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diff --git a/old/69557-0.txt b/old/69557-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8978d2c..0000000 --- a/old/69557-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,3559 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of A definition of social work, by Alice -S. Cheyney - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: A definition of social work - A thesis in sociology - -Author: Alice S. Cheyney - -Release Date: December 16, 2022 [eBook #69557] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Carla Foust and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DEFINITION OF SOCIAL -WORK *** - - - - - - Transcriber’s note - - On Page 87 the line: “Settlement work, educational and - vocational guidance.” is missing a corresponding number. - - - - - UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - - - A DEFINITION OF - SOCIAL WORK - - - ALICE S. CHEYNEY - - - A THESIS - - IN SOCIOLOGY - - PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN - PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR - THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY - - - PHILADELPHIA - 1923 - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1923 - BY - ALICE S. CHEYNEY - - - - -CONTENTS - - - Chapter Page - - I. WHY THIS DEFINITION IS ATTEMPTED 5 - - II. THE CHARITABLE ELEMENT IN SOCIAL WORK 8 - - III. THE SCIENTIFIC ELEMENT IN SOCIAL WORK 16 - - IV. THE TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE - OF SOCIAL WORK 27 - - V. THE TESTIMONY OF THE TRAINING SCHOOLS FOR - PROFESSIONAL SOCIAL WORKERS 47 - - VI. THE ANSWER TO ITS CRITICS 55 - - APPENDIX 81 - - BIBLIOGRAPHY 89 - - - - -CHAPTER I - -WHY THIS DEFINITION IS ATTEMPTED - - -What social worker has not been asked to define social work and found -himself at a loss? It is easy to describe his own particular tasks but -it is not easy to characterize the profession as a whole or to say why -its very diverse phases are identified with one another. Why should we -apply the term “social work” to hospital social service and probation, -but not to nursing and interpreting, services which seem to stand in a -similar relation to medicine and the courts? - -Definitions of social work are not yet to be found in dictionaries -or encyclopedias. A certain amount of characterization appears in -current literature, by implication or by mention of one feature here -and another there. Some general descriptions say of it things which, -though true, do not distinguish it.[1] Probably no strict definition -is possible. The field of social work is constantly extending; its -functions are multiplying by geometric progression; its means are -undergoing continuous adaptation and in all its phases it shades off -into other kinds of work or attracts allied work to its own likeness. -The inconvenience of this state of affairs is a constant subject of -complaint and for at least three reasons we badly need some sort of -definition. - -In the first place whenever we talk without first agreeing on -the meaning of terms we are wasting time and giving unnecessary -opportunity for bad blood. The term “social work” is now used in -several entirely different senses. One man, in using it, is referring -to a characteristic technique, which to him is its distinguishing -feature, such, for instance, as social case work; another is thinking -of a certain function in social economy, for instance, the relief -of distress; a third is designating a policy in social reform, a -temporizing policy, for example. So long as this latitude of use -continues we will talk at cross purposes whether in discussion of -specific ways and means or in the evaluation of social work as a factor -in human affairs. Any definition would make it easier for us to agree -or explicitly disagree on what we mean by social work. - -In the second place while the nature and purpose of a calling are -perceived cloudily or not at all it does not manifest the coherence -and momentum which inspire constructive work. Its followers are in -danger of floundering among isolated tasks or finding their sense of -continuity and purpose in the mere observation of correct procedure. -Social work while feeling an implicit affinity in its many forms, -often seems to suffer from lack of any essential principles or any -demonstrable obligation or responsibility, other than those incumbent -on the community as a whole. The process of definition offers a means -of bringing to light any principles or responsibilities especially -pertaining to it. - -Thirdly social work now suffers unnecessarily in reputation and support -(even among its own practitioners) for disappointing demands which -would never have been made were its nature better understood. Every -undertaking has its limitations and when known and understood they -constitute no reproach. But the preoccupations and aspirations of -social work are such as to tempt its proponents to enlarge on infinite -possibilities, forgetting in their enthusiasm to state that these -possibilities can only be realized if the ministrations and advices of -social work are accepted in many places where it has no enforceable -influence. The limits set to any single line of human endeavor working -by itself are very narrow, and for social work, as for other things, -they are in practice promptly reached. Social work when it stands -thus at the end of its powers seems to have betrayed the confidence -placed in it. A limiting definition would show that the fault lies not -in social work but in unreasonable expectations. Such a definition -would be its best defense from antagonistic critics and disappointed -followers. - -Yet “social work” in spite of all uncertainty does stand for something -real. Annually there meets a National Conference of Social Work with -2637 individual and group memberships representing 46 States, the -District of Columbia, Cuba, Hawaii, the Philippines and Canada and -6 foreign countries.[2] There has lately been formed an American -Association of Social Workers[3] composed of master workmen in its -several lines, who must qualify in terms of preparation or experience -and who are associated for the purpose of maintaining a high standard -of work. All this indicates that there is a general concept of social -work, and if there is such a thing it must be amenable to some sort of -description or analysis. Though water-tight definition seems impossible -it is frequently not necessary. If any characteristics can be found -which appear in all the forms of social work and not in activities -unrelated to it they will at least serve the three practical purposes -for which definition is so urgently needed. - -Materials for analysis are not wanting. Social work has had its -national conference for fifty years, its magazine for thirty-six[4] -and its schools for twenty-five[5] and the conference reports, -the magazines and the school curricula constitute a competent -body of evidence that can be consulted either in cross section -or in chronological perspective. If we forego expectation of a -precise and all-mentioning definition and adjust our demands to the -practicabilities of the case we may hopefully challenge these compact -sources of information, together with the dispersed literature of the -subject, with observation and experience to stand and deliver a working -definition. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] For examples see Appendix I. - -[2] Conference Bulletin, published by the National Conference of Social -Work, Nov., 1922, Vol. 26, No. 1, 25 E. 9th St., Cincinnati, Ohio. - -[3] 130 E. 22nd Street, New York. - -[4] “Charities,” which has since become the “Survey,” was first -published in 1887. - -[5] The New York School of Philanthropy opened its full term winter -course in 1904; a summer school had been opened in 1898. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE CHARITABLE ELEMENT IN SOCIAL WORK - - -The “charities directories” of New York[6] and Philadelphia[7] offer -the most inclusive available lists of the various types of social work. -For present purposes it will be sufficient to review them by groups. -Duplications, omissions, and extraneous inclusions (all legitimate for -the purposes of the directories) make the figures of agencies of each -type inaccurate but they serve to show the multiplicity as well as the -range of social work undertakings. - - New Philadelphia - York - Agencies having to do with health 412 224 - Child welfare agencies 233 147 - Settlements, social centers and housekeeping centers 227 608 - Relief societies 180 102 - Societies for civic and economic betterment by means - of surveys, investigations, education of the - public, etc. 157 369 - Adult homes 136 112 - Agencies for obtaining or providing employment 123 46 - Special educational opportunities, agricultural, - musical, etc. 118 71 - Philanthropic agencies with a predominantly - religious 96 191 - Agencies interested in naturalization, colonization, - and work for immigrants 91 28 - Correctional and protective agencies 81 54 - Societies serving special groups 81 60 - Negroes 29 36 - Soldiers, sailors, or their dependents 25 10 - Clergymen 8 - Medical men 7 - Indians 5 - Artists 4 - Firemen 3 - Recreational facilities 63 88 - Banking, loan and saving societies 23 10 - Of which burial societies are 10 4 - Milk stations, diet kitchens and lunch rooms 20 23 - Conferences and federations which include - social work agencies 12 20 - Legal aid societies 11 2 - Societies for the protection of animals 9 14 - -In cross section no obvious, no easily discernible bond appears among -these diverse agencies. An eleemosynary purpose, the first suggestion -of most laymen, is indignantly repudiated by the modern social worker -and can be, in many cases, categorically disproved. All are benevolent, -but so also are educational, religious, artistic and other undertakings -not commonly considered social work. - -It is a standing rule of science that if you can see nothing crosswise -you must try squinting lengthwise. If a present form will not -answer your questions look back along its history and consider its -origin--study its evolution and genetics. Such a policy with respect to -social work brings us promptly to a strong clue. - -The interests of social work have wandered far from those of -old-fashioned charity and “mere charity” has now a bad name, but we -of this generation knew social work before it came of age and when we -hear it repudiating charity we recognize the act of a thankless child -denying an unfashionable parent. The oldest of the schools was called -until 1919 the “New York School of _Philanthropy_” and the same word -appeared in the names of the Chicago school and others. The “Survey,” -the accepted general organ of the profession (if it is a profession), -was until 1905 published as “Charities” and for three years more as -“Charities and the Commons.” What is now the “National Conference -of Social Work” was organized as the “Conference of Charities and -Corrections” and kept that title right down to 1917. - -We may therefore push our investigation back a step farther and for the -question “what is social work?” substitute the less difficult inquiries -“what was charity and by what modifications did social work develop -from it?” However far apart these two may at present seem it is a -patent fact that social work developed from charity and along the route -of that development there is hope of enlightenment as to the essential -nature of social work. - -Charity in one sense is the name of a human quality--that which -“suffereth long and is kind.” With this sense of the word the present -inquiry is not concerned but with a more completely objective meaning. -The dictionaries give it as “benevolence, liberality in relieving -the wants of others, philanthropy,”[8] or “liberality to the poor, -to benevolent institutions or worthy causes.”[9] The wording varies -little. Philanthropy where it is described any differently from charity -is merely a broader term not confined to the succor of the especially -unfortunate, as “love of mankind especially as evinced in deeds of -practical beneficence.”[10] - -If we look at this “charity” in action we find its performance to be -directed to the same ends even though we follow it back through two -millenniums of Christianity and Paganism.[11] Motive and policy vary, -but the tasks of charity are recrudescent and impose themselves on each -successive generation in terms of the contemporary conscience. We seem, -for example, to have forgotten the question which haunted sixteenth -century motivation--whether faith without works avails for salvation, -but we might still subscribe to a contemporaneous plan of action -which demanded “the suppression of vagrant beggars, the punishment of -impostors” and “a rational organization of benefits under the control -of the municipal authorities.”[12] The _task_ is still with us. - -This so adaptable and so perdurable “charity,” while constantly -changing its terms remains always in essence a free will offering made -to those who are in some fashion especially in need. It may consist -of material benefits or of services. An authoritative historian of -English philanthropy says in his nearest approach to a definition -that “Philanthropy, in common with other terms in general use, is -difficult, or more probably incapable of strict definition. We may -perhaps safely say that it proceeds from the free will of the agent, -and not in response to any claim of legal right on the part of the -recipient.” “The greater part of philanthropy may be said to consist in -contributions of money, service or thought, such as the recipient has -no strict claim to demand and the donor is not compelled to render.”[13] - -Does this characterization hold good in our own country and time? -First, must the gift be free? Where a service is exacted by law do we -ever consider it charity? Free education while supported by voluntary -contribution was considered a form of charity but when it came to -be supported by taxes its connection with charity lapsed and was -forgotten.[14] The upkeep of highways and bridges has been an object -of charitable bequest--a benefit which the fortunate might out of his -abundance bestow upon his neighbors.[15] The establishment of public -responsibility for the highways has lifted this sort of benevolence -from the category of charity. Prisoners whose support was not provided -for by their own means or the concern of friends were for long -dependent upon charity.[16] A nicer sense of corporate responsibility -now requiring them to be fed at the public charge we see no charity -in their support but when private interest carries into the prisons -influences presumably improving and meets friendless prisoners at the -jail gate we recognize the unforced ministrations of charity removed -to another field. We still stand near the turn of the road in the -matter of caring for workmen injured during their work. A little while -ago any provision by the employer for the injured man or his family -was regarded as an act of charity. Latterly we have come to consider -it no more than right that an industrial establishment should share -the burden, as it does the fault, of such accidents, and state after -state has enacted laws compelling “compensation.” And as relief of -the injured man and his family has thus been made compulsory on the -establishment in which he works it has ceased to be charitable. The -act remains the same but with the loss of spontaneity its charitable -quality has disappeared.[17] - -It is true that we have a very considerable development of so-called -“public charities.” But are not the services they render offered -through the body politic merely to secure a certainty and inclusiveness -of relief for which we dare not rely on private benevolence? And do we -not continue to call them “charity” precisely because we still regard -them as a free gift rather than as a routine purveyance which the -state is essentially committed to provide? Some of them are plainly -in process of transition and here and there we find the almshouse -becoming the “county hospital,” or the department of public charities -the “welfare department,” the nomenclature following a change in the -conception of function. - -If, furthermore, we examine the public attitude toward those -undertakings which we have cited as having graduated from charity into -public purveyance, we will recognize that these are considered public -responsibilities in a different sense from any which so far attaches -to what we still call public charities. Public education is held to -be a natural prerequisite of democracy; the making of roads a thing -contributing impartially to the universal convenience; the feeding of -prisoners the inescapable responsibility of those who have cut them off -from the means of making a livelihood. - -Moreover we make certain doles which we explicitly insist are not to -be counted “charity”--pensions given after military or government -service or to widows rearing children for the commonwealth--and in -disassociating them from charity it is the custom to point out that -they are not concessions but just deserts, something that can be -claimed as a right. - -Charity then is a free gift. It need not be given in love, as its -etymology would assume, indeed it may be given in a mood of revulsion, -in the hope of expiating a sin or in mere fear of the indignation of -the deprived. The recording angel probably keeps a record of the motive -and the spirit, but charity, in its simple objective meaning on men’s -lips, inheres in the act of relief. - -The brief characterization of philanthropy which we are testing was -two-fold. It declared philanthropy to be a free gift and a gift to -need. Just as the one qualification of the act was that it must be in -no way exacted so the one qualification of the recipient was that his -candidacy must consist only in need. Does this also hold true in our -own country and our own time? Surely it is plain beyond any call for -proof that only that is charity which is bestowed where need appoints -the recipient. Free gifts are made to the prosperous, there is mutual -helpfulness among equals, there are services prompted by loyalty and -personal affection, but these, though unforced, are not called charity. -But it will not do to dwell too much on the negative implications -of “need,” on deprivation or suffering. We might almost avoid that -rather misleading word and say that a gift is charity only when the -outstanding circumstance is occasion for it. But it is a familiar -observation that ardors or privations which are accepted as the order -of life while we see no prospect of remedy become conscious hardships -at the mere rumor of succor and so it necessarily happens that the -very act of service or relief prompted only by its own fitness is the -creator of an ex-post-facto need even where the situation previously -scarcely merited so strong a name. - -Charity is not, however, preoccupied with material need only or with -physical suffering or any other one phase of life. Moral redemption, -intellectual opportunity, artistic realization--these also have come -within its purview. It may follow mortal man into his every predicament -and minister to his hungers of whatever sort. Only if we keep this -well in mind will we be justified in associating it with so negative -a term as need. It is the unconscious champion of the perfectibility -of man. “The normal life,” “our common inheritance,” “humanity in -whatever form,” “the rights of the humblest individual”--these are -its commonplaces that have lost significance from frequent and often -perfunctory repetition. But the fact that they are the commonplaces of -the subject is in itself significant. The commonplaces of all subjects -are not of that sort. - -These then are the essentials of charity “a free gift and a gift to -need.” May we go on to inquire what additions or alterations have -developed these into social work, or is social work a thing so far -transmuted from charity that it no longer shows the very elements of -its original? A reperusal of our digest of the charities directories -shows the many forms of social work all of them still to include the -qualities of charity. In the first place the services of social work -are still a gift. Sometimes they are provided by the state in close -association with the obligatory work of some routine state department, -but in such cases the tasks of social workers will be found to differ -from those of the other employees in the department in being not only -highly extensible and almost infinitely variable but in some degree -supererogatory--as in the case of the follow-up work of the workmen’s -compensation office. - -In the second place the presence of a need, though less evident among -the forms of social work than in the case of primitive charity, is -always discernible. Social work often seems to aspire to knowledge -rather than accomplishment, as when making investigations or surveys or -when any form of ministration is accompanied by so much solicitation -of information as to raise the question of which is product and which -by-product. But its activities will always on inspection be found to -claim connection with the discovery and removal of some form of human -ill. Social work itself naturally points to immediate purposes, small -definitive tasks like the formulation of a standard distribution of -expenses in the budget of a family at subsistence level. To conclude -that these are its ultimate objects would be as serious a mistake as -to imagine that the medical profession would rest satisfied with a -set of dependable prognoses. And these investigations do not exploit -the fields of prosperity. They consistently maintain a preoccupation -with untoward conditions and a sense of stewardship. Before all social -work, as surely as before charity, a Samaritan purpose floats like a -will-o-the-wisp, an inconstant and shifting but ever discernible guide, -sometimes at several removes from the work in hand but always its -ultimate sanction. - -Social work then, incorporates, while it modifies, charity, and we find -ourselves ready to discuss the second part of our question--what is the -nature of these modifications which have produced social work? - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[6] New York Charities Directory, A Reference Book of Social Service, -published by the Charity Organization Society of New York, 28th -edition, 1919. - -[7] Social Service Directory of Philadelphia, 1919, corrected for 1920. -Pub. by Municipal Court. - -[8] New Century Dictionary. - -[9] Webster’s New International. - -[10] New Century Dictionary. - -[11] See Lallemand, Léon Histoire de la Charité. 