Granting that we have them ourselves, what {130} are some of the healthy wants that we should try to pass on to the poor? Taking the simplest first, we should try to introduce simple games and a love of pure fun into the family circle. I am indebted to Miss Beale of the Boston Children's Aid Society for the following list of simple games, so arranged as to include standing and sitting games for each evening:
1. Hiding the thimble. 1. Stage coach. 2. Bean bag. 2. Buzz. 3. Dominoes. 3. Elements.
1. Hot butter blue beans. 1. How, when, and where. 2. Jack straws. 2. Counting buzz. 3. Fruit basket. 3. Magical spelling.
1. Go-bang. 1. Tea-kettle. 2. Spot on the carpet. 2. Musical chairs. 3. Throwing lights. 3. Logomachy.
1. Telling a story. 1. Pigs in clover. 2. Blowing the feather. 2. I have a rooster to sell. 3. Authors. 3. Courtesying.
In teaching such games it is best to begin with the children, but the parents can {131} sometimes be induced to join in. Story-telling is also an unfailing resource in our efforts to amuse the children.
But, during a good part of the year, there are many outdoor games in which the children can be interested, and, now that the trolley cars have brought the country so much nearer, country trips for the whole family should be planned at frequent intervals. There are few things more pathetic than the dread with which many of our city poor think of the country, and to teach them country pleasures is to restore to them a birthright of which they have been robbed. A love of plants and window-gardening is another healthful pleasure. Mignonette, geranium, wandering Jew, and saxifrage grow well in small spaces. To one family, living in tenement rooms where there was no sun, a visitor gave a pot of geranium. Later, the woman said: "We have taken it out on the roof every day when it was pleasant to let the sun shine on it When I couldn't take it, Mary did; and, for fear it should get stolen, we stay and sit by it. I take the baby with me too, {132} and the baby likes the sun as well as the flower does."
With all the added interest in outdoor exercise, and the freer, healthier life of our time, we are slow to pass such advantages on to the poor. The women of the family need much urging, sometimes, to get them to take any outdoor exercise. Bicycles are becoming cheaper, and a bicycle would be a good investment in any family where all the adults are working at indoor occupations. If the visitor find a gymnasium not too far away, the boys and their father should be induced to go to it. With these added interests, a holiday will no longer be a thing to be dreaded by the wife and mother, for there will be interesting things to do, instead of mere loafing on the corner or at the saloon. One visitor helped to cure a man of drinking by getting him an accordion—a fact that has a touch of pathos, as indicating the poverty of interests in the poor fellow's life.
The pleasures of books, music, and pictures ought to touch every life at some point. Some aesthetic pleasures, it is true, are won only {133} after long study and preparation, but the best art is universal in its appeal. So far as books are concerned, our free libraries have made us familiar with this view. The visitor should know the rules of the nearest library, and should be ready to go there with some member of the family, in case it is unknown to them. The saloon-keepers in Ward 10, Boston, complain that the new branch of the Public Library opened there has interfered with their business. Beside encouraging the use of a lending library, the visitor should be ready to lend books, newspapers, and magazines, and should be glad to borrow a book from the family, when this will help to strengthen friendly relations.
The refining influence of good pictures is just beginning to be recognized by the charitable. Friendly visitors cannot always organize large loan exhibitions, such as are given in the poorer neighborhoods of London, New York, and Boston, but they can lend a good photograph or engraving, when they are going away, and can replace it, from time to time, by another picture. Such loans have {134} been known, like the Eastlake screen in Stockton's story, to revolutionize the arrangement of the household. Then, too, a picture often conveys a lesson more effectively than a sermon can. Mrs. Barnett tells, in "Practicable Socialism," [1] of a loan exhibition in Whitechapel, where Oxford students acted as guides and explained the pictures. "Mr. Schmalz's picture of 'Forever' had one evening been beautifully explained, the room being crowded by some of the humblest people, who received the explanation with interest, but in silence. The picture represented a dying girl to whom her lover had been playing his lute, until, dropping it, he seemed to be telling her with impassioned words that his love is stronger than death, and that, in spite of the grave and separation, he will love herforever. I was standing outside the exhibition in the half-darkness, when two girls, hatless, with one shawl between them thrown round both their shoulders, came out. They might not be living the worst life, but, if not, they were low down enough to be familiar with it, and to see {135} in it only the relation between men and women. The idea of love lasting beyond this life, making eternity real, a spiritual bond between man and woman, had not occurred to them until the picture with the simple story was shown them. 'Real beautiful, ain't it all?' said one. 'Ay, fine, but that "Forever" I did take on with that,' was the answer."
I have lived nearly all my life in a community where, during the last twenty-five years, there has been a great change in musical taste. George Peabody left money to found a Conservatory of Music, and a few music lovers spent time and money to keep alive an Oratorio Society. Later, the visits of Thomas' Orchestra and of the Boston Symphony Orchestra added to the strength of these local musical centres; but for many years the Peabody Conservatory was ridiculed and misunderstood, and the Oratorio Society was usually in financial straits. I mention these facts, because persons who are dependent upon the Conservatory and the visiting orchestras for all the good music they know have said to me that it must be impossible for poor people ever to appreciate good {136} music. But for the benefactions of George Peabody, and of Mr. Higginson (who made the Boston Orchestra possible), and of a few others, they themselves could never have known the pleasure of enjoying great and noble music, and, to this extent, at least, they are as dependent as the poorest; but they are quite sure that the great composers have no message for the poor. There is difficult music, of course, which only the scholarly musician can appreciate; but much of the very best music, if we once have a chance to become familiar with it, appeals to all of us. Then the artistic temperament is not a matter of either condition or race, as one of our young American musicians has pointed out. Lecturing with musical illustrations to audiences on the East Side in New York, and to audiences of negroes in Philadelphia, he is convinced that "if good music were accessible to the masses, it would be appreciated, and go far to elevate them."
"My boy," wailed a poor mother, "was that fond of music it took him straight to the bad!" And no wonder, for music—apart from the tawdriest of gospel hymn tunes—meant for {137} him the saloon and the low concert hall. We need, to counteract such influences, plenty of cheap concerts of good music; concerts following the plan of Theodore Thomas with his well-to-do audiences, who were given first the best that they liked, and then were taught gradually to like better and better selections.
All the higher recreations encroach upon the field of education, and I am tempted to mention, in passing, some of the most promising educational efforts for encouraging study among the people. The American Society for the Extension of University Teaching, which has its headquarters at Philadelphia, has conducted very successful courses of lectures in poor neighborhoods. The enormous attendance upon the free evening lectures given by the Department of Education in New York school buildings is also significant. The popularity of the educational classes in working girls' clubs, Christian associations, and people's institutes is another good sign. But I mention these here merely to emphasize their importance as tools for the visitor. In families where an ambition has been aroused, the visitor {138} should foster it by making connection with some such educational agencies.
