trade-union; life insurance; pawn +tickets; has family ever saved and how much?; present savings; income; +present means of subsistence other than wages; pensions; relief, +sources, and amount; charities interested. + +In addition to these detached facts, there is also needed whatever +other facts will make a fairly complete brief biography of the heads of +the family, including a knowledge of their hopes and plans. The +statements of relatives and friends, their theory as to the best method +of aiding, together with some definite promise as to what they +themselves will do; the statements of pastor or Sunday-school teacher, +of doctor, former employers, and former landlords; and the statements +and experiences also of others charitably interested may be needed +before an effective plan can be made. + +{189} + +Inquiries of present employers and landlords should be made with +extreme care, if at all, as they might create prejudice against those +we would help. + +The outline here given of the facts needed is best filled in by a +competent trained agent, rather than by the friendly visitor, whose +relations with the family render searching inquiry difficult and often +undesirable. But the mercifulness of a thorough investigation is that, +once well done, it need not be repeated, and by saving endless +blundering it also saves a family from much charitable meddling. Its +seemingly inquisitorial features are justified by the fact that it is +not made with any purpose of finding people out, but with the sole +purpose of finding out how to help them. + +3. Gathering facts about the poor without making any effort to use +these facts for their good has been compared to harrowing the ground +without sowing the seed. The facts should be made the basis of a +well-considered plan. It may be necessary to modify our plans often, +as circumstances change or new facts are discovered; but a plan of +treatment {190} is as indispensable to the charity worker as to the +physician. Our plans must not ignore the family resources for +self-help. The best charity work develops these resources. If outside +help is needed, it should be made conditional upon renewed efforts at +work or in school, upon willingness to receive training, upon +cleanliness, or upon some other development within the family that will +aid in their uplifting. All this is suggested, not with a view to +making the conditions of relief difficult, but with a view to using +relief as a lever; or, as some one has put it, we should make our help +a ladder rather than a crutch, and every sensible, reasonable condition +is a round in the ladder. + +Our plans for the benefit of one family must not ignore the possible +effects of our action upon other families. This is a hard lesson to +learn, but a plan that might be kind and effective, if there were only +one poor family in the city, is often unfair and even cruel, because it +rouses hopes in others which can never be fulfilled. In other words, +we must be just as well as merciful. A {191} knowledge of the +neighborhood and of the circumstances of other poor families is +necessary in judging of the justice of a plan, and here the criticism +and advice of an experienced charity worker will be very helpful. + +It is necessary also to guard against making our plans with reference +to nothing but the present emergency. We must have a view to the +future of the family, and must think not only of what will put them out +of immediate need, but of what is most likely to make them permanently +self-supporting, if this be possible. There are, of course, families +that can never be made entirely self-supporting. These, if we consider +only the cases for which it is thought best to provide outside of +institutions, will be the exceptions; but in making plans for the +welfare of such families we must try to organize help that shall be as +regular and systematic as possible. Next to having to depend upon +charitable resources at all, the most demoralizing thing is to be +dependent upon uncertain and spasmodic charity. + +4. In plans looking to the removal of the causes of distress, the +greatest patience is {192} needed, and we must learn also, if we would +succeed, to win the cooperation of others charitably interested. If +our plan with regard to a family is likely to prove permanently +helpful, and we are able to persuade others to work with us in carrying +it out, we are not only helping the family, but we are educating others +in common-sense methods. In persuading to an important step, the value +of cooperation is illustrated by an instance taken from the Fourteenth +Report of the Boston Associated Charities:[4] "A respectable woman, who +had struggled for a year to keep her insane husband with her and the +little girls, at great risk to them and the neighborhood, was persuaded +in but a few days to let him go to the lunatic hospital. Of course, as +strangers, our opinions were entitled to little weight; but by +collecting the doctor's opinions and those of her own friends, all of +which she had heard singly, she was sufficiently impressed to take the +long necessary step." + +5. Though we must make plans looking toward self-support, these are +not the only plans {193} within the scope of friendly visiting. Some +of the best visiting can be done after families are no longer in need. +The entry "dismissed--self-sustaining" on charitable records has a very +unsatisfactory sound to those who realize the further possibilities of +friendly help. After a family has learned to live without charitable +aid, there is a better chance of introducing its members to thrifty +ways of spending and saving, to better recreations, and to healthier +and more cleanly surroundings. + +6. Our work as friendly visitors is an intensely personal work, and, +unlike other charity, it is best done alone. We cannot visit in +companies of two or three, nor can we talk very much about our poor +friends, except to those charitably interested, without spoiling our +relations with them. The district system of visiting among the poor, +which is still the system of German towns and of English parishes, +assigns a certain geographical boundary to each visitor. It has been +called the "space system" in contrast to the "case system" of friendly +visiting. The main objection to it is that it is not personal enough. +{194} One who is a friend to a whole street is not felt by the members +of any particular family to belong peculiarly to them, and there is +danger, moreover, of more official relations and of small jealousies +and neighborhood entanglements that are avoided by the friendly +visiting plan. + +The district visitor is the ancestor of the friendly visitor. Brewing +a bit of broth for an aged cottager, reading beside some sick-bed, +sewing