4 Vols. Alphonse -Picard et Fils, Paris. Vol. I, 1902; Vol. II. 1903; Vol. III, 1906; -Vol. IV, 1910, and Queen, Stuart Alfred; Social Work in the Light of -History, J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia and London. - -[12] Lallemand, Vol. IV, p. 21. - -[13] B. Kirkman Gray, A History of English Philanthropy. Preface, pp. 8 -and 9. - -[14] Ibid., p. 103 e. s., and Philanthropy and the State, p. 222. - -[15] History of English Philanthropy, p. 20. - -[16] Ibid., p. 70. - -[17] See also Charities for Feb., 1898. Report of the Association for -Improving the Condition of the Poor, housing inspection, vacation -schools, public baths and vacant lot farming begun by the Association -and continued by the city. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE SCIENTIFIC ELEMENT IN SOCIAL WORK - - -The historical perspective which shows social work to have developed -out of charity shows also that there is a close relation between that -development and contemporaneous developments in other lines. We know -that in every field of production, trade and business, enterprising -men have lately developed practical sciences to replace the old rules -of thumb, and that even in such a field as teaching there has lately -appeared a derived science of pedagogy which levies on psychology and -other direct sciences for its material. The stewards of charity, like -other people, saw the light of science full on their path. The result -was a new hope. Again and again in statements like the following we -have been told that the grosser disabilities which charity relieved -could be done away with for good if we would systematically search -out and treat their causes. “Poverty, vice and crime are no more -impossible to stamp out from human society than small-pox and measles. -To do the one requires the same intelligence on the part of man, -though perhaps in a higher degree, that the other does. The social -sciences and arts should have the same expansion as all the other -sciences and arts combined in that the relations of men to each other -are equally important if not more important than the relations of -man to nature.”[18] Or again, “The most formidable obstacle to the -adoption of the policy of prevention and treatment is not resistance -to the necessary public expenditure, still less inability to raise the -money, but the lack of administrative science and the shortcomings of -our administrative machinery. Merely to relieve destitution has been -nearly as easy as to do nothing. But successfully to intervene in order -to prevent--whether to prevent sickness, to prevent the neglect of -children, to prevent the multiplication of the mentally unfit, or to -prevent unemployment--involves the discovery of causes, the formation -of large schemes of policy, the purposeful planning of collective -action in modifying the environment of the poorer classes, together -with scientifically diversified treatment of those individuals who fall -below the recognized standards of civilized life.”[19] - -When charity had thus accepted the necessity of using scientific -methods there ensued immediate and far-reaching results. Chief of -these have been the three developments which transformed charity into -social work. It is possible to trace them in performance and to trace -a parallel development of philosophy in the literature of the subject. -These developments can be simply indicated as (1) a systematization of -service; (2) an interest in causes of disaster, and (3) an extension of -charitable interest into new fields.[20] - - -THE SYSTEMATIZATION OF SERVICE - -The converts to a scientific method undertook to work within the -traditional field of charity with a new thoroughness and system.[21] -Fired with the belief of their times in a tenable norm of prosperity -and a continuous progress dependent only on scientific control of our -environment they naturally hoped that the most stubborn situation could -be harmonized with the general melioration by the use of appropriate -methods and they were no longer content to offer only relief, work, -care for the helpless and such simple services as were once all that -was thought of. They constantly challenged the applicability of old -palliative expedients and looked for reconstructive measures. “For -every one thing,” writes Miss Richmond, “that could then (1832) be -done about a man’s attitude toward his life and his social relations, -about his health, housing, work and recreation, there are now (1917) -a dozen things to do. The power to analyze a human situation closely -as distinguished from the old method of falling back upon a few -general classifications, grows with the consciousness of the power to -get things done.”[22] This change in expectation may be seen in the -nomenclature of the tasks which social work has set itself. At first -“relief” was the objective, then “_adequate_ relief” and now it is -“rehabilitation.” The methods were, first the alternatives “relief” or -“corrective treatment,” for there were sheep and goats in those days, -then “preventive treatment” and now “adjustment.” - -Rehabilitation and adjustment are far more delicate and responsible -matters than mere relief or even “preventive treatment” and we find -social workers warning each other that “life cannot be administered by -definite rules and regulations and that wisdom to deal with a man’s -difficulties comes only through some knowledge of his life and habits -as a whole and that to treat a separate episode is almost sure to -invite blundering.”[23] The excuse for quoting so obvious a statement -is that former practice actually required it to be made. Philanthropy -took little cognizance of its supposed beneficiaries’ “life and habits -as a whole.” Such a feat of synthetic judgment cannot of course be -more than roughly approximated. It has, however, proved possible to -develop a technique of inquiry, analysis, interpretation and direct -or indirect remedial action which is known as social case work and -can be made the subject of systematic instruction in the schools for -training social workers. And within the last six years has come Miss -Richmond’s book with the suggestive title, “Social Diagnosis,” to give -a description of simple charity availing itself of the means suggested -by an age of scientific experiment and so justifying the expression, -“scientific charity,” which, unexplained, sounds so incongruous. The -method of social case work is sometimes claimed to be the essential -and distinguishing feature of social work but if we study the classic -expositions of case work we find that they are describing on their own -showing a _method_[24] and a method which though applicable to many -types of social work is not applicable to all and which is, moreover, -by no means confined to social work. Case work, in any connection, -is the systematic study of all considerable effects and causes in a -particular situation and the development and application of special -means to alter that situation in some preferred direction. Social case -work is simply case work in the form it takes when applied in social -work. There are some fully accepted forms of social work which have -no occasion to use it. Important as it is we must recognize it as an -expedient and not social work per se. - - -THE INTEREST IN CAUSES - -An interest in the causes of disaster is responsible for the -development of those forms of social work which do not retain the -immediate serviceableness of charity proper. It has developed as -part of the already described attempt to systematize philanthropic -service and also on an independent line of its own. “In practically -all departments of the work of prevention” write the Webbs, “in the -campaign against degeneration and in favor of promotion of better -breeding; in the campaign against the ruin of adolescence, the creation -of unemployment and the demoralization of the unemployed--we are -always being stopped by the need for further experience and additional -research. We know enough now to know how extremely important it is to -increase our knowledge.”[25] - -This need of more knowledge after every step before the next can -be taken, this constant challenge offered by our uncharted social -life has caused the development of an interest in observation and -investigation independent of any direct errands of mercy. Many -known abuses exist which are sure to claim their victims from time -to time and a certain amount of social work takes the form of an -independent crusade against such abuses. This type of social work often -embarks on a search for causes of trouble which proves endless and -indistinguishable from the search for knowledge. A great deal of social -work is now of this sort--the studies of the Russell Sage Foundation -and the lesser local foundations for research and prevention, the -original “Pittsburgh Survey” and all those that have followed it, -the careful neighborhood studies of the settlements from the “Hull -House Maps and Papers” on and the intensive group studies, studies, -comparative statistics and stock takings of uncounted miscellaneous -agencies. Inquiry bids fair to be as common in social work as ever alms -was in charity.[26] - - -THE EXTENSION OF THE PHILANTHROPIC INTEREST - -The extension of a philanthropic interest into new fields, the third -result of scientific thoroughness and system has, bewildered us and -occasioned most of the inquiry as to what social work may be. Today in -the administrative departments of Federal and State governments, in the -churches, the courts, the schools, the hospitals there is work being -done which has a double allegiance. On the one hand it is responsible -to government, religion, law, education or public health, as the case -may be, and on the other it is all alike responsible to social work. - -The persons who engage in this work are as much social workers as those -in any traditionally philanthropic field and have simply followed -persons whom they are trying to help into situations which philanthropy -did not formerly consider to be its business. Philanthropy has long -taken an interest in jails and reform schools, it has only quite -recently followed into court anyone still unconvicted. This it does -in the case of children and is beginning to do for some classes of -adults. The social worker of the adult court is the probation officer, -a representative of voluntary chivalry toward the defendant, standing -in the very stronghold of implacable justice. The contrast between the -points of view of criminal law and social work is clearly put by a -judge in describing the function of the juvenile court. “The inquiry -(in the juvenile court) is not to determine whether the child is a -criminal or not, but to determine its status in relationship to its -need of the care and protection of the state. Being adjudged in need -of such special care the state assumes its guardianship and oversight, -always for the welfare of the child. The aims and methods of the courts -which administer our criminal laws proceed upon an entirely different -theory. Our penal laws are enacted for the purpose of promoting the -happiness and well-being of society at large, and any who violate -them are termed criminals and outlawed as unfit units of society. The -penalty provided for under these laws is imposed with the end in view -of deterring the offender from again violating his obligation to the -body politic and also of deterring others who might be like-minded.”[27] - -In some other fields the introduction of the social worker simply adds -a new sort of service to what is already given. The obligations of both -the doctor and the medical social worker are to the welfare of the -patient, but their work is complementary. Often the social worker has -responsibilities no less than the doctor’s but her diagnosis is of a -situation and its possible interference with the curative process the -doctor prescribes. She must discover and change working conditions or -personal habits that tend to defeat the doctor’s efforts. It is not -a mere accident that this became the task of a social worker. It is -not because it was no medical job and the charitably inclined were -available for it. It is because of a certain characteristic of social -work which is a direct result of the single minded address to the -service of need--namely, a tendency to look upon people from no point -of view but that of interest in their needs, of whatever sort those -needs may be. This habit of taking a _synthetic_ view of their lives, -if such an expression is permissible, gives exactly what was needed to -complement the special and limited services of the doctor. - -The same is true in the case of the social worker in the schools.[28] -It is not because there is no other obvious title to give her that the -school visitor is called a social worker but because her responsibility -is not to the standards demanded by the school system nor to any -subject of instruction but to the child himself and the need of the -child in any capacity in which that need may occur. She must satisfy -the need or put him in contact with others who will. The same is -true of social workers employed to give suitable distribution to the -benevolence of churches or who investigate for government departments -or administer government services. There is abundant evidence that -this concern for the individual as such is what is everywhere expected -of the social worker. It is a paradox of this modern development -of philanthropy that scientific method should have led away from -generalization and formula and to a separation of the individual from -the category and the predicament. One can pick up a “Survey” of any -date and read of the social workers reviewing all sorts of data for -light on the nature of individual lives. They study official records -of vagrancy and extract from them information about vagrants.[29] They -attempt to give relevance to Americanization work by studying the -specific backgrounds of diverse foreign groups.[30] - -Miss Addams writes of the settlement that “the social injury of the -meanest man not only becomes its concern, but by virtue of its very -locality, it has put itself into a position to see, as no one but a -neighbor can see, the stress and need of those who bear the brunt of -the social injury.” This is in a certain sense true of other forms of -social work as well. Because of their interest in individual lives, and -their constant response to the challenge in every sort of insufficiency -and adversity they transcend the ordinary barriers of social -provincialism and come to know everywhere those who bear the brunt of -the social injury. The social worker seems always to be speaking for -someone who has not managed as well as possible for himself, or for -whom life has arranged badly, or who is not old enough or strong enough -to be his own guardian. He often looks like a fool rushing in where -angels might well fear to tread, but we must concede that he is doing -for someone in an apparently untenable position things that only the -self-sufficing can do for themselves. This synthesis of the interest -of all social work in “personal” predicaments is indicated in the word -“social,” for our social relations are simply our relations as persons. -But it seems to need further exposition because the word social has -been used loosely and no longer carries clear-cut implications. A -lawyer speaking to the 1919 convention defines “individual” interests -as “the claims which the human being makes simply because he is a human -being. For example, the claims to be secure in his reputation and -honor, in his social existence, to be secure in his belief and opinion, -his spiritual existence, to be secure in his domestic relations, in -his expanded individual existence and to be secure in his substance, -his economic existence.”[31] It will be noted that, in the attempt to -define these individual interests even a superlatively able lawyer -could come no nearer to legal precision than to say “for example.” The -concept is one which social work itself continues to alter, fill out -and expand with every breath it draws and is not the less significant -because it is elusive. As social work becomes more systematic with an -almost technical practice, more dissociated from the specific act of -relief and more widely and variously allied with the practices of other -callings this personal, this “social” interest, becomes increasingly -important as one of its distinguishing features. - -We may recapitulate the effects of the extension of a charitable -interest into new fields. The charitable interest working along -scientific lines has produced what we know as social work and social -work continues to manifest that interest as its characteristic feature -in all the widely scattered fields to which human needs have called -it. It is, first, everywhere engaged in the gratuitous extension of -benefits. That is to say, it performs services which, while they may be -officially sanctioned, are discretionary and adjustable, and are not -considered established rights in any but the most broadly construed -humanitarian sense. Secondly, it is concerned with negative conditions; -not the successes but the failures interest it, not the promising -people but the difficult people, not the leaders but the under-dogs. -And thirdly, as social work begins to operate in close association -with many other services, we see, what was always implicit in charity -but now first stands out in sharp relief, a prime interest in the -personal needs of individual beneficiaries. This puts social work in -a new relation to public affairs for it not only stands by to gather -up the human wreckage of bad management but it brings to formalized -administration a constant and well-posted challenge to meet individual -requirements. - - -THE PROPOSED DEFINITION - -Diversity in social work may today be more conspicuous than likeness -but under the diversity essential likeness can still be traced. Despite -all appearances to the contrary it has its own department of human -affairs and its universal common interest inherited from charity and -to this department of human affairs, to the service of this interest, -it brings a method adopted from science. - -The _department of human affairs_ in which social work operates is -that indicated by the word “social”; men’s relations to each other -rather than their relations to nature. The _interest_ inherited from -charity is an interest in untoward situations; social work, like -charity turns like a compass to the magnet of need; opportunity, -success, superiority do not attract it unless they are beset with some -difficulty which it can remove; handicap, deprivation, insufficiency -offer the challenge to which it responds. The _method_ adopted from -science is that of observation and generalization; social work has -established the fact that just as man cannot live without a certain -food supply, so he cannot thrive as a conscious being without a modicum -of interest, incentive, and leeway of freedom, so that matters long -considered intimate and implicit have now become the objects of close -and deliberate observation. And just as men, endlessly varied in -physical appearance are to the physiologist of one general pattern and -as, far more strangely, the infinite variety of mind is known by the -psychologist to have its common laws of operation, so, strangest and -most illusive of all, men individually unpredictable, do yet, in the -main, follow laws of social behaviour which it is in the power of an -observer to detect. We can say that the main act and final object of -social work are those of charity. The means and methods are those of -science moving in the fields of charitable concern. Social work seems -to comprise a group of allied activities called by a common name and -considered to be but various phases of a single undertaking because -they are all engaged in spontaneous efforts to extend benefits in -response to the evidence of need; they all show a major interest in -improving the social relationship of their beneficiaries and all avail -themselves of scientific knowledge and employ scientific methods. - -We may propose as a tentative definition, to be tested and carried -further in the chapters which follow, that social work includes all -voluntary attempts to extend benefits in response to need which are -concerned with social relationships and which avail themselves of -scientific knowledge and employ scientific methods. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[18] Professor C. A. Ellwell, in Charities and the Commons for 1907, p. -187. - -[19] Beatrice and Sidney Webb, The Prevention of Destitution, p. 330. - -[20] Owen R. Lovejoy, Proceedings of National Conference of Social -Work, 1919, pp. 666-7. - -[21] Mary E. Richmond, Ibid. 1920, p. 254. - -[22] Mary E. Richmond, Social Diagnosis, p. 29. - -[23] Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House, p. 162. - -[24] See especially Mary E. Richmond, What Is Social Case Work? - -[25] Beatrice and Sidney Webb, The Prevention of Destitution, p. 333. - -[26] When such inquiries have been undertaken by the government they -have often been proposed and prepared for by social work. See for -example: Lillian D. Wald, The House on Henry Street, on the U. S. -Investigation of the Condition of Women and Child Wage Earners, p. 137, -N.Y. Child Labor Committee, p. 144. - -[27] Proceedings of National Conference of Social Work, 1920, p. 171. - -[28] Ibid., 1919, p. 613. - -[29] Charities and the Commons, April, 1907, p. 577. - -[30] American Year Book, 1919, p. 402. - -[31] Roscoe Pound, at National Conference, 1919, p. 105. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE TESTIMONY OF THE CONFERENCE - - -We have now propounded a tentative definition of social work based upon -an interpretation of its development and present practices. We will not -be sure of the correctness of that interpretation until we have tested -the applicability of the result to the whole range of social work. Nor -can we do this fairly by making our own presentation of social work. -For such a test we must find some ready-made presentation which will -marshal social work in all its diversity. The reports of the national -conference do this and, indirectly, the courses offered by the school -for training social workers. This chapter will test and, if possible, -expand the definition by the testimony of the conference and the -succeeding chapter by the testimony of the schools. - -The conference is divided into ten sections: - - 1. Children. - 2. Delinquents. - 3. Health. - 4. Public agencies and institutions. - 5. The family. - 6. Industrial and economic problems. - 7. The local community. - 8. Mental hygiene. - 9. Organization of social forces. - 10. Uniting of native and foreign-born. - -At the annual convention each of these ten sections holds its own group -meetings at which papers are presented and discussions conducted on the -subjects appropriate to the section. It will be seen that the division -into sections is on a basis of administrative fields rather than -technique or function. The fields however are not mutually exclusive -but overlapping. Children although giving their name to the whole first -section appear among “delinquents” in the second, candidates for health -in the third and so on. Indeed, all of the ten section names might -serve as subheads under most or all of the other topics. - -More significant in the search for a definition is the fact that -these several fields are not exclusively possessed by social workers. -“Children” are also the special concern of elementary teachers, -“delinquency” is primarily referred to the courts, “health” is the -conceded bailiwick of the medical profession and so forth. Even at -the conference many papers are presented by persons other than social -workers.[32] - -These two types of overlapping make the masses of material with which -we have to deal both indeterminate and confusing. But representing as -they do the mutual interpenetration of social work and other callings, -they give a fresh opportunity to distinguish the nature of social -work. We may inquire what is the special interest of social work in -“children,” in “delinquents,” in “health,” and in what ways does it -differ from the respective interests of teaching, law, medicine and so -forth. - -It is obviously impossible to review in readable compass the fifty -years in which the conference has met and, as there have been great -changes in social work during that time, it would be profitless for -a contemporary definition. A new arrangement of sections was made in -1918, and therefore the reports of the years 1918, 1919, and 1920 -(the last in print when this study was made) were chosen for detailed -analysis. - -That analysis can be most simply presented to the reader by sections, -putting before him an itemized statement of the subjects covered in -the reports of each section (treating the three years as a unit) -and then following this sectional review with such considerations -as have recommended themselves cumulatively and can only be offered -on the basis of the material as a whole. We are looking for the -characteristics of social work as a whole and can therefore consider -only such features as continue to show themselves throughout the -sections. In the following itemized lists for each section the figures -represent the number of papers in which the subject indicated was the -principle topic. - - - I. CHILDREN. - - The forty-five papers presented in this section dealt with the - following subjects: - - Plans for removing the handicaps of the illegitimate without - increasing illegitimacy 8 - Recreational needs of children 7 - General protective schemes, plans for extending a sheltering - arm over children isolated in the country and for - establishing state-wide vigilance 5 - Standards for child care 4 - Reports on the practices of particular localities 4 - The working of children’s courts 4 - Nature and causes of that chronic and excessive - troublesomeness which is called juvenile delinquency 3 - Special psychology of children 3 - Best ways of providing for children dependent on the public 2 - The responsibilities of the public to its neglected children 2 - Problems of day nurseries 2 - Health needs of children 1 - -It requires but a glance at the above list to see how much wider is -its range than that of a teachers’ or medical men’s convention. There -is nothing to connect the topics--except children. This synthesis of -social work in personality which has been already indicated as the -“social” element in social work becomes increasingly evident in any -review of the conference. As it has proved difficult of definition it -will be well to keep it in mind in order that it may take shape during -the following review: - - - II. DELINQUENTS AND CORRECTION. - - Probation and parole 4 - Protective work for young people 4 - Special value of policewomen in protective work for girls 2 - Juvenile delinquency 2 - Runaway and neglected girls 1 - Papers not devoted to a single subject 17 - Including such considerations as the influence of war - on criminality, municipal detention for women, the function - of a truancy officer, the desirability of creating a public - defender and the moral education of training school - inmates. - - - III. HEALTH. - - Standard of living 19 - Coordination of health services 5 - Special problems of health in war time 4 - Housing 3 - Health work among the foreign-born 3 - Health problems of the Red Cross 2 - - - IV. PUBLIC AGENCIES AND INSTITUTIONS. - - Administrative questions 15 - Effects of prohibition 3 - State pensions for mothers 3 - Pauperism 2 - Control of leprosy, by colonization or otherwise 2 - Such standardization of record keeping as to make the - records kept by the several states comparable 2 - Education of the public in their responsibility to public - charges, public care for negroes, care of crippled - children, care of defectives and delinquents--one paper - each 4 - - - V. THE FAMILY. - - Questions of administration 1 - Registration of all appeals in a social workers’ exchange 3 - Advantages of an orderly approach to social case analysis 3 - Examples of case work treatment 3 - The family 2 - Marriage laws 2 - Tasks growing out of war 10 - Maintenance of family solidarity during absence of - men, reinstatement of returned soldiers, Red Cross - programs and functions of “home service.” - - Papers not devoted to a single topic included such subjects as: - - Case work as a source of information for sociology. - Case work as contributing to democracy. - Case work as interpreting industrial problems. - Case work as serving those above the poverty line, - cooperating, interpreting social work to the public, - organizing the community, family budgets, thrift and - pensions for widowed mothers. - - VI. INDUSTRIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS. - - Cooperation, health insurance, British labor party program, - minimum wage, soldiers’ and sailors’ insurance, state care of - mothers and infants, inheritance, land monopoly, the position - of the negro in industry, trade unions in the public service, - social work and the revolution demanded by radicals, causes - for the existence of the I. W. W. and economic justice. - - - VII. THE LOCAL COMMUNITY. - - Special needs of rural communities 11 - Recreational facilities of all grades 6 - Americanization on a neighborhood basis 3 - Effects of war on a neighborhood 1 - Other papers not easily classified deal with various expedients - for focussing local interest, settlements, the community store - and community kitchen, the social unit plan, enlistment of the - business men’s interest in community progress and councils of - national defence. - - - VIII. MENTAL HYGIENE. - - State departments or societies and other organized agencies - for mental hygiene 8 - Training of social workers for the new task 4 - Experience of the war in the care of neuroses 3 - Care for the feeble-minded 3 - Mental hygiene in industry 3 - Mental hygiene and delinquency 2 - Mental hygiene and education 1 - One paper each on-- - Stimulation of public interest in care for the insane, the - psychiatric element in all case work, the individual versus - the family as the unit of social work, social problems as - the reaction of mental types, the court’s dealings with the - mentally afflicted, and the relation of social work to the - state’s program, to hospitals, physicians, and the community - in fostering mental hygiene. A few other papers present - the actual lore of the new subject. - - - IX. THE ORGANIZATION OF SOCIAL FORCES. - - Publicity for social work activities and education of - the community in appreciating them 6 - Impetus of the war to large scale organization for common - purposes and the desirability of integrating social - service 6 - “War chest” 3 - Registration of cases 3 - Other papers treat of-- - Endorsement and standardization of social work agencies, - salary standards for social workers and their labor - turnover and teaching materials for learners. - - - X. 1918--GENERAL PROBLEMS OF WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION. - - Ten papers no different in import from those in other - sections which have been cited as discussing conditions - created by the war. - - - 1919 and 1920--UNITING OF NATIVE AND FOREIGN-BORN IN AMERICA. - - State immigrant commission, labor organizations and public - education as Americanizers, the foreign language worker - and foreign language press, foreign organizations and - family welfare, democracy and immigration, neighborhood - life, and the treatment of immigrant heritages. - -Such, in briefest possible outline is the scope of the annual -conference on social work. What have its papers contributed to the -correction or expansion of a definition? - -The first proposition of the tentative definition was that all forms of -social work originated in a spontaneous effort to extend benefits. How -is this affected by the testimony of the conference? In the first place -it is abundantly confirmed. The conference papers deal pre-eminently -with pioneering in the extension of benefits and opportunities. The -phraseology does not always suggest this but one has only to look -beyond the phraseology to the action in order to find it. If we look -at the first section we see it to be in effect proposing that the -whole community shall deliberately and without delay rearrange not -only schools and home life but industry and general living conditions -so as to give to all its children opportunity and encouragement such -as are now given only to the most fortunate. We find it advocating a -scheme of child welfare on a county basis which shall seek out “all -children in need of care for any reason” and demanding enforcement of -proper health precautions for the children of unenlightened parents -and a real chance in life for the illegitimate child. Among the titles -of this one section at one conference appear “Progress Toward Better -Laws,” “Planks in a 1920 Platform,” “Lessons from North Carolina,” -“A Community Program, etc.”[33] But these platforms and programs -are not to be ascribed to the community in any sense except that of -being proposed for the community as a whole by social workers. At the -same conference they are discussing “Social Workers as Interpreters” -of social conditions and methods of getting “publicity” for their -aims.[34] The same sort of title takes up the tale in the next section, -a “Program” again, “Aims and Methods” twice, “A Plan,” and so on -throughout the conference. Although other professions, education and -medicine for example, are constantly busy jacking up standards, their -general undertakings are fully accepted. For all regular purveyances -of education and medicine the community has given a blanket order and -expects to pay “within reason.” Social work is in a different case -for it is constantly trying to put over something which is still but -tentatively and experimentally accepted and depends root and branch on -the willingness of some people to do, out of hand, for others.[35] - -The president of the conference in 1920 referred to a “belief in human -improvableness and a willingness to tackle the job.”[36] That is as far -as the conference usually philosophises in this direction. And this -is the sort of phraseology that makes one forget that social work is -extending benefits--this casual reference to tackling the job. It is -another of the paradoxes in the development of social work (we have -already noted science rescuing personality), that when charity offered -only a minimum of rough food, uniform raiment and herded shelter to the -utterly destitute there was much made of the generosity of the donor, -but now when social work has been carried to a point where it often -provides for the handicapped a great deal better than the rank and file -manage to provide for themselves it is taken to be a case of noblesse -oblige. - -We may read in the “Observations of a Philanthropist” penned a century -ago that “It’s greatly for the interests of charity that the objects of -it should be respectful and grateful. We think our kindness in a manner -repaid when it is thankfully received; it’s a pleasure then to have -done it and an incitement to do more,”[37] or in a “hospital” report -that “the number of proper objects are amply sufficient to employ the -bounty of the rich.”[38] - -The difference here indicated is not accounted for by the fact that -these were the observations of philanthropists while the conference is -composed of professional social workers for whom benefaction is all in -the day’s work. As has been already indicated, the papers read at the -conference are not all by social workers. Furthermore, the “incitement” -now employed to get from all manner of men financial support for the -undertakings of social work is of a very different order. Let any -one consider the appeals which come to his desk. They contain little -to rouse his vanity and the offer of an opportunity to acquire merit -is almost as uncommon. The degree of need and the certainty of -accomplishment are the things never omitted. - -This suggests the cause for change. A century ago need might equally -well have been urged, but what could then have been promised of -accomplishment? All that was then expected was surcease of the -hour’s suffering. That is a fit subject of congratulation as when -a complaisant philanthropist wrote of the London of his time there -“is not a disease that can afflict human nature nor a want which the -varying conditions of man can require but finds an open asylum, a -resort ready prepared with the needful accommodation for reception, -comfort, instruction and cure, and with the exception of a few cases -entirely free of expense.”[39] - -But what is that compared with the great modern adventure of -eliminating poverty and holding disease at bay? Science has brought -to charity faith and hope in terrestrial terms. The historian who -unearthed the above statement remarks, “In theory, society consists of -a large number of charitable people; in fact the number of those who -can be properly so described is a small one. The few who are really -in earnest in their desire to alleviate distress even at the cost -of considerable expenditure of time and money, are surrounded by a -multitude of persons who are willing to assist but only provided they -can do so at no great inconvenience to themselves. This lower power of -sympathy passes gradually through the stages of languid interest to -complete indifference.”[40] - -Modern social work is no longer dependent on the appeal to “sympathy” -alone. It has a wide range of interest and through its practical -application of the various social sciences it associates itself with -all our hopes of progress. Expectation not only to mitigate the effects -of calamity but to prevent its recurrence gives social work a claim on -public attention which charity never had. - -Along with this change in expectation goes naturally a change in -attitude toward the beneficiaries of social work. “There can be no -line of cleavage in the advancement of public sentiment between -the development of the general social agencies such as church and -school and the more intensive forms which we have come to know as -social work.”[41] The old view of society saw many staunch persons -standing on their own feet and a few weak brethren or victimized who -needed support. But the view implied in this quotation recognizes an -interdependence among all the members of society, an interdependence of -which the particular predicament of those who happen to be in need of -social work is merely an incident. - -But the speakers at the conference go still further. “So long as there -are human frailties there will be need of social workers. But let us -not forget that the larger vision of social work contemplates not -charity alone but justice, and all social ills arising from environment -are man-made and therefore changeable.”