There is diversity of opinion as to the value of pledges. It would seem unwise, however, when a man has broken a pledge, to encourage him to renew it. Let him try a promise to himself, and prove that he can be a man without artificial props.
In more stubborn cases the law must be invoked. Sometimes it is well to try several remedies at once, asking the police to threaten arrest, following this up at once with an invitation to join some temperance society (preferably one connected with the man's church), and trying at the same time to substitute some new interest. Milder measures failing, it will sometimes be necessary to cut off all supplies of relief, and, this again failing, to take steps to protect wife and children from the brutalizing influence of the man by breaking up the home.
There are many causes of the drink evil, as I have tried to show, but, after every allowance has been made, the chief cause will often be found in the selfishness of the human heart. {62} There are men who do not care to be cured of drunkenness, who feel no shame for the misery and degradation brought upon their families. Here again the "sad fact of incurability" must be recognized. It is folly to let such men discover that, through our charitable interest in their families, we will either directly or indirectly pay their whiskey bills, or will assume the burdens that they deliberately shirk. A Committee on Intemperance, reporting to the Ward VIII. Conference of the Boston Associated Charities in 1886, called attention to this aspect of the question. "The committee, however, say that, in their opinion, the question of moral responsibility on the part of the intemperate, and also, in its degree, on the part of those who, by gifts or other aid, make intemperance easy, is too much lost sight of; and they believe that the refusal of all aid to the families of drunkards, outside the almshouse, unless in exceptional cases, would bring about a better state of opinion and a juster sense of responsibility. The committee add that it will be almost impossible to make kind-hearted people believe this, since they are more moved {63} by the sight of present suffering than by the hope of future permanent improvement, to secure which some measure of present suffering may be necessary." [9]
Collateral Readings: "An Adventure in Philanthropy," Edwin C. Martin in"Scribner's," Vol. XI, pp. 230sq. "Charity and Home Making," thepresent writer in "Charities Review," Vol. VI, No. 2. "MarriedVagabonds," the same, in Proceedings of Twenty-second NationalConference of Charities, pp. 514sq. "Drunkards' Families," Rev. W.F. Slocum in Proceedings of Fifteenth National Conference of Charities,pp. 131sq. "The Social Value of the Saloon," E. C. Moore in"American Journal of Sociology," Vol. III, No. 1. "Substitutes for theSaloon," F. G. Peabody in "Forum" for July, 1896. "Law and Drink,"Frederick H. Wines in "Charities Review," Vol. VII, Nos. 3 and 4.
[1] "Rich and Poor," p. 105.
[2] pp. 72sq.
[3] "Charities Review," Vol. VI, pp. 121sq.
[4] See Proceedings of the Twenty-second National Conference of Charities and Correction, New Haven, 1895, pp. 514sq.
[5] "Public Relief and Private Charity," p. 105.
[6] See on this subject the Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth National Conference of Charities and Correction at Toronto, 1897, pp. 5sq.
[7] Miss Z. D. Smith in Report of Union Relief Association of Springfield, Mass., 1887.
[8] "Charities Record," Baltimore, Vol. I, No. 1.
[9] Seventh Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 39.
{64}
The wife brings us to another aspect of the home, though it cannot be too often repeated that all aspects are so inextricably interwoven that they must be considered together. When the wife takes the means provided, the raw material from which a home is to be made, she engages in a very complicated form of manufacture, including in its processes the buying, preparation, and serving of food, the care of the household possessions, the buying, making, and care of clothing, the training of children, and many minor departments. These are only processes, however, and, unless the maker have an ideal picture in her mind of what a home should be, neither some nor all of these processes will make a home.
In dealing with the homemaker, the friendly visitor becomes more directly a teacher, though {65} it is often necessary that she should first be a learner. The agent of a New York charity tells of a friendly visitor who was consulted by the agent about a family applying for relief. They were found to have an income of $20.00 a week. "Well," said the visitor, "that is very little money on which to raise a family." The agent felt that this visitor had not only a great deal to learn, but a great deal to unlearn.
Not every visitor is skilled in buying and preparing food, or in arranging a household budget, and the visitor that is skilful in doing this on one scale of expenditure may be quite ignorant and helpless in dealing with another and much smaller scale. One who is really in earnest, however, in the desire to help another, will never give up because there are difficulties to overcome. The visitor may not know, but as compared with the homemaker in a poor family, has far more time and a greater facility, perhaps, in learning. The visitor's best teachers are friends that have had experience, and the poor themselves. One can learn a great deal from the more frugal and industrious of the very poor, and these are proud to explain {66} their small economies, when our reasons for wishing to learn are made clear to them.
Lacking these teachers, there are books, though books have the disadvantage of never meeting the needs of any one locality. Variations of climate, custom, and the local markets make specific suggestions about buying difficult. For this reason I shall not attempt to go into detail, but suggest that, as our relations with our poor friends should be as natural as possible, when we do not know anything, it is always best to frankly say so, and then think out with them some way of learning. For instance, it would be natural enough for a visitor to say to the homemaker: "We both feel that there is a lot to learn about the best way of buying and preparing food. I have an acquaintance that has made a study of the subject, and, with your permission, I am going to bring her here, to give us both some suggestions."
Scientific dietaries have been prepared with a view to teaching the poor to use nutritious and economical foods. Professor J. J. Atwater, Edward Atkinson, Mrs. Juliet Corson, and Mrs. Mary Hinman Abel are authorities on this {67} subject. The Bureau of Associated Charities, Orange, N. J., publishes a leaflet on foods, prepared by Mrs. S. E. Tenney of Brooklyn. Taking Orange prices, a dietary is given for a family of six (man, wife, and four children), at a cost of $3.31 per week. In urging changes in diet upon poor families, it is first necessary to become well acquainted with the families, and, even then, to introduce any innovations slowly, one thing at a time. A friendly visitor in Baltimore has tried the plan of meeting her friends in market, and pointing out to them the best cuts of meat, the best place to buy vegetables, etc. But her greatest success in introducing new dishes has been through the children. She has been wise enough to secure the coöperation of her cook, and, by inviting the children into her own kitchen on Saturday mornings, has taught them the best way to prepare simple dishes. She finds that scientific dietaries too often ignore the tastes and prejudices of the poor. It is best to begin by teaching them to prepare well the things that they like. If they are devoted to strong tea, for instance, we can teach them first of all that it should not boil on the stove all day.
{68}
When we are dealing with questions of taste, whether in manners, diet, clothing, or household decoration, we cannot afford to take the attitude of the Rev. Mr. Honeythunder, "Come up and be blessed, or I'll knock you down!" We may find a preference for cheap finery very exasperating, but our own example is far more likely to be followed in the long run if we do not insist upon it too much at first. Begin by teaching the homemaker to mend and keep the clothing in good order, and give her some of your own experience as to which materials wear the best.