a warm garment for Peggy or Nancy--it is thus that our ancestors +lightly skimmed the surface of social conditions. It would ill become +us to speak slightingly of the work of those who have handed down to us +a precious freight of human sympathy and tenderness. If heavier +burdens of responsibility, more serious problems and more strenuous +ideals are now imposed upon us, we have also many advantages that were +undreamed of a hundred years ago. Now, if we would be charitable, and +possess any power of using the forces at our command, there are +hundreds of avenues of usefulness open to us where formerly there was +only one, and there are hundreds of {195} agencies ready to help. We +must know how to work with others, and we must know how to work with +the forces that make for progress; friendly visiting, rightly +understood, turns all these forces to account, working with the +democratic spirit of the age to forward the advance of the plain and +common people into a better and larger life. + + + +Collateral Readings: "Friendly or Volunteer Visiting," Miss Zilpha D. +Smith in Proceedings of Eleventh National Conference of Charities, pp. +69 _sq_. "Friendly Visiting," Mrs. Marian C. Putnam in Proceedings of +Fourteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 149 _sq_. "Class for +the Study of Friendly Visiting," Mrs. S. E. Tenney in Proceedings of +Nineteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 455 _sq_. "The +Education of the Friendly Visitor," Miss Z. D. Smith in Proceedings of +Nineteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 445 _sq_. "Friendly +Visiting," Mrs. Roger Wolcott in Proceedings of International Congress +of Charities, 1893, volume on "Organization of Charities," pp. 108 +_sq_. Also Miss F. C. Prideaux in same volume, pp. 369 _sq_. and +discussion, pp. 15 _sq_. "Continued Care of Families," Frances A. +Smith in Proceedings of Twenty-second National Conference of Charities, +pp. 87 _sq_. "Friendly Visiting as a Social Force," Charles F. Weller +in Proceedings of Twenty-fourth National Conference of Charities, pp. +199 _sq_. "Company Manners," Florence Converse in "Atlantic," January, +1898. (This story is not a fair picture of associated charity methods, +but points out one of the dangers of spasmodic visiting.) + + + +[1] Proceedings of Twenty-second Conference of Charities, 1895, p. 88. + +[2] Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, volume on +"Organization of Charities," p. 21. + +[3] Eleventh Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 31. + +[4] p. 27. + + + + +{197} + +APPENDIX + +The illustrations of friendly visiting in the preceding pages have been +given with a view to elucidating some particular part of visiting work. +Some of the following instances show the possibilities and +discouragements of continuous visiting, and the last illustration +emphasizes an important fact in the life of poor neighborhoods; namely, +the unconscious but restraining and uplifting influence of good +neighbors. On this same phase of the subject, see Charles Booth's "Life +and Labor of the People," Vol. I, p. 159. + + +_Home Libraries and the Visitor._--A visitor reports that "a library has +been established in the room of Mrs. ----, where the boys of the tenement +house meet every Saturday afternoon to receive or exchange their books, +discuss with the visitor the books they have read, listen to stories as +they are read or narrated, and to play games. This little gathering +seems to have improved the moral and social atmosphere of the entire +tenement house." + +The woman who has charge of the library first became known to this same +visitor over four years ago, {198} when she was struggling upon the verge +of starvation, and almost giving up in despair from the effort to support +herself and her two children. Through the efforts of the visitor she is +now comfortable and practically self-supporting. She has been made +librarian for the tenement house by the visitor, and is proud of the +distinction. The following are the exact words of the visitor: "She +welcomes the children into her room, made scrupulously clean and +attractive; and as she sits at her work and listens to their games and +readings, in which she frequently participates, her depressed spirits +rise, and she seems to gain courage, and to feel that there is after all +something bright in her life."--Sixteenth Report of Cincinnati Associated +Charities, p. 13. + + +_After Five Years._--The C. family--father, mother, and eight +children--were in a very depressed condition when I first made their +acquaintance, five years ago. The father, who was a consumptive, had +lost his position of travelling postman; the mother was ill; and the only +source of income was a monthly pension of $8.00 and about $8.00 a week +earned by the three eldest girls, who were saleswomen. The rent was +$15.00 a month, and the family heavily in debt. I succeeded in finding +them a house for $9.00 a month, and found assistance in flour, coal, and +clothing. An unknown friend undertook to add $1.00 a month to {199} Mr. +C.'s pension, and this paid the rent. Twice, when the girls were ill, +the Golden Book Fund came to the rescue and made up the temporary +deficiency. I tried to represent to them the dignity of keeping a roof +over their heads by their own efforts. First, it became possible to +dispense with the monthly gift of $1.00. Later, when the girls' wages +were raised, Mrs. C. told me I need not provide fuel,--they would now try +to do that themselves. One summer, whilst I was away, the youngest child +died, and the funeral expenses were paid by the family, through much +self-denial. Every year the girls have been sent to their friends in the +country by the Fresh Air Fund of the Y.W.C.A., and once the younger +children were sent to the Children's Country Home. The parents continued +in wretched health; but as the girls' wages gradually increased, I was +asked by Mrs. C. not to provide further aid, except in case of sickness. +In 1891, Mr. C.'s pension was more than doubled, but they continued in +their poor and unattractive neighborhood until every debt was paid, not +forgetting the doctor. Last summer they moved into a larger house on a +pleasant street, and have enough lodgers to pay more than half the rent. +Mr. C.'s health has improved, and he has a light position at $25.00 a +month and his meals. The oldest girl has married well, the two other +girls are good workers, and my old friends sure now well on their feet. +During absence we have {200} corresponded regularly. Mrs. C. has learned +to come to me in every difficulty, and knows how gladly I share her +encouragements.