Several times in the preceding chapters reference has been made to our national purpose "to transmute days of dreary work into happier lives." This does not mean to get rid of work; for happiness can be attained only IN work and THROUGH work. Happiness IN work depends largely upon our freedom and ability to choose the kind of service for which we are best fitted, and upon the extent to which we prepare ourselves for it. It also depends to a large extent upon good health (p. 309).
But there never was a truer statement than that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." In return for his work every citizen is entitled to enough compensation to enable him to provide not only for the bare necessities of life, such as food and shelter, but also for the pleasure that he derives from the satisfaction of his higher wants, such as social life and recreation, an education that will give him a richer enjoyment of life, pleasant surroundings, religious advantages.
All these things have much to do with our national well-being and our citizenship. Our nation is democratic only in proportion to the equality of opportunity enjoyed by all citizens to satisfy these wants. Moreover, the efficiency of each citizen in productive work and as a participator in self-government depends more than we sometimes think upon his opportunity to "enjoy life" in pleasant surroundings and in wholesome social relations. In the past the citizen has been left largely to his own resources and to purely voluntary cooperation to provide for these wants. Government has not even adequately PROTECTED his rights of this kind, to say nothing of positively PROMOTING them. At present, however, community team work through government is being organized as never before both to promote and to protect the interests of all citizens in the fullest possible enjoyment of life.
Children enjoy play because it satisfies physical, mental, and social wants. But it is also the principal means by which they prepare for the more serious duties of later life. It builds up health, trains the muscles and the senses, and sharpens the wits. It gives practice in team work, develops leadership, and teaches the value of "rules of the game." Every child is entitled to an abundant opportunity to play, both because of the happiness it affords him and because by it he is trained for membership in the community. It is to the interest of the community to afford him the opportunity. It is largely for this reason that most of the states protect children by law from being put to work for a living at too early an age.
In large cities thousands of children live in crowded districts where there is no place to play except in the public streets. So little appreciative have we been of the importance of play in the development of young citizens that great numbers of city schools have been built with no provision whatever for playgrounds. This mistake is slowly being corrected, often at great expense. No city school is now considered first-class if it does not have an ample and well-equipped playground, with competent directors to teach children how to get the most out of their play. Most cities are also establishing public playgrounds apart from the schools, sometimes under the management of the school board, but often under that of a special playground or recreation commission.
Play for the children of rural communities is as important as for those of cities, but even less attention has been given to it. Many a country school has no playground, and if it has one it is likely to be small and not equipped with play apparatus. Why should there be playgrounds when there is all outdoors in which to play? Why should there be expensive play apparatus and play directors when boys and girls can get all the "exercise" they need at home or on the farm? "Play" means more than mere physical exercise, and must be pleasurable if it is to have value. Organized play is as truly a means of education as any school instruction, and must have competent leadership or direction. In rural districts, where the children live far apart, there is particular need for a common meeting place for organized group play, and the school is the most appropriate place for it.
The need for organized play in rural communities is one of the best arguments for school consolidation, for it brings together larger numbers and makes possible the employment of a competent play director and the proper equipment of the playground. Teacher- training schools now make a point of training play leaders as well as teachers of arithmetic and geography.
As children grow older, an increasing part of their time must be given to work—school work, tasks at home, remunerative employment outside of the home. After leaving school and throughout adult life, work absorbs the major part of one's time and attention. But even then, "all work and no play" will continue to "make Jack a dull boy." We now call play "recreation," for by it body and mind and spirit are refreshed, renewed, RE-CREATED, after close application to work. That is why school work is broken by "recesses." Recreation is necessary as a means of providing for physical, mental, and social wants; for the pleasure that it affords. But it is also important in its relation to work, for without it body and mind become "fagged," people grow "stale" at their work, producing power and power of service are reduced.
It is very easy to get out of the habit of play, and especially difficult to form the habit in adult life if it has not been done in youth. People often become so absorbed in work that there seems to be no time for recreation. In such cases not only is the enjoyment of life narrowed, but there is a risk of damaging the quality of one's work and even of shortening one's life of productive activity, or of service.
Every worker is entitled to opportunity for recreation, both for his own sake and for the well-being of the community. This means, first of all, that he must have LEISURE for it. When people have to work hard for ten or twelve or more hours a day, year in and year out, as was once customary in industry, there is neither time nor energy for wholesome recreation. That such conditions existed, and still exist to a considerable extent, is due to gross imperfections in the industrial organization of the community. One of the evidences of progress toward "transmuting days of dreary work into happier lives" is the reduction in the hours of toil in many industries, and the consequent increase of leisure for the enjoyment of life and for self-improvement.
One of the things for which labor unions have struggled is the shortening of the working day. Through their efforts, and through the awakening of public interest and knowledge in regard to the matter, the working day is now fixed by law at eight hours in most industries, often with a half holiday on Saturdays. Experience has shown that this change has in no way reduced the product of industry. There are still some industries, however, in which men toil at the hardest kind of labor for twelve or more hours a day, sometimes even including Sundays.