One of the important items of expenditure is fuel, and the first thing to find out under this head is whether kerosene or any other inflammable fluid is ever used to start the fire. Experienced housekeepers say that it is good economy to have stoves with small gratings and then buy a good grade of pea coal, which, if carefully used, is cheaper and quite as economical as more expensive grades. The poor often prefer expensive, free-burning coals because they are little trouble. A practical engineer says that, in burning pea coal, the fire must be {69} kept clean, not by violent shaking, but by a straight poker used on the bottom of the fire only. Remove clinkers through the top. Add coal in small quantities, and, when not using the fire, give it a good cleaning at the bottom, spread enough coal to make about three inches of fuel in all, put on the draught until kindled, add four inches of fresh coal, allowing the draught to remain on until the gas is burned off, then shut the bottom draughts, take the lids half-way off, and open the top slide, if the stove has one.
In many of the homes into which visitors go, cleanliness seems the greatest lack. Sometimes the mother has lost heart; sometimes she has never known what cleanliness was. Tact is necessary here to avoid hurting the feelings of our poor friends, though some are far more sensitive than others. The Boston woman whose visitor sent soap, scrubbing brushes, mop, and pail, with the message that she was coming on the morrow to use them, took this very broad hint and made the home tidy for the first time in many months, but it is unnecessary to say that all poor people {70} could not be dealt with in this way. One visitor went, when she knew the mother would be absent, and helped the children to clean the house. Another found that, if the family knew she was coming, the home was set in order; so she was careful for a time to come at stated intervals, then tried irregular visits, and was finally rewarded by finding the home presentable at all times.
"Mr. William D. Howells, who during his recent residence in Boston gave much of his valuable time as a visitor for the Associated Charities, was amused one day to be told, on knocking at the door of a house where he had studiously endeavored to inspire a sense of cleanliness, that he could not come in, as the floor had just been washed and he might soil it again." [1]
Housecleaning seasons are not always observed in poor homes. The visitor can call attention to the value of whitewash as a cleaning agent, and if once taught to do it, the children take pleasure in putting it on.
{71}
It is not merely as the adviser about household matters that the visitor can be helpful to the homemaker. Many women in poor neighborhoods lead starved, sordid lives, and long for genuine friendliness and sympathy. A friend who would be helpful to them must exercise the same self-restraint that our own friends exercise with us. The friends who encourage us to exaggerate our troubles and difficulties are not our best friends: theirs is a friendship that tends to weaken our moral fibre. But the sympathy that the poor need and all of us need is the sympathy that makes us feel stronger, the sympathy that is farthest removed from sentimentality. We should be willing to listen patiently to the homemaker's troubles, and should strive to see the world from her point of view, but at the same time we should help her to take a cheerful and courageous tone. One unfailing help, when our poor friends dwell too much upon their own troubles, is to tell them ours. Here, too, indirect suggestion is powerful. The wife, in her attitude toward husband and children, will unconsciously imitate our own attitude {72} toward them. As Miss Jane Addams says, if the visitor kisses the baby and makes much of it, the mother will do the same. A Baltimore visitor has cured one tired woman of scolding her husband in season and out of season by diverting her attention to other things, and by seeking her coöperation in plans for improving the man's habits.
A New York visitor tells of a woman living in a two-room tenement who is regarded as a marvel by her husband's friends because she makes a point of having a specially good meal one night in the week, and it is understood that her husband can bring his friends home to supper on that night without giving her warning. The home is very humble, but she has learned the wisdom of making it a real home for her husband, and one that he can be proud of.
So far, I have ignored the fact that, in the poor home, the woman is often the breadwinner as well as the homemaker. I wish it were possible to ignore the further fact that charitable visitors, finding it difficult to get work for the man or finding him disinclined {73} to take it, will bestir themselves to get work for the woman instead. One of the few rules which it is safe to follow blindly is the rule that we should not encourage any woman to become the breadwinner who has an able-bodied, unemployed man in the house. "Only harm can result," says Mrs. Lowell, "if efforts are made to induce the woman to leave her home daily for work."
Where the breadwinner is disabled, or the woman is a deserted wife or widow, work is, of course, necessary. We must distinguish, however, between the deserted wife and the wife whose husband chronically deserts her, until her condition attracts the charitable help that he returns to share. Widows with children belong to a class with which charity has dealt too harshly in the past. When the woman is incapable of supporting all her children, and this is usually the case, charity has either allowed her family to depend upon insufficient doles and so drift into beggary, or else has put all the children in orphanages. If the mother is a good mother, capable with help of rearing her children to independence and {74} self-support, this latter is not only a cruel but a wasteful method. As charity becomes more discriminating and resourceful, it will be possible to organize pensions for widows of this class, though these pensions will need the careful oversight of a visitor, who should see that the children are taught to bear the family burden as they become older.
There is great diversity of opinion about the value of mothers' meetings for women whose home duties prevent them from attending church on Sunday. If these meetings confined themselves to providing what the church service provides,—a chance for spiritual uplifting and refreshment,—there could be no possible objection to them; but, unfortunately, many mothers' meetings strive to attract and hold members by such small devices as paying them for very bad sewing, or making small gifts, or selling things below cost. These attractions, small as they are, lead many women to neglect their home duties, and it is no unusual thing for one woman to belong to three mothers' meetings of three different denominations, which take her away {75} from home three afternoons in the week. The atmosphere of patronage and "sprinkling charity" that is so common in these meetings, distinctly lowers the self-respect of the women; before very long they learn to write begging notes or send begging messages to "the ladies" in charge, and the place that should be for them a source of spiritual strength becomes merely a source of supplies.
Collateral Readings: "The Lustig's" and "Corinna's Fiametta," Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer in "One Man who was Content and Other Stories." "Practical Sanitary and Economic Cooking" (adapted to persons of moderate and small means), Mrs. Mary Hinman Abel, published by American Public Health Association, Rochester, N.Y. "Foods: Nutritive Value and Cost," by W. O. Atwater in Farmer's Bulletin No. 23 of United States Department of Agriculture. "Dietary Studies in New York City," W. O. Atwater and Charles D. Woods in Bulletin No. 46 of United States Department of Agriculture. The Health Department of New York City will soon publish leaflets prepared by experts, which will contain simple directions about buying and preparing food. "The Le Play Method of Social Observation," "American Journal of Sociology," Vol. II, No. 1. "Treatment of Widows and Dependent Children," Mrs. L. Wolcott in Proceedings of Fifteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 137sq. "Girls in a Factory Valley," Mrs. Lillie B. Chace Wyman in "Atlantic," Vol. LXXVIII, pp. 391sq. and 506sq.
[1] Mrs. Roger Wolcott in Proceedings of International Congress of Charities at Chicago, Volume on "Organization of Charities," p. 110.