--"Charities Record," Baltimore, Vol. I, No. 1. + + +_Persevering under Difficulties._--We are each year more strongly +impressed with the importance and value of patient and careful visiting, +even in the face of great discouragement, believing that sincere and +judicious friendliness is invariably helpful, although it may be long +before any apparent result is produced. Proofs of this are constantly +coming to us, as in a German family which has been for the last six years +under the care of one of our visitors. The family consists of father, +mother, and five children, and, when first visited, they were found +almost destitute,--the woman earning a little by picking berries in the +summer and selling them, and the man by picking coal,--though they were +well able to work. The visitor was received very ungraciously at first, +and it was only after finding some work for the man, and showing a real +interest in the children, that she gained any hold upon them. No really +marked improvement took place until the children went to the Industrial +School. Then the girls taught their mother how her work should be done, +and it was with great pride that they showed the visitor how neat they +had made their rooms. Work was obtained for the man as {201} +night-watchman at $12.00 a week, and, after a while, he was able to pay +off all his back debts. He is now always glad to see the visitor. Three +of the girls are at work, and they seem a happy and prosperous +family.--Tenth Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 55. + + +_Widow with Children._--A typical case of chronic dependence is that of a +widow with six children. When she was referred to us, nearly four years +ago, her children were very young, and she, though well-meaning, was +stupid and inefficient. The problem was not whether aid should be +given,--that was clearly necessary, for the woman could not earn anything +with her little children to care for,--but if the aid could be given in +such a way as to really benefit them. Relief was procured from the +proper sources,--$20.00 a quarter from the "Shaw Fund for Mariners' +Children," $2.00 a month in groceries from the city, and at times $1.00 a +week from the St. Vincent de Paul Society. The visitor who first +interested himself in the family, and who has been their friend and +counsellor ever since, received the quarterly $20.00 for them, paid the +rent with $13.00 of it, and gave the rest to the woman, who knew just +what she had to depend upon, and learned to use it properly. As the +children grew older, the boy went into a district telegraph office; and +the girl, wishing to go into a store, asked the visitor to find her a +place. He thought, however, {202} that it was wiser to teach her how to +find one, and, after suggesting some good establishments to which to +apply, told her to get references from her schoolteacher and others, and +go herself to ask for work. This she did with some difficulty, and got a +place; and when, after a time, she gave it up, she knew what to do, and +had no difficulty in finding another. The boy refused to be apprenticed +to a joiner, as the visitor wished, but is working hard in a place he +found himself. The second boy goes to school, and sells papers. In +summer, the visitor, with the consent of the Conference, has sent the +younger children into the country to board for a month. He has taken +pains to have the family live in a healthy tenement, and in many ways has +insured their well-being. They are now partially self-supporting; and +the older children are respectable and industrious, which we feel is +greatly due to the influence that the visitor has exerted over them and +their mother for four years.--Fourth Report of Boston Associated +Charities, p. 40. + + +_A Failure._--Gamma made his first application to the Charity +Organization Society seven years ago, at a time when it was even more +difficult than now to find volunteer visitors who were intelligent and +faithful enough to make a careful study of the needs of families placed +under their charge, or courageous enough to carry out any thorough plan +of treatment in these {203} families. The man was a German cobbler who +had married an American domestic, and at that time there were three +children, one of them an imbecile with destructive tendencies. The man +said he was discouraged, that he got work with difficulty and had no +tools with which to do it. Materials were furnished and members of the +Society found work for him, but, this form of assistance not being very +much to his mind, they soon lost sight of him, and it was not till +several years later that the Society again encountered the family in a +different part of the city, and a friendly visitor was secured to study +their condition and try and improve it. + +The visitor reported that the man was "discouraged," the house filthy +beyond description, and that the life of the fourth child, then nine +months old, was endangered by the imbecile boy, who was violent at times. +Aid was given, and, the man's own theory being that he could do better in +another neighborhood, the family was moved and otherwise aided by money +secured from benevolent individuals. It soon became apparent that the +man lacked energy. He was given to pious phrases, and was a good talker, +but all efforts to inculcate industry or cleanliness were met both by man +and wife with the excuse that the imbecile boy interfered with all their +efforts. + +At the family's own solicitation, the Society tried to find a home for +the boy; after months of negotiations {204} he was placed in the School +for Feeble-minded at Owing's Mills. This burden removed, the visitor +redoubled her efforts to make the home a decent one for the remaining +children, but without success. The beds were not made until they were to +be slept in, the dishes not washed until they must be used again, and +soiled clothing was allowed to stand in soak a week at a time in hot +weather, until a heavy scum gathered on the top and the air was poisoned +by the stench. The remaining children were unkempt and untrained, and +the woman quite indifferent about their condition. The imbecile had +improved at Owing's Mills, but, owing to a half-expressed wish of the +mother's to see the boy, Gamma brought him home and refused to take him +back again. The man's good intentions always seemed to evaporate in fine +phrases. He was reported by the neighbors to be drinking, though not +heavily, and one morning the visitor received a letter from him saying +that she must take care of his family--he could stand it no longer and +had left them. + +One thing greatly handicapped the visitor at this time and later: the +squalor of this family strongly appealed to chance charitable visitors, +who helped them liberally because they looked miserable--helped them +without knowledge and without plan. It used to be said that