There is a very obvious form of snobbery that we are quick enough to detect, the snobbery that looks down on people who have to work hard and wear shabby clothes. But an even more dangerous form of snobbery, because not so obvious, is the intellectual form, which claims an exclusive right to culture, and looks down upon the simple and unsophisticated. The fact is, that, save for a very gifted few, we are all of us dependent upon the gifts of others for what we know and what we enjoy. Probably there never was a neighborhood so exclusive but many were there upon whom education, refinements, and beautiful things were quite wasted; and there never was a neighborhood so poor but some were there who longed for beauty, education, and a larger and fuller life.
It will be seen in the next chapter that, when we attempt to supply the poor with the necessities of life, our path is beset with difficulties. But when we give them those things which, though not necessary to life, yet refine {139} and elevate it, we can do them only unmixed good. Gifts of books, flowers, growing plants, pictures, and simple decorations, or, as in one instance known to me, the present of several rolls of light-colored wall-paper to brighten a dark room—these help to express our friendliness, and have an added value as coming from a friend. Above all, however, we should not hesitate to share with the poor our delight in healthful and refining pleasures, and should find it natural to talk freely with them about our own interests.
Collateral Readings: "Parlor Games for the Wise and Otherwise," H. E.H. "Faggots for the Fireside," Mrs. L. P. Hale. "American Girls' OwnBook of Work and Play," Mrs. Helen Campbell. "Gymnastic Games,"published by Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. "Methods of SocialReform," W. S. Jevons. "Picture Exhibitions in Lower New York," A. C.Bernheimer in "Forum," Vol. XIX, pp. 610sq.
[1] pp. 119sq.
{140}
I have been very unfortunate if, in the foregoing chapters, I have failed to make it clear that there are many ways of assisting the poor in their homes besides the one way usually implied by the word "assistance." To one who knows the real needs of the poor, the relief of suffering by gifts of food and fuel seems only a small part of the work of charity; but the fact remains that the majority of mankind are still little moved by any needs that are not closely associated with hunger and cold. Their imaginations are sluggish, and the whole problem of poverty appears to them simpler than it really is. It seems to them no more than a sum in arithmetic,—"one beggar, one loaf; ten thousand beggars, ten thousand loaves"; and the charitable loaf is supposed to have moral and {141} healing qualities that are denied to other loaves. The truth is that charitable cash and commodities have no moral qualities in themselves; not even the good intentions of the giver can endow them with peculiar virtues. Like all other commodities, however, they may become agents of either good or evil. The way in which we handle commodities tests us at every turn; tests our sincerity, our honor, our sense of spiritual things. Material relief tests us too. If we give it believing that, in itself, it can carry any blessing to the poor, we are taking a grossly material view of human life. If, on the other hand, our knowledge of the mischief done by reckless giving makes us morbidly sceptical of all material assistance, we are losing a valuable tool; for relief at the right time, and given in the right way, may be made an incentive to renewed exertion, and a help to a higher standard of living.
When the visitor's ingenuity in developing resources within the family renders material relief from outside unnecessary, the family is fortunate; but often relief from outside is a necessity, and the question then arises, How {142} shall it be given? Everything depends upon the "how."
First of all—and this is a lesson that visitors are slow to learn—it is very unwise, especially in the first months of acquaintance, for friendly visitors to give money or commodities to the families they visit, though they may find it necessary to see that relief is sent from some other source. "If one of our visitors finds her family in dire distress, and there is no time to go to the office and have aid secured in some other way, she of course, like any one else, furnishes it at once from her own pocket. But except in these rare emergencies, our visitors do not themselves give relief to those they visit. We believe this is a wise rule, and after eight years' experience we would not change it. If a stranger offered you a gift, you would feel insulted and refuse it Suppose you were constrained by necessity to accept it—would it not make a certain bar between you and that stranger very difficult to break down? Imagine yourself of a different temper, that you wanted all you could get. Would you {143} not be likely to talk more freely or truthfully to one who you knew would give you nothing than to one from whom you hoped a plausible tale would draw a dollar? For the visitor's sake also the rule is a good one. We are apt to think our duty done if we have given money, and if we cannot do that, we are forced to use our ingenuity to find other and better ways of helping." [1]
It is eleven years since the foregoing passage was written, but the experience of almost every practical worker in charity will confirm it. Friendly visitors are human, and their task, as it has been described in this book, is not an easy one. It is so much easier to give. But the history of many volunteers in charity is that, starting out with excellent intentions, they were tempted to give relief to the families they visited. First it was clothing for the children, then the rent, then groceries, then more clothing, and the family's needs, strange to say, seemed to increase, until, finding their suggestions unheeded, and {144} the people no better off, the volunteers deserted their post, and, still worse, carried away a false, distorted idea of what poor people are like. The poor, too, learn to distrust a charitable interest that is not continuous. A little self-restraint, a little more determination to keep their purpose clearly in mind, would save the charitable and the poor from an experience that is hardening to both.
When the friendly visitor has known a family for years, and the friendship is thoroughly established, it is conceivable that he may be the best possible source of relief; but the attitude that we must guard against—creeping, as it does, into all our relations with the poor as an inheritance, an outworn tradition—is the attitude of the London church visitor, who said that she could not possibly administer spiritual consolation without a grocery ticket in her bag. It is good for the poor and good for us to learn that other and more natural relations are possible than the relations of giver and receiver, of patron and patronized.
Nothing that has been said, however, against {145} permitting the visitor to become the source of supplies should be interpreted as meaning that the visitor is not to concern himself with the way in which relief enters the home, and its effect upon the welfare of the family. Everything that concerns the welfare of its members concerns him, and that their energies should be paralyzed by a too plentiful supply of relief, or that the lack of it should cause unnecessary suffering, is a matter that concerns him vitally. To administer relief wisely one needs special training, and an inexperienced visitor should seek the advice of one who knows the charitable resources of his own particular community and the standard of living of the family's particular neighborhood. There are certain general relief principles that common sense and experience have found to be applicable everywhere, however, and, avoiding the technical language of charitable experts, I shall try to state these principles as briefly and clearly as possible, under six heads.
I. When relief is needed in a poor home, it should be givenin the homewithout any {146} publicity, and after conference with the head of the family, who, if unable to provide the means of subsistence himself, is still responsible for procuring it. The man of the family, unless disabled, should do all the asking. This means, of course, that wives should not be sent to charity offices and private families to ask assistance, and that every charitable agency, public and private, and every church worker and every teacher should positively refuse to receive any message or appeal for relief sent by a child, except in those rare cases where all the adult members of the family are disabled. The neglect of this simple precaution has often kept children away from school, and has tempted parents to use them to excite sympathy. One sensational item in a Baltimore daily, headed "Barefooted through the Snow," was the account of thinly clad children sent to the police station for relief. Their father, upon investigation, was found to have taken their shoes off, and sent them out to do the begging for the family, after refusing a good offer of work.