{76}
The visitor in the homes of the poor whose chief concern is with questions of material relief often overlooks the children entirely, unless they are large enough to be forced into the labor market and made to contribute toward the family income. In charity meetings, where visitors get together to discuss the difficulties of individual families, it will often happen that the children are not mentioned. On the other hand, there is a large class of charity workers who concern themselves with the children only, and a strongly marked tendency of modern charity is to treat the children of the poor quite apart from and without any relation to their home life. "We constantly hear it said," writes Mrs. James Putnam, "that we cannot help the older ones, but that we must save the {77} children. It seems clear to me that to help one without the other is usually an impossible task. Their interests are too closely bound together." [1]
There is always danger, in our eagerness to help the children, that we may only encourage parents to shirk their duty. Take the admirable charities known as day nurseries. If care is not taken to exclude all except the children of widows, or of women whose husbands are disabled, these will only encourage laziness in the husband, and help to bring about that unwholesome condition in which the wife is breadwinner, homemaker, and child-bearer.
The first thing that a visitor should observe in a family where there is a baby is whether the child is nursed too many months and too often. A child should not be nursed during the night after it is six months old. Solid food is usually given too soon; tea and coffee are often given before the child is a year old, and to these is added "anything on the table." {78} For the children's sake, the visitor should be very observant. It is difficult, at first, to find out how they are fed, bathed, and clothed, and whether they go to bed early, in clean beds and ventilated rooms; but one can learn more by observation than by direct questions. Ask to see the baby bathed, and notice the condition of its scalp and skin. If in any doubt, it is always best to consult a doctor; do not allow your ignorance to make you a non-conductor. Learn how to sterilize milk, and teach the mother; show her the importance of feeding at regular intervals, and impress upon her that small children should never have stimulants, greasy food, green fruit, or cakes, nuts, and candies.
In summer, the baby should have frequent airings in the nearest park, and, in case of sickness, the visitor should know how to use the children's sanitariums, floating hospitals, free excursions or other charities provided for sick children. For the older children it will be possible to procure a country holiday through the fresh air society or the children's country homes that are provided within easy {79} distance of all our large cities. Or, better still, the visitor may know some one in the country, or may have a summer home there, where the little ones can be entertained. Any one who has once realized how important it is that every growing child should know and love the country, will gladly put up with some personal inconvenience to give this knowledge to the little folk in the family he visits.
As soon as the children are old enough, connection should be made with the nearest kindergarten, or if, unfortunately, there is no kindergarten near enough, the visitor should learn some of the kindergarten games and occupations, and teach the children. When the children go to the public schools, the visitor should make the acquaintance of their teacher.
"One of our visitors went for two years to visit a widow and her children without feeling that she accomplished anything, though the intercourse was pleasant enough in itself. Then she heard that the girl of thirteen was having trouble in school and was in danger of being expelled. She went to see the teacher. {80} The girl was always well dressed, and the teacher had no idea she was a poor girl. After seeing the visitor the teacher touched the girl at last by talking with her of the sacrifices her mother had made for her education, and urging her to do her part, that her mother's hard work might not be in vain. In this way she persuaded the girl to good behavior and kept her in school—all because some one had visited the family for a year or two and could speak confidently of their condition and character." [2]
No one can work among the poor in their homes without realizing the need of compulsory education laws. There are still people here and there who talk about the danger of educating the poor "above their station," but those who know the poor in our large cities from actual contact feel that over-education is the very least of the dangers that beset them. The lack of adequate school accommodations, making it impossible to punish truancy, is a much greater danger, and, in some States, the absence of any compulsory education law {81} makes the child the easy victim of trade conditions and of parental greed. The visitor should never permit the desire to increase the family income to blind him to the fact that the physical, mental, and moral welfare of the child is seriously endangered by wage-earning. Where there is a compulsory education law, he should coöperate with the truant officers in securing its enforcement; where there is no such law, every influence should be brought to bear upon parents to keep children in school. The Hebrew Benevolent Society of Detroit refuses aid to families in which the children are kept from school, and all our relief agencies, churches included, would do well to adopt this rule.
Some of the most intelligent and devoted workers in child-saving agencies have sounded the note of warning on the subject of children wage-earners. "The fact," says Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer, "that the world of industry has found out and established methods of labor which can utilize the work of children to profit, gives to that world of industry, as an upper and a nether millstone, the greed {82} of employers and the cupidity and poverty of parents, between which the life of the child is often ground to powder." [3] And Mrs. Florence Kelley, writing from her experience as a factory inspector in Illinois, says: "I do not mean that every boy is usually ruined by his work, but I do mean that, the earlier the child goes to work, the greater the probability of ruin. I mean, too, that there is to be gained, from a scientific study of the working child, an irradiating side-light upon the tramp question, the unemployed question, and the whole ramifying question of the juvenile offender. . . . One reason that immigrants cling so closely to the great cities is that they find there far more opportunity to get money for their children's work. There is probably no one means of dispersing the disastrously growing colonies of our great cities so simple and effective as this one, of depriving the children of their immediate cash value." [4]
{83}
Another hindrance to the proper education of the children is the habit of keeping them from school to run errands, to carry their fathers' dinners, or to help with the housework. The girls are often taken away from school very early for trivial reasons.
Recent developments in child study show that many of the moral and mental obliquities of children may be traced to physical defects. In dealing with wayward and dull children, the visitor should bear this fact in mind, and, either by observation or by the help of a physician, discover wherein the child is defective. The sooner a defect is discovered, the easier it will be to cure it, and for this reason the visitor should learn to apply simple tests for defective sight and hearing.
In a very instructive article, which every visitor should read, on "Child Study," [5] Professor Krohn says that "dull" children suffer from defective hearing in ninety-nine out of one hundred cases. He tells of one girl in a class who failed to answer correctly, and was said by the teacher to be the most stupid child in the {84} school. "After the class was dismissed, I told the teacher that I did not believe that the little girl was intellectually stupid; that there was probably some physical defect clogging the pathway to her active little brain; and I requested an opportunity to talk to the child at recess, when I found that she could not hear my stop-watch tick until it was within nine inches of her right ear, and eleven inches of her left ear. The average child, under the same local conditions, can hear the same watch tick at a distance of twenty-one feet. How could the poor child answer correctly when she could not hear what was asked? Every answer was a mere guess. After a time any child would become stupid under such conditions, believing it of no use to attempt to answer at all. This little girl was, at my suggestion, given a seat not far from the teacher's desk and especial pains was afterward taken to speak distinctly to her. . . . She has since manifested such marked improvement that, at the close of the last school year, she ranked second in her class."
In puzzling cases of waywardness, the visitor {85} should seek the advice of the agent of the local children's aid society, who is often an expert, and glad to help one who is in earnest in such work. The Report of the Boston Children's Aid Society for 1896,[6] cites two cases of truancy due to physical defects. One was a girl of ten years, whose eyes were found to be defective. After fitting her with proper glasses, the Society's agent had her returned to school. Another was a boy of eight, with a slight impediment in his speech. No one had noticed that his schoolmates teased the child, until he told the agent. After the boy's teacher had been seen, there was no more laughing and no more truancy.
Massachusetts has an excellent system of placing juvenile offenders on probation for a first offence. This same report contains illustrations of the work of the Children's Aid Society's probation officer. "A boy, fifteen years of age, already on informal probation, and apparently doing fairly well, was suddenly brought into court, charged with breaking and entering his employer's shop at night. On {86} account of his past good character, he was put on probation by the court under our agent's care. He told Mr. Lawrence that he got into this criminal state of mind by bad reading and by attending low theatrical performances. With the aid of the boy's Sunday-school teacher he has been encouraged to do his best, and is now working regularly, taking good books from the Public Library, and is doing very well."