every +American thinks he can make an after-dinner speech, and it might have +been added that every American, or nearly every American, thinks {205} he +can administer his own charities judiciously. When we are mistaken in +our speech-making ability, we ourselves are the sufferers, but the +saddest thing about our charitable blunders is that not we but the poor +people are the sufferers. The friendly visitor to the Gammas was a woman +of unusual intelligence and devotion. Her failure may be traced to two +causes: to the fact that she was not called in earlier, and to the +willingness of many good church people to help quite indiscriminately for +the asking. They went and looked at the home, saw that it was wretched +indeed, and called this "an investigation." "Yes, I've helped the +Gammas," they used to say. "I've investigated their condition myself." +The way in which Gamma was in the habit of talking about the Bible as his +best friend made a great impression on them. + +The man's desertion of his family was a mere ruse. He was soon back +again, and ready to profit by the help they had obtained. Moving from +place to place to avoid rent, they were at last ejected, and the man, +wife, and children, including the imbecile, found refuge in the stable of +a kind-hearted man who took pity on them. The owner was alarmed, +however, when he found the family making no effort to find other +quarters, and fearing the imbecile might set fire to the place at any +time, he applied to the Charity Organization Society to know what could +be done. We offered the woman and children shelter at the Electric +Sewing {206} Machine Rooms, until the boy could be sent back to Owing's +Mills and the other children committed to the Henry Watson Children's Aid +Society, and advised that the man saw wood at the Friendly Inn until he +could get work. The man refused to go, but the woman and children came +to the Electric Rooms, and with the cooperation of the Society for the +Protection of Children, the imbecile was returned to Owing's Mills. + +At this juncture the daily papers interfered with our plans for the +children by publishing a sensational account of Gamma as a most +industrious shoemaker, who had always supported his family until the hard +times of the last year had thrown him out of work. Money was sent to the +papers for the family. Gamma, who had consented to have two of the +children placed in good country homes by the Henry Watson Aid Society, +changed his mind, and the old story of indiscriminate charity and +indiscriminate filth and neglect began all over again. The gentleman who +had given them shelter thought they ought to have another trial. They +had had six years' trial already, but this last one was of short +duration. In four months their champion returned to say that the Charity +Organization Society was right and he was wrong; that he had found Gamma +drunken, lazy, and insolent; and that the children raised under his +influence must become paupers and criminals. Again the family were +ejected, and this {207} time, before public sympathy could interfere, the +two older children were committed to the Henry Watson Aid Society, and +only the baby left with Mrs. Gamma. + +Our advice to Mrs. Gamma was to return to her mother, who offered her a +home. But the advice was not taken. Established in another part of +Baltimore, Gamma renewed his attack on the clergy, and told one minister +that he was a hardened criminal who had served a term in the +Penitentiary, but, after hearing one of his sermons, he desired earnestly +to reform. The latest news about the Gammas is a bit of information in +which the charitable public will have to take an interest, however +reluctantly, before very long,--there is a new baby.--"Charities Record," +Baltimore, Vol. II, No. 8. + + +_A Success._--The second family consisted of a respectable, middle-aged +woman who had been twice married, four children of the first marriage, +and the second husband. The eldest daughter had married, and with her +husband occupied part of the house in which her mother lived. The other +three children were young. The second husband was a drunken fellow, who +did little for his wife's support and abused her badly. She had been to +the hospital to have a serious operation performed; and, although the +operation had been successful, her health was still poor. When first +known by the Conference the family were {208} in great destitution. The +husband brought home very little, the wife could not work, and one of the +children earned a mere trifle. The rent was unpaid, and almost the only +food the family had was oatmeal. The married daughter and her husband +said the family had been long enough quartered on them, and refused to +help them any more. The only work the woman thought she could do was +sewing, and some of this was found for her. Diet Kitchen order was +obtained for one of the children who was ill, and shoes were given to the +others. Later, the Provident Association gave groceries. At this time +the first visitor left the city, and a new one took charge of the family. +She writes: "On first calling on Mrs. X., I found a tidy, +respectable-looking woman, apparently in delicate health. Her face was +almost that of a lady, and her manners were polite; but she did not make +me very welcome. She spoke with affection of her former visitor, who, +she said, had been very kind; but she presently remarked that she could +not see why 'all these other people' had come prying into her affairs." +On inquiry it was learned that after the former visitor had left town +representatives of several charitable societies had called, and that one +had hurt the woman's feelings by asking all kinds of questions without +giving any explanation of his so doing. The visitor explained that she +knew the former visitor, and had been asked to call in her place; and, +after {209} some sympathetic explanation, the woman seemed a little +cheered. However, she resented the grocery orders she was receiving, +saying that she did not wish charity--that she was willing to earn her +living by sewing. "Why could she not have that instead of grocery +orders?" As to sewing for the shops, she said she could not do that; for +shop-work was too low paid, and she could not work on the machine. Plain +hand-sewing was the only thing she could do. When told that certain +sewing to which she referred was charity sewing, and was only given out +in winter, she exclaimed, "Then it is not work at all, but charity, just +like the grocery orders." When the visitor said good-by, she was invited +to call again. She did so repeatedly, seeing the family once a week or +oftener. On account of the drunken husband, some question was raised as +to whether the groceries should be given regularly, but