{147}
This newspaper item illustrates the danger of giving publicity to individual cases of need. The poor read the papers, and when they find that sympathy is excited by sending children for relief, they are tempted to use their children in the same way. Few worse things can happen to a poor family than for their distress to excite the interest of an enterprising journalist, who publishes an account of the circumstances with name and address. It brings them an avalanche of relief sometimes, but the visits from sentimental strangers, the envy of their worst neighbors and the disapproval of their best, the excitement and uncertainty, the repeating over and over the tale of their trouble, and the destruction of all the natural conditions of family life, leave behind a train of demoralization that lasts long after the relief has been exhausted.
In a less degree, the congregating of the poor in any place for a relief distribution is to be deplored, whether the relief is given out upon presentation of an order or not. The standing in line, the jostling and waiting, the gregariousness and publicity, are demoralizing. {148} Missions, I regret to say, sometimes treat such free distributions as an advertising spectacle; but "it is of the very essence of charity that it should be private," and advertising, on the other hand, presupposes publicity. I have often had opportunities to give the poor tickets for Christmas dinners, free treats, and general charitable distributions, but, as I have come to know the poor better, and to care more for their welfare, I have learned to resent a charity that would help them in droves, as if they were cattle. A form of charitable relief that appeals to many good people in cold weather is the free-soup kitchen, where the poor come with their kettles, and "no questions are asked." The hot, steaming soup and the cold, shivering applicants make a striking contrast, and the kind-hearted citizen is very likely to think of such charity as "practical," and denounce the people who object to it as "theorists." There is nothing practical about a free-soup kitchen. It is the cheapest of cheap charity. If the weather is cold, people must have fires at home to keep them from freezing, and the gift of cooked food is {149} unnecessary. Soup is not the most nourishing food to give, moreover, and the "no questions asked" means that those who need most will get least, and that the crowd of sturdy beggars always attracted by such distributions will drive away the shrinking poor, who need help the most.
The first relief principle is that relief should be given individually and privately in the home, and that the head of the family should be conferred with on all questions of relief.
II. A due regard for the self-respect of the poor prompts us, when relief is needed, to secure it from the most natural source or sources. A family that still has credit does not need relief at all, and it is better for them to run in debt to those who still consider them a fair business risk than to receive charity instead. Next to credit, as a natural resource, come relatives. Charity weakens natural ties by stepping in, unless it is certain that relatives have done all that they can, or unless it has brought pressure to bear, at least, to induce them to do their part. Sometimes relatives have good reasons, which the charitable should {150} know and heed, for withholding relief. The next source of relief is friends, including neighbors and former employers, and a visitor who is seeking aid for a family may often discover better ways of helping by consulting with these. The tendency of indiscriminate charity is to destroy neighborliness. (See p. 27.) The next source is the church to which members of the family belong, or fraternal societies of which they may have been members. Only when all these sources fail, and it is not possible to get adequate relief from charitable individuals whom we can interest, should we turn to societies organized for the purpose of giving relief to the poor, and, even then, special societies, like the St. Andrew's Society for Scots, St. George's Society for Englishmen, and Hebrew Benevolent Society for Hebrews, should take precedence of general relief societies, which were not intended to assume other people's charitable burdens, but exist to care for the unbefriended families that cannot be relieved from any more natural source.
There remains one more source of relief for the poor in their own homes. Many American {151} cities still give public outdoor relief. This relief is called "public" because it is voted from funds collected by taxation, and it is called "outdoor" to distinguish it from indoor or institutional relief. There are several reasons for regarding this as the least desirable form of relief. In the first place, it is often administered by politicians, and becomes a source of political corruption. But, what is even more important, it is official and therefore not easily adaptable to varying needs. Private charities can undertake a large expenditure for one family, when a large expenditure will put the family beyond the need of charity; but official relief must always be hampered by the fear of establishing a precedent, and inadequate relief is often the result of this fear. Moreover, public relief comes from what is regarded as a practically inexhaustible source, and people who once receive it are likely to regard it as a right, as a permanent pension, implying no obligation on their part. Even where it is well and honestly administered, as in Boston, the most experienced charity workers regard it as a source of demoralization both to the poor {152} and the charitable. No public agency can supply the devoted, friendly, and intensely personal relation so necessary in charity. It can supply the gift, but it cannot supply the giver, for the giver is a compulsory tax rate. Some of the sources of information on this subject are noted at the end of the chapter. It is impossible to give the question any adequate consideration here, but it will be noticed that a large majority of those who have worked as volunteers in the homes of the poor, and have watched the effects of outdoor relief in these homes, are anxious to see it abolished in all our large cities, believing that private and voluntary charity can more than replace it. On the other hand, those who know the poor in another way—in public offices and from the point of view of the public official—are often stanch advocates of outdoor relief.
The fewer sources of relief for any one family the better, though it is often impossible to get adequate relief from one source. "The difficulty in giving judiciously is great, even where one person or society does the whole. But when the applicant goes from one to {153} another, undergoing repeated temptations to deceive and getting from no one what is sufficient to meet the full need, each giver feeling but a partial responsibility in the matter, one giving when another has desired that relief ought to be withheld, and thus destroying the effect of the other's action, we believe that the difficulties in the way of judicious aid are greatly increased. . . . We earnestly hope that the various relief-giving agencies may adopt the plan, so far as possible, of a division of labor, each doing all the relief-giving needed by those within its care and leaving others to do the relief-giving in other cases." [2] When, however, relief must come from a number of sources, it does most good if given through one channel.
The second relief principle is that we should seek the most natural and least official sources of relief, bearing in mind the ties of kinship, friendship, and neighborliness, and that we should avoid the multiplication of sources.