The charitable are only beginning to discover the importance of such personal and preventive work among children, founded upon an intimate knowledge of their habits and character. Such work must be done in large measure by volunteers, and the friendly visitor's relations to poor families render him specially fit for the service. The illustration just given emphasizes the importance of guiding a child's reading. It is not enough to teach the children to use the Public Library; we should know what they are reading and teach them to enjoy the right books. An admirable system of lending libraries having this object in view has been established by the Boston Children's Aid Society. These little Home Libraries in small {87} hanging book cases are placed in certain homes in poor neighborhoods, and the visitor in charge of a library meets at regular intervals a group of children of the neighborhood who form the library circle, explaining the books to them, playing games, and getting well acquainted. A friendly visitor might easily establish such a library in any poor neighborhood; the details of the plan may be had upon application to the Children's Aid Society.
Training in citizenship must not be overlooked. Our boys and girls should know more about our country than their parents can teach them. The publications of the Patriotic League, 230 W. 13th St., New York, will be found very useful. The League issues a Young Citizens' Catechism and a monthly journal, "Our Country." The Sunday-school is another help to the visitor, and it is well to know not only the public-school teacher, but the Sunday-school teacher, whose coöperation should be sought in any plans for the children's welfare. One Sunday-school is a help, but two or more Sunday-schools for one child are thoroughly demoralizing, and we {88} should do our best to discourage any child in whom we are interested from going to more than one.
It too often happens that children are sent by their parents to several churches with the deliberate purpose of making profitable charitable connections. This habit of thrusting the children forward to excite sympathy, of sending them to ask help of teachers, clergymen, and charity agents, is so obviously bad for the children that one wonders how the charitable can ever have permitted it to become so general. Children should never be permitted to deliver begging notes and messages from a family in which there is an able-bodied adult.
Of all charitable practices that help to manufacture misery and vice, the practice of giving to child-beggars on the street is the most pernicious. One boy who has become a skilful beggar teaches another, and first the money goes for candy and cigarettes, then for gambling and low theatres. The next step is petty thieving, the next burglary, and then follow commitment to a {89} reformatory, which often fails to reform, and, later, a criminal career. I have seen children travel this road so often that it is difficult to speak without bitterness of the unthinking alms that led them into temptation. Sometimes parents connive at child-begging, but often they know nothing of it until the children have grown incorrigible. A strict enforcement of the laws against child-begging is very difficult until every one is convinced of the cruelty of giving money to unknown children on the street or at the door.
It sometimes becomes the visitor's painful duty to protect children from cruelty, criminal neglect, or immorality by legal removal from their parents' control. Here a society for the protection of children will often render valuable assistance. Such a society is likely to be hampered in its work by the unwillingness of charitable visitors to tell what they know in court. Sometimes this is due to timidity, and sometimes to a fear of losing influence in the neighborhood. Clergymen have been known to refuse their testimony for this latter reason. The friendly visitor, {90} whose interest is centred in only one family in the neighborhood, need not be so cautious, and his continuous visiting, extending over many months, makes his testimony very valuable. No fear of losing influence with other members of the family should prevent him from speaking out where a child's future is at stake. Just a few months more in evil surroundings may mean moral death to the child, and neighbors are notoriously unwilling to tell what they know.
It is impossible to enter here upon the vexed question of the relative merits of boarding-out dependent children, of placing them without pay in country homes, or of committing them to the care of institutions, though I cannot refrain from quoting, in passing, the opinion of Miss Mason, for twelve years an English government inspector of boarded-out children, that "well carried out, boarding-out may be the best way of caring for dependent children; ill carried out, it may be the worst." There is a very foolish saying that the worst home is better than the best institution, but no one who knows how bad a home can be {91} or how good an institution can be will venture beyond the statement that, other things being equal, a home is certainly better than an institution. The friendly visitor should make himself familiar with what has been written on this subject, and should be prepared, in any given case, to make the wisest selection of a home that local conditions make possible, always remembering, of course, that his responsibility does not end here; that he should continue to visit the child, if it be placed within visiting distance.
The visitor should also be familiar with the local laws for the protection of children. These usually include laws against child-begging; against selling liquor and tobacco to minors; against the employment of children as pedlers, public singers, dancers, etc.; against the employment of children under a certain age for more than a specified number of hours (or prohibiting their employment entirely); and against the abduction or harboring of female minors for immoral purposes.
What, above the mastery of all these details, {92} should be the visitor's clear aim? To see to it that the children are better off than their parents were, and are saved from the pitfalls into which the latter have fallen; that the boys are better equipped to become breadwinners, and the girls to become homemakers. The training given in our public schools will often seem very inadequate, and some of us look forward to the day when every boy and girl between the ages of six and sixteen shall be trained to use hand and brain, when manual training shall be part of the daily instruction of every school course. Until this day comes, the visitor must make use of such aids as evening classes in boys' and girls' clubs, people's institutes, and Christian associations. A child's capabilities should be studied and every encouragement given to his small ambitions.
But the best help, after all, is in the personal influence that the visitor can acquire over the growing child. When we think what personal influence has done in our own lives, how it has moulded our convictions, our tastes, our very manner of speech, even, we should not despair of the children, if we can {93} attach them to us and give them a new and better outlook upon life. The time when we can be of the greatest help to them is during the disorganized period that comes between the school days and the settling down in life. Many a young life has gone to wreck for lack of a guiding hand at this time, for lack of a friend to make suggestions about employment, companions, amusements, and home relations. The failure of philanthropy to make any adequate provision for this critical period accounts, in part, for the large number of married vagabonds in our great cities.
Collateral Readings: On care of infants see leaflets of local Boards ofHealth. "The Working Child," Florence Kelley in Proceedings ofTwenty-third National Conference of Charities, pp. 161sq. "TheWorking Boy," the same in "American Journal of Sociology," Vol. II, No.3. "Child Labor," W. F. Willoughby and Clare de Graffenreid inpublications of American Economic Association. "Influence of ManualTraining on Character," Felix Adler in Proceedings of FifteenthNational Conference of Charities, pp. 272sq. "Children of theRoad," Josiah Flynt in "Atlantic," January, 1896. "Family Life forDependent and Wayward Children," Homer Folks, volume on "Care ofChildren" in Proceedings of International Congress of Charities atChicago, pp. 69sq. Story of "The Child's {94} Mother," in Mrs.Margaret Deland's "Old Chester Tales." "The Wisdom of Fools," Mrs.Margaret Deland (see, for difficulties in reclaiming girls, the storyentitled "The Law and the Gospel"). Reports of Conventions of WorkingGirls' Societies at Boston, 1894, and Philadelphia, 1897. Forpamphlets on School Savings Banks apply to J. H. Thiry, Long IslandCity, N.Y.