Mrs. X. stated +that her husband never shared the food. He was away from home most of +the time. Sometimes he would come home Saturday night and bring some +money, and then he would take his meals at home; but, when the money was +gone, he would go out for his meals, never asking how his wife and +children fared in his absence. It did not appear that his disregard was +due to his thinking that others would care for the family. The wife +insisted that he did not think or care how they fared. He had sometimes +left her for weeks, when {210} she was ill in bed, and had never asked or +known how she had been kept alive. He appeared to be so utterly +irresponsible that he could not be made more so. + +At the visitor's suggestion, it was soon decided that the younger +daughter should take a place at service, where she could earn something +and yet go home every night. Such a place the visitor found for her, and +the girl was eager to save money to buy herself a coat for the following +winter. The needs of the family, however, made it necessary to take the +earnings for living expenses; but the visitor promised that somehow a +coat for the winter should be forthcoming. When the employer closed her +house in July, the visitor found a situation for the girl for the summer +in one of the country towns. Of this time the visitor writes: "All the +time I felt that the family were suffering more than was right. The +children were fatherless and with a sick mother, and little A. was +constantly ill, first one thing and then another, the doctors saying that +he was under-nourished. Mrs. X. did jobs of washing and scrubbing as she +could get them or was able, and the two children of thirteen both worked. +So a benevolent person consented to take entire charge of the family, +giving just what I should think proper. Accordingly, from that date to +October 10 an average of $2.65 a week was given, besides $13.00 for +clothes and other things. Also, {211} Mrs. X. and the two boys were sent +to the country for one week. Notwithstanding this, Mrs. X. felt the +summer a hard one. She was not a brisk or cheerful woman. She had +suffered a great deal from the heat, and A. had diphtheria and other +illnesses." In the fall it was arranged that the girl should again go to +school; and the married sister finally offered, in order to make this +possible, to board her and provide her with boots until Christmas. The +Provident Association, after considering the case carefully, offered to +give $2.00 a week and coal and clothing. The friend who had been giving +all the help stood ready to give if more than this was needed. Two +months later Mrs. X. had her husband arrested, and sent to the Island for +a month. + +In the winter Mrs. X. consulted her visitor as to the possibility of her +giving up the Provident help and supporting herself by taking boarders. +"She had friends all ready to come, and could arrange to hire additional +rooms. All she needed was extra bedding. She felt confident of success. +Her health was better than it had been for a long time, and she was +improved in energy and courage. By dint of great persuasion, the +Provident consented to give the bedding. They also promised to continue +giving coal; but the other help, it was arranged, should stop. They had +little hope, however, that the experiment would succeed. But the +experiment did succeed, and better {212} than I had anticipated. Mrs. X. +proved a good manager. She made a comfortable home, clothed the +children, and provided many little comforts of which they had long been +deprived. She became cheerful and hopeful for the future. She seemed +like a different person from the sick, discouraged woman I had known nine +months before. + +"When her husband came home from the Island, I feared he might disturb +this prosperity, for he acted worse than ever; but in January he attacked +her with a knife, so she had him again arrested, and sent to the Island +for four months. She then told me she wished to take steps for a +separation. I encouraged her in this decision, but was careful not to +urge her, for I felt that such a step to be successful must be taken by +her own desire. + +"So, as spring approached, I hoped that better days had really come for +this family. Unfortunately, however, in March a sad accident brought +this prosperous state of things to a sudden end. On the morning of March +10, N. brought me word that his mother had fallen downstairs and broken +her arm, and asked me to call as soon as possible. I found the poor +woman in bed, with her right wrist broken, and her face and body badly +bruised. She was in great pain, and so discouraged that it was pitiful. +Her boarders had gone, and she found herself once more dependent on +charity; but I felt I could say {213} from a full heart that the help she +now needed would not be grudged to her. For, surely, no one could help +respecting her endeavor for self-support or could regard her effort as a +failure; and, when her accident reduced her once more to dependence, her +rent was paid for the rest of the month, she had a bag of flour and other +groceries in the house, and $8.00 in money with which to pay the doctor +for setting her wrist." The visitor adds: "I think that during this +year's visiting Mrs. X. had really learned to regard me as a friend. At +first I do not think she liked me very well, and I also found it hard +cordially to like her. We were not naturally sympathetic. I am afraid +that she often thought me hard; and she had a dreary, complaining way +that tried me a great deal. But her good qualities commanded my respect +and her misfortunes my pity; and on her my evident desire to befriend her +gradually had its effect. Her first expression of real feeling was when +she consulted me about her plan for taking boarders, and that was after +nine months of constant visiting. She then said that I was the only +friend that she had in the world; and later, when the plan was in +successful operation, she told me that she attributed all her prosperity +to me, and that she was a star in my crown. That she owed all her +prosperity to me was of course an exaggeration. I could not have helped +her had she not been the essentially decent woman she was. But, at the +same {214} time, it was true that, had she not been helped and encouraged +when her destitution was so great, she would probably have lacked both +the physical and moral strength, as well as the opportunity later, to +stand upon her own feet. And, when her bad fortune again overtook her, +it was much for her that she had a friendly visitor to turn to. She felt +it so herself; and, as she lay moaning with pain, she sobbed out that I +was the only comfort she had on earth." + +After the breaking of her wrist, Mrs. X. was dependent