A second thing necessary to afford opportunity for recreation is an income from one's work sufficient to provide more than the bare necessities of life. Before the war, it is said, more than five million families, or about one fourth of the families in the United States, were trying to live on a wage of $50 a month, or less. During the war, wages of skilled and unskilled labor shot upward; but so, also, did the cost of living. It is not easy to determine just what share of the proceeds of industry should, in justice, go to the laborer in wages. But it should be enough to provide not only for food and clothing and shelter, but also for decent family life, for healthful surroundings, for education for the children, and for wholesome recreation.
Labor unions and others interested in a fairer distribution of the proceeds of industry have long been working for the enactment of "minimum wage laws," that is, laws fixing the least wage that may be paid for each class of labor, this to be enough to provide a reasonable satisfaction of all the wants of life. Some states have already enacted such laws, and during the recent war the federal government in some cases fixed rates of wages, and appointed labor boards to adjust wages to the rising cost of living.
Neither leisure nor income, however, suffice for recreation unless they are wisely used. Mere idleness is not recreation; and many people use their leisure in DISSIPATION instead of in recreation. "Dissipation" is the opposite of thrift. It means to "throw away," or to be wasteful. A person may "dissipate" his income. We have come to understand the word "dissipation," however, to mean excessive indulgence in pleasures or amusements that are wasteful of time, energy, or health, or all three, and we call the person "dissipated" who is addicted to such indulgence. Any amusement, even though harmless in itself, may become dissipation if indulged in to excess, or at the sacrifice of other things that are better.
One of the principal disadvantages often put forward against life in rural communities is the lack of opportunity for recreation. It partly explains the difficulty of obtaining an abundance of farm labor, and is one of the obstacles to inducing young people to remain on the farm. Unfortunately, too, the women on the farm have often been the chief sufferers from close confinement to the drudgery of housework, with little opportunity for recreation and less chance than the men have to enjoy the companionship of other people.
The very nature of farming entails hard work and long hours, especially at certain seasons. Under existing conditions it is hard to see how the farmer's working day could be limited to eight hours as in most other occupations.
The citizen farmer who lives in the same community with the miner … must invest in land and buildings, tools and livestock. He must pay taxes and insurance and repairs and veterinary fees. He must work often sixteen hours, seldom less than ten, and he must be on duty day and night, ready always to care for his independent plant—all this, and yet in order to receive a labor income equal to that of the soft coal miner … the farmer must not only work himself as no professional laborer ever works, but he must also work his children without pay.
[Footnote: E. Davenport, Dean of the College of Agriculture,University of Illinois, in "Proceedings of the First NationalCountry Life Conference," Baltimore, 1919. p. 183.]
Although this only too faithfully describes living conditions on the farm as they have been in the past and still are in many cases, much improvement has taken place. Improvement of agricultural machinery and methods has brought a greater measure of leisure to the farmer, while better means of transportation and communication have both saved him time and made easier for him and his family association with other people and the enjoyment of entertainment in the neighboring village or city. The farm woman has benefited by the introduction of labor-saving devices and better management in the household, and by the development of community cooperation in such matters as dairying and laundry work (see pp. 106, 107). In fact, better team work in every phase of the business of agriculture means greater opportunity for the enjoyment of living, and the efforts of the national and state governments to encourage such team work and to improve the methods of agriculture have for their purpose not merely the increase of the agricultural product, but also the greater happiness of the rural citizen.
When leisure may be found for recreation, the facilities for it are often inadequate. The city, and even the village, affords facilities for amusement and social enjoyment that good roads, automobiles, and trolley lines have made more accessible than formerly to the country round about. While the urban community naturally affords greater opportunity than the rural community for social recreation, its opportunities for dissipation are equally great. "Going to the movies" may be a real recreation, or it may become a dissipation when indulged in to excess without discrimination as to the merit of the performance. Almost every village has its well-known "loafing places," and the saloon used to be a favorite meeting place for certain classes of people. Amusements that are especially harmful are more or less regulated by law. Even moving pictures are "censored." Saloons have now been totally abolished.
The most effective preventive of dissipation is ample provision for wholesome recreation. Various agencies in urban communities seek to supply this need, both for their own residents and for visitors from outside. Men's clubs, such as chambers of commerce, afford social and amusement advantages for the business men of the town, and for visiting farmers who formerly met only at the store or courthouse, in the saloon or on the street corner. Public libraries, often with the cooperation of women's clubs, provide "rest rooms," arranged for the comfort and entertainment of visiting women, and afford means of profitable and enjoyable recreation for young people. Town churches sometimes maintain social rooms, open during the week for similar purposes. The Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Associations have performed a great service by providing entertainment and social life for young people. One of the more recent developments is the "community center," usually at the schoolhouse, where there are offered lectures and concerts, social entertainments, dances, games, and sports. In some large cities such "recreation centers" are of the greatest value in the crowded districts.
Rural communities have suffered from a dearth of recreational facilities of their own, especially of a SOCIAL type. One of the most promising influences to supply this deficiency is the CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL, which makes provision for assembly halls, social gatherings, and recreation grounds for young and old alike. An illustration of this is given in Chapter XIX (p. 296). Development of community recreation centers at consolidated rural schools is going on rapidly in many parts of the country.