[1] Proceedings of Fifteenth National Conference of Charities, 1887, p. 152.
[2] Miss Z. D. Smith.
[3] Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, Chicago, 1893. Volume on "Care of Children," p. 7.
[4] Proceedings of Twenty-third National Conference of Charities, 1896, p. 164.
[5] "Charities Review," Vol. VI, pp. 433sq.
[6] pp. 13sq.
{95}
About one-fourth of all the poverty that has come within the scope of charitable investigation is directly caused by sickness. "In both American and English experience," writes Warner, "the percentage attributable to this cause sinks but once slightly below fifteen and never quite reaches thirty. The average is between twenty and twenty-five. This is one of the most significant facts brought out by these tables [of the statistical causes of poverty]. It is not one which the author anticipated when the collection of statistics began; and yet it has been confirmed and reconfirmed in so many ways that the conclusion seems inevitable that the figures set forth real and important facts. Personal acquaintance with the destitute classes has further convinced him that most of the {96} causes of poverty result from or result in a weakened physical and mental constitution, often merging into actual disease." [1]
This fact gives added importance to all the efforts of modern charity to secure improved dwellings, open spaces, cheap baths, and better municipal sanitation for the poor. But improvement in these matters cannot come entirely from without; "the model tenement implies a model tenant." As a London authority puts it: "The condition of the house may degrade its occupants. The careless life and habits of the occupants will spoil the house, and make it filthy and unhealthy." The friendly visitor should try to make the family healthily discontented with unsanitary surroundings, and so prepare them for better quarters. Removing families from unfit tenements is not enough, however, if these tenements are almost immediately reoccupied. Their condition should be reported to the Board of Health, and, if condemned, we should see that no one else is permitted to move into them.
I have often noticed that charity agents, {97} who work habitually in poor neighborhoods, get so accustomed to bad sanitary conditions that they hardly notice them. Volunteer workers are not so likely to fall into this error, though it is possible for volunteers to be very unobservant. They often feel that things are all wrong, without being able to state the specific difficulties. An observant visitor will learn the condition of the cellar, walls, yard, plumbing, and outhouses; will learn to take the cubic contents of a room in order to find out the air space for each sleeper; will learn the family method of garbage disposal; will see how the rooms are ventilated; and will learn all these things without asking many questions. Dampness is a very common cause of sickness; when the children cough it is a very simple matter to ask about the cellar, and even get permission to see it.
The prejudice against fresh air, especially night air, is a difficult one to overcome. One mother, who kept her children scrupulously clean, could never understand the value of fresh air until a visitor explained to her how air was polluted by the soiled air that we {98} breathed out, just as water was polluted when we washed our hands in it. When the children breathed this soiled air in again it made them "dirty inside"; and this homely statement left such an unpleasant picture in the mother's mind that her rooms were always well ventilated afterward.
It is difficult to ventilate a small room without making a draft, but, next to the chimney, the upper sash is the simplest ventilator, and should not be immovable, as it is in many small houses. A board about five inches wide under the lower sash will make a current of air between the upper and lower sashes, and, better still, two pieces of elbow pipe with dampers, fixed in the board, will throw a good current of air upward into the room. Another ventilator can be made by tacking a strip of loosely woven material to the upper sash and to the top of the window-frame. When the upper sash is dropped, the stuff is drawn taut over the opening, and, while permitting air to pass through, breaks the current.
Equal in importance with fresh air inside the house is exercise out of doors. I was {99} shocked some years ago to find that, of six Sunday-school boys who went with me on a little trip to our largest city park, five had never been there before. This had not been due to lack of time or money, though they had very little of either; but its sole cause had been lack of enterprise.
There is an impatient and popular saying that soap and water are cheap; like many other popular sayings, it is only half true. Personal cleanliness is rather expensive when one takes into account the time, energy, and frequent changes of clothing required to keep the body daintily clean. Visitors should realize this in any effort to introduce a higher standard of personal neatness, and should not be impatient when they do not immediately succeed. Cleanliness and health are so nearly related, however, that the effort is very well worth making. A visitor who hesitated to complain to a mother about her little girl's neglected condition, borrowed the child to spend the day, and brought her home at night sweet, clean, and rosy, with her hair well brushed and curled. The hint was taken.
{100}
It would be very unfortunate for the visitor to be an alarmist, for there are imaginary invalids among the poor as well as elsewhere, but more frequently the poor neglect the earlier symptoms of sickness altogether, or else dose themselves with patent medicines. The quack doctors who advertise in the daily papers draw much of their custom from the very poor, who are also large consumers of cure-alls and proprietary medicines. We have seen how children's physical defects can pass unnoticed at home, and this is the case in a less degree with the defects and ailments of adults. The very cheap grade of medical service that is sometimes given by regular practitioners in poor neighborhoods has a tendency to discourage the poor from taking sickness in time. The visitor can help them to procure better medical service at reasonable charges or, when necessary, without charge. The grade of service in dispensaries varies greatly, but the medical advice and directions given there with the medicines can be made far more useful if the visitor will go with the patient and see that the directions are understood and carried {101} out. Often no adult in the family can spare the time to go with a sick child to the dispensary. Here, too, the visitor's service will be helpful. In cases of contagious disease, see that the Board of Health is notified promptly.
Other things being equal, an acute case of illness can usually be better and more economically cared for in a hospital than in a poor home. In fact, although hospitals were intended originally for the destitute sick, the practice of sending well-to-do patients there is rapidly spreading. The prejudice against hospitals, still so general among the poor, is a survival from a time when hospital care was far less humane than now. If the visitor has ever been a patient in a hospital, and can tell his own experience or the experiences of friends, or if he happens to know some of the doctors or nurses, and promises to see them about his poor friend, the prejudice can often be overcome. The dread of the untried and the unknown is natural enough, and yet it will happen now and then that hospital care is so clearly the best thing that nothing can take the place {102} of it, and suffering and loss will be entailed upon the family by their refusal to let the sick member go. In such cases charitable people may be justified in helping the family to a right decision by withholding all relief.
The prejudice against hospitals is strong in the negro race. In the first family I ever visited the mother, a colored woman, had been bedridden for thirteen months. According to her own account she had been "conjured," and at first the mention of a hospital made her hysterical. She consented to let a doctor, who was a friend of mine, see her, and he pronounced her disease sciatic rheumatism. He said she could never get well at home with four small, noisy children, and, besides, the walls of her house were damp. After two months of persuading, I got the mother into a hospital and the family moved into a dry house. Among the arguments that won her were my own acquaintance with the hospital nurses, and my promise to visit her frequently while there; and my further promise to see that the children were well cared for while she was away. But the argument that tipped the scale was the {103} promise to take her away to the hospital in a carriage with two horses.