for a long time, +since the wrist did not knit properly, and her right hand was almost +disabled. It did not seem as if she could ever get on her feet again. +But after a time she wished to move to one of the country towns where she +had acquaintances. The visitor went to the place herself to examine the +chances, and decided that the plan was worth trying. The Provident +Association gave $10.00 for moving and $10.00 more for a start. After +that the visitor gave a little from time to time; but, for the most part, +the family were self-supporting. The boy worked in a factory, the girl +was employed by a neighbor, and the mother raised hens and vegetables. +At last accounts the daughter was married. Her husband is of good +character and prosperous. Both the brothers are earning good wages, the +younger one having grown from a sickly child to a strong and hearty boy. +The mother is successful with her poultry, and gets high prices for {215} +the eggs. The husband comes and goes as formerly, contributing nothing +to the family income, but doing no special harm to any but himself. +Certainly, the present condition of the family is a very happy contrast +to that in which they were first found; and certainly, also, these +changed conditions are in no small degree due to the earnest and devoted +efforts of the visitor.--Sixteenth Report of Boston Associated Charities, +pp. 45 _sq_. + + +_Unconscious Influence of Good Neighbors._--I would venture to say that +there is not an immoral man or woman in neighborhoods known as +disreputable, however completely he or she may have cast off +self-restraint and regard for character, who has not daily examples of +persons, close to such homes and haunts of vice, living honest and +morally clean lives, and who is not, to a degree not consciously known, +restrained and influenced by the contact. . . . Space will not permit +many instances to be stated, but, as illustrating what I am wishful to +make clear, I give two. In a court behind a street well known as bearing +almost the worst character in Manchester lives a man, paralyzed, unable +to leave an old sofa which has been his bed for months. He was in the +Royal Infirmary, and there pronounced incurable, but likely to live years +with ordinary care. He could have been taken to the workhouse hospital +at Crumpsall, where he would have {216} had careful nursing and suitable +food. He has no dread of the workhouse hospital, and would gladly go if +he had any hope of cure. He speaks most gratefully of his treatment at +the Royal Infirmary. But there is no hope of cure, and his wife and he +have determined to keep together while he lives, and he refuses the +comforts of the hospital, and she refuses to let him go from her. She +has made her home in this court, working in the room in which he lies, +with only another room for their four children. She earns an average of +5s. weekly; her eldest boy earns at a situation 5s. more, and on what is +left out of 10s., after paying 2s. 6d. rent, and buying coal and light, +the six live. (The condition of things is now improved by the guardians +deciding to take two of the children into Swinton Schools.) This is a +simple and very ordinary story. But what is the effect of the woman's +work? She says little to her neighbors. Her high purpose and her +complete devotion to her husband and children have made other women +ashamed of sin, and made men wish themselves worthy of women like her. +She has no thought that she is doing anything but giving her life for her +husband and children, has no knowledge of what the words "unconscious +influence" mean--but none the less she is "a light shining in a dark +place." + +Another illustration. An old man, for forty years a laborer, never +earning more than a weekly wage of {217} 20s., who had brought up three +sons (now decent working men, married, with families), became unable to +work longer, and is allowed 5s. weekly by his last employer; the rent is +paid by his sons, who also give an occasional shilling when they visit +him. This is the whole income for himself and his wife. Some time ago +when in the street he met a young woman whom he recognized as the +daughter of a man who used to work with him. He saw that she was out for +immoral purposes and spoke to her, telling her how sorry he was to find +her leading such a life. As she appeared sorry and repentant, he took +her home to his wife to take care of her until he could see her father. +He found that the father had moved to Bury, having left his work in +Manchester from shame at his daughter's disgrace. On the Sunday, when he +could expect to find the father at home, the old man walked the seven +miles to Bury and found his former mate, but could not prevail on him to +take his daughter home. In fact, the father was very angry at being +asked, and refused to listen. The old man walked back and told his wife +that the girl must stay with them until the next Sunday, when he would +try again. The next Sunday the old man walked to Bury and saw the +father, who was somewhat softened, but still refused to see his daughter. +A walk home again, and the old man and his wife settled that the girl +should remain with them for another try to be made, and on the next +Sunday he set out on the {218} road, hopeful to succeed. The father this +time gave way, and on the following Monday the daughter went home, and +has since lived at home working regularly. The old man and his wife +don't know that they have done anything "out of common," or anything more +than ought to be done, "for a poor lass."--"Drink and Poverty," by +Councillor Alexander M'Dougall, pp. 7 _sq_. + + + + +{219} + + INDEX + + Accident, damages for, 23, 104. + Addams, Miss Jane, 72. + Adequate relief, 157-159. + Adulteration of food supplies, 113. + Advertising, philanthropic, 148. + American Society for the Extension of University Teaching, 137. + Associated charities. See _Charity organization societies_. + + Babies, care of, 77-78. + Bad temper as a cause of unemployment, 37. + Barnato, Barney, 10. + Barnett, Mrs. Samuel, 134-135. + Baths, cheap, 96. + Beale, Miss J. F., 130. + Beggars, 25-27; child, 88-89; and free soup, 149. + Beneficial and fraternal societies, 122-123; as a source of relief, 150. + Birtwell, Miss M. L., 182. + Boarding-out dependent children, 90. + Books, lending, 133. + Booth, Charles, 197. + Bosanquet, Mrs. Bernard, 18, 29, 48, 49. + Boston Symphony Orchestra, 135. + Breadwinner, the, as head of family, 17-19, 44-57; as citizen, 19-23; + as employee, 28-41; intemperate habits of, 57-63; woman as, 72-74; + child as, 81-83. + Brown, Miss Mary Willcox, 120. + Building and loan associations, 123. + Burial insurance, 110, 119-121. + + Canterbury, Archbishop of, 172. + Catholic _versus_ Protestant attitude