III. In deciding to give or to withhold relief, we should be guided by its probable effect upon the future of the applicant. When it is {154} conceded that we should discriminate at all in giving, the popular notion is that we should give to the worthy poor, and refuse aid to the unworthy. The words "worthy" and "unworthy" mean very little; they are mere catchwords to save us from thinking. When we say that people are "worthy," we mean, I suppose, that they are worthy of material relief, but no one is so worthy as to be absolutely relief-proof. If relief is given without plan or purpose, it will injure the worthiest recipient. On the other hand, an intelligent visitor can often see his way clear to effect very great improvement in what are called "unworthy" cases, and may find material relief a necessary means to this end. Better than any hard and fast classification, is the principle that our relief should always have a future to it, should be given as part of a carefully devised plan for making the recipient permanently better off. The only excuse for giving relief without a plan is that it is sometimes necessary to give what is called "interim relief," to prevent present suffering, until we can learn all the facts and a plan can be devised. In this, relief work is very much like doctoring a sick {155} patient. We have very little use for a doctor who does not alleviate suffering promptly, but, on the other hand, we naturally mistrust the doctor who does not ask a great many questions, or who fails to make a plan for getting his patient beyond the need of medicine as soon as possible. Our relief work is often nothing but aimless dosing. Like the doctor, too, we should stand ready to change our plan of treatment when conditions change. "In one family, where a pension was given on account of the breadwinner's illness, and continued for six weeks after his death, the daughters have been unwilling to take work offered at wages they thought too low, because they were not thrown upon their own resources at once." [3]
A plan that is not based upon the actual facts is, of course, worse than useless. Sometimes a charitable person will call at a home for the first time, will see miserable surroundings, and will feel that the circumstances are all made plain to him in one visit. Calling at a relief office, he will urge immediate relief, adding, "I have investigated the case myself." {156} The word "investigation" means very different things to different people. Here are some of the questions that, according to the London "Charity Organization Review," [4] an almoner should ask himself about any given case:
"1. Can anything be done to increase the family income? Can the number of wage-earners be added to? Can those doing badly paid work be taught better-paid work? Can they be put in the way of getting better tools or appliances?
"2. Can anything be done to make the existing income go farther than it goes now? e.g.
"(a) Is too much money paid away in rent? Could as good accommodations be obtained in the district elsewhere for less? Or could the family do with less accommodation.
"(b) Is money wasted?e.g.on medicine, or in habitual pawning, or in purchasing from tallymen, or in buying things not wanted? Do husband and children keep back an undue share of their earnings?
"(c) Is too much money spent in travelling {157} backwards and forwards to place of employment? If so, could the family move nearer to their work without increasing their rent?
"These are but a few of the questions which the almoner must put if he wishes to be thorough. In every case he mustthinkabout the problem with which he is dealing, and he must try to make those who are applying for help think also."
The best arguments for giving relief upon a definite plan are the results of haphazard benevolence that are all around us—feeble-minded women with illegitimate offspring, children crippled by drunken fathers, juvenile offenders who began as child-beggars, aged parents neglected by their children. Every form of human weakness and depravity is intensified by the charity that asks no questions.
The third relief principle is that relief should look not only to the alleviation of present suffering, but to promoting the future welfare of the recipient.
IV. It follows from the foregoing that when we relieve at all we should relieve adequately.
"Can any one really approve of inadequate {158} relief? Can any one really approve of giving 50 cents to a man who must have $5.00, trusting that some one else will give the $4.50, and knowing that, to get it, the person in distress must spend not only precious strength and time, but more precious independence and self-respect? . . .
"There are many families in every city who get relief (only a little to be sure, but enough to do harm) who ought never to have one cent,—families where the man can work, but will not work. The little given out of pity for his poor wife and children really intensifies and prolongs their suffering, and only prevents the man from doing his duty by making him believe that, if he does not take care of them, some one else will. On the other hand, there are many families who ought to have their whole support given to them for a few years,—widows, for instance, who cannot both take care of and support their children, and yet who ought not to have to give them up into the blighting care of an institution; and these families get nothing, or get so little that it does them no good at all, only serving to {159} keep them also in misery and to raise false hopes, or else to teach them to beg to make up what they must have.
"Ought not charitable people to manage in some way to remedy these two opposite evils?—to do more for those who should have more, and to do nothing for those who should have nothing, saving money by discriminating, and thus having enough to give adequate relief in all cases." [5]
By adequate relief charity workers do not mean that allapparentneeds should be met. There are often resources that are hidden from the inexperienced eye, and by ignoring these we destroy them.
The fourth relief principle is that, instead of trying to give a little to very many, we should help adequately those that we help at all.
V. We should make the poor our partners in any effort to improve their condition, and relief should be made dependent upon their doing what they can for themselves. Whether we give or do not give, our reasons should be {160} clearly stated, and we should avoid driving any sordid bargain with them. For instance, it may be wise sometimes to make relief conditional, among other things, upon attending church, but to require attendance upon a church to which they do not belong because it is our church, or to let them regard relief as in any way associated with making converts to our way of thinking, is to weaken our influence and tempt the poor to deceive us.
The fifth relief principle is that we should help the poor to understand the right relations of things by stating clearly our reasons for giving or withholding relief, and by requiring their hearty coöperation in all efforts for their improvement.
VI. The form of relief must vary with individual circumstances and needs. Work that is real work is better, of course, than any relief; but there should be a prejudice among charity workers against sham work, for which there is no demand in the market. Unless such work is educational, or is used to test the applicant's willingness to work, it is often better to give material relief.
{161}
A charitable superstition that we should outgrow is the notion that it saves us from pauperizing the poor to call our gifts loans. We may know that they cannot repay, and they may know that we know it, but this juggling with words is still undeservedly popular. When the chances of their being able to repay are reasonably good, and a loan is made, we should be as careful to collect the debt as in any business transaction.
Another charitable superstition is the prejudice in favor of relief in kind rather than in money. We think that bundles of groceries and clothes, and small allowances of fuel, can do no harm, but the fact is that, where it would be unsafe to give money, it is usually unsafe to give money's equivalent. Large relief societies find it more economical to buy commodities in quantities, and so get the advantage of wholesale prices; but, so far as the poor themselves are concerned, there is no reason for giving goods rather than cash. On the contrary, many poor people can make the money go farther than we can. Money intended for temporary relief should not be used {162} for rent, however, except in cases where ejectment would seriously endanger the welfare of the family. Back rent is like any other back debt; landlords should take their chances of loss with other creditors. Nor should charitable relief be used to enable people to move from place to place in order to avoid the payment of rent.[6]
When institutional care is clearly not only the most economical but the most adequate form of relief, we are sometimes justified in refusing all other forms.
In cases where institutional care is not practicable, and relief will be needed for a long period, it is best to organize a private pension, letting all the natural sources of relief combine and give through one medium an adequate amount.
The sixth relief principle is that we must find that form of relief which will best fit the particular need.