Among the cases in which hospital care is not practicable are those of chronic invalids, of patients too sick to be moved, and of patients able to be treated as "out-patients" in the dispensaries. Confinement cases, where there are children in the family who must be placed temporarily in institutions if the mother leaves home, are best treated in the home. There are societies that provide a nurse and baby-linen at such times. Some families are so degraded that they look forward to times of confinement as times of plenty (see family cited on p. 55), and in these cases nothing but hospital care should be offered, while we place the children temporarily in institutions or with neighbors. For the destitute sick outside of hospitals, district nurses are now provided in many cities. When these nurses are careful to instruct well members of the household in the care of the sick, their influence is especially helpful, and they are often able not only to relieve suffering, but to raise the standard of living in the home. Diet kitchens, supplying food specially {104} prepared for the sick either free or at a nominal cost, are also found in many of our cities.
With all the charities provided for the sick, there is still need of better provision in this country for convalescents, who are sent from the hospitals too weak to resume work, and still needing rest, good food, and pure air to effect a complete cure.
Two classes of invalids remain to be mentioned in this condensed summary. First, accident cases, in which the visitor must be careful to see that legal redress is obtained when the case is one for damages, and must, at the same time, protect the victim from lawyers who are glad to take a sure case for "half the proceeds." Second, incurables, for whom homes are provided requiring an entrance fee, or for whom, more often, nothing remains but the almshouse. The visitor can sometimes secure the coöperation of friends and charities interested, and so raise enough money to provide the fee for such an invalid, when, without coöperation, as much money and more would be spent and the patient remain in the end unprovided for. Charitable people often {105} get tired; they will do a great deal for a while, and will then get interested elsewhere, and grudge the help that is still needed. In view of this failing, it is much better, in making plans for incurables, to secure a lump sum that will make adequate provision, than to depend upon the continued interest of a number of people.
The migration of invalids is the last point upon which I shall attempt to touch under this head. Any one who has visited California, Florida, Colorado, or any other part of our country where climatic conditions are supposed to be favorable for invalids, will realize the irresponsible way in which charitable people are accustomed to send the sick where they do not belong. The worst of it is that the sudden change of climate and the impossibility of securing proper care, so far from effecting a cure, in many cases hasten death. "The saddest thing about the life of a Denver minister," writes Rev. Samuel A. Eliot, "is the number of lonely funerals that he is called upon to attend. Often I have been hastily summoned to say a prayer over some poor body at the undertaker's {106} shop, where there would be present just the undertaker and the minister, with perhaps the keeper of the boarding-house where the lad died or an officer of the Charity Organization Society. I look at the youthful victim of ignorant good-will borne to his neglected grave, I imagine the mother and sisters in the farmhouse on the New England hillside, whose tenderness might have soothed his last hours, and I think with bitterness of the well-meant but misdirected charity which condemned him to a miserable exile and a forlorn death." [2]
It must be remembered that change of climate is helpful only in the earlier stages of disease, and only then when the patient is able to live in comparative comfort, free from worry and anxiety. To send invalids to a strange place in the name of charity, without providing them with the means of subsistence, is the refinement of cruelty.
Collateral Readings: Publications of local Board of Health.Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, Chicago, 1893,volume on "Hospitals, Dispensaries, {107} and Nursing." "InstructiveDistrict Nursing," M. K. Sedgewick in "Forum," Vol. XXII, pp. 297sq."The Feeble-minded," Dr. George H. Knight in Proceedings ofTwenty-second National Conference of Charities, pp. 150sq. See alsodiscussion in same volume, pp. 460sq. "The Care of Epileptics,"William P. Letchworth in Proceedings of Twenty-third NationalConference of Charities, pp. 199sq. "Industrial Education ofEpileptics," Dr. William P. Spratling in Proceedings of Twenty-fourthNational Conference of Charities, pp. 69sq. "DestituteConvalescents: After Care of the Insane," Dr. Richard Dewey in thesame, pp. 76sq. See also discussion on pp. 464sq.
[1] "American Charities," p. 40.
[2] Proceedings of the Nineteenth Conference of Charities, Denver, 1892, pp. 91sq.
{108}
There is a new school of philanthropists that are inclined to make light of thrift, and to class both industry and thrift among the merely "economic virtues." To this school must belong the settlement worker who spoke of thrift as "ordinarily rather demoralizing." [1] But another objection to thrift which has been made by settlement workers is that it was only good for the working classes "until their employers discovered that there was a margin to their employees' wages."
Is it true that industry and thrift are merely economic virtues? We instinctively feel that they are something more. One has only to think of a lazy man to get an impression of something essentially contemptible and {109} cowardly. On the other hand the man that loves work and throws himself into it with energy is winning more than material rewards. The thriftless and the extravagant, whether rich or poor, are often mean and self-indulgent, lacking the first quality of the unselfish in lacking self-control. In teaching industry and thrift, therefore,—though these virtues, like others, have an unlovely side,—we may feel that we are dealing with two of the elements out of which not only character but all the social virtues are built.
Nor will the pessimistic theory that the worker must spend as much as possible on indifferent food and housing in order to keep up the rate of wages, bear the light of common sense. It is true that the man who merely hoards for the sake of hoarding, developing no new and higher wants, no clearly defined aims, will still be almost as helpless as the most thriftless. But no one is more helpless against the encroachments of employers than the man who lives from hand to mouth, whose necessities press ever hard upon him, crippling him and crippling those {110} with whom he competes in the open market. Then again, successful coöperation is impossible to the thriftless. The lack of self-control, the lack of power to defer their pleasures, unfits them for combined effort and makes it more difficult for them to be loyal to their fellow-workmen. Visitors can advocate thrift, therefore, for both economic and moral reasons.
There is a use of the word "thrift" that may help us to realize its best meaning. Gardeners call a plant of vigorous growth a "thrifty" plant. Let us bear this in mind in our charitable work, and remember that anything that hinders vigorous growth is essentially unthrifty. Thrift means something more than the hoarding of small savings. In fact, saving at the expense of health, or training, or some other necessary preparation for successful living, is always unthrifty. It is unthrifty to live in damp rooms to secure cheaper rent; it is unthrifty to put aside money for burial insurance when the children are underfed; it is unthrifty either to buy patent medicines or to neglect early symptoms of disease in order to save a doctor's bill; above all, it {111} is unthrifty to take young children away from school and force them to become breadwinners. Thrift, therefore, includes spending as well as saving.
Charity workers often complain that, in the poor families known to them, thrift is impossible, because there is nothing to save. More often than not this means that their relations with the poor have ceased as soon as acute distress is past, and that they have stopped visiting at the very time when improved material conditions have made the best friendly services possible.