toward the poor, 174. + Causes of poverty, 7-9; intemperance as a cause, 58; sickness, 95-96. + Character, 9. + Charitable agencies, multiplication of, 176-177. + Charity organization societies, 13, 31, 38, 55, 60, 62, 187, 189, 202. + Chattel mortgages, 115-118. + Child insurance, 122. + Child labor, 81-83, 111. + Children, of immoral parents, 49-51; of widows, 73-74, 158-159, + 201-202; diet of small, 77; as breadwinners, 81-83; wayward + and dull, 83-85; reading of, 86-87; training in citizenship, + 87; begging, 88-89; protection from cruelty and immorality, + 89-90; boarding-out, placing-out, and institutional care of, + 90-91; cleanliness for, 99; sick, 101; insuring, 122; as an + investment, 122; and stamp savings, 123; games for, 130-131; + and relief, 146. + Children's Aid societies, 85-86. + Children's charities, 76-77. + Church, the, and municipal reform, 21; and relief, 160, 167-174; + and poverty, 166-167; multiplying relations with, 168, 169; + charities of, 170-178; competition in, 171-172; as a natural + source of relief, 173-174; the chief source of the charitable + impulse, 175-176; and secular agencies, 176-177. + Church workers, who ignore the breadwinner, 18; ignore neighborhood + ties, 25, 27; ignore the fundamental conditions of family + life, 44-45; ignore the claims of children to educational + advantages, 81; allow children to be sent with begging messages, 88; + prefer to administer spiritual consolation mixed with material + relief, 144. + Citizenship, 19-23, 87. + City life _versus_ country, 40, 82. + Cleanliness, household, 69-70; personal, 99. + Clergymen, difficulties of, in guiding church charities, 170-171; + training of, for charitable work, 178. + Collection of small savings, 124. + Commodities, relief in, _versus_ relief in cash, 161. + Common sense, charitable skill based upon, 187. + Compulsory education, 80. + Conditions, reasonable, in granting relief, 190. + Confinement cases, 48, 103. + Consumptives, change of climate for, 105-106. + Contagious diseases, 101. + Contentment not always a virtue, 127-128. + Convalescents, 104. + Cooperation, between churches and secular charities, 176-177; + of the visitor with school-teachers, 79-80; with Sunday-school + teachers, 87; with children's aid society, 85; with + society for protection of children, 89-90; with board of + health, 96-101; with dispensaries, 100-101; with hospitals, + 101-103; with district nurses, and diet kitchens, 103; with + educational agencies, 137; with relief agencies, 164, 201-202; + with churches, 177-178; with charity organization society, + 187-189; with others charitably interested in family, 192. + Correspondence with families, 184-185, 199. + Country life for families, 41, 82. + Credit, buying on, 113; better than relief, 149. + + Damage and accident cases, 23, 104. + Dampness, 97, 102, 110. + Day nurseries, 77. + De Graffenreid, Clare, 25. + Deserted wives, 48, 73-74. + Deserters, chronic, 48, 205. + Dickens, 2. + Diet, 67; of small children, 77. + Diet kitchens, 103. + Dietaries, scientific, 66-67. + Discontent, social value of, 127-128. + Dispensaries, 100-101. + District nurses, 103. + District visiting, 193-194. + Doctoring, relief work compared to, 154-155. + Dress and manners, taste in, 68. + Duplication of relief, 165. + + Edgeworth, Miss, 2. + Education, 80-84, 92, 137-138. + Educational classes, 137. + Eliot, George, 2, 10, 34. + Eliot, Rev. Samuel A., 105. + Employees, 28-41. + Employer, as source of relief, 150; caution in making inquiries of, 189. + Employment, 28-41; fluctuating, 35; equalization of, 35-36, cautions + in finding, 40-41, 201-202; facts needed in finding, 186-188. + Exceptional cases, 7. + Exercise, outdoor, 98-99, 132. + Experience, need of, in relief work, 163-164. + + Facts, necessary in relief, 156-157; in treatment, 186-188. + Family, the, head of, 17-19, 44-57; essential elements of, 45-46; + breaking up, 54-57; over-visiting, 184; brief biography + of heads of, 188. + Family budgets, 125. + Financial history of family, facts in, 188. + Fluctuating work, 35. + Food, buying and preparing, 65-67; adulteration of, 113. + Forms of relief, 160-162. + Fraternal societies, 122-123; as a source of relief, 150. + Fresh air charities, 78-79. + Fresh air, prejudice against, 97-98. + Friendly visiting, and social service, 5; need of, 13; introduction + to, 13; qualifications for, 14; and economic problems, + 29; and employment, 36-41; men and women in, 41-43; + and household economy, 65-69; and school-teachers, 79; + and home libraries, 87; and the children, 91-93; and + sanitation, 97-101; and sickness, 101-106; and thrift, 111; and + savings, 124; and chattel mortgages, 116; and recreations, + 129; and relief, 142-145, 183; and relief agencies, 164-165; + and churches, 177-178; what it is not, 180; results of, 181; + principles of, 182-195; patience in, 182-183; number of families + in, 182; by correspondence, 184-185; mutual relations in, 185; + and charity organization societies, 187-189; and others charitably + interested, 192; best done alone, 193; distinguished from + district visiting, 193-194; illustrations of continuous, 197-215. + Fuel, 68-69; saving for, 134. + Funerals, 119-121. + + Games, 130-131. + Godkin, E. L., 21. + Gymnasiums, 132. + + Health, 95-106; saving at expense of, 110. + Hill, Miss Octavia, 35, 128, 181. + Home, the, the unit of society, 44; relief should be given in, 145-146. + Home libraries, 86-87, 197-198. + Hospital care, 101; prejudice against, 101-103. + Howells, W. D., 70. + Humor, sense of, necessary in charity, 129. + + Ignorance of English as a cause of unemployment, 39. + Imposture, 168-170. + Improvident poor, 112. + Inadequate relief, 157-159, 173. + Incapacity as a cause of unemployment, 34. + Incurables, 104-105. + Indiscriminate giving, 4, 6; by the poor, 25-27; weakens + neighborhood ties, 27; weakens family ties, 45-47; to + children, 88-89; materialism of, 141; results of, 157, 204-205. + Individual service, and social service, 5-6; dangers of, 7. + Industrial insurance, 120-121. + Influence, power of personal, 92-93; patience in gaining, 182-183; + of good neighbors, 197, 215-218. + Instalment purchases, 24, 113-115. + Institutional care, 162; of children, 90-91; for chronic cases, 191. + Insurance, industrial, 120-121. + Intemperance, 7, 48-49, 54, 57-63; recreations as a cure of, 132-133. + Interference with individual rights, 12. + Interim relief, 154. + Invalids, chronic, 103-104; migration of, 105-106. + Investigation, 155-157, 186-189; caution concerning inquiries of + landlords and employers, 189. + + Jewett, Sarah Orne, 3. + Juvenile offenders, 85, 88-89. + + Kelley, Mrs. Florence, 82. + Kindergartens, 79; first supported by churches, 175-176. + Krohn, Professor William O., 83. + + Landlords who