Iowa affords a striking example of this. In that state more than 2000 one-room country schools have been consolidated into something more than 300, and consolidation is still going on. Some of these consolidated schools have five acres of land, where provision is made, not only for gardening and farming activities, but also for picnic grounds and for fields for athletic sports and contests. The buildings contain assembly halls, gymnasiums, and kitchens where food is prepared for social entertainments as well as for school lunches and for the teaching of cooking.
One of the chief obstacles to the development of rural community recreation has been the absence of leadership. The consolidated school helps to remedy this. Other agencies, however, are doing something to provide such leadership, among the most active of which is the county work department of the Young Men's Christian Association, which has organized county-wide athletic associations and rural play festivals and field days in many localities.
There are agencies, or organizations, in almost every community that could and should serve recreational ends. The trouble with many of us is not so much the lack of time or of the means for recreation, but a lack of knowledge of how to get the most out of our recreational opportunities. Hence the need for leadership. Hence, also, the need for an education that will open up to us new avenues of enjoyment. Recreation may be obtained not only from athletic sports and social entertainments, but from the fields and woods, from books and music and pictures, even from VARIETY IN OUR WORK, if we only knew how to find it. The school is under as great obligation to provide us with an education that will teach us this as it is to equip us to earn a living.
Investigate and report on:
The opportunities for play in your community.
The forms of play most prevalent in your community.
The extent to which play in your community develops team work and leadership.
How your school playground could be improved.
Play as a means of education in your school.
Agencies besides the school that afford opportunity for play in your community.
Leisure on the farms of your locality: for men; for women; for children.
Could an eight-hour day be applied to farming in your locality?Why?
Length of the working day for different employments in your town or neighboring city.
Minimum wage laws in your state.
Recreational facilities and agencies in your community.
Community centers in your community and their activities.
The value of a county field day in your community.
Meaning of the statement that "the boy without a playground is father to the man without a job."
Beauty in one's surroundings adds much to the enjoyment of life, and therefore, also, to one's efficiency in work and as a citizen.
People are often apparently blind to the beauty that is around them. "Having eyes, they see not; and ears, they hear not." Those who live in the open country are surrounded by natural beauties of which city dwellers are largely deprived. Too often, however, they are unconscious of them or indifferent to them. To the hard- working farmer a gorgeous sunset may be little more than a sign of the weather on the morrow, and the beauty of a field of wheat or corn may be lost in the thought of the toil that has gone into it, or of the dollars that may come out of it. Fortunate is the rural dweller whose toil and isolation are tempered by an appreciation of the beauties of the natural world about him!
Love for and appreciation of that which is beautiful may be cultivated. It is a part of one's education. The schools now give more attention to it than formerly; but many of them do not yet give enough. Appreciation of beauty is cultivated not merely by instruction in "art," but also by those studies that increase one's knowledge of the common things about us. The teaching of agriculture and of science has a very practical purpose; but its purpose is only partly accomplished if it teaches us how to raise corn or cotton without opening our eyes to the wonders of nature involved in the process.
An appreciation of beauty may be cultivated, also, by association with it, as it may be destroyed by constant association with that which is ugly. People who live in unkempt and slovenly surroundings are likely to become indifferent to them. It is the duty of every one to have a care for the appearance of his surroundings both because of its effect upon himself and its influence upon others.
A stranger who visits our school is likely to judge it, first of all, by its appearance. He will note whether or not the building is in good repair, the condition of the grounds and fences, the presence or absence of flower beds, shrubs, and trees. Inside, he will observe the cleanliness and orderliness of the room, the decorations on the walls, the presence or absence of pictures and flowers and plants; yes, and also the care the pupils and teacher take of their personal appearance. These things are signs to the visitor of the interest taken by pupils, school authorities, and the community in their school. They are also signs of the character of the work done in the school, and of the happiness of the pupils.
In a similar manner, the visitor to your community will form his first opinion of it by its appearance. He will note, first of all the appearance of the homes, and then, probably, the cleanliness and state of repair of the streets or roads. He will observe the condition of the fences, and whether or not the weeds are cut along the roads. He will notice, also, the extent to which the people love flowers, and care for trees and vacant lots. All of these things will be signs to him of the prosperity, the happiness, the "community spirit," of the citizens. They will doubtless enter into his decision as to whether or not he cares to live, or establish a business, or educate his children, in that community.
In cities a good deal of attention is usually given to such matters, and laws exist, with government officers to administer them, for the protection and promotion of community beauty. In rural communities these matters are left more largely to individual initiative and voluntary cooperation. It becomes a matter of public interest and spirit on the part of the individual and the family. It is true that some things are done through government authorities, as in the improvement of the roads and the building of bridges and culverts that are of pleasing design as well as serviceable. In some New England "towns" there are "town planning" boards, which carefully plan for the laying out of streets and their improvement, the proper location of public buildings and the style of architecture to be used, the location and development of parks and playgrounds, the enactment of suitable housing laws, and other matters pertaining to the beauty of the community as well as to the well-being of its citizens.