Any attempt to divide the poor into classes is to be deprecated, because human beings are not easily classified. But, speaking roughly, and using the classification merely as a temporary convenience, charity workers will find that the thrift habit divides the poor into three classes. First, those who are very thrifty, and this is a large class. Misfortune may overtake the most provident during long periods of industrial depression, or they may become temporarily dependent through sickness or some unforeseen accident. The second class includes {112} those who are willing to work when work is plentiful, but who have little persistence or resourcefulness in procuring work. In the busy season they spend lavishly on cheap pleasures and soon become applicants for relief in troubled times. Debt has no terrors for them, and, from their point of view, it is useless to save because they cannot save enough to make it seem worth while. In the third class we find the lazy and vicious, who shirk work, and, living by their wits, are better off in bad times than in good. "It is with the second class that the charitable may work lasting harm or lasting good. To let them feel that no responsibility rests with them during the busy season, and that all the responsibility rests with us to relieve their needs when the busy season is over, rapidly pushes them into the third class. To teach them, on the other hand, the power and cumulative value of the saving habit, and so get them beforehand with the world, is to place them in the first class and soon render them independent of our material help." [2]
{113}
A characteristic of the second class is the habit of buying on credit. The book at the corner grocery not only tempts the purchaser into buying unnecessary things, but the prices are higher than the market rate for inferior goods. A student in a university laboratory, who is also a friendly visitor, had occasion to use some sugar in one of his experiments, and, being hurried, purchased it from the nearest corner grocery, paying more than the usual price. It proved to be badly adulterated, and the user has been more careful since in advising his poor friends about purchasing provisions. The credit system is the natural outcome of uncertain income, and for that reason is hard to avoid, but in a number of instances it is continued long after the necessity that caused the buyer to ask credit has ceased to exist.
Another and less excusable form of the credit system is buying household goods on the instalment plan. The poor are often teased into this by glib agents. An old woman, whose income was not sufficient to keep her alive, contracted to buy a clock on the instalment plan for $8.00 because she needed one when she {114} occasionally had a day's job of cleaning. When her visitor remonstrated that a dollar clock would have done quite as well, she replied triumphantly, "Yes, but this one is only 25 cents a week!" When payments cannot be made, and the purchaser is threatened with the loss of the goods, it is possible to be too hasty in rushing to the rescue. The Fifteenth Report of the Boston Associated Charities records such an experience. "A family had purchased furniture upon the instalment plan, when the husband was suddenly deprived of his job. The furniture was about to be seized, when generous sympathizers came to the rescue, and redeemed the articles. Scarcely had the donors time to realize what a financial relief they had been able to give to the troubled family before the same bit of folly was repeated, and 'parlor furniture' was added to the inventory of goods and chattels to be paid for by the week." [3] When instalment men threaten seizure, it is well to find out whether they are acting within the law. They have been known to take advantage of ignorant clients. But the system {115} itself is bad in that it encourages the purchase of unnecessary things, and at a great advance upon cash prices.
When the poor man would borrow, he is often exposed to the impositions of a class of unscrupulous money lenders, who violate the laws against usury, but hope to escape punishment or loss through the ignorance of their customers. The pitiful part of it is that the self-respecting poor often fall into their traps. A family in pecuniary straits for the first time is naturally attracted by the specious advertisements of the chattel-mortgage companies, which offer to lend money on goods that the borrower keeps in his possession, and promise that all negotiations shall be strictly confidential. This seems an easy way out of present difficulties without loss of self-respect or any painful publicity. But the terms of the contract are far from easy in reality. Through a system of bonuses, extra fees, or monthly payments for "guaranteeing" the loan, interest amounting to from 100 per cent to 200 per cent a year is wrung from the borrowers. Bled dry at last, and unable to pay {116} such extortionate interest and the principal too, their goods are seized, and the members of the household become objects of charity. Whereever these chattel-mortgage companies gain any foothold, many of their victims are applicants for relief. The law usually furnishes ample protection, but the companies flourish through the poor man's ignorance of the law.
As soon as a visitor learns that the goods of a poor family are mortgaged, he should, at once, whether the company is pressing for payment or not, learn the terms of the contract, and get an opinion as to its validity from some friend who is a lawyer. The usual form of contract in Maryland is a six months' mortgage, bearing 6 per cent interest, with the legal charge for recording deducted from the amount advanced to the borrower. But, in addition to this, notes for from $2.00 upward, according to the size of the loan, are made payable monthly to some third party who is supposed to guarantee the loan. Lawyers advise no payments on these notes, and that principal and legal interest be offered at the expiration of the mortgage. If this offer {117} is refused, the company renders itself liable to damage proceedings in seizing the furniture. In each case, however, it is better to have a lawyer's advice, as the contracts vary, and ignorant men, who thought they were signing a six months' mortgage, have been known to sign a one month's mortgage instead.
The law against usury can protect those who know enough to apply it, but the poor man remains unprovided with any satisfactory means of negotiating a loan. The legal rate of interest is too low to make loans on chattels profitable. The organization, by public-spirited business men, of companies that will be careful in taking risks, and will secure special legislation enabling them to charge not more than a reasonable rate of interest, is the only remedy. Companies like these have been organized successfully in Boston and Buffalo by philanthropists who were also business men and wise enough to realize the importance of placing such loan agencies on an equitable business basis. Several advantages are apparent from the working of these equitable loan companies. Those who cannot {118} properly negotiate a loan are discouraged from applying, because the loans are made with great care. Those who get the loans are fairly dealt with, and are helped at the right time in a way that saves them from becoming applicants for charity. Best of all, the other loan companies are forced to reduce their rate of interest, and offer fairer terms.
The habit of pawning goods has never become general among our native population, but among the foreign poor of our large cities it is the common practice; and here, too, the philanthropic pawnshop, started at the instance of the New York Charity Organization Society, has reduced the percentage charged by other pawnshops in New York.
This new interest taken by philanthropy in the poor man as borrower is still in the tentative and experimental stage, but there is an encouraging analogy between its beginnings and the early history of the savings banks. "It is seldom remembered," says Mrs. Lowell, "that the great scheme of savings banks was originally conceived and put into operation as a means of helping the poor. The two first {119} savings banks were started in Hamburg in 1778, and in Berne in 1787, and both were more or less closely restricted to the use of domestic servants, handicraftsmen and the like. The Hamburg bank was part of the general administration of the poor funds." [4]
When the poor man attempts to save, what inducements have greatest weight with him? First of all, he is likely to save for some definite and immediate object, because he cannot spend in any effective way until he has saved. In teaching shiftless families to put by small sums, therefore, it is well to keep some definite object in view. For instance, persuade the children to save to buy needed clothing, or the parents to save to buy proper clothing, bedding, etc., for the children. This strengthens family affection and leads the way to a bank account later, by showing what money can do.[5]
Next to such immediate inducements to thrift comes the dread of pauper burial, which is a far more influential motive with the poor than the dread of either dependence or privation. {120} Respectability is measured in poor neighborhoods by funerals, and, whether the neighborhood standards of morality and respectability are ours or not, we cannot afford, in our charity work, to ignore them. Extravagant funerals are an evil, and we should use our influence to discourage extravagance, even where it is rooted quite as much in affection as in vanity; but an unsympathetic attitude on the part of the charitable, an inability to understand the neighborhood point of view, has helped to encourage an extravagant form of saving, namely, burial and child insurance.