[42] If the beneficiaries of -social work are thus counted scapegoats for us all, being victims of -social injustice, then every act of prevention (and we have said that -all social work is now at some remove preventive) is for the general -safety and no more than a proper self-defence. Social work now resents -the smugness that can represent as especially disinterested any service -to those who have been paying the penalty of blunders or iniquities for -which the prosperous may be equally responsible. It is only justice to -them or less and it is sound policy for all. No wonder social work will -not stand to be considered charity! It considers its preoccupation with -the backwaters of race progress to show no gracious condescension on -its part--merely an appreciation of the extent and importance of the -backwaters. - -But all this shows social work more than ever spontaneous and -gratuitous, for it does not work for even a heavenly reward; and it -must, unadmonished, stir the community to support the work it sets -itself to perform. It is only the old condescension that has gone. The -extension of benefits remains, but has become something constructive -and collectivistic. - -Such a change in attitude toward benefaction would necessarily -affect the second criterion of social work proposed in our tentative -definition--its incidence in response to need. What is the testimony of -the conference on this second criterion? The analysis of subjects dealt -with in the first section reads “plans for removing _handicaps_,” -“recreational _needs_,” “_protective_ schemes,” “standards for child -_care_,” “nature and causes of _delinquency_,” “providing for -children _dependent_ on the public,” “responsibilities to _neglected_ -children,” “health _needs_.” Two subjects, which as given, do not -commit themselves on the question of need complete the list. In the -second section the persons under consideration are by definition -subject to some sort of provision and control. They are delinquents. -But that the interest of the social workers is especially in fostering -and guarding them is shown by the fact that young people’s need of -protection is the subject of six papers, juvenile delinquency of -two, runaway and neglected girls of one more, while the rest deal -with adjustment of treatment to the needs of older offenders, with -probation, parole, education and the form of detention desirable in a -given case. The third section deals entirely with standards of living -in relation to disease conditions, and with means of extending medical -service. The remaining seven sections continue to show need as the -occasion of social work, but it is a sublimated sort of need which -would be much misrepresented by any classification of the beneficiaries -as “needy.” The whole level of interest has passed above and beyond -that. - -As has been already indicated discussion turns on “programs,” “plans,” -“standards,” and it is in a positive and anticipatory vein as by -people embarked on a constructive undertaking. The note of initial -accomplishment is most clearly struck in the “local community” -division with such titles as “The Boy Scout and Community Building,” -“Organization of Games and Athletics in Rural Communities,” “Signs -of Rural Hope,” etc. But turn to the context and you will read, “The -Scout program recognizes the need of the boy for a recreational program -for his unused time which at the same time is educational. Scouting -also recognizes the need that the man has, etc.”[43] The neglected -rural situation, the poverty of interest in some neighborhoods--these -are what have drawn social work to undertakings that carry no hint of -remedy in the expression given their objects. - -In a dynamically conceived society it is hard to say where remedy -shades into prevention and prevention into construction. Prevention -of disaster not only involves the maintenance of continuously good -conditions but the anticipation of wants. If we are not to have -juvenile delinquency boys must have some chance for wholesome -recreation. If we would avoid bad housing we must arrange betimes a -good city plan preserving open spaces where they will be wanted later -and developing each type of building in a neighborhood where it need -not be soon perverted to a use for which it was not intended and will -not be well adapted. - -Dr. Simon Patten contended that the present productivity of the world -was such as to free mankind from any fear of general dearth and cause -all our prospects to be potentially in terms of abundance and not of -want, to rescue us from the old “pain economy” of insufficiency and -give us a “pleasure economy” on a safe margin of sufficiency. Under -these circumstances, he said, “world riches may replace the living -sacrifice and become the social contrivance that lowers human costs -and we must cease to think that the anguish of the sentient creature -is compensated by the development of moral qualities which merely -reconcile man to repeating the experience of suffering.”[44] Social -work has already ceased to think in that fashion and is working in -the spirit of a pleasure economy so that the terminology of need is -no longer pre-eminent. “There are times when self-sacrificing zeal is -demanded and all honor to those who then devote or lose themselves in -service. That is only one side of it. The need of sacrifice is always a -reflection on the men or circumstances calling for it.”[45] That is the -view of modern social work, the frame of mind in which it sets about -its work. It talks about what has to be done as a matter of course and -is chiefly concerned with the best way of doing it. It is beginning -to outgrow “sob stories” even in asking support from an indifferent -public--they set too low a standard of toleration and there are some -modern social workers who turn from them abashed, as from dallying with -an outrage beneath endurance. The battle ground of reform must be on -another plain where the initiated see danger but the complaisant still -need convincing. - -“When once the worst is gone the second best becomes intolerable.” -Gray, the historian of English philanthropy, describes the effective -philanthropist as the ideal agitator, “It is his to discover -those larger ends of common welfare which reach beyond the moral -perceptiveness of ordinary men in their ordinary moods. He is, as it -were, an explorer in the unmapped world of the ideal life from whence -he brings back news of an unreached good, such tidings as sound like -travelers’ tales in our ears, but which haunt the mind of men until -they seek to verify the story by a practical policy calculated to -transform the actual. Only it must be observed that the most daring -speculator cannot move very far from his base and the wildest Utopia is -determined by the conditions of its year of publication.”[46] - -“I hold,” said Dr. Southard to the 1919 conference, “whatever -the ideal order, the practical order of work called social work -begins with the eradication of evil. It may sound better to sow -goodness or to transplant goodness, or even to graft goodness in -the eager social world, and beautiful little gardens of Eden or -smaller cases of goodness can be shown here and there to the social -visitor--nevertheless, I hold, with the prejudice of a physician -perhaps, the eradications of evil are more in the first order of our -work than disseminations, transplantations, and grafts of goodness. -At any rate, if there be anything at all in the millennial hopes and -ingrained optimisms of Spencerian evolution, it is plain that by and -large we are putting evil behind us and arriving at goodness by a -clever technique of successful destruction.”[47] This “eradication of -evil” may, as one side of the “technique” of evolution, operate in the -terms of any developing organization; but in terms of eradication of -evil, not in its own functioning or its subject, but in the conditions -of its object it is not common outside of social work. It is not to be -found in the business world where all purveyance shuns the applicant -most in need of its wares and seeks the one best able to pay. It is -not to be found in the law, which tries to hold the scales even to all -comers. It is only slightly and intermittently in state-craft which -while it is coming more and more to inhibit abuse of the helpless -does still, from an age-old sense of security in the alliance with -wealth and power, bend its constructive energies to encouragement of -the prosperous. It is not even in education, which constantly tends -to provide in each school grade teaching suitable for those who will -have longest to study and is only importuned by demands from _outside_ -to cater in the lower grades to those who must get in them all the -education they are ever to have. Social work stands alone in its -purely personal championship of the less secure in prosperity. It is in -its enormous demands for them that it seems to have turned to purely -constructive things. - -It is indeed possible that along the lines of prevention social work is -developing a function which is positive in the same sense as hygiene is -positive in the field of medicine and that social work will, to that -extent, independently “plant good” as well as “eradicate evil.” But it -is also possible, and in the light of past developments more probable, -that any constructive phase of social work which proves permanent -should come to be looked on as a routine purveyance and no longer -considered social work. This we have already seen to have happened in -the case of free education and many other things. - -The conference has thus confirmed and filled out the elementary -features of social work which it inherits from charity, voluntary -benefaction and response to need. What does it have to say of the -qualifying features that have transformed charity into social work--the -emergence of the individual as the only and sufficient nexus for its -services and the adoption of scientific guidance? - -The first of these has already been touched on in relation to the -first section. Throughout the second the discussion all bears on the -prevention of delinquency or the care of delinquents. There is not -much discussion of pure justice, the burden of the argument is all -that we should “approach every individual prisoner with conscientious -determination to give him the best service of which we are capable, -realizing that his future is largely in our hands.”[48] A public -defender is asked for “in order that every person accused, no matter -how poor, may have a full and fair trial.”[49] And for sentenced -prisoners social work asks something more than mere detention, “we -used to look upon them, in the stage of repression, en masse. * * -* Instead of committing a man to a particular institution he is now -committed to the custody of a board of control * * * to be examined * -* * to determine just where he will fit into school or industry. The -man will be assigned by his board, to the particular prison to which he -is best suited for mental and physical treatment.”[50] “If a child who -is mentally sound comes into court with a mind bent on the commission -of some offence he should be sent to a special school having for its -purpose the education of such children. Let the great departments -of psychology and sociology of our colleges and universities devise -a course of instruction and education that will reclaim a juvenile -delinquent who is mentally and physically sound”[51] and “we should -extend the methods developed in the Children’s Courts to apply to all -ages, wiping out our arbitrary age line by improving the treatment of -the older groups.”[52] - -It is in this section that there appears at its plainest the paradox -that the questions purely dependent on what we call personality are -questions of social relationship and all genuinely social questions are -questions of personal life. A public policy is justified in terms of -personal benefit but interest is claimed for personal difficulties on -the ground that they illuminate public issues. - -The third division is one that speaks quite unequivocally concerning -the nature of social work, for there is an old and kindly profession -already established in this field and social work must justify its -own entrance there. All of the subjects in this health section are of -interest to the doctor as well as the social worker, but for the doctor -they throw light on the causes and cures of disease, for the social -worker they are a point of departure for active work to establish -better standards of living. Nineteen of the papers presented deal -specifically with that subject. Five more deal with the co-ordination -of various health agencies--a task in social engineering. One speaker, -himself a physician, reports no less than ten agencies united in -efforts to improve a city’s health. Only four of these (the board -of health, the hospital, the tuberculosis society and the medical -profession) were permanently concerned with health. The other six, -the schools, the park department, the city statistics department, the -industries, insurance companies and churches were enlisted, as the -context shows, as so many agents establishing connections with the -individual beneficiaries of the campaign. The work of choosing them -and enlisting their co-operation demanded a knowledge of social not of -physiological conditions. - -In the next section, that devoted to public agencies and institutions, -the conspicuous fact is that social work does not forget that public -care is for private people. It hardly seems necessary to quote -from all the sections even in pursuit of this most elusive of the -characteristics of social work. One more citation will be enough. -“We social workers have our contribution to make to that ultimate -attainment of democracy which must be wrought out, not in uniformity -but in diversity, not only in the right of man to individual freedom -but in his ability to enter into that right.”[53] - -The extension of the sense of public responsibility, the realization -that reform must come in all the interlocking activities of a highly -organized business, political and social life has tempted some people -to think that the days of social work are numbered or to seek out for -it some highly specialized or recondite function. But if we are right -in ascribing to it this function of challenging all forms of service -to reach and satisfy individual needs it may be more important in the -future than in the past. Wholesale and collectivist methods call for -constant adaptation of general means to particular cases and the more -we give of government service the more we may need of social work. -The more varied our health service, the more flexible and extensible -our educational opportunities, the more occasions there will be for -adjustment. Such follow-up work as is done by hospitals and by the -workmen’s compensation office, the work of the mothers’ assistance -fund, of the voluntary experiments in special nutrition classes, -vocational guidance, and scholarships for trade school attendance, are -only a few examples of the kind of thing social work branches into as -established agencies extend their own responsibilities. - -The fact that social work rescues people who fall through the meshes -of the school system, people dismissed from clinical treatment only to -return to a regimen bound to revive their troubles, that it discovers -the round pegs in square holes and the neglected groups and anomalous -cases has caused other people to see it as all converging in a liaison -work which shall ultimately be all there is left for it to perform -and which shall be in essence social case work. From what has already -been said it will be evident that there is no reason to think that -social work which has been so prolific of criticism of our established -institutions and a pioneer in experiment should cease to exercise this -function, which is as infinite in possibilities as the life of man -itself, or even that it will cease to work along lines of inquiry or -of group work. That little word “social” opens up the possibilities -of all the permutations and combinations in human consciousness. The -conference at least hints that social work knows it. - -And what of the method by which social work is to be conducted. Is it, -as the tentative definition said, suggested by the social sciences? -There is not a great deal of explicit reference to social science, -but the concepts of economics, social psychology and sociology are -constantly in evidence and even political science has its say in an -“engineering” conception of the state, in definitions of democracy -and in criteria of progress. The almost complete disappearance of -the question of relative responsibility of the individual and society -which morality and philosophy have debated in so many forms testifies -to assimilation of the sociological concept of social life as an -integration of individual lives rather than an aggregation and of the -individual life as no digit but an incident “* * * time moves swiftly -in the social field and the special knowledge of today easily becomes -the common knowledge of tomorrow.”[54] And after all that has been said -in the preceding pages of the obvious effects of a scientific method -and scientific attitude in making social work what the conference shows -it to be it scarcely remains to prove or even argue the confirmation, -the reinforcement, the expansion of the last qualification of social -work. - -Nine round-table conferences and five committee reports, in addition -to the papers presenting concrete programs and reports of local -experiments testify to the careful checking up of method. The constant -references to programs, standards and experience, to records and -the search for causes, the emphasis on prevention and the patient, -objective, therapeutic attitude of the social worker all testify to the -conquest of the field by science. But the completeness and significance -of that conquest are plainest in the ever-present, implicit but -unmistakable assumption that all the undertakings discussed are -parts of a systematically coordinated campaign based upon continuing -observation of cause and effect. - -Thus have the reports of the conference confirmed and filled out the -tentative definition. But the analysis did not cull from them any -fresh characteristics of social work. Their mass of commentary, aimed, -as it seemed, in all possible directions, would suggest no testimony -except in answer to leading questions and we will have to be satisfied -with such expansion of the definition as, while adding no new terms, -commits the already proposed items to more significant implications. -The definition so expanded must be passed on, for challenge or -alteration by the evidence of the training schools. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[32] The 1920 conference heard from four judges (three of them of -juvenile courts), three college professors and one college president, -a bishop, a rabbi, a governor, and a state commander of the American -Legion, as well as from doctors and other professional people who -occupied positions ranking as social work. - -[33] Conference, 1919, pp. 111, 123, 133, 136. - -[34] Ibid. 1920, pp. 271 and 278. - -[35] Ibid. pp. 188, 111, 129, 135 and 298. - -[36] Ibid. p. 4. - -[37] History of English Philanthropy, p. 269. - -[38] Ibid., p. 273. - -[39] Ibid., p. 271, referring to the opening of the 18th century. - -[40] Ibid., p. 266. - -[41] Conference, 1920, p. 74. - -[42] Ibid., p. 77. - -[43] Ibid., p. 267. - -[44] The New Basis of Civilization, p. 55. - -[45] Philanthropy and the State, p. 235. - -[46] Ibid., p. 302. - -[47] Conference, 1919, p. 583. - -[48] Ibid., 1918, p. 147. - -[49] Ibid., p. 171. - -[50] Ibid., 1919, p. 100. - -[51] Ibid., 1918, p. 126. - -[52] Ibid., p. 136. - -[53] Conference, 1918, p. 287. - -[54] R. W. Kelso, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 22, No. 1. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE TESTIMONY OF THE SCHOOLS - - -There are some fifteen schools for the training of social workers,[55] -independent institutions or university departments. The younger among -them have not followed at all closely the organization or practices of -the older[56] and all work in close co-operation with local social work -agencies, farming their students out with these for practice work and -drawing lecturers from the agency staffs. The varied curricula of the -schools seem therefore to offer direct evidence of what is considered -in their respective regions, the most necessary equipment for social -workers. - -Only three school catalogues venture any characterization of the tasks -for which their courses equip. Toronto gives the most inclusive. “The -sense of social obligation and interdependence has grown greater as -our social life has grown more complex. The more social conditions -have been studied, the more apparent has it become that many of our -worst evils are due to the lack of the science which should direct and -stimulate the sense of our solidarity. In recent years governments, -municipal and other authorities, industrial corporations and voluntary -associations of all kinds have been compelled to make ever-extending -provisions for industrial protection, social insurance, public health -service, housing improvement, recreation and various other forms of -organized social effort. All these activities have created the sphere -of a new profession, that of the trained social worker.” Here are the -familiar “sense of social obligation,” the reference to a “science -which should direct and stimulate this sense,” the “_ever-extending_ -provisions” prompted by it and, unmentioned but obviously implicit, a -constant concern with things subject to amelioration: “protection,” -“insurance,” “service,” “improvement,” “recreation”--these are the -substantives in its main statement. The Ohio catalogue itemizes the -demands of social service on a training school[57] but the only -generalization to be deduced from the list is that they all imply -a purpose of rescue or amelioration. The Simmons characterization -confines itself entirely to emphasizing the implications of the word -“social”[58] and the Missouri school opens its catalogue with the -discouraging statement that “it is impossible at the present time to -construct a satisfactory definition of social work.” - -This exhausts the slender sheaf of direct comment. For further -enlightenment we must analyse the offered equipment itself. The nature -of the training given will predict the nature of the work expected to -follow. There are a great many courses offered and the variety not of -nomenclature only but of apparent content is enough for bewilderment. -Classification of the courses according to the type of preparation they -seem to offer does however sort them into three main groups. - - A. Courses which introduce the student to the social sciences and the - methods and concepts on which these rest. - - B. Courses which offer information on the field of social work both - past and present. - - C. Courses which equip specifically for certain social work tasks. - -In the first group, that of courses introducing the student to the -social sciences, their methods and concepts, fall sociology courses of -various sorts, courses in (1) general sociology, (2) the history of -institutions, (3) theories of social progress, (4) the value of norms -of income and opportunity for a given level of civilization, (5) the -means of “social control.” Here also belong courses in (6) general -psychology, (7) social psychology, (8) statistics and (9) economics. - -In the second group, that of courses offering information on the -general field of social work, fall courses on (1) the nature and mutual -relations of contemporary social work undertakings, (2) the history of -philanthropy and (3) current social problems. Here ought also to be -put (4) the courses offered by five schools in the causes of poverty, -because poverty has been an age-long challenge to philanthropy and is -still the proximate occasion for a great part of social work. - -For the third group are left courses in about forty subjects pertaining -to special fields or special methods. These subjects overlap and -interchange material but yield to classification as preparatory for -work in eight or nine fairly distinguishable fields. - - 1. Work in the interest of the public health, mental or physical. - - 2. Organization of community groups on various scales in both urban - and rural areas. - - 3. Work in connection with industry. - - 4. Work in the interest of children. - - 5. Work with people socially handicapped because of race or recent - immigration. - - 6. Work in connection with the enactment or administration of social - legislation. - - 7. Work with defectives. - - 8. Housing. - -A ninth field may be made of social case work, as when it appears -under such titles as “family rehabilitation,” but it must also be -recognized as a technique more or less utilized in six of the eight -other fields. There remain a few other technical courses such as those -in record keeping. - -The schools, all but four,[59] arrange their courses in departments -varying in number from two to ten. Altogether seventeen different -fields are indicated by the several schools and under them are -variously grouped the forty subjects taught.[60] These very involved -curricula dealing, as they do, in such staggering propositions as the -nature of progress and the causes of poverty, and seeming in their -explicit statements unanimous in nothing which might serve the cause of -definition do give certain collective testimony. - -In the first place they are agreed that social work comprises a variety -of separate callings demanding differential training. The differential -training is not the result of specialization after receiving a common -training. Most schools while requiring a certain amount of common -background for all students recognize no general course and require -every student to enroll in one or another department. - -Secondly, in making a great deal of elective work interchangeable among -the special courses and requiring certain prerequisites for all courses -alike they all recognize a close relation between the various branches -of social work. - -Thirdly, they show that the work they prepare for is not “social” -in the merely vague sense of having a public interest. It is social -in the specific sense of dealing with people in their relations to -other people. Its prerequisite is not physiology, the science of -that part of man which can develop in isolation, but psychology, the -science of intelligence which develops only in contact with other -intelligences. We can see this in the contrast between the training -given in a medical school and that given in a school for social -workers. The former teaches a great deal about man’s physical make-up -and its hazards but very little about his mental make-up: while the -latter may teach enough of sanitary practice to understand a doctor’s -directions, almost always teaches something of mental life and always a -great deal about social settings and the available means of improving -them. This “social” interest is constant throughout the schools. The -courses in industry, for example, do not teach efficiency engineering -or price fixing but personnel management and other matters presumably -ministering directly to the well being of the workers. These schools -do not equip for the advancement of any particular science. Philosophy -and art of any sort enter them only as casual visitors. They teach in -the name of no single creed and formulate no specific purpose. Despite -their enormous array of topics their interest remains essentially -personal. - -Fourthly, the schools are more or less consciously training crusaders. -The word “problem” is in frequent use. It is freely applied to -difficulties not outstandingly problematical and its use in place -of any harsher or less hopeful word indicates the notion of arming -rescuers with a solution. The word “standard” with its implication of -something attainable but not always attained, “prevention,” “service,” -“welfare,” “relief,” “correction,” “treatment,” appear thickly -scattered among the subject titles and one is surely justified in -inferring that to make changes for the better is not to be for the -social worker as for most men a rare bright spot in the routine of -labor, but his very stock-in-trade and justification for existence. - -Lastly, the requirement of a certain amount of study of the social -sciences followed by methodical training in special lines, together -with supervised practice work after the manner of a technical school, -testifies to the important parts played in the preparation of social -workers by both scientific method and the lore of the social sciences. - -Beyond this it does not seem safe to generalise. These five conclusions -about social work indicated by the school catalogues suggest that it -is an alliance of distinct but closely related callings furthering -“social” welfare in a quite specific sense. Secondly, they imply that -the social worker is a rescuer and champion equipped for his tilt -from the armory of the social sciences. Does not this come to about -the same thing as is described in our tentative definition, a group -of activities looked upon as so many phases of a single undertaking -because they all attempt to extend benefits in response to a need; are -all concerned with social relationships; and all avail themselves of -scientific knowledge and employ scientific methods. - -The schools then, like the conference, confirm the tentative definition -but do not expand it by the addition of any new terms. It is possible -that social work as a whole has no more common features. But it is, -of course, also possible that other features could be found if we had -some fresh clue to them. The present study, having put all its leading -questions must again content itself with adding to the already accepted -terms of the definition such further implications as the curricula -suggest--and again we find these implications to come from the use of -science for philanthropic purposes. - -The courses most commonly “required” for all students in the schools -are those treating the social sciences. What do these offer to -the incipient social worker? The courses in sociology--especially -those which thirteen of the schools offer in the history of certain -institutions or in race comparisons--give perspective. They show -institutions changing in form and function. They show ideas of -right changing as the institutions change, temporary institutions -conditioning our lives even in the matters a layman supposes -instinctive. They force a student to look outside the setting of -custom and creed into which, like every other man, he has been born. -They show him the provincialism of sweeping judgments pronounced on -the basis of sectional, sectarian or class standards. They teach him -in a professional capacity (if in no other) to recognize varieties -of good. Yet all the while they are making possible a simpler and -more objectified conception of individuality than it is easy for the -uninstructed to entertain. We look with something very like amusement -on the animistic and anthropomorphic views of natural phenomena -entertained by primitive men and yet we are only just beginning to -realize that the subjective interpretations and moral judgments with -which we have so long been satisfied in respect to humanity are equally -arbitrary and deductive and that man also is, up to a certain point a -natural phenomenon to be inductively considered. In such perspective -praise and blame become to many issues irrelevant and we begin soberly -to reckon the possibilities of education in the compass of individual -lifetimes. - -Psychology, after sociology the science most frequently taught in the -schools, pushes further the process sociology began. It shows that our -most intimate convictions are not axiomatic. It shows the thought that -is our very selves to be half the creation of others, and makes the -question of individual blameworthiness a merely practical one of what -forces are to be reckoned with in a given situation. - -The third of the general sciences taught is statistics, the language of -collective fact. By discovering norms it shows danger lines. It tells -what food and what air and what income are necessary to support life -in an average individual and what degree of development is usual in a -child of a given age and what degree of intelligence suffices to keep -people out of trouble without the protection of a guardian. It gives -the charitably inclined hard facts with which to face the indifferent -and firm ground to stand on in demanding reform. At first sight it -looks like a means to intolerable regimentation but rightly used it -is a charter of freedom. Given a knowledge of the margin of safety we -can make a concerted attack on substandard conditions while allowing -indefinite variation above the danger line and the mere nonconformist -need not be dreaded or attacked for simple nonconformity. - -Thus may courses in social science give to many a raw recruit of -social work grounds for acting with the tolerance, the respect for -individuals, the single and unaccusing eye on present and future -possibilities which their elders and maybe betters had (when they -had them at all) as the rare and not to be commanded gifts of sheer -humanity and wisdom. - -Here is the contribution of science to social work which touches its -vital center, refines the very impulse that animates it, as it animated -its predecessors and keeps it true to form among the distractions -of technical formality. No study can produce imagination, sympathy, -generosity or good taste any more than it can give a student a better -brain, but what it can do is to give to persons of only average -perspicacity and humanity the understanding to act with some degree of -intelligence and consideration where the untrained average person would -make cruel and disastrous blunders. - -The tentative definition of social work which we sought to test and -add to by the testimony of conference and school curricula has gained -no fresh terms but it has gained in significance and, taken together -with all its implications, makes of social work something thoroughly -definitive and characteristic. But the definition was wanted for -practical purposes and before dropping the subject it will be necessary -to inquire whether it can in any degree serve them. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[55] For a list of schools see the Appendix. The list comprises the -membership of the “Association of Training Schools for Professional -Social Workers,” organized 1919. - -[56] All information in this chapter is from the school catalogues for -the years 1920-21 or 1921-22 (the latest available when this study was -begun) or from correspondence with the schools. - -[57] Social service “calls for a knowledge of the principles of -social organization, the conditions which cause poverty and may lead -to dependency, the social and psychological factors involved in the -training of youth, the methods of promoting thrift and independence -among the laboring classes, the many experiments which have been made -in the field of social legislation and the relations between these -various theories and activities.” - -[58] “The purpose of the School of Social Work is to give professional -training in the art of adjusting personal relations. Social workers -also have to do with food, clothing, shelter, and medical attention, -but these are incidental to their main work of adjusting differences -which arise in the relations between people, e.g., between school -authorities and parents and parents and pupils, between family and -community.” - -[59] Four schools which are integral parts of universities with many of -the courses their students are expected to take organized as parts of -other departments are not divided as are the independently organized -schools and those whose college connection is not so involved. - -[60] For list see Appendix II, C. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE ANSWER TO ITS CRITICS - - -At the beginning of this study it was said that a definition of social -work was in demand for practical use. We have developed a definition -which seems to hold good as far as it goes. We have said that social -work includes all voluntary attempts to extend benefits in response to -a need, which are concerned with social relationships and which avail -themselves of scientific knowledge and employ scientific methods. -It remains to test whether this is sufficiently descriptive and -sufficiently definitive to be of any practical use. Is it inclusive -enough to allow social work to claim all its legitimate functions and -exclusive enough to rescue it from unreasonable demands? These things -can only be tested by trying it out in discussion. It is therefore the -purpose of this chapter to attempt such a trial by assuming that social -work is no more and no less than the definition indicates and requiring -it, on this representation, to run the gauntlet of familiar criticism. - -Up to the present time social work has not been the subject of much -serious analytical comment. It has been too inchoate for that. -But a sort of guerilla warfare of criticism pursues it in private -conversation, on public platforms and in the obiter dicta of current -literature. The criticisms are of three principal sorts, those which -say that what it does is somehow unworthy, those which say it does too -much and those which say it does too little; or, more fully stated, -those which charge it with an unwholesome interest in wanting to -play providence to other people, those which think it is attempting -something in defiance of the laws of nature and those which scorn it -for tinkering with abuses which should be fallen upon and annihilated. - -In the first group may be classed the view of people who find the world -well enough as it is and think that social workers stir up hornets’ -nests from sheer meddlesomeness and love of power. As this belief -never survives any considerable acquaintance with social work or any -but very provincial knowledge of the world it need not be discussed. -More considerable is the criticism of those who object to social work -because they think that to make demands in the interest of other people -is patronizing or sentimental or both. They think that the people -might possibly ask very different things of life from those which the -social worker asks for them; that if the social worker wishes to help -them he should confine himself to seconding their motions; that an -outsider and mere witness of an abuse who has never felt its weight is -not the one to draw up its indictment or to prescribe a remedy. But -their objection is not altogether on these grounds. Even when social -work makes the same demands as its clients have made for themselves -the irreconcilables continue to denounce it for undue interference. -Some of them, to be sure, think that while self-respecting people are -asking their plain rights in their own name and that of justice social -work makes it easy for the community to neglect their demands and -yet salve its conscience by supporting such benefactions as it finds -convenient. But this last belongs with the next group of criticisms -and must be answered along with them. We are for the moment concerned -only with the strange but apparently rooted belief that there must be -something spurious about a movement in which people are not speaking -for themselves. - -It is evident that even people who commend social work, often do -so patronizingly as though it were something not to be taken very -seriously because it is not self-supporting and cannot claim the great, -humdrum, unchallengeable sanction of self interest. Moreover people -in border-line occupations when referred to as social workers will -repudiate the name as though it might discredit their work by taking -it out of the busy wholesome world of fair exchanges and putting it in -a world of patronage and possible hypocrisy. Men advocating industrial -welfare work are commonly not satisfied to claim that it pays for -itself and will be no expense to the business that installs it, but -assert with an air of rescuing it from suspicion, that it results in a -net profit to the man who puts it in and is therefore “not sentiment” -but “good business.” Those who, though themselves not originally -industrial workers, go into the labor movement, very frequently -pour scorn on the social worker while feeling themselves safe from -corrupting condescension in a company that is only asking for its own -rights. - -The element of justice in the charge does not need to be pointed out. -Bernard Shaw has warned us against doing unto others as we would have -them do unto us for fear they may not like it. But for members of a -gregarious species some tolerance of ministration seems unavoidable. -Within the labor movement itself those with a margin of time and energy -are constantly acting in the interest of those who have none. We all -begin life with several years of sheer dependence on the altruism -of our elders and if we live long enough come again to some form of -dependence. As we look back on the slow mitigation of man’s inhumanity -to man there seems at least good ground for putting the burden of proof -on those who scorn all benevolent interference. We have already noticed -that what passes in one generation for special interest in the fortunes -of others seems to a later time plain obligation. - -“Almost every law on the statute books,” says a historian, in reference -to protective legislation, “was forced upon the legislature by the -disconcerting zeal of a few enthusiasts. We marvel at the slight -concessions to humanity which satisfied them, we should rather admire -the originality which led them to denounce cruel and oppressive -conditions which had satisfied the legislature and against which -their victims had not always turned.”[61] There is the crux of the -matter--the victims will not, cannot always turn. In the palmy days -of utilitarianism when the opposition to doing for others was felt -with the mighty impact of which the present vague distrust is the last -faint ripple fading across the public mind, Mill himself will be found -writing that although it can be stated as a general rule “that most -persons take a juster and more intelligent view of their own interest, -and of the means of promoting it, than can either be prescribed to -them by a general enactment of the legislature, or pointed out in the -particular case by a public functionary” nevertheless “there is no -difficulty in perceiving some very large and conspicuous exceptions to -it.”[62] And among these exceptions he proceeds to enumerate protection -of persons incapable of judging or acting for themselves whether from -defective intelligence or immaturity, and the protection offered by -labor legislation and by public charity. Elsewhere he also remarks, -“Those who most need to be made wiser and better commonly desire it -least, and if they desired it would be incapable of finding the way to -it by their own lights.”