Systematic planning of rural communities with a view to making them beautiful has not been carried very far in this country. In fact, as one travels over a large part of the United States one is impressed by the monotonous and unattractive character of the towns and villages. This is not true everywhere, for in some parts of the country, usually those that have been settled longest, one sees beautiful villages that fit harmoniously into the landscape. But over large areas of the country it seems that wherever man has gone he has marred the beauty of nature.
There is nothing in which the influence of example is so quickly seen as in matters relating to appearance. People are prone to copy their neighbors in matters of style, whether it be in dress or in architecture.
In one rather wretched community a few boys who were studying civics sought permission to lay sod in the dooryard of a tenement house. Having obtained permission and laid the sod, it was not long before some one else in the neighborhood did likewise, and soon people all around were sodding their yards or sowing grass seed. Then they began to repair and paint their fences and otherwise "tidy up" their places, until the whole neighborhood was transformed in appearance. It is interesting to note, also, that as the community improved in appearance, it also became less lawless than it had been.
This is one phase of community life in which it is easy to establish leadership, and in which young people can perform valuable civic service and contribute materially toward "transmuting days of dreary work into happier lives."
Investigate and report on:
The natural beauty of your community.
How natural beauty has been destroyed in your community.
How natural beauty has been preserved in your community.
Our national parks.
How your school promotes the love for beauty.
How your school could be made more beautiful.
How you and your schoolmates could make your school more beautiful.
What impression a stranger would get of your community from its appearance.
The features in the appearance of your community of which you are proud. Those of which you are ashamed.
Agencies that exist in your community to promote its beauty
Ways in which you can participate in making your community more beautiful.
In some countries church and state are inseparably bound together. Before the recent war the Russian Czar was also the head of the Russian church. In our own country in colonial times, no citizen was permitted to vote in the New England town meeting who did not belong to the Puritan church of the community. This religious qualification for participation in government was in the course of time dispensed with, and one of the fundamental principles of our democracy is that every citizen shall have complete liberty of religious belief. Our government exercises no control over the religious life of the people other than to guarantee this liberty. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" (United States Constitution, Amendment I). State constitutions contain similar guarantees. To prevent government interference with religion, religious institutions are exempt from taxation.
On the other hand, the church and other religious institutions are an important means of community control. They do not exercise this control through government, but through the influence of their own beliefs and organization upon the conduct of their members. If everybody should live in accordance with the Golden Rule, there would be no need for government as a means of repression, but only as a means of performing service.
One of the unfortunate things about the church has been the fact that more or less important differences in religious belief have tended to break up the community into numerous religious groups, or churches. This may be necessary in purely religious matters, but it has too often happened that the people have allowed their religious differences to prevent united action in other matters of common interest to the entire community. In some cases communities have been broken up into rival, or even hostile, factions because of this. There is, however, a growing tolerance of one religious sect or denomination by others, which is in accord with the Christian spirit, and is necessary if community life is to be well developed. It often happens that there are more churches of the same denomination in a community than it can support. In such cases, at least, there is need for church consolidation similar to the consolidation of schools, and for the same reason.
The church may be, and often is, an important agency in the community for the performance of services other than that of ministering to the religious wants of the people. Or, to speak more correctly, it has realized more or less fully that the religious wants of the people are closely bound up with their other wants, and seeks to minister to these other wants as a part of its religious duty. Thus, we find the church growing more active in looking after the health interests, educational interests, and social and recreational interests of its members and others.
Investigate and report on:
The number of religious denominations having churches in your community.
The number of churches in each denomination.
Membership and attendance in the churches of your community.
Arguments for and against church consolidation in your community.
Activities of churches in your community, other than religious.
Religious organizations other than churches in your community.
In LESSONS IN COMMUNITY AND NATIONAL LIFE:
Series A: Lesson 27, Concentration of social institutions (including theschool and the church).
Series B: Lesson 12, Impersonality of modern life.Lesson 20, The church as a social institution.Lesson 29, Labor organizations.
Series C: Lesson 11, The effects of machinery on rural life.Lesson 29, Child labor.Lesson 32, Housing for workers.
"Sources of Information on Play and Recreation," by Lee F. Hanmer and Howard W. Knight; Department of Recreation, Russell Sage Foundation, New York (1915).
THE PLAYGROUND. A monthly publication of the Playground and Recreation Association of America, 1 Madison Ave., New York ($2 a year).
NEIGHBORHOOD PLAY. A manual of rural recreation (The Youth'sCompanion, Boston).
McCready, S. B., Rural Science Reader. In "Rural EducationSeries," H. W. Foght, general editor (Heath).
Write the County Work Department, International Committee of theY. M. C. A. for material.
Foght, H. W., THE RURAL TEACHER AND HIS WORK, Chapter VI (The rural school and community recreation).
Jackson, Henry E., A COMMUNITY Center—WHAT IT IS AND HOW TOORGANIZE IT, U. S. Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1918, No. 11.
Quick, Herbert, "The rural awakening in its relation to civic and social center development." Bulletin No. 474, University of Wisconsin.
"Beautifying the Farmstead," Farmers' Bulletin No. 1087, U. S.Department of Agriculture.