Though the foregoing six relief principles could easily be extended to twenty, yet a {163} bookful of such generalizations would be of no value to the almoner without a detailed knowledge of the neighborhood into which relief is to go, and an intimate acquaintance with the lives of the poor. It is evident, therefore, that a beginner in charity should not decide relief questions except in consultation with an experienced worker. For instance, a new visitor going to the house of a widow supporting her aged mother and two children, may find the woman sick, and receiving only a small pittance in sick benefits from the society to which she belongs. There is no apparent suffering, but the visitor at once concludes that the income is insufficient, and applies to the nearest relief agency, asking that coal be sent. As a matter of fact, the family income is as large as the average income of the neighborhood, and the woman has never thought of asking relief; if fuel is sent, the neighbors all know it, and, immediately, there is a certain expectancy aroused, a certain spirit of speculation takes the place of the habit of thrift. There seem, to the simple imaginations of these people, to be exhaustless stores of relief, which {164} are somehow at the command of visiting ladies. Take another instance of a more difficult kind. A family has long passed the stage of receiving relief for the first time; the man is a heavy drinker, the household filthy, the children neglected. They appeal at once for assistance. The children need shoes to go to Sunday-school, the rent is overdue, the coal is out. Confronted with such misery, the beginner is very likely to give, and to compound with his conscience by giving "a little." This is the very treatment that has brought them to their present pass, and only an experienced and intelligent almoner can tell how far it is wise to let the forces of nature work a cure, and how far it is wise to prevent extreme suffering by interference.
One trouble in the past has been that the agents employed by relief societies have not always been intelligent, but there have been great advances made in this regard, and now, in many communities, the agents of charitable societies are active, intelligent men and women, who have received special training for the work. These agents are often in communication with {165} many sources of relief, and can save us from duplicating relief to the same persons—from sending it, that is, where others are meeting the same need already. There are many reasons, therefore, for doing our charitable work in consultation with an experienced almoner, and friendly visiting, where it has failed, has usually failed through the visitor's unwarranted assumption that the giving of material relief was a simple and easy matter, about which charity workers made an unnecessary lot of trouble.
Collateral Readings: "The English Poor Law," Rev. T. Fowle. "The Beggars of Paris," translated from the French of M. Paulian by Lady Herschell. "Outdoor Relief," see Warner's "American Charities," pp. 162sq. "Economic and Moral Effect of Outdoor Relief," Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell in Proceedings of Seventeenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 81sq. "Outdoor Relief: Arguments for and against," in Proceedings of Eighteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 28sq. "Relief in Work," P. W. Ayres in Proceedings of Nineteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 436sq. "Is Emergency Relief by Work Wise?" the same in Proceedings of Twenty-second National Conference of Charities, pp. 96sq.
[1] Miss Z. D. Smith in Report of Union Relief Association of Springfield, Mass., 1887, p. 12.
[2] Fifth Report of Boston Associated Charities, pp. 31sq.
[3] Eighth Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 25.
[4] Vol. II, New Series, p. 224.
[5] Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell in Proceedings of Twenty-third National Conference of Charities, New Haven, 1895, p. 49.
[6] See Fifteenth Annual Report of the New York Charity Organization Society, pp. 44sq., and p. 55.
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Relief agents working in our great cities usually find that, in answer to direct questions, the poor are likely to claim connection with some one of the large denominations, though further acquaintance will often reveal the fact that this connection is merely nominal. There are, of course, many poor people that are active church members, but in spite of the wonderful activity of all branches of the Christian church during the last fifty years, in spite of the multiplication of missions and the devotion of many good men and women to their upbuilding, the fact remains that many of the very poor are still outside the churches. In trying to explain this, we have to take into account certain external conditions, such as the natural shrinking of the less fortunate from social contact, and the migratory habits of the poor; {167} but another very important factor in this alienation is, I believe, the preoccupation of the church with material relief and with those who clamor for it.
Some of the very poor are ready enough to connect themselves with the church, but, attending its services and receiving its ministrations with the one idea of getting assistance, it is not too much to say of them that they are "pious for revenue only." And yet, in saying this, it is necessary to qualify it at once by the statement that the fault rests not so much with the ignorant poor as with the multiplied and rival church agencies that tempt them to hypocrisy and deceit. If the church could only have a good, wholesome, terrifying vision, and see itself as the poor see it!
"A friend of mine," writes a London charity worker, "heard two very respectable women talking. One said, 'Well, Mrs. Smith, how have you fared this Christmas?' 'Oh, very badly; I had very little relief.' The other replied: 'Well, Mrs. Smith, it is all your own fault; you will go and sit in the side aisle of the church, where nobody ever sees you. If {168} you would sit in front, you would be helped as we all are.'" Writing of conditions too common in America, Rev. George B. afford says: "Families transfer their connection from one church to another, or, with an impartiality rare in other relations, distribute their representatives among several Sunday-schools or churches, gaining by pseudo-devout arts what they can from each: Methodist clothing; Baptist groceries; Presbyterian meat; Episcopalian potatoes; Roman Catholic rent; Universalist cash, available for 'sundries,'—all are acceptable to the mendicant pensioner of religious charity. One family, now at last well advertised, in an eastern city found its numerous youthful progeny effective leeches as applied to the several Sunday-schools among which they were distributed. The 'widowed' mother underwent frequent conversion; the children enjoyed the benefit of as frequent baptism. On a certain gathering of clergymen of different churches, when one after another had told the story of his discomfiture, all joined to congratulate the single representative of the Baptist denomination present on his happy escape {169} from the imposture, under which several others had in turn baptized the children. But from him came the sad confession that he had baptized the woman herself." [1] In my own city, a family made a small child not their own a source of income by having it baptized frequently in different churches, so that three charitable members of three Episcopal churches were astonished to find, on comparing notes, that they shared the responsibility of being the child's godmothers.
But it is needless to multiply illustrations; almost every church has a collection of such experiences, and the bad effects of successful deception upon the deceivers are apparent enough. I pass to the important fact that this class of the poor, though numerically insignificant by comparison with the poor in general, are yet so much in evidence as the objects of Christian zeal, and the church wastes so much time in coddling them, that the self-respecting poor often hold aloof. It is a common thing to hear a poor man say that he is not going to attend church, and be suspected of {170} trying to get something. It does not increase his respect for Christians to find them easily deceived, and it outrages his sense of justice to see that laziness, drunkenness, and vice are rewarded by church workers. Even among tramps, the variety known as the "mission bum" is looked down upon by his fellows, and there is a lesson for the mission worker in this simple fact.
In writing thus frankly of home missionary work, I am not unmindful of all the difficulties with which Christian ministers have to contend. Many of them are as much alive to the dangers of indiscriminate relief as any one can be, and many of them have risked unpopularity and misunderstanding to lift their churches out of the tread-mill of ineffectual, dole-dispensing charities into vital contact with the needs of the poor. The difficulties of Christian ministers are twofold. Their first duty is to develop the charitable instincts of church members, to overcome the selfishness and inertia of the natural man. When they have succeeded in arousing a desire to do something for somebody else, they must also furnish ample opportunity for {171} the exercise of this newly awakened impulse. Now the charitable development of the individual follows the development of the race; the individual outgrows slowly, if at all, the sentimental and patronizing view of poverty. To carry church members beyond this phase and make them effective workers, genuine powers of leadership are needed, and it is much easier to let them follow their own devices. We have seen in the last chapter that relief work, if well done, is the most difficult of all charitable work, but nine inexperienced workers out of every ten will think it the best and easiest means of helping the poor—the only means, in fact.