sub-let, 24; as creditors, 162; caution concerning + inquiries of, 189. + Laws for protection of children, 91. + Lectures, free, 137. + Legal extortions, 23. + Libraries, free, 133. + Loan companies, 115-118; philanthropic, 117; building and, 123. + Loan exhibitions, 133-135. + Loans, 161. + Loch, C. S., 125. + Lowell, Mrs. Josephine Shaw, 54, 73, 118, 157-159. + + Man of the family, often overlooked, 17; should apply for relief, 145. + Manual training, 92. + Married vagabonds, 47-57, 93, 146, 158, 164, 202-215. + Mason, Miss, 90. + Materialism of the charitable, 141, 171. + Medical service, cheap grade of, 100. + Men as friendly visitors, 41. + Migration of invalids, 105. + Money, relief in, 161. + Mothers' meetings, 74-75. + Municipal reform, 6, 21. + Music, 135-137. + + Negro prejudice against hospitals, 102-103. + Neighborhood standard, and relief-giving, 163-164; and plans + for permanent improvement, 191. + Neighbors, 24-25, 27; as a source of relief, 150; effects of relief + upon, 163, 190; influence of good, 215-218. + Newspaper appeals for individual cases of need, 147, 206. + Non-support laws, 53. + Novels, poverty in, 2; sociological, 3. + + Odd jobs, 36. + Open spaces, 96. + Outdoor relief, public, 151-152. + Outings, 78-79, 131. + Over-visited families, 184. + + Parasites, 11. + Partnership, with the poor in relief, 159; in plans for their + welfare, 190. + Patent medicines, 100, 110. + Patronage, 10, 75. + Pauper burial, 118-119. + Pauperism not poverty, 11. + Pawning, 118. + Peabody, Professor F. G., 127. + Peabody, George, 133. + Pensions, for widows with children, 74; continued after need + has ceased, 155; to supplement natural resources, 162. + Physical defects as a cause of unemployment, 38; as a cause + of juvenile delinquency, 83-85. + Physical history of family, facts in, 187. + Pickton, Miss, 173. + Pictures, lending, 133-135. + Placing-out dependent children, 90. + Plans for relief, 154-157; changed with changing conditions, 155; + based on facts, 155-156; for permanent improvement, 189-192. + Pleasures the measure of a man, 129. + Pledges, temperance, 61. + Policemen as distributors of relief, 19. + Political corruption, 21-23; and public relief, 151. + Poor, the, not a social class, 10-12; charity of, 25-27; treated + as dependent animals, 125; partnership with, in plans of + relief, 159-160. + Poverty, phases in our treatment of, 5; cure of, 29; problems of + not so simple as they seem, 140. + Principles of relief-giving, 145-162. + Probation system for juvenile offenders, 85-86. + Protection of children from cruelty and immorality, 89-90; + societies for, 89; laws for, 91. + Provident poor, 111. + Public distributions of relief, 147. + Publicity in charity, demoralization of, 146-148. + Putnam, Mrs. James, 76. + + Quack doctors, 100. + + Reading, 133; of children, 86-87. + Recreation, 127-139. + References, lack of, as a cause of unemployment, 37. + Relatives as a source of relief, 149-150. + Relief, policemen as distributors of, 19; of married vagabond's + family, 50-54; of drunkard's family, 61; of children, 76-77; + and hospital care, 102; of thriftless families, 112; and + recreation, 138-139; a valuable tool, 140-141; friendly visitors as + dispensers of, 142-145; six principles of, 145-162; with a future, + 153-154; societies for, 153; interim, 154; compared with + doctoring, 154-155; with a plan, 155-157; adequate, 157-159; in + work, 160; in kind, 161; duplication of, 165; church, 167-174; + as a gospel agency, 171-173; with conditions, 190. + Relief in work, 160. + Relief societies, 153. + Rent, 156, 162. + Richardson, 2. + + Saloon, the, 57, 128, 133. + Sanitation, improved, 96. + Saving, 35, 111, 119-125; unthrifty forms of, 110-111; savings + banks, 118-119, 123; beginnings of, 119; for burial, 119-121; + for sickness, 122; stamp, 123-124; collections, 124; for fuel, 124. + School-teachers, 79-80 + Scott, 2. + Seasonal occupations, 36. + Self-help, resources for, 190. + Self-sustaining families, 193. + Sentimental charity, 4. + Settlements, 5, 8, 108. + Shaftesbury, Lord, 10. + Sham homes, 46. + Sick benefits, 122. + Sickness, as a cause of poverty, 95-96; outside hospitals, 103-104; + facts needed in helping, 186-188. + Smith, Miss Frances, 181. + Smith, Miss Zilpha D., 36, 58, 79, 142. + Social classes, 10-12. + Social history of family, facts needed in, 187. + Social service, 5. + Soup kitchens, 148-149. + Sources of relief, natural, 149-150; relief societies, 150; public + outdoor relief, 151; multiplication of, 152-153. + Spasmodic charity, 191, + Spencer, Mrs. Anna Garlin, 81. + Spending, 111, 112, 125, + Stamp savings, 123-124. + Strikes, 31-32. + Study, supplementary to experience, 15; of charity in theological + seminaries, 178. + Suggestion, power of, 18, 71-72. + Suggestions about visiting not all applicable to one family, 179. + Summer visiting, 185. + Sunday-schools, multiplication of, 87-88, 168, 177. + Sympathy and sentimentality, 71. + + Tact, 14. + Tammany Hall's charity, 20. + Tenements, unsanitary, 96. + Thanet, Octave, 3. + Theological seminaries, course of charitable instruction in, 178. + Thomas, Theodore, 135-137. + Thrift, 108-112; and wages, 109; includes spending, 110-111; + divides the poor into three classes, 111-112. + Thriftless, the, 109-110, 156. + Trade-unions, 30, 32. + Training of charity workers, life the best school for the, 14, 145, + 181-182; common sense in, 187; economic questions in, 29. + + Undertakers and industrial insurance, 121. + Unemployed, in place of strikers, 31-32; number of, 33; treatment + of, 34. + Unemployment, causes of, 33-40. + University extension, 137. + Unsanitary surroundings, 96-97; tenements, 96. + Unthrifty forms of saving, 110-111. + Unworthy not a descriptive term as applied to the poor, 154. + Usury, 115-118. + + Vagabonds, married, 47-57, 93, 146, 158, 164, 202-215. + Ventilation, 97-98. + Visiting, continuous, 182-185; illustrations of continuous, 197-215; + patience in, 182-183, 200; illustrations of successful, 197-202, + 207-215; in summer, 185. See also _Friendly visiting_. + + Wants, social value of varied, 127. + Warner, A. G., 33, 95. + Wayward children, 83-86; girls, 216-218. + Widows with children, 73-74, 158-159, 201-202. + Window-gardening, 131-132. + Winter not the only season for charitable work, 184. + Wolcott, Mrs. Roger, 70. + Women as homemakers, 64-75; as breadwinners, 72-74. + Work history of family, facts needed in, 187-188. + Worthy and unworthy, 154. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRIENDLY VISITING AMONG THE POOR*** + + +******* This file should be named 24841.txt or 24841.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/8/4/24841 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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