To enter into a discussion of the merits of industrial insurance, as furnished in this country to the poor, is outside the scope of this book, and the matter is treated quite fully, moreover, in another volume of this series ("The Development of Thrift," by Mary Willcox Brown), but the most enthusiastic advocates of industrial insurance can hardly claim for it that it is an inexpensive form of saving. A very large percentage of industrial policies lapse, and it is a common thing to find that those who have kept up their payments and have {121} become beneficiaries, spend everything on the funeral of the insured. "Of $200.00 insurance received by one widow, $180.00 was given to the undertaker, and the remaining $20.00 was expended for a mourning outfit for herself. The family were being aided by the Emergency Society at that time." [6] In New York, the agents of the Charity Organization Society regard the following as a typical instance: A woman's husband was insured for $136.00. When he died, she called the same undertaker that had buried a child for them. His charges on the former occasion had been moderate. The woman told him that she wanted a very inexpensive funeral with only one carriage. This was the only instruction that she gave. The undertaker asked whether the deceased was insured, and was told that he was, whereupon he offered to collect the insurance and to pay over to the widow what was left. His bill amounted to $102.50. These instances do not indicate any collusion, of course, between the undertakers and the insurance companies.
{122}
We have seen in another chapter that sickness is one of the most persistent causes of distress, and only in rare instances does a death occur that has not been preceded by weeks and often months of sickness. The poor man needs sick benefits more than burial or life insurance, and the children of the poor stand in need of many other things besides decent burial. In fact, the money spent in child insurance, which can be of no possible benefit to the child, is often needed to protect the child's health or provide for its education. These should be a parent's first care from no sordid motive, and yet it is a legitimate view to regard children as an investment. The poor man has a right to expect support from his children when he is no longer able to work, and to neglect their best interests is to cripple his own future.
The beneficial societies and fraternal orders furnish a means of saving for sick benefits, but they are of such varying degrees of merit and trustworthiness that it is impossible to recommend them without qualification. They have not gained the same position that the {123} friendly societies hold in England, partly, perhaps, because they are not subject in America to the same legal restrictions and official inspection.
Though the savings banks are open to the objection that money is too easily withdrawn from them, and is not, therefore, always available at the time of greatest need, yet, after making every allowance for this, the savings banks remain one of the safest and best means of putting by small savings. Another way of saving, which is not open to the objection of too easy withdrawals, is the purchase of shares in a good building and loan association.
Some banks provide facilities for small savings by selling special stamps of small denominations, and, in several cities, charities have established stamp saving societies to promote the saving habit, especially among children. When $5.00 has been saved in this way, a bank account should be opened. One visitor has found that, in getting children to save, it helps to have a stamp-saving card of one's own, and show it. As a means of teaching children to save, visitors should encourage the {124} introduction of stamp savings into our public schools.
Another way to promote small savings is to send volunteer collectors among the poor, who will visit certain families weekly, and collect the five and ten cent pieces until enough has been saved to open a bank account. This work may be combined with friendly visiting, though the collector must visit at regular intervals, and in many cases it is better for the friendly visitor to visit at irregular intervals. One visitor always leaves a small bank with her family when she goes away in summer, and the unlocking of this on her return has become a family ceremony.
Saving for fuel becomes an admirable object lesson, when it is used to establish the saving habit and not allowed to stop with the mere purchase. During the summer, families can be encouraged to put by small sums weekly, and, instead of buying coal in small quantities at very high prices during the winter, can save more than half the cost by buying a ton or more early in the season.
In teaching thrift in a careless and shiftless {125} home, we can get many valuable suggestions from more thrifty families in the same neighborhood, or with the same income. To effectively advise about expenditure, one must know the family budget of receipts and expenditures, and often this is more than the family knows. Learning to take note of the items is the first lesson in thrift. The most important thing, however, is our own attitude of mind. "We must not get into the habit of saying, 'Poor things; they can do nothing.' We should rid ourselves of the habit of treating them, not as men and women, people who can look after themselves with strength in their muscles and brain-power in their heads, but as animals whom we allow to live in society along with ourselves, taking for granted that they are deprived of, or cannot exert, those faculties which go to make up the strength and fibre of men and women. I assure you, those who are inclined to take a sentimental turn have great temptations put before them to treat the poor as if they were dependent animals." [7]
{126}
Collateral Readings: "The Development of Thrift," Miss Mary Willcox Brown. "The Standard of Life," Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet, especially the essay on "The Burden of Small Debts." Annual Reports of the Workingmen's Loan Association, Boston; the Provident Loan Association, New York; and the Provident Loan Company, Buffalo. For stamp savings, see reports of New York Charity Organization Society (Committee on Penny Provident Fund).
[1] See Report on the Questions drawn up by Present Residents in our College Settlements, p. 17. Published by the Church Social Union, Boston.
[2] Leaflet on "Summer Savings," published by the Baltimore Charity Organization Society.
[3] p. 25.
[4] "Public Relief and Private Charity," p. 109.
[5] See Fourth Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 38.
[6] Eighteenth Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 27.
[7] C. S. Loch in Fifteenth Report of Baltimore Charity Organization Society.
{127}
I have said that the power to defer our pleasures is a mark of civilization. There is another mark which, in this busy America of ours, is often denied to the well-to-do as much as to the poor, and that is the power to enjoy our pleasures after we have earned them. Charity workers still underestimate the value of the power to enjoy. They are likely to regard mere contentment as a model virtue in the poor, whereas that discontent which has its root in more varied and higher wants is a splendid spur to progress. Professor F. G. Peabody quotes Lasalle in naming as one of the greatest obstructions to progress among the poor, "The cursed habit of not wanting anything." The power of enjoyment seems dead in many a down-trodden, sordid life, while in many others it wastes itself upon unworthy and degrading pleasures.
{128}
There is a passage in one of Miss Octavia Hill's essays that throws a flood of light on this question. She says that the love of adventure, the restlessness so characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon, makes him, under certain conditions, the greatest of explorers and colonizers, and that this same energy, under other conditions, helps to brutalize him. Dissatisfied with the dull round of duties that poverty enforces upon him, he seeks artificial excitement in the saloon and the gambling den. It is useless to preach contentment to such a man. We must substitute healthier excitements, other and better wants, or society will fail to reform him. In all the forms of play, all the amusements of the people, though some of them may seem to us coarse and degrading, there is this same restless seeking to express what is highest and best in man; not only to express his love of adventure, but his love of social intercourse and his love of beauty. When we once realize that certain vices are merely a perversion of good instincts, we have taken the first step toward finding their cure.
{129}
It has been said that a man's pleasures give us his true measure, and that to change the measure is to change the man. From this point of view, the subject of recreation is very near the heart of the friendly visitor's relation with the poor. We may have made a conscientious study of the family expenses and income, of the sanitary surroundings, of the work record and diet, but we shall not know the family until we know what gives them pleasure. One visitor says that she never feels acquainted with a poor family until she has had a good laugh with them. A defective sense of humor in the visitor is a great hindrance to successful work: poor people are no fonder of dismal folk than the rest of us. When we come to recreations, friendly visiting not only makes large demands upon what we know, but upon what we are. Our pleasures measure us quite as much as they measure our poor friends, and, unless we have kept fresh our own power of enjoyment, we cannot hope to impart this power to the poor, or to give them new and better wants.