A difficulty to be reckoned with, and yet one with which it is hard to have any patience, is the rank materialism that regards relief as a legitimate means of attracting people to the church. Relief as a gospel agency has done far more harm than good: you cannot buy a Christian without getting a bad bargain, and yet, competition among rival churches working in the same poor neighborhood is so sharp that even now, in these days of coöperative {172} effort, we find that the sordid appeal is made. "I call it waste," wrote the late Archbishop of Canterbury, "when money is laid out upon instinct which ought to be laid out upon principle, and waste of the worst possible kind when two or three religious bodies are working with one eye to the improvement of the condition of those whom they help, and with another eye directed to getting them within the circle of their own organization. When each of those religious bodies does so work, say upon a single large family, and, feeling quite sure of one member of the family, nourishes great hopes of the rest of the members of the family that they will become true and orthodox members of their own community, I call that not only waste—I call it demoralization of the worst conceivable kind, for a reason which the poet puts thus, 'What shall bless when holy water banes?' The demoralization produced is the worst possible, because the highest possible thoughts are used as mere instruments for low ends." [2]
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One result of using relief as a bribe is that the gift no longer has for its sole object the relief of distress, or the restoration of the receiver to independence, and is likely, therefore, to be inadequate. "One clergyman with whom I remonstrated on the uselessness of giving 1s. when 20s. was needed, said it was impossible for him to do as we did and give adequate relief, as it would cause jealousy amongst both district visitors and parishioners if he gave more to one case than to another, so 2s. 6d. was generally the limit." [3]
In enumerating the natural sources of relief, I have mentioned the church after relatives, friends, and neighbors. The church is not a natural source of relief when it becomes a general relief agency, giving inadequate doles to large numbers of dependents. It is a natural source of relief for those who have sought its ministrations from religious motives; when these become dependent, it is the church's privilege to aid them privately, {174} tenderly, and adequately. Even beyond its own membership, the church can safely undertake the giving of material relief, when this is incidental to the carrying out of other plans for the benefit of the poor; incidental, for instance, to the work of friendly visiting, with a view to furthering a visitor's plans for improving a family's condition. But the gift must be free from the suspicion of proselytizing.
Protestants often criticise the Roman Catholic church for expecting the very poor to pay toward the support of the church. They criticise, in their ignorance, one of the wisest measures taken by the Church of Rome for strengthening its hold upon the people. Poor Roman Catholics are far more likely than poor Protestants to think of the church as belonging to them, as a power which exists not only for them but through them. Wherever the Protestant church has gained an equally strong hold upon the poor, it has made equal demands upon their loyalty and self-sacrifice.
After all has been said in objection to past {175} and present methods of church charity, we must realize that, if the poor are to be effectually helped by charity, the inspiration must come from the church. The church has always been and will continue to be the chief source of charitable energy; and I believe that, to an increasing degree, the church will be the leader in charitable experiment and in the extension of the scope of charitable endeavor. In the church or nowhere we must find acceptance for the methods advocated in this book. In the church or nowhere we must seek the organized devotion that shall protect the children of the poor from greed and neglect, that shall advance sanitary and educational reforms, that shall supply purer and higher amusements for the people, and shall bring to them more and more, as time goes on, of the advantages of modern life. The church has already been the pioneer in such work. In cities where kindergartens are now a part of the public school system, the first free kindergartens were supported by the churches, and large charities, now secularized, were supported by {176} churches until they had passed the stage of experiment. Secular agencies are still dependent upon the churches for workers that can bring the right spirit to charitable work.
Instead of multiplying agencies needlessly, the city churches will find it to the advantage of their spiritual work to keep up vital connection with city charities. A clergyman who has an active church in one of our eastern cities, has abandoned the plan of starting separate church schools, societies, or institutions, realizing that many of these are unnecessary, and that many others, necessary in themselves, are inadequately supported. His people are sent instead, according to their aptitudes, to hospitals, children's charities, societies for visiting the needy, alms-houses, and homes for the aged. It may be objected that the shoulder-to-shoulder contact, the strength of concentration, is lacking in such a plan. But the church holds frequent congregational meetings, where all who have been detailed to serve as friendly visitors, hospital workers, etc., report to the church and to the minister. Each one learns in {177} this way from the work of the others; weak points in the city's plans for dealing with the poor are made apparent; and the church is able by united effort to obtain needed reforms. The work is understood to be a practical application of the gospel as taught from the church pulpit, and there is a natural and vital connection between the spiritual and social life of the church community. Two other advantages are apparent. The elasticity of the plan makes it possible to find work adapted to many varying capacities, and all denominational rivalry, all petty jealousy is avoided.
The friendly visitor from such a church will not visit the poor with a view to winning them away from other churches to his own. On the other hand, he will see the importance of some church connection, and will strive to restore church relations, if they have been severed, by urging attendance upon the services of the church and Sunday-school to which the family naturally belongs. He will seek the help of this church's minister in any plans he may make for furthering the family {178} welfare, and, in this way, a spirit of coöperation between churches of different denominations will be encouraged.
I cannot leave this part of my subject without mentioning one other matter, though it is only indirectly connected with friendly visiting. The training of ministers in our theological seminaries should include a thorough course of instruction in charitable work. This would enable ministers to guide the work of their people in the best channels, and it would save them, moreover, from the discouragements of the conscientious worker who is striving to improve social conditions without any clear conception of the scope and limitations of such service. There are many clergymen whose experience and opportunities for study fit them for leadership in an attempt to establish systematic training, in the seminaries. A demand from the laity for more experienced direction in church charity would also help to hasten the introduction of regular seminary courses in applied philanthropy.
[1] "Charities Review," Vol. II, pp. 26sq.
[2] "Occasional Papers of the London Charity Organization Society," p. 35.
[3] Miss Pickton in London "Charity Organization Review," Vol. X, p. 538.
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I have tried to make a number of specific suggestions in the foregoing pages, but it is needless to say that only a few of these are likely to be useful to any one visitor, and it would be fatal to apply them all to one family. In the effort to be specific, I fear that I may have been as exasperating as the cook-books, which, in a similar effort, will suggest, "take a salamander," or "take a slip of endive," when neither is obtainable. Cook-books have their modest uses, however, and the cooks who are most skilful in skipping recipes not intended for them will turn the others to the best account.