[63] - -It could probably be shown that the great bulk of social work acts -in the interest of people unable to speak for themselves or vaguely -wanting something they cannot find “the way to by their own lights.” -But victimization and helplessness are entirely relative matters and -social work is prepared boldly to extend benefits wherever they are -wanted. - -Science has now laid a broad road and is leading the plodding crowd -where the keen feet of Pegasus have always carried the subtle minded, -whatever the contemporary creed. “Darwin” writes a popular social -psychologist “in the _Descent of Man_ (1871) first enunciated the true -doctrine of human motives, and showed how we must proceed, relying -chiefly upon the comparative and natural history method, if we would -arrive at a fuller understanding of them. * * * Social Psychology -has to show how, given the native propensities and capacities of the -individual human mind, all the complex mental life of societies is -shaped by them and in turn reacts upon the course of their development -and operation in the individual. * * * The fundamental problem of -social psychology is moralization of the individual by the society -into which he is born as a creature in which the non-moral and -purely egoistic tendencies are so much stronger than any altruistic -tendencies.”[64] That is to say the problem which social psychology -must solve is the problem of how this moralization is brought about. -The significance of such doctrine for social work is in its entire -discrediting of any naive individualism and its indication that man -being an animal that lives not solitary but in groups some form and -degree of interdependence is, for him, in the first order of nature. -The interests and inclinations corollary to that interdependence are -inescapable for him. - -If this is the case objection to the social work we have defined could -not be “on principle” but must be to special forms of service on -specific grounds of inexpediency or because of the manner or quality -of the service. Although it is the manner and quality of service which -make the social work of any given time and place what it is they -are nevertheless incidentals entirely separable from its nature and -principles. Objections are brought on specific grounds of expediency -by those who claim that social work does too much and these objections -will be considered in their turn. Objection is also made to the manner -and quality of the social workers’ services and it is this objection -which really animates the charge against the altruism of social work. - -This study is an analysis of the nature and functions, not the -performance of social work. It must, however, consider a general -objection to the nature and quality of the social workers’ services -which so often passes for an objection to social work itself. - -This vague distrust of social work which we have just been considering, -this dislike of it as something sentimental or undemocratic, is really -a dislike of these incidentals which social work has a perfect right to -disclaim if it can. It is a moral and aesthetic repulsion, an aversion -for the sort of thing which social work sometimes seems to be. - -It is social case work that is most open not only to misunderstanding -but to abuse. In it social work is especially liable to the defects of -its qualities. People who take for granted the social work that is done -in connection with the courts, the schools, institutions dealing with -defectives and in many other connections without troubling to consider -what it is they are accepting and even relying upon, will, because of -what they think social case work to be, pour scorn upon “uplifters” and -social workers generally. - -The social case workers’ professional contribution to a situation -consists in doing whatever she does in conscious relation to a -general situation, in the ease of her contacts and the range of her -resources.[65] There is no limit to the knowledge of a situation -which it may be useful for her to have. A speaker addressing the -first students in the New York School of Philanthropy is on record as -referring to “investigation” as a necessary evil which must be bravely -faced and telling them they must always make it plain that “the person -in distress has asked you to help him and that you _mean_ to help -him, to help his soul and not only to feed his miserable body, and -that you cannot help him unless you do _know all about_ him.”[66] Of -course that is to give an ell when an inch is asked for--and an ell -of very different stuff. The statement was made twenty-five years ago -and is not given here as typical either of this time or that, but -as an instance of the sort of thing which is said and passed on and -resented, all in good faith. Obviously the more the case worker knows, -provided she can understand it, the better she can do her work. But -because of the very real requirement to employ trained workers and the -rapid expansion of the profession young people are employed as fast -as the schools will grind them out. And when social work lets loose -on difficult situations people disqualified for dealing with them -by their youth or inexperience or native incapacity or all three it -must expect its reputation to suffer. But, taken at the best, there -is great presumption in the attempt of one mortal life to analyze and -prescribe for the totality of another. A too nice matching up of the -inferential motive with the act to be accounted for, a too meticulous -testing for the qualities presumed necessary for a certain degree of -self direction, entail a veritable invasion of one life by another. -It is hard for the analytical to remember that any explanation, no -matter how true and inclusive, is only one thread drawn from a web. The -generalizations which we can make after taking cognizance of a certain -number of instances are just as much and as little applicable to any -given life as the probability tables of an insurance company. They are -illuminating as guides to general expectation but will not closely -correspond to any particular case. There cannot be any authoritative, -objective determination of the proper elements and relationships of -life, and any attempt to arrange for the life of another as a whole is -profane. The clearest sighted come often enough into unlit passages of -their own destiny where they must grope forward in bewilderment and a -kind of awed respect for things which could go unsuspected and yet all -along be “nearer to them than breathing, closer than hands and feet.” -Who then shall interpret another? - -Yet life must be met with a certain hardihood. For the conspicuously -defective we know that self direction is impossible, and for the -intolerably troublesome we accept coercion, but in the case of -the merely dependent there are delicate lines to be drawn. Social -work knows perfectly well that it is possible to degenerate into -“substituting one neurosis for another.” Hamlet, thrusting on the -bewildered courtier the flute which that courtier could not play, spoke -for many an inarticulate protestor, “Why, look you now, how unworthy a -thing you make of me! You would play upon me you would seem to know my -stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me -from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, -excellent voice in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. -’sblood do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?”[67] - -Lincoln is credited with the observation that the Lord never made the -man who was good enough to have power over another man and, by its -option of giving or withholding benefits, social work undoubtedly holds -its beneficiaries very much in its power, not to mention the cases in -which it has actual guardianship, legal or otherwise. A German social -worker accustomed to the strict German notions of regulation could yet -say after a study of American social work, “an individual is never -so absolutely at the mercy of an administration as when he is the -beneficiary of a relief system.”[68] It is the social worker who is -the champion of individual rights all down the line from insisting on -discrimination among the men referred to en masse as “the criminal” to -rescuing orphan children from the uniformity of plaid dresses all of a -length. But who shall rescue the beneficiaries of social work? - -Is it any wonder that people sometimes shudder at what social workers -take upon themselves? But these are only the risks incident to great -opportunity. If some social workers run a policy into the ground, if -they have neither imagination, reverence or a sense of humor, that is -the fault of human nature and not the fault of social work. There are -doctors who prescribe for cases they do not understand and fail to save -the patients, there are dishonest and even addle-headed lawyers who -defeat justice, and there are ministers of religion who are hypocrites, -but their existence does not utterly discredit their professions. The -quotations from the national conference and elsewhere must have made it -clear that this sort of personal imposition and finessing in control -are, if nothing else, too poor game to attract the main energies of -social work. These have large issues to absorb them and the effect of -the scientific methods and scientific knowledge which our definition -makes essential is to encourage a robust interest in things clearly -knowable and an attitude attentive and curious rather than dictatorial -and inquisitive. Social work being the lineal descendant of charity -has the family weaknesses and, perhaps even beyond its deserts, the -family reputation. But the one question for anyone willing to do it -justice is whether these weaknesses are characteristic of its present -phase or fading hang-overs from the charity undisciplined by science. -The records of past munificence with their evidence of interest in -giving as a means of grace for the giver, of indifference regarding the -supposed beneficiaries, of wholesale prescriptions of what is proper -for “the poor,” of breaking up of families, imposition of uniform -labor and total disregard of private claims must be either unknown -or forgotten by people who think a decay of neighborly respect and -an inclination to regiment the dependent have been produced by the -innovations of scientific social work. - -So far we have been trying to get at and answer the rather vague -charges of those who think social work unworthily employed. Clearer -indictments are brought by the three groups who want us to turn from -the defeated and let them go under. The least extreme of these simply -points out that life unfolds in terms of alternatives and the time, -the skill, the substance and interest lavished by social work on the -incompetent might have given opportunity to baulked ability. Of course -incompetence and ability are relative matters and some forms of social -work could make out a case for themselves as engaged on the task these -critics would prefer, but it is easy to see the general bearing of -this criticism and by our definition social work is committed to the -very concern for the disadvantaged with which they charge it. But the -definition also stipulated for the use of scientific knowledge and -methods and once you have social work and social science playing into -one another’s hands you can answer even the baldest utilitarians on -their own grounds. The effort to help where help is most needed has -been to the social work of our definition a road to prevention of -abuses which affect competent and incompetent alike, a means to better -understanding and control of our social organization. In social as in -other forms of science the normal is often only to be understood after -observation of the abnormal. Moreover, the really imperative services -of social work are evidently forgotten by these critics as well as -by the second group who would say hands off to social work. These -imperative services can be indicated for both groups at once. - -This second group are opposed to social work, not as a mere waste -of means which might be better employed, but as an actual menace. -They think it thwarts the action of the salutary principle of nature -by which the “fittest” survive their less “fit” brethren. The tacit -assumption behind this view is that if all social work were suspended -tomorrow, vigor and capacity would have pre-eminent survival value and -the unfit would be eliminated and the race purged of an undesirable -inheritance strain. - -The race is to the swift and the battle to the strong, but in modern -life, even where there is no social work, the defeated are not forced -clear off the stage with any degree of promptitude. Complete dismissal -comes only by the arrow that flieth by noonday or the pestilence that -walketh in darkness and our modern versions of these strike the weak -and the strong in a ratio which it would be hard to compute. War and -industrial accidents take not the worst but the best and some of our -most destructive diseases take, fairly indiscriminately, any who are -exposed to them or their predisposing conditions. Meanwhile, what is -there to extinguish the unfit? Though in a sense defeated they continue -to live on and they leave progeny. Even without social work they -would not starve or freeze to death in numbers sufficient to have the -minutest effect upon the quality of the race. - -The man of sub-normal intelligence, of bad nervous organization, of -specific defect even, can, in most modern communities keep alive by -his own efforts. He will drag on, abysmally incompetent, indolent, -badly behaved or ill. He may irregularly rent a shelter which other men -would refuse, he will inevitably do his little bit to demoralize the -labor market and the work he from time to time takes up and he may, -for one reason or another, go for awhile to prison. His demands on the -almshouse we will omit as it would probably in this connection count as -social work. He can do our work badly, put the cost of his keep on the -community if he goes to prison, make our pockets or our persons unsafe, -if he happens to be that way inclined, spread disease and even, for a -consideration, vote. What is to be gained by leaving this poor creature -to his own devices and the haphazard propagation of his species? From -a biological point of view, nothing at all, and his running amuck is -a nuisance and a menace. What could social work do? From a biological -point of view, also nothing. If indeed the man were so far defective -that it could confine him to an institution it might in that way -prevent his leaving a family but this simple precaution the biological -critics would probably arrange for through some other agency. But -social work might greatly limit his troublesomeness. - -One can only conclude that those who advocate leaving the unfit to -their own destruction do not know, as social work knows, how slow that -destruction is going to be, how costly and troublesome to the community -in which it is taking place, how many people may be, first and last, -involved in it and, above all, how little likely it is to culminate -before the unfit man has left children to succeed him. - -Such glaring cases of unfitness are however not typical of the -sort with which social work most often deals. More typical is such -mild cherishing of unfitness as the securing of eye-glasses for a -nearsighted child. Would it do any good to leave him without glasses, -unable to see the blackboard at school, considered a blockhead, unhappy -and defiant and growing up at odds with the world? He would be no whit -less likely to have a family of shortsighted children. - -Since the relative security of civilized life allows the unfit, left to -their own devices, to live long enough to demoralize their community -and perpetuate their strain, a humane guardianship supplied by social -work, with an eye to prevention and all the possibilities of the social -situation, is simply the safeguarding of a group in which spontaneous -elimination has ceased to be sufficiently expeditious for the public -safety. - -The last of those who would say “hands off” believe that the needs to -which social work at present ministers are chargeable to a few major -abuses in our economic system which could and would be removed by -swift revolutionary measures were it not for false hopes of gradual -reform--hopes which social work helps to keep alive. They think that if -the distress caused by “the present system” were left unrelieved people -would be shocked into summary abolition of the system. The chances of -concerted action on any such program are so infinitesimal that it is -difficult to regard such a proposal as anything but a mere “talking -point” of propaganda. The abuses of the “present system” are too -hideously great for us to risk any momentary discontinuance of their -relief without a very certain guarantee of the desired results. - -And when it comes to that we can but remember that the blackest nights -of human oppression have not led to the brightest mornings of human -brotherhood, though there has been many a fine gesture of uprising. -What Mr. Wells remarks in his “Outline of History” apropos of the -results of the French Revolution seems to be true of any attempt to -emancipate life at a blow. “When these things of the ancient regime had -vanished, it seemed as if they had never mattered. * * * the immense -promise and air of a new world with which the Revolution had come -remained unfulfilled. - -“Yet, after all, this wave of revolution had realized nearly everything -that had been clearly thought out before it. It was not failing for -want of impetus but for want of finished ideas. Many things that had -oppressed mankind were swept away forever. Now that they were swept -away it became apparent how unprepared men were for the creative -opportunities this clearance gave them. And periods of revolution are -periods of action; in them men reap the harvest of ideas that have -grown during phases of interlude, and they leave the fields cleared -for a season of new growth, but they cannot suddenly produce ripened -new ideas to meet an unanticipated riddle.”[69] Despite the years of -thinking that have elapsed since 1789, the Russian revolution finds -itself in the same case. The present party that has attempted its clean -sweep of previous organization is rich in coherence and intention but -not in organization and expedients. - -Much of what social work is now doing is developing expedients of -social practice equally applicable and equally necessary under any -form of government. The question of whether social work as such -should occupy itself with the development of such expedients or -with revolutionary projects belongs not with the discussion of its -overdoing, but of its doing too little. The advocates of revolution say -“hands off” but they really despise social work for temporizing. - -To those who charge it with temporizing, the third and last group of -its critics, social work listens very gravely. They touch it where -its conscience is tender. The first group, those who charge it with -unworthy patronage and intrusion do not touch its principle at all. -It knows better than any one else the sort of thing that may easily -be done in its name, knows that its recruits are unregenerate human -beings who will have to learn to put aside personal for scientific -curiosity and resist their enormous temptations to tyrannize. It knows -that the things for which that first group condemns it are things -which will always continue to menace it but things which, on the -whole, it is growing away from. The second group, those who charge it -with interfering with natural selection and wasting opportunity on -lame ducks do not shake its conviction. It knows perfectly well that -not social work but the abundance of mere food and shelter and the -ingrained sympathy or solidarity, or what you will, of civilized man -is what prevents the elimination of the unfit and that these unfit can -only be made innocuous and self-supporting by methods and arrangements -worked out by the intelligence of the especially fit. - -But when this third group tell social work that it is not extending -benefits but in the long run delaying their extension, when they tell -it that there is a dragon “privilege” which can grow new heads of -offence faster than it can cut them off, when they say that social work -must be either utterly entangled in its own red tape or corrupted by -the flesh pots of Egypt not to see that it is simply compounding with -the mammon of unrighteousness to allow the continuance of privilege -and abuse, then indeed social work itself is troubled. It has known -all along that those are wrong who say it is a mistake to serve the -disadvantaged, but to be told that it--social work--is not serving -them, that is a very different matter. The charges are two, first that -it is selfish and pharisaical, and second that it is practically bought -for the defense of privilege. The first complain of - - “The organized charity scrimped and iced - In the name of a cautious statistical Christ.”