Proceedings First National Country Life Conference (address Dwight Sanderson, Secretary, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.); "Play and recreation in rural life," p. 95; "Religious forces for country life," p. 83.
Jackson, Henry E., THE COMMUNITY CHURCH (Macmillan).
Numerous "surveys" of rural communities have been made by various agencies. Among them are those made by the Department of Church and Country Life of the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church, 156 Fifth Ave., New York. Extensive surveys are being made by the Inter-Church World Movement, 45 West 18th St., New York.
Bulletin No. 184 of the Agricultural Experiment Station, Iowa State Agricultural College, Ames, Iowa, contains a social survey of Orange Township, Blackhawk County, Iowa.
Write your State Agricultural College or State University for possible materials of a local character.
In every community there are some members who are not self- supporting and who do not contribute materially to the community's progress (see Chapter V and Chapter XI).
The very young and the very aged come within this group. Both are peculiarly dependent upon others, though the aged may, by thrift in earlier years, have acquired a competence with which to meet the needs of old age; and the young are expected, in later years, to compensate the community for the care they have received from others during childhood.
There are those, also, of all ages, who are incapacitated for self-support and for service by disease, or by physical or mental defects such as bodily deformities, blindness, or feeble- mindedness. In addition, there are some who, though physically able to perform service, deliberately prey upon the community in one manner or another without giving anything in return. The latter constitute the DELINQUENT class, and include criminals.
Normally, the needs of those who are unable to support themselves, whether because of extreme youth or old age or because of physical or mental defects, are provided for by the family. It frequently happens, however, that the family is unable to perform this service. It may be entirely broken up. Children may be left without parents, and the aged without children. The natural supporters of the family may be stricken by disease, or by accident, or by financial misfortune. Moreover, the proper care and treatment of many defectives require better facilities and greater skill than can be provided even by well-to-do families. Thus a class of DEPENDENTS is produced—dependents upon the community as a whole. They may or may not be DEFECTIVES, physical or mental. Dissipation and thriftlessness are two of the chief causes of dependency.
In the lower stages of civilization it was not uncommon for the feeble and the helpless to be put to death, even sickly children and persons infirm from old age. This was done in the name of community interest. The struggle for existence was so severe that the presence of non-producing or non-fighting members endangered the entire group. Besides, it was the belief in most cases that the sacrifice of the helpless simply hastened their passage into a happier life.
Humane considerations now prevent such treatment of the helpless. Moreover, with our increased skill in medicine and surgery and education, the diseased and defective may often be restored to health or fitted for some form of self-support that makes them happier and of use to the community. The wastage of human life has been greatly reduced in recent years. Many of the soldiers who returned from the war in Europe so broken in body or mind that in former times they would have dragged out the remainder of their lives a burden to themselves and to others have, by surgical skill and special forms of education, been restored wholly or partially to the ranks of the self-supporting and useful members of the community. This REHABILITATION of the dependent and defective members of the community, whether their misfortune is due to war or other causes, is the chief aim of the treatment given them by the community at the present time.
It is an accepted principle that each community should, so far as possible, care for its own unfortunates, and the effectiveness with which it is done varies. But everywhere it has taken a long time to change from the old policy of mere RELIEF to the new policy of REHABILITATION (see above).
In New England and in a few other states the town, or township, is the unit for administering "poor relief," but elsewhere it is the county. The "almshouse," or "poor farm," or "county infirmary" is the usual local institution for this purpose. Unfortunately it has been, as a rule, badly managed. Men and women, old people and children, healthy and diseased, blind and crippled, moral and immoral, even the insane, have been housed together, often mingling with one another with little restriction. The evils of such a system are apparent.
Moreover, the policy of the typical almshouse has been merely to give shelter and food and clothing to those who appeal for it, rather than to remedy the causes of dependency or to restore the unfortunate to a basis of self-support and usefulness. Medical treatment is of course given, but the means do not exist to give special expert treatment to particular classes of defectives. Little educational opportunity worthy of the name is afforded. While able-bodied inmates usually have some work to do, it is seldom of a character to train for self-support or to create habits of industry.
To provide this special treatment requires elaborate equipment and expert service, which cost a great deal of money, more than most counties or towns feel that they can afford. Communities must come to realize that they cannot afford to neglect their unfortunate members, no matter what it costs to care for them. But the cost need not be so great as it seems. A great deal of money is now WASTED on almshouses without adequate results. This can largely be remedied by insisting upon more expert supervision in such institutions, and by a system of regular inspection by expert state officers. Greater care should be exercised with respect to those who are admitted to the institutions. Only the deserving should be allowed to live on the public funds. It is not uncommon for some classes of shiftless people to make a practice of seeking shelter in the almshouse during the winter, where they live in comparative comfort and idleness at the public expense, only to leave in the spring for a life of aimless indolence, imposing as beggars upon kind-hearted people.
Moreover, the county almshouse should be only a temporary place of detention for many of the people who now are kept there permanently. Those who need special treatment or training should be passed on as quickly as possible to special institutions that are equipped to care for them. Since most local communities could not well afford to maintain such special institutions for the comparatively few who would need them, the state should maintain enough of them at central points to provide for the needs of all local communities.