In avoiding the danger of representing friendly visiting as a pleasant diversion, I may have gone to the other extreme, and represented it rather as an arduous and {180} exacting profession. It is so far from being this, that professional visiting can never be friendly. In fact, friendly visiting is not any of the things already described in this book. It is not wise measures of relief; it is not finding employment; it is not getting the children in school or training them for work; it is not improving sanitary arrangements and caring for the sick; it is not teaching cleanliness or economical cooking or buying; it is not enforcing habits of thrift or encouraging healthful recreations. It may be a few of these things, or all of them, but it is always something more. Friendly visiting means intimate and continuous knowledge of and sympathy with a poor family's joys, sorrows, opinions, feelings, and entire outlook upon life. The visitor that has this is unlikely to blunder either about relief or any detail; without it, he is almost certain, in any charitable relations with members of the family, to blunder seriously. Visitors have said to me that they could not see that they had been of any special service, though their friendly feeling for certain families made it impossible to stop visiting. These visitors {181} who have no story to tell have often done the greatest good. "One of the women we had not seen since she first came to us some four years before," writes Miss Frances Smith, "and we remembered her distinctly as quite ordinary then. Imagine our surprise in finding that a certain dignity and earnestness, akin to that of the visitor, had crept into this woman's life, and found expression in her face and bearing. Such transfigurations cannot take place in a few weeks or months; they are of slow growth, but they are the best rewards of friendship." [1]
The rewards of friendly visiting and the best results of such work are obviously not dependent upon the suggestions of a handbook. As Miss Octavia Hill has said, success in this depends no more on rules than does that of a young lady who begins housekeeping. "Certain things she should indeed know; but whether she manages well or ill depends mainly upon what she is." Life, therefore, is the best school. Meddlesomeness, {182} lack of tact, impatience for results, carelessness in keeping engagements and promises, will be as fatal here as anywhere.
When we are depressed by a family's troubles and are striving earnestly to find a way out, theirs seem quite unlike any other troubles. In a sense, it is true that they are unlike; but there are certain resemblances between human beings, even when a continent divides them; and, unsafe though it may be to administer charity by rule, it is more unsafe to administer it without reference to certain general principles. Many of the suggestions of this book are not of universal application, but, in bringing it to a close, I shall endeavor to state a few principles that apply quite universally to friendly visiting.
1. The friendly visitor should get well acquainted with all the members of the family without trying to force their confidence. A fault of beginners is that they are unwilling to wait for the natural development of trust and friendliness. "They expect to make a half dozen visits on a poor family inside of a month," says Miss Birtwell, "and see them {183} helped. Now, which one of us ever had our lives strongly influenced by a friendship of a month's standing? . . . I once heard a sermon which made an impression on my mind that has remained with me for years. One of its main ideas was to get your influence before you used it. Many people seem to think that if they can visit a poor family, by virtue of their superior education and culture, they must immediately have a very strong influence. They do not get it that way. They must get it just as our friends get an influence over us, by long, patient contact, and by the slow, natural growth of friendship." [2]
Patience is difficult where we see so many things to be done, and it is particularly difficult where there is actual need; but the visitor does not go to act as a substitute for the forces, charitable or other, that have kept the family alive so far. He must confer with sources of relief that are or can be interested, but beyond this he must have the courage to {184} do nothing until he knows what is the right thing to do.
It is not possible to visit many families, but there are definite advantages in visiting more than one—the usual limit should be not less than two nor more than four. An advantage in visiting two families is that the visitor is less likely to be feverishly active during the earlier stages of acquaintance, and the contrasts and resemblances between the two give the visitor a better grasp of principles. Not only is a new visitor liable to err in overvisiting a family, but some families have too many charitable visitors. The New York visitor, who refused to go to a family on whom three charity workers had lately called, was wise. There are families so clearly overvisited that all who are charitably interested in them should be persuaded to let them alone for a while.
It ought to be unnecessary to add that the winter is not the only time for charitable work. Our poor friends need us quite as much in summer, though many charities are less active then. When we are away in summer we can {185} write, and when we are in town for a short while we can often find time for a visit. Charitable work suffers from the tradition that the only time to be charitable is when it is cold.
Next to uninterrupted visiting as a means of getting acquainted, comes the power of taking our own interests with us when we visit. "In our contact with poor people we do not always give ourselves as generously as we might. Intent upon finding out about them, we forget that they might be interested to hear about us. Would it not be well if, instead of always giving sympathy, we sometimes asked it? It is often striking, if we tell them about the joys and sorrows of our friends, to note how they respond, often inquiring about them afterward. Such mutual relationship broadens their meagre lives, and makes our contact with them more human. A visitor, who has undertaken during the summer the families of another too far away to visit, wrote: 'I want to tell you what a matter of interest and pleasure it has been to me, in visiting your families, to find that what they {186} really seemed to value was your personal friendship for them, and how they treasured any little incident you had told them of yourself and your travels.'" [3]
One who visits in this spirit always wins more of pleasure and of profit from the work. In fact, it is never the visited only that are benefited.
2. In getting acquainted, the visitor has the definite object of trying to improve the condition of the family. This is impossible unless he has a fairly accurate knowledge of the main facts of the family history. Charity workers often come to me for advice about individual families, and reveal in a few minutes' conversation that they have no knowledge of the condition of those they would help. The head of the family is sick, it may be, and they expect prompt advice as to the best way to help him; but they have not taken the trouble to see the dispensary doctor who attends him, or to find out in some other way the nature of his disease; or perhaps the boy is out of work, but they have not seen his {187} former employer and know nothing of his earning capacity or references. Charitable skill is not a sort of benevolent magic; it is based on common sense, and must work in close contact with the facts of life. In other friendly relations we recognize this, and in our charity work too, whether by investigation of a trained agent or by our own inquiries, we must have the facts before we can find out the best way to help. One advantage of visiting under the guidance of a charity organization society is that a thorough investigation has been made of the family circumstances before the visitor is sent.
The following is a brief outline of the facts that should be known, if a plan is to be made for the family's benefit:
(a)Social History.—Names; ages; birthplaces; marriage; number of rooms occupied; education; children's school; names, addresses, and condition of relatives and friends; church; previous residences.
(b)Physical History.—Health of each member of the family; name of doctor; habits.
(c)Work History.—Occupations; names {188} and addresses of present and former employers; how long and at what seasons usually in work; how long out of work now; earning capacity of each worker.
(d)Financial History.—Rent; landlord; debts, including instalment purchases; beneficial societies; trade-union; life insurance; pawn tickets; has family ever saved and how much?; present savings; income; present means of subsistence other than wages; pensions; relief, sources, and amount; charities interested.
In addition to these detached facts, there is also needed whatever other facts will make a fairly complete brief biography of the heads of the family, including a knowledge of their hopes and plans. The statements of relatives and friends, their theory as to the best method of aiding, together with some definite promise as to what they themselves will do; the statements of pastor or Sunday-school teacher, of doctor, former employers, and former landlords; and the statements and experiences also of others charitably interested may be needed before an effective plan can be made.
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Inquiries of present employers and landlords should be made with extreme care, if at all, as they might create prejudice against those we would help.