[70] - -Social work is confessed by the definition, to be “cautious” and -“statistical.” Used in this opprobrious sense the words make a reproach -that could scarcely be more bitter, but who would want a doctor to pour -out without stint the strichnia needed by his patient’s heart? The -development of methods, standards and technique has been referred to -in these pages as matter only for congratulation. But obviously these -have their dangers like everything else. Our childish humanity has been -tempted, from the days of the medicine man on, rather to claim the -confidence of a gullible public by the impressiveness of its ceremonies -than arduously to achieve that confidence by the excellence of its -performance. The temptation to aim at an impression is especially -strong in the case of social work because it often does for people -the sort of things that friends are at the same time sporadically -attempting. When with every intention of producing efficiency social -work tries to establish “standards” it again has to risk the shift of -emphasis from the work to the technical measurement and the resulting -tendency to attempt what can be put through in good form instead of -what most needs to be done. - -But the greatest resentment is probably not caused by these lapses, -which social workers themselves know better than outsiders. “Organized -charity” did not, as it is so easy for those who know only the present -to assume, originate suspicious scrutiny. Charity was “cautious” in -the sense of the bitter couplet long before the present organized -charity movement. The fierce old English poor law took no chances -on “impostors”[71] and the dread of them by the private charities -of the continent in the sixteenth century has already been referred -to in these pages. It is, of course, easy to see the necessity for -“investigation” when charity is on a large scale. But it is easier -to resent for oneself, or one’s friends, the mortification of being -suspect; and to many people “organized charity” has never meant -anything more than an attempt to prevent overlapping and imposture. -But in the scientific charity movement precaution soon sank into -insignificance beside the more positive purpose of learning enough -about a situation to tackle it intelligently. This is a trifle harder -to understand and even easier to resent. When we want help we usually -have a pretty definite notion of just what help we need, we are in a -touchy mood to begin with, and unless we are very nice people indeed -we resent any questioning of our preference. It is a matter of common -knowledge that those who do not appreciate the difficulty of the -doctor’s task and the time required for cures drift from one dispensary -to another and try physician after physician in search of one who will -treat their troubles as they think they should be treated and give -them the relief for which suffering dares not cease to hope. What -wonder if a yet greater dissatisfaction is felt with the deliberateness -of the social worker. And if, as we have said in the definition, he -is to proceed by “scientific” methods he must be as “cautious” and -“statistical” as the doctor. - -But granting the need of caution in procedure it is shocking and -repellant, on the face of it, that this organized charity should make -the throbbing woes of a fellow creature the subject of dehumanized -records. It is bad enough that people should be required to strip -their predicament bare, exhibit all their helplessness and violate -reticence to expound whatever can “throw light on the situation”--but -why must it be recorded? But it is shocking enough to learn that -someone we care for is known as a certain sort of case in a hospital -and yet we have now so far appreciated medical exigencies as to accept -it as a necessity. In other matters also we may come to realize that -there is no impertinence in impersonal treatment for purposes of -serviceable classification, and for all classification the prerequisite -is records. - -A final source of misunderstanding is the double nature of the social -worker’s task. Not only in relief work but in other lines as well he -is not free to do as he would, he cannot always command the means. -He can decide what he thinks would best be done but then he has to -consider what sort of approximation to that best the resources of his -association or community allow. The Webbs, in outlining a proposed -reorganization of the English relief system, say that “Nothing has -contributed so much to make the visits of the Poor Law Relieving -Officer odious as the _mixture_ of his inquiries--as to the sickness -of the person who is ill, or the lunacy of the person of unsound mind, -and at the same time, as to the means of the family and as to what -relations could be made to contribute.”[72] This stewardship for public -or contributed funds and for doing things quite irrelevant to any -intention of social work do more than anything else to make it seem -“scrimped.” - -Social work, then, may take heart of grace. It is, once again, being -condemned chiefly on misunderstanding and for the rest on its mere -shortcomings. All human undertakings must expect that and try to amend -and carry on. - -It may summon its courage and meet the last charge, the one that seems -to make it most uncomfortable, a charge that not only says it bails -the sea with a sieve and locks the door when the horse is out of the -stable, but goes farther and ascribes motives--“the social worker is -called an apologist for the status quo; he is called a little brother -of the rich; he is accused of taking tainted money;”[73]--and why? -Because social work continues in what its critics consider “remedial” -work instead of addressing itself to wholesale and summary prevention. - -Whose fault is that? Let any one who blames it on social work turn to -the reports of the national conference. Let him turn to the “Survey.” -He will find no lack of interest in prevention. The fact is that social -work is paid for by voluntary subscriptions, philanthropic foundations, -and state appropriations. So far all these sources of support, the -potential representatives of the people in the legislature no less than -wealthy donors, are more accessible to an appeal for relief of existing -misery than to an appeal for the prevention of possible catastrophes. -This ties the hands of social work even in the simple matters in which -it might alone do more “preventive work.” But social work cannot alone, -in any but a secondary sense, prevent the situations it is called upon -to relieve. It works prevention as hard as it can and puts it up to -the community in plain terms, but the situations which, at our present -stage of progress, largely occupy its services could only be prevented -by a living wage and regular employment, work that would not poison or -exhaust the worker, sanitary and decent housing, clean milk, and so on -through the list of those simple requisites of a civilized life which -are now inaccessible to a large part of our population. Social work -cannot give employers the will or the ability to pay a living wage; it -cannot provide the masses with decent housing and unadulterated food -nor, all at once, with a corresponding standard and habit of living. -And if it should stop all it is doing now, in order to devote itself -to prevention, neglected children would grow up unhealthy and vicious, -the feeble-minded would multiply and every calamity of today become a -fruitful source of multiplied disaster tomorrow. One might as well ask -that all physicians cease treating from day to day the many diseases -that afflict us, the better to devote themselves to a wholesale -campaign of prevention. The social work of our definition has its own -specific work to do from day to day. It must, like medicine, care for -the handicapped in each generation and prevent the spread of contagion -while it uses the margin of its energies for prevention and progress. - -Social work _as we have described it_, is not synonymous with -social reform. It has no more responsibility for reform on “general -principles” than has any other profession or calling. That it should -ever be thought to have is a tribute to its thoroughness and convincing -proof of its devotion to prevention. - -We are told, as though to settle the case against social work, that -there are even social workers “who, while they may not say it publicly, -do not hesitate to say privately that they regard social work as a mere -“palliative,” and while they get their living from it, their real -hopes are pinned to the coming social revolution.”[74] The personal -immorality of anyone who would continue to get a living from a calling -he believed to be sailing under false colors is not our business, but, -if social work is what our definition says, there is no reason why -any social worker need hesitate to say, either privately or with all -the publicity he can command, that his hopes are pinned to the coming -social revolution, or to the effects of New Thought or the Seventh Day -Advent or anything else to which he may have happened, according to his -lights and temperament, to have pinned them. - -Social work attempts to serve persons in need of help; it shepherds the -rear of the social procession; it cares for the casualties; it also -claims opportunity for the unprivileged and asserts the rights of the -individual lost in the mass. In so doing it finds itself effecting -progress in the many ways already discussed. They are usually indirect -ways. These critics assume that it could induce progress directly by an -attempt to bring about radical social changes that would do away with -the need for its services. They quote against it Tolstoy’s indictment -of our social system--“The present position we, the educated and -well-to-do classes, occupy is that of the Old Man of the Sea, riding on -the poor man’s back, only, unlike the Old Man of the Sea, we are sorry -for the poor man, very sorry. And we will do almost anything for the -poor man’s relief; we will not only supply him with food sufficient for -him to keep on his legs, but will provide him with cooling draughts -concocted on strictly scientific principles; we will teach and instruct -him and point out to him the beauties of the landscape; we will -discourse sweet music to him and give him lots of good advice. Yes we -will do almost anything for the poor man, anything but get off his -back.”[75] - -Such a picture makes everyone unhappy to reflect on and in face of it -thoughtful social workers take stock of their position. But they can -only conclude that to accuse social work per se of insincerity and -temporizing, of clinging to a snug berth, because it does not attempt -to end this intolerable situation by revolution is to imagine it both -greater and less than it is. We have already seen that it is only a -calling like others with a day’s work of its own. Reforms merely free -it from old duties and open the gates to new ones and there is no -reason to suppose that changes the most radical would do away with the -need of it or the human impulse that perpetually recreates it. Whether -revolutionary methods would free us from present abuses and confront -us with a new set but, as it were, upon a higher level, is, of course -an open question and a relevant one. But it is a question of pure -expediency facing the social worker of each generation as it faces -anyone else and it in no way involves the integrity or the permanency -of the function of social work. - -The alternatives in the interest of which social work is by these -critics condemned are the labor movement and social revolution. But -these are hardly genuine alternatives. Both of them have the allegiance -of people in many callings, but each provides a day’s work to a -comparatively small number of organizers and other workers. There is no -logical reason why a social worker should not be active in the service -of either or both and yet remain in his calling, as the bricklayer, -lawyer, or laborer may. - -The labor movement and social revolution and social work are three -things of three entirely different kinds. The labor movement is a tide -in human affairs. It is the projection in practical issues of certain -interpretations and ideals of life. Social revolution is a cataclysmic -expedient for precipitating, in finished form, readjustments which -the labor movement and certain other influences tend gradually and -adaptively to effect. The one is a great movement now under way, the -other a vast enterprise or a vast dream. For them is spilt the martyr -blood that is the seed of every church militant. They throw down a -gauntlet; they raise a banner; they stir our hearts. But why not let -the social worker also plod on with a good conscience and a hope for -his labors. - - For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, - Seem here no painful inch to gain, - Far back through creeks and inlets making, - Comes silent, flooding in, the main. - - And not by eastern windows only, - When daylight comes, comes in the light; - In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly. - But westward, look! the land is bright.[76] - -Social work is a group of callings representing a certain function -of civilized society whatever form that society may take. Its nearest -analogy is educational work. Whatever form society may assume education -seems likely to retain the functions of rendering available the -experience and conclusions of the past and developing the capacities -of each generation as it comes on. Similarly we can ascribe to social -work, under whatever system of society it may be conducted, the -functions of completing inadequacy, extending benefits and rescuing -the individual from the category. In a community where no one was -poor or out of work, where abundance of pure food and decent housing -were available for all, where wholesome recreation was attainable -and attractive, and physical and mental hygiene as much a matter of -course as school attendance, the tasks of the social worker would not -be what they are now; they would be changed beyond our imagining. -But they might still be present. In some distant sunny noonday of a -healthy happy world it may even be possible that the supernormal will -need rescue from victimizing by the mass. Even today social work is -concerned for the superior child handicapped by a public school routine -that forces him to keep step with the average and the dull. - -What is overlooked by those who fail to see this permanency in social -work is that it has a day’s work of its own. Since its object is -personal service, it tends to focus in the present and since that -personal service is primarily the relief of need, it is relative to the -standard of the times. “Radicalism is not an absolute but a relative -school of thought. It stands for the things that the government is not -ready to do. Hence it is that no government is really radical.”[77] -Social work is radical in the sense that it proffers services that have -not yet become duties. It is by the same token that it is also relative -and will, despite changes in social organization, continue to relieve -new needs, to extend new benefits and to rescue individuals from -newly-felt forms of regimentation. - -That social work, as a calling, does not make itself tributary to any -one social philosophy casts no suspicion on its integrity. Nor is -it strange that the majority of social workers individually should -continue to hold, on the subject of revolution, the opinions of the -majority of their fellow citizens. That social workers should become -so much interested in their own methods of relief as to forget the -prime object of all their system, that they should become so devoted -to the success of particular undertakings as to be unobservant of -other and perhaps better attempts to relieve needs is a reproach to -the guilty persons but it no more touches the principles and functions -of social work than similar faults of practitioners in other lines -condition the presumptive functions of their respective callings. Were -this a discussion of social work in practice it would be necessary -to consider the degree to which its practitioners have realized its -possibilities. But a study of the nature and functions of social work -such as this purports to be would lose itself in confusion in any -attempt to determine precisely how far instances have run true to type. -The teaching offered by the schools and the interests reflected in the -National Conference prove beyond a doubt the direction of its main -stream. - -The charge we have just been discussing is the last of the major -accusations commonly brought against social work, and the definition we -have been using has now been shown to describe a social work that can -meet its critics squarely and retain a claim to a function of its own -in social economy and a certain character and integrity. - -It is one of those human activities which are pursued, as we say, for -their own sake. It can be justified on utilitarian grounds but the -justification never amounts to more than permission to follow our -inclination untroubled. Yet, unlike other such activities, unlike -recreation, art and learning, it does not reach out to life at its -happiest and most conscious, its fullest and finest, but seeks, “Rather -the scorned--the rejected--the men hemmed in by the spears.” Social -work lifts burdens, fills needs, extends benefits. - - “Not the ruler for me, but the ranker, the tramp of the road, - The slave with the sack on his shoulder, pricked on with the goad, - The man with too weighty a burden, too weary a load. - - * * * * * - - Others may sing of the wine and the wealth and the mirth, - The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth; - Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust and scum of the earth.”[78] - -Social work is interested in all people that need help and classifies -them according to their needs, with no ulterior interest. It tries to -serve them in their individual capacity as human beings with lives of -their own. It is always extending benefits in excess of any recognized -obligation. These we have heretofore said were the habits of charity, -using the word in a broad and primitive sense. When charity adopted a -scientific method and took to studying the social sciences for light on -its problems social work began. Although it has been necessary to refer -to charity often and at length in establishing the nature of social -work, it is not well to dwell on it in general discussion, because, -first, it has lately been applied only to the relief of poverty and -cannot be used in a wider sense without explanation and, secondly, -through centuries of association with an idea of meritorious liberality -towards persons inferior, it has acquired connotations which do not -belong to social work. - -Social work as we now have it makes use of modern science. From the -social sciences it takes perspective, generalization and knowledge of -the complication of influences responsible for any given situation. By -statistical methods it relates cause and effect. The discovery of such -a relationship always emphasizes causes and in consequence social work -extends its protective function in the direction of prevention. By so -doing it becomes not only a minister to misery but also one of the -forces operating to make the world a better dwelling place for all of -its inhabitants. - -Social work because it is tentative and experimental seems to be -imperfectly developed and still on trial. There is a temptation -to anticipate for it more certainty, more obvious consistency and -more clearly formulated purposes when it shall have become better -established. But any such anticipation fails to take account of its -wholly relative nature. Social work is always feeling its way beyond -clearly formulated obligations, ignoring imposed consistencies and -groping in unexplored regions where sure-footedness is not possible. -Social work will take many more forms and all of them will prove -temporary. - -This makes social work hard to compare with the established professions -with the ministrations of which its services have many points in -common, with medicine for example. Although several sciences are -helpful to social work it specializes in the application of no one of -them. It is only in the very loosest sense applied sociology and might -with almost equal suggestiveness be called applied eugenics or social -psychology or any one of half a dozen other things. Conversely its -observations and experiences are valuable to a dozen arts and sciences -but build no science of their own. Nor does it build any systematically -cumulative body of principles exclusively for its own use, as does -the law. This is no disgrace to social work, which may be equally -respectable with the well established professions and yet quite _sui -generis_. But it operates in indirect ways as a handicap. - -It is a familiar observation that any new science, any new departure -in human knowledge must use the vocabulary already available and so -can only receive its first formulation in terms of things that have -gone before. The failure of social work to produce any compact body of -doctrine pertaining to its range of undertakings has kept it long in -the stage of analogy and tutelage. It evidently feels a temptation to -shape itself after the fashion of the best respected types of human -activity instead of simply envisaging its own objects as clearly as -possible and enlisting every available means to attain them. - -Its essential inability to develop any compact body of doctrine may -also be handicapping it in a more fundamental way. It is said that -social work does not get its proportionate share of the best students -taking professional training. May not this be because a course which -offers an acquaintance with the high lights of half a dozen subjects -and mastery of none is not likely to recommend itself to able students -as promising to lead to dignified and responsible work? Social work -can only hope that when more time and more ability have gone into the -development of its separate fields such discipline may be developed -along special lines as will give it better intellectual status and -the power to attract and hold recruits by something beside that -appeal to their imagination or their humanity exerted by its general -possibilities. “I treat philanthropy seriously,” wrote one of its -historians, “because of what it implies; its professors have commonly -not been very efficacious.”