The states do maintain such institutions—hospitals and sanitariums for various types of mental disease, homes for orphans and for the aged, and for persons with incurable diseases, asylums and schools for the blind and the deaf-and-dumb, industrial schools for boys and girls. The problem of the state is, first, to develop such institutions to the highest possible degree of efficiency for the REHABILITATION of their patients or inmates, and, second, to secure effective cooperation on the part of local authorities and institutions in transferring those, and only those, who are entitled to state assistance.
When dependents are cared for in institutions, it is called INDOOR RELIEF; when they are cared for outside of institutions, in their homes, it is called OUTDOOR RELIEF. Outdoor relief requires community organization and cooperation and expert leadership quite as much as indoor relief. The lack of these has often resulted in great harm both to the community and to the needy person. Promiscuous giving of charity by well-intentioned persons often results in giving to the undeserving as well as to the deserving. There are lazy and shiftless individuals who find it easier to live on charity than by honest work, and whose lack of self- respect permits them to do so. Sometimes they do so by fraudulent methods. Giving to such persons encourages pauperism and fraud instead of curing it. Kind-hearted people often say that they would rather be cheated occasionally by dishonest applicants for charity than to fail to help the really needy by too great caution. The answer to this is that by proper community organization and cooperation the needy will be found with much greater certainty, the fraudulent will be detected, and the aid given to those who should have it will be much more effective. The citizen who turns an applicant for aid over to an effective organization in a great majority of cases performs a much greater service both to the applicant and to the community than by attempting to give aid directly. A few pennies or a few dollars given even to a worthy applicant may not reach the root of the trouble at all, and may be the innocent cause of perpetuating the trouble.
Many voluntary organizations exist for charitable and philanthropic purposes. The church has always been one of the chief agencies to care for the poor and unfortunate; but there are many others, especially in our large cities. Sometimes they maintain hospitals and other institutions for the treatment of those who need indoor relief. They have done a great deal of good. But they are subject to the same difficulties that individuals encounter in dealing wisely with particular cases. They have often devoted themselves too exclusively to giving temporary relief instead of seeking to cure causes and to rehabilitate the unfortunate. They are frequently deceived by impostors. Seldom do they have expert investigators to follow up individual cases and to prescribe the most effective remedy. They frequently duplicate one another's work in a wasteful manner.
This lack of team work has been in large measure remedied, especially in city communities, by the establishment of CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETIES. Such societies do not as a rule give direct relief, but act as a "clearing house" for existing charitable agencies in the community. That is, they organize the effort of the various existing agencies. They have a corps of trained investigators who look into each case reported by any individual or charitable agency in the community, make a careful record of it, and prescribe the proper treatment. The case is usually turned over to one of the existing agencies that is properly equipped to handle it. Philanthropic persons may turn to the charity organization society for advice as to purposes for which money is most needed. The aim of charity organization is to remedy causes of dependency and to restore dependents to a self- sustaining basis so far as that is possible.
Charity organization societies are wholly voluntary organizations; and there is need for such voluntary cooperation to care for the community's unfortunate and to root out the causes of dependency. Such organizations should, however, work in cooperation with governmental agencies. There are state boards of charities which usually have supervision over the various state institutions for dependents and defectives. Every large city government has its department of charities, sometimes combined with the department of health. The "overseer of the poor" is one of the oldest of town officers. The care of dependents and defectives in small, or rural, communities has, however, been very poorly organized.
An effective attack upon the public welfare problems of a state is twofold: (1) by a state welfare board and state welfare institutions, and (2) by town and county welfare boards and institutions… .
Public welfare work calls for a state board of public welfare, statewide in authority … and for state institutions that are large enough to care for the delinquents, the dependents, the defectives, and the neglected who cannot be better cared for by local authority and institutions. …
But, on the other hand, it calls for county boards of public welfare with county-wide authority and trained executive secretaries. … Many of our ills bulk up so big that they can be successfully attacked only in detail by local interest, local effort, and local institutions. Tuberculosis and poverty are capital instances of social problems that are beyond the possibilities of state institutions, and that necessarily wait upon organized county efforts of effective sort. … We do not know the deaf, the blind, the feeble-minded, the epileptic, the crippled, and the neglected or wayward boys and girls—their number, their names, and their residences in any county of the state … because there is at present no local organization charged with the responsibility of accounting for such unfortunates. …
[Footnote: E. C. Branson, "County responsibility for public welfare," in the North Carolina Club YEAR BOOK, 1917-1918, pp. 161, 162 (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C.).]
There will doubtless always be some dependent and defective members of the community for whom the community must care. Their number, however, may be greatly reduced by creating conditions that will remove their causes. It has been reported from many localities, for example, that the prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors has resulted in the emptying of the "work houses" which communities have sustained for the confinement of vagrants and persons convicted of petty misdemeanors. Much dependency has resulted from the crippling of wage earners by industrial accidents and from "industrial diseases" arising from work in unwholesome conditions. These causes may be removed by the maintenance of wholesome working conditions, by the installation of safety devices, and by the exercise of greater care by workers and employers. The "safety first" movement strikes at the root of much dependency. Inability to read signs and to understand instructions on the part of illiterate and foreign workers is the cause of many accidents.
Some states have passed "employers' liability laws," designed to hold employers responsible for accidents resulting from failure to provide safe working conditions. Others have "workmen's compensation laws" which provide that an injured workman shall receive a portion of his wages during incapacity from accident or illness. In some countries various forms of COMPULSORY STATE INSURANCE have been adopted. Germany, for example, has long had laws requiring employees to take out accident insurance and insurance against sickness, both employees and employers contributing to the insurance fund. Pensions for the aged and for widows are also provided for, the government itself contributing to the fund for this purpose. At the close of the year 1919, 39 of our 48 states had laws providing for aid by the state to mothers who were unable to provide properly for their children.
The aim in our community life should be as far as possible to PREVENT dependency and not merely to relieve suffering after it occurs. We shall find that the problem will tend to disappear in proportion as we develop in our communities adequate provision for health protection and physical development (Chapter XX), for vocational and general education (Chapter XIX), for wholesome recreation (Chapter XXI), for the cultivation of habits of thrift (Chapter XIII); and as we are successful in producing a right attitude toward the problem of earning a living and wholesome relations between employer and employee (Chapter XI).
Investigate and report on:
The rehabilitation of crippled soldiers after the war.
Your county or town almshouse or poor farm: The kinds of cases sheltered there; its cost to the community; the methods of treatment employed.
Other local institutions for indoor relief in your community.
State institutions for the care of dependents and defectives in your state. Their kinds and location.
The difference between "poverty" and "pauperism."
The extent and kind of "charity work" done by the church which you attend (get accurate information).
The voluntary organizations of your community that give "poor relief." The kind of charitable work done by each.
Charity organization in your community. Its results and the need for it.
The causes of dependence in your community.
The extent to which voluntary charitable work in your community is directed to removing the causes of dependency.
The organization of your county or town government for the care of dependents and defectives.
Employers' liability laws, workmen's compensation laws, mothers' pension laws, in your state.
It is said that there are at least 250,000 people in the United States who make their living by crime, and there are many more who commit crime on occasion. It is said, also, that to support and control this criminal class costs the people of the United States not less than $600,000,000 per annum, or as much as is expended for the entire educational system of the country.
Crime is the violation of law. The criminal is a member of the community who refuses to cooperate with others in accordance with the law. The conduct of an individual may be wrong and harmful to the community without being criminal; it becomes criminal only when the law actually forbids it. A given act may be a crime in one state and not in another state, because the laws of the states differ in their definition of crimes. They also differ in the penalties imposed for the same crime.
The methods of dealing with criminals have changed greatly with the progress of civilization, and especially in recent years since the causes of crime have become better understood. In the earlier methods two ideas were prominent: the infliction of punishment, and the deterrence of others from committing the same offense. The penalties inflicted were therefore very severe. The death penalty was inflicted not only for taking human life but also for minor offenses, such as stealing. Even in our own country in colonial times bodily mutilation was not uncommon, such as branding with a hot iron, or cutting off the ears. Prisons were vile and loathsome places.
Humane feelings have caused the abandonment of such treatment. The death penalty still remains for the worst of crimes; but even it has become more humane in its methods. Many believe that it should be entirely abandoned. The eighth amendment to the Constitution of the United States says that "excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Moreover, a new idea has entered into the matter. It is the same idea that controls the modern treatment of dependents, namely, that of REHABILITATING the criminal. It is now recognized that crime results in most cases from diseased conditions either in the individual or in the community. Some individuals commit crime merely because it seems to them the easiest way to make a living or to gain some other end; but even such individuals are MORALLY diseased. Much crime is due to temporary mental disturbance, as from the use of intoxicants or other drugs. Sometimes it is the act of persons who are actually insane or feeble-minded. Very often it is committed under pressure of poverty.
In view of these facts, while the deliberate violator of law should doubtless be punished, it is even more important that the causes of crime should be removed, and that the criminal should, in as many cases as possible, be restored to a useful and an honest manner of life. The proper treatment of dependents and defectives, and the removal of causes of dependency and defectiveness, are essential steps toward the lessening of crime.
The county jail and the town "lock-up" are the usual local institutions where persons suspected of having violated the law are detained while awaiting trial in the courts, and also where those convicted of petty misdemeanors are imprisoned for punishment. The jail and the "lock-up" are as notorious as the almshouse for unwholesome conditions and mismanagement, though conditions have greatly improved under the influence of an awakened public opinion. They have often, been unsanitary in the extreme. Prisoners have often been treated more like cattle than like human beings. Young and old are thrown together, the hardened criminal with the youthful "first offender," and with those merely suspected of crime, many of whom will be proved to be innocent. The result is demoralizing. Our jails have sometimes been said to be "schools of vice and crime."
Two reforms, at least, are needed in local jails. First, they should be made as wholesome as possible, both physically and morally. They should be perfectly sanitary, and the food should at least be clean and nourishing. Arrangements should be made to keep the different classes of inmates separate, especially the hardened and vicious criminals from youthful transgressors and suspects. In the second place, the local jail should be merely a place of detention for those awaiting trial or, after trial, transfer to other institutions. Those found guilty by the courts should be transferred as quickly as possible to institutions where they may receive treatment fitted to their needs.