[79] But scientific social work is something -more than philanthropy and its history is yet to be made. - -Whatever is in store for social work it is pre-ordained that its -functions can only persist by adaptive variation of its practices, -that it will never be perfected, never be satisfied, never even, in -any final and completed sense, successful. Its object is to correct -the mistakes of nature and man in the making of human lives and its -undertakings grow with our hopes for life. Such presumption can never -succeed, but its mere instalments of success would be triumphs in a -lesser enterprise. For social work each new triumph opens only a new -range of possibilities. It might well take as its motto the proud words -of Masefield, “Success is the brand on the forehead for having aimed -too low.”[80] - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[61] Philanthropy and the State, p. 303. - -[62] John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, p. 577. - -[63] Ibid., p. 575. - -[64] William McDougal, An Introduction to Social Psychology, p. 14, et -seq. - -[65] Porter R. Lee, at the National Conference of Social Work, 1920, p. -468. - -[66] Charities Review, 1898, p. 9. - -[67] Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 2, line 379. - -[68] Emil Muensterberg, Impressions of American Charity, in Charity and -the Commons, 1907, p. 268. - -[69] H. G. Wells, The Outline of History, Vol. II, p. 339. - -[70] John Boyle O’Reilly, In Bohemia, quoted in The Cry for Justice, p. -497. - -[71] S. A. Queen, Social Work in the Light of History, Chap. II. - -[72] Sidney and Beatrice Webb, The Prevention of Destitution, p. 281. - -[73] Arthur J. Todd, at the National Conference, 1920, p. 271. - -[74] Charles A. Ellwood, at the National Conference, 1920, p. 271. - -[75] Count Leo Tolstoy, quoted in The Cry for Justice, p. 88. - -[76] Arthur Hugh Clough, “Say not the struggle nought availeth,” in -Poems. - -[77] Frank Parsons, Legal Doctrine and Social Progress, p. 212. - -[78] John Masefield, A Consecration, in Poems. - -[79] Philanthropy and the State, p. 20. - -[80] John Masefield, Multitude and Solitude. - - - - -APPENDIX I - - - =Edward T. Devine in “Social Work”= says (p. 21): “Social work, then - is the sum of all the efforts made by society to ‘take up its own - slack’ to provide for individuals when its established institutions - fail them, to supplement those established institutions and to - modify them at those points at which they have proved to be badly - adapted to social needs. * * * It may be well done or badly done; - according to the most enlightened system which intelligence and - experience and sympathy and vision can devise or according to the - archaic methods of careless and lazy emotion. * * * It includes - everything which is done by society for the benefit of those who - are not in position to compete on fair terms with their fellows - from whatever motive it may be done, by whatever agency or whatever - means and with whatever results.” - - =Edward T. Devine and Lilian Brant in “American Social Work in the - Twentieth Century”= say (the first words of the book): “In the - United States of America ‘social work’ has come into use in recent - years as a comprehensive term, including charity and philanthropy, - public relief, punishment and reformation and all other conscious - efforts, whether by the state or on private initiative, to provide - for the dependent, the sick, and the criminal, to diminish the - amount of poverty, disease, and crime, and to improve general - living and working conditions.” - - These statements obviously are not trying to distinguish between - “social work” and the more primitive forms of “charity” and - “philanthropy.” - - The pamphlet “=Social Work=,” issued by the American Association - of Social Workers in 1922 disclaims any intention “to give an - authoritative definition of these terms (i.e., charity, - philanthropy, and social service) or of ‘social work,’” but it - does authoritatively indicate that “social work as a profession” - may have occasion to differentiate itself from charity and - philanthropy (pp. 3 and 4). “In discussing social work as a - profession it is necessary to clarify certain conceptions which are - popularly confused with it. As is the case with any activity that - has emerged into professional status and differentiated itself from - the kind of activity in which any one of ordinary intelligence - might participate, social work must live down a variety of names - and conceptions which were common to it in its early and - unprofessional forms.” “So we come to the term ‘social work’ for - a connotation which at least has implicit implications of a process - requiring specialized knowledge and skill sufficient to be called - professional.” “It is well also to point out here that emphasis - must be placed on ‘process’ as an aid to keeping in mind the fact - that not what is done, but how it is done, is what constitutes the - test of professional activity.” - - =“Education for Social Work,” by Jesse Frederick Steiner= (University - of Chicago Press, 1921) gives, as its first chapter, a five-page - statement of “The Nature of Social Work” which does not lend itself - to quotation otherwise than _in toto_. It reports about the same - conclusions as this thesis, which was prepared before Mr. Steiner’s - study. - - =Porter R. Lee= speaking to the National Conference of Social Work - in 1915 (see Report p. 597) described three conceptions of the - social worker. First, “Any person is a social worker if his work - has conscious social purpose, although his vocation may be any one - of the historic forms of human activity. The second conception - includes as social workers those who are engaged in so-called - preventive work, that is to say, those whose efforts are directed - towards social legislation, toward the development of the social - point of view in the general public and toward readjustments in - social institutions and social habits. * * * social work in this - sense is not concerned with those who are disabled by adverse - conditions of life but with the adverse conditions. The third - conception of the social worker on the other hand identifies him - primarily with efforts on behalf of the subnormal. To one holding - this conception the social worker is one who endeavors through case - work to reestablish disabled families and individuals in a routine - of normal life. This does not preclude interest in social - legislation and other forms of preventive work, but these are not - the first task of the social worker. When social work as a generic - term first came into general use leaders in the work for dependent - families, neglected children, the defective, the delinquent and the - destitute sick comprised almost the entire group to which it was - applied.” In the 1920 Conference (see Report p. 466) Mr. Lee said: - “The subject matter of social work is the adjustment of men to - their environment. * * * The necessity for social work arises - because of the difficulties faced by men in making this adjustment. - These difficulties are sometimes in the man and sometimes in the - environment. Some factors in the environment bear too heavily upon - all men, some bear too heavily upon a smaller number. * * * A large - part of social work is conducted with the purpose of softening the - effect of environmental factors which bear with undue severity upon - all men. Another large part of social work aims at the development - of greater resourcefulness in all men in meeting environmental - demands. The greater part of social work, however, is at present - devoted to the development of a higher adjusting power in those - persons who are most handicapped by environment or a modification - of those particular environmental factors which handicap them.” - - =Miss Mary E. Richmond in “What is Social Case Work?”= (Russell Sage - Foundation, N.Y., 1922) breaks up what Mr. Lee calls “preventive - work” into three parts (pp. 223, 224). “The other forms of social - work all of which interplay with case work, are three--group work, - social reform, and social research. Case work seeks to effect - better social relations by dealing with individuals one by one or - within the intimate group of the family. But social work also - achieves the same general ends in these other ways. It includes a - wide variety of group activities--settlement work, recreational - work, club, neighborhood and local community work--in which the - individual, though still met face to face, becomes one of a number. - By a method different from that employed in either case or group - work, though with the same end in view, social reform seeks to - improve conditions in the mass, chiefly through social propaganda - and social legislation. Whether the immediate object be better - housing, better working conditions, better use of leisure, or a - long list of other objectives, the main purpose in these different - social reforms still is to advance the development of our human - kind by improving social relations. Finally, social research with - its precious freight of original discovery in all the fields - covered by social work, has also the secondary task of assembling - known facts in order to reinterpret them for use in social reform, - in group work and in case work.” - -A fair amount of searching has failed to reveal many statements which -do as much as the above toward defining social work in succinct -and specific terms. One finds instead descriptions which, while -satisfactory enough for the purposes for which each was intended, -ascribe to it no really distinctive character but rather present it -in generalizations equally true of other disinterested undertakings, -or by making it synonymous with applied sociology or applied religion -simply throw the burden of definition onto those other terms leaving -the matter as indefinite as before. - - - - -APPENDIX II - - -A - -A list of the schools belonging (in 1921) to the “Association of -Training Schools for Professional Social Workers,” organized 1919, -President. Prof. J. E. Cutler, Western Reserve University. - - Boston School of Social Work, Boston. - - Carola Woerishoffer Graduate Department of Social Economy and Social - Research, Bryn Mawr College. - - College of Commerce and Journalism, Ohio State University. - - Department of Social Work, Carnegie Institute of Technology. - - Department of Social Work, University of Toronto. - - Missouri School of Social Economy, St. Louis (part of the University - of Missouri). - - New York School of Social Work, New York. - - Pennsylvania School of Social and Health Work, Philadelphia. - - Philanthropic Service Division, School of Commerce and Administration, - University of Chicago. - - School of Applied Social Science, Western Reserve University. - - School of Public Welfare, University of North Carolina. - - School of Social Work and Public Health, Richmond, Va. - - Smith College Training School for Social Work, Smith College. - - Training Course in Civics and Social Work, University of Pittsburgh. - - Training Course for Social and Civic Work, University of Minnesota. - - -B - -The number of schools which make a separate department of each of the -seventeen subjects referred to in the text (not the number of courses -in these subjects) is as follows. The list is somewhat misleading in -appearance as it gives prominence to the subjects most often treated -_separately_ rather than to those most often or most fully treated. As -a matter of fact separate treatment sometimes means the somewhat casual -addition of a subject after the central interests of the program have -been pretty well integrated. - - Industrial work, including industrial supervision and - employment; personnel work, service departments and nursing 10 - Community work or service, or organization 9 - Medical social work 8 - Child welfare 8 - Social research and investigation 7 - Social case work, social relief and social guardianship 5 - Family welfare work 5 - Mental hygiene and psychiatric social work 5 - Community organization and recreation, physical education and - recreation 4 - Penology or delinquency or criminality 4 - Settlement work, educational and vocational guidance. - Public health work 2 - - -C - -A list of forty subjects taught in the training schools as preparation -for work in specific fields. The figures accompanying the following -list of subjects do not indicate the number of courses in the subject -but the number of schools in which the subject is taught. - - Public health 12 - Psychiatric social work 7 - Mental testing 6 - Medical social work 6 - Abnormal psychology 4 - Personal hygiene and first aid 1 - Social hygiene 1 - - Community organization 13 - Recreation and special means of recreation 10 - Municipal problems 7 - Rural social problems 5 - Municipal government 2 - Neighborhood work 1 - Community art 1 - - Case work 13 - Family welfare 4 - - Industry 14 - - Child welfare 10 - Vocational guidance 2 - Education 2 - Immigration 6 - - Race problems 6 - - Social legislation 6 - Elements or special features of law 4 - - Dependents, defectives and delinquents 4 - Penology or criminology 4 - Probation 1 - - Organization and administration of various sorts 8 - - Political science 2 - Social and political philosophy 2 - Socialism and social reform 1 - The social institution of religion 1 - - Food and diet 4 - Home economics 2 - - Housing 4 - - Record keeping and methods of presentation 4 - - Biology 2 - - Standard of living, etc. 1 - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY - - - Addams, Jane; Newer Ideals of Peace. Macmillan, N.Y., 1907 (2d - edition 1911). - - Twenty Years at Hull House. Macmillan, N.Y., 1911. - - A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil. Macmillan, 1912. - - Bosanquet, Mrs. Bernard (Helen Denby); Rich and Poor. Macmillan, - London, 1896. - - The Standard of Life and Other Studies. Macmillan, 1898. - - The Strength of the People, A Study in Social Economics. - Macmillan, 1903. - - Cabot, Richard C., M.D.; Social Service and the Art of Healing. - Moffat, Yard & Co., 1915. - - Carver, T. N.; Sociology and Social Progress. Ginn and Co., N.Y., 1912. - - Devine, E. T.; The Family and Social Work. Survey Associates, N.Y., - 1912. - - Misery and its Causes. Macmillan, N.Y., 1913. - - Social Work. Macmillan, N.Y., 1922. - - With Lilian Brandt; American Social Work in the Twentieth - Century. The Frontier Press, N.Y., 1921. - - Gray, B. Kirkman; A History of English Philanthropy from the - Dissolution of the Monasteries to the Taking of the First Census. - P. S. King and Son. London, 1908. - - Philanthropy and the State or Social Politics. Edited by Elinor - - Kirkman Gray and B. L. Hutchins. P. S. King and Son. London, - 1908. - - Henderson, C. R.; Social Programmes in the West, Lectures Delivered in - the Far East. University of Chicago Press, 1912. - - Lallemand, Léon; Histoire de la Charité. 4 Vols. Alphonse Picard et - Fils. Paris. Vol. I, 1902; Vol. II, 1903; Vol. III, 1906; Vol. IV, - 1910. - - Lloyd, H. D.; Man, the Social Creator. Doubleday, N.Y., ’06. - - Loch, C. D.; Article on “Charity” in Encyclopedia Britannica. - - McDougal, Wm.; An Introduction to Social Psychology. J. W. Luce and - Co., Boston. 10th edition, 1916. - - Philanthropy and Social Progress, Essays by Jane Addams, Robert A. - Woods, Father J. O. S. Huntingdon, Professor Franklin H. Giddings - and Bernard Bosanquet. Thos. Y. Crowell and Co., N.Y. 1893. - - Parmelee, Maurice, Ph.D.; Poverty and Social Progress. Macmillan, 1916. - - Parsons, Frank, Ph.D.; Legal Doctrine and Progress. B. W. Huebsch, - N.Y., 1911. - - Patten, Simon N.; The New Basis of Civilization. Macmillan, N.Y., 1907. - - Heredity and Social Progress. Macmillan, N.Y., 1903. - - Queen, Stuart Alfred; Social Work in the Light of History. J. B. - Lippincott and Co., Philadelphia, 1922. - - Richmond, Mary E.; Social Diagnosis, Russell Sage Foundation, N.Y., - 1917. - - What is Social Case Work? Russell Sage Foundation, N.Y., 1922. - - Sinclair, Upton; The Cry for Justice. Winston, Philadelphia, 1915. - - Social Work, An Outline of its Professional Aspects. Published by the - American Association of Social Workers, 130 E. 22nd Street, N.Y. - - Steiner, Jesse Frederick; Education for Social Work. University of - Chicago Press, Chicago, 1921. - - Todd, Arthur James, Ph.D.; The Scientific Spirit and Social Work. - Macmillan, N.Y., 1919. - - Theories of Social Progress. Macmillan, 1918. - - Warner, Amos G., Ph.D.; American Charities. Thos. Y. Crowell and Co., - N.Y., 1894. - - Wald, Lillian D.; The House on Henry Street. Henry Holt and Co., N.Y., - 1915. - - Webb, Sidney and Beatrice; The Prevention of Destitution. Longmans, - London, 1911. - - Weyl, Walter E.; The New Democracy. Macmillan, 1912. (2d edition, - April, 1914). - - The American Journal of Sociology. - - Catalogues of Training Schools in the Association of Training Schools - for Professional Social Work: - - Charities Review. - - New York Charities Directory, A Reference Book of Social Service. - Published by the Charity Organization Society of New York. 28th - edition, 1919. - - Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, 1917-1920. To - 1917, National Conference of Charities and Corrections. - - Social Service Directory of Philadelphia, 1919, corrected for 1920; - Published by Municipal Court. - - Survey Associates, N.Y., 1887 to 1905 Charities; 1905 to 1907 - Charities and the Commons, 1907, Survey Magazine. - - * * * * * - - - - - Transcriber’s note - - - Minor punctuation errors have been changed and standardized without - notice. The following Printer errors have been changed: - - =CHANGED= =FROM= =TO= - - Page 8: “their dependants” “their dependents” - Page 9: “eleomosynary purpose” “eleemosynary purpose” - Page 9: “School of _Philanthrophy_” “School of _Philanthropy_” - Page 10: “milleniums of Christianity” “millenniums of Christianity” - Page 12: “examine the public attittude” “examine the public attitude” - Page 14: “found to differ form” “found to differ from” - Page 19: “practicaly all departments” “practically all departments” - Page 19: “the ruin of adolescense” “the ruin of adolescence” - Page 21: “worker has reponsibilities” “worker has responsibilities” - Page 23: “his reptuation and honor” “his reputation and honor” - Page 25: “individually unpredicable” “individually unpredictable” - Page 36: “recognizes an interpendence” “recognizes an - interdependence” - Page 47: “should direct and stimluate” “should direct and stimulate” - Page 50: “can develope in” “can develop in” - Page 50: “which developes only” “which develops only” - Page 53: “of sweeping judgements” “of sweeping judgments” - Page 57: “sheer dependance” “sheer dependence” - Page 57: “form of dependance” “form of dependence” - Page 59: “degree of interdependance” “degree of interdependence” - Page 59: “inclinations corrollary” “inclinations corollary” - Page 63: “dependant have been” “dependent have been” - Page 65: “flieth by noon-day” “flieth by noonday” - Page 70: “caution in proceedure” “caution in procedure” - Page 74: “Tolstoi’s indictment” “Tolstoy’s indictment” - Page 75: “with a good con-conscience” “with a good conscience” - Page 80: “not this be becasue” “not this be because” - Page 89: “Historie de la Charité” “Histoire de la Charité” - Page 89: “fils. Paris” “Fils. Paris” - - All other inconsistencies are as in the original. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DEFINITION OF SOCIAL -WORK *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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