Of three persons who steal ten dollars, one may be a deliberate thief who prefers to make his living this way; another may be driven by hunger; and the third may be mentally unbalanced. It is obvious that the treatment accorded to each should be determined by these facts rather than by the mere amount of the theft. The first doubtless needs punishment; but he should also have treatment designed to change his attitude toward the community and to fit him to make an honest living. The second needs to be relieved of his want and to be given an opportunity for self- support. The third needs hospital treatment. We are only beginning to see that punishment is only a part of the treatment necessary, and that the treatment should be made to fit the criminal fully as much as to fit the crime.
Proper treatment for all the various classes of cases cannot well be given in the county jail; nor can the local community as a rule afford to maintain separate institutions for them, as the number in each class is very small in a given community. Hence the necessity for state institutions to which those convicted in the local courts may be sent. Such institutions exist, although not always adequate to the needs of the state. They include state penitentiaries, reform and industrial schools, hospitals for the insane, special schools for the feeble-minded, and others. These institutions have been steadily improving in their efficiency. The greater difficulty seems to be in the local communities, in securing the assignment of offenders to the proper institutions.
Great changes have occurred in recent years in the methods of administering state penitentiaries, especially in some states. Under old conditions convicts were either confined in isolation and idleness or condemned to hard labor, punishment being the sole idea in both cases. The most rigid and arbitrary discipline was enforced. Modern penitentiaries keep prisoners employed in occupations that are of use to the state, that are designed to train the prisoner for useful service, and that yield him some compensation that will help to make him self-supporting when he leaves. They also maintain schools for the instruction of prisoners in at least the common branches of knowledge and in vocational subjects. Great care is taken of the health. In some cases the prisoners are graded according to their conduct and their ability to assume responsibility, certain privileges and freedom and participation in the administration of the prison being bestowed upon them so long as they show a sense of their responsibility. The period of imprisonment may be shortened as a reward for good conduct.
One of the most important reforms that have been made is that in the treatment of juvenile offenders. The main feature of this is the establishment of a JUVENILE COURT, where the usual procedure and publicity of a criminal court are avoided, and where the judge takes a fatherly attitude toward the accused. Each case is carefully investigated to discover the cause of trouble and to arrive at a wise conclusion as to the treatment to be given. In the case of first offenders, or where other conditions justify it, the prisoner is released ON PROBATION. That is, he is given his freedom on his honor, but under the supervision of a PROBATION OFFICER to whom he must report at regular intervals. In the case of more serious offenses, or of repeated wrong-doing, or of violation of parole, offenders are sent to reform schools or industrial schools. The entire effort is to set the young offender on the right road to honest self-support and good citizenship. Unfortunately, however, this machinery for the treatment of juvenile delinquency is so far found almost exclusively in cities. The problem of juvenile delinquency in rural communities is one that requires more attention than has been given to it. It is a problem that the young citizen himself can greatly help to solve by the cultivation, in himself and in his friends, of right conceptions of citizenship.
Investigate and report on the following:
The organization of your county and town governments to protect persons and property against criminals, to apprehend law violators, and to bring them to justice.
The cost to your county or town of this organization.
The desirability or undesirability of differing definitions of crime in different states, and of different punishments for the same crime.
The efficacy of severe punishments in preventing crime.
Should capital punishment be abolished?
The meaning of "bail," and why it is provided for.
The effect of prohibition upon the amount of crime in your community.
The number of prisoners confined in your county jail during the past year, why they were there, and what it cost to keep them.
The meaning of "fitting punishment to the criminal rather than to the crime."
The treatment of prisoners in your state penitentiary.
The method of dealing with juvenile offenders in your community.
The meaning of "probation"; of "parole"; of an "indeterminate sentence."
The extent of juvenile delinquency in your community; its causes.
The use of convict labor outside of prisons.
Reports of county and town authorities.
Reports of state board of charities and of administrative boards of state institutions.
Publications of the Children's Bureau, U. S. Department of Labor. Send for list from which to select. Two valuable publications of this Bureau are:
Bureau Publication No. 32, "Juvenile Delinquency in Rural NewYork."
Bureau Publication. No. 60, "Standards of Child Welfare." This contains among other valuable material, discussions of child labor and legislation relating to it, of the care of dependent and defective children, and of juvenile delinquency.
In Lessons in Community and National Life:
Series A: Lesson 5, The human resources of a community.Lesson 28, The worker in our society.
Series C: Lesson 8, Preventing waste of human beings.Lesson 20, The family and social control.Lesson 30, Social insurance.
The following are a few good books relating to the topics of this chapter:
Burch, H. R, and Patterson, S. H., American Social Problems, chaps, xvi-xx (Macmillan).
Henderson, C. R., Dependents, Defectives, and Delinquents.
Warner, A. G., American Charities.
Devine, E. T., Principles of Relief.
Addams, Jane, Twenty Years at Hull House, and The House on HenryStreet.
Ellwood, C. A., Sociology and Modern Social Problems.