The outline here given of the facts needed is best filled in by a competent trained agent, rather than by the friendly visitor, whose relations with the family render searching inquiry difficult and often undesirable. But the mercifulness of a thorough investigation is that, once well done, it need not be repeated, and by saving endless blundering it also saves a family from much charitable meddling. Its seemingly inquisitorial features are justified by the fact that it is not made with any purpose of finding people out, but with the sole purpose of finding out how to help them.
3. Gathering facts about the poor without making any effort to use these facts for their good has been compared to harrowing the ground without sowing the seed. The facts should be made the basis of a well-considered plan. It may be necessary to modify our plans often, as circumstances change or new facts are discovered; but a plan of treatment {190} is as indispensable to the charity worker as to the physician. Our plans must not ignore the family resources for self-help. The best charity work develops these resources. If outside help is needed, it should be made conditional upon renewed efforts at work or in school, upon willingness to receive training, upon cleanliness, or upon some other development within the family that will aid in their uplifting. All this is suggested, not with a view to making the conditions of relief difficult, but with a view to using relief as a lever; or, as some one has put it, we should make our help a ladder rather than a crutch, and every sensible, reasonable condition is a round in the ladder.
Our plans for the benefit of one family must not ignore the possible effects of our action upon other families. This is a hard lesson to learn, but a plan that might be kind and effective, if there were only one poor family in the city, is often unfair and even cruel, because it rouses hopes in others which can never be fulfilled. In other words, we must be just as well as merciful. A {191} knowledge of the neighborhood and of the circumstances of other poor families is necessary in judging of the justice of a plan, and here the criticism and advice of an experienced charity worker will be very helpful.
It is necessary also to guard against making our plans with reference to nothing but the present emergency. We must have a view to the future of the family, and must think not only of what will put them out of immediate need, but of what is most likely to make them permanently self-supporting, if this be possible. There are, of course, families that can never be made entirely self-supporting. These, if we consider only the cases for which it is thought best to provide outside of institutions, will be the exceptions; but in making plans for the welfare of such families we must try to organize help that shall be as regular and systematic as possible. Next to having to depend upon charitable resources at all, the most demoralizing thing is to be dependent upon uncertain and spasmodic charity.
4. In plans looking to the removal of the causes of distress, the greatest patience is {192} needed, and we must learn also, if we would succeed, to win the coöperation of others charitably interested. If our plan with regard to a family is likely to prove permanently helpful, and we are able to persuade others to work with us in carrying it out, we are not only helping the family, but we are educating others in common-sense methods. In persuading to an important step, the value of coöperation is illustrated by an instance taken from the Fourteenth Report of the Boston Associated Charities:[4] "A respectable woman, who had struggled for a year to keep her insane husband with her and the little girls, at great risk to them and the neighborhood, was persuaded in but a few days to let him go to the lunatic hospital. Of course, as strangers, our opinions were entitled to little weight; but by collecting the doctor's opinions and those of her own friends, all of which she had heard singly, she was sufficiently impressed to take the long necessary step."
5. Though we must make plans looking toward self-support, these are not the only plans {193} within the scope of friendly visiting. Some of the best visiting can be done after families are no longer in need. The entry "dismissed—self-sustaining" on charitable records has a very unsatisfactory sound to those who realize the further possibilities of friendly help. After a family has learned to live without charitable aid, there is a better chance of introducing its members to thrifty ways of spending and saving, to better recreations, and to healthier and more cleanly surroundings.
6. Our work as friendly visitors is an intensely personal work, and, unlike other charity, it is best done alone. We cannot visit in companies of two or three, nor can we talk very much about our poor friends, except to those charitably interested, without spoiling our relations with them. The district system of visiting among the poor, which is still the system of German towns and of English parishes, assigns a certain geographical boundary to each visitor. It has been called the "space system" in contrast to the "case system" of friendly visiting. The main objection to it is that it is not personal enough. {194} One who is a friend to a whole street is not felt by the members of any particular family to belong peculiarly to them, and there is danger, moreover, of more official relations and of small jealousies and neighborhood entanglements that are avoided by the friendly visiting plan.
The district visitor is the ancestor of the friendly visitor. Brewing a bit of broth for an aged cottager, reading beside some sick-bed, sewing a warm garment for Peggy or Nancy—it is thus that our ancestors lightly skimmed the surface of social conditions. It would ill become us to speak slightingly of the work of those who have handed down to us a precious freight of human sympathy and tenderness. If heavier burdens of responsibility, more serious problems and more strenuous ideals are now imposed upon us, we have also many advantages that were undreamed of a hundred years ago. Now, if we would be charitable, and possess any power of using the forces at our command, there are hundreds of avenues of usefulness open to us where formerly there was only one, and there are hundreds of {195} agencies ready to help. We must know how to work with others, and we must know how to work with the forces that make for progress; friendly visiting, rightly understood, turns all these forces to account, working with the democratic spirit of the age to forward the advance of the plain and common people into a better and larger life.
Collateral Readings: "Friendly or Volunteer Visiting," Miss Zilpha D. Smith in Proceedings of Eleventh National Conference of Charities, pp. 69sq. "Friendly Visiting," Mrs. Marian C. Putnam in Proceedings of Fourteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 149sq. "Class for the Study of Friendly Visiting," Mrs. S. E. Tenney in Proceedings of Nineteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 455sq. "The Education of the Friendly Visitor," Miss Z. D. Smith in Proceedings of Nineteenth National Conference of Charities, pp. 445sq. "Friendly Visiting," Mrs. Roger Wolcott in Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, 1893, volume on "Organization of Charities," pp. 108sq. Also Miss F. C. Prideaux in same volume, pp. 369sq. and discussion, pp. 15sq. "Continued Care of Families," Frances A. Smith in Proceedings of Twenty-second National Conference of Charities, pp. 87sq. "Friendly Visiting as a Social Force," Charles F. Weller in Proceedings of Twenty-fourth National Conference of Charities, pp. 199sq. "Company Manners," Florence Converse in "Atlantic," January, 1898. (This story is not a fair picture of associated charity methods, but points out one of the dangers of spasmodic visiting.)
[1] Proceedings of Twenty-second Conference of Charities, 1895, p. 88.
[2] Proceedings of International Congress of Charities, volume on "Organization of Charities," p. 21.
[3] Eleventh Report of Boston Associated Charities, p. 31.
[4] p. 27.
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The illustrations of friendly visiting in the preceding pages have been given with a view to elucidating some particular part of visiting work. Some of the following instances show the possibilities and discouragements of continuous visiting, and the last illustration emphasizes an important fact in the life of poor neighborhoods; namely, the unconscious but restraining and uplifting influence of good neighbors. On this same phase of the subject, see Charles Booth's "Life and Labor of the People," Vol. I, p. 159.
Home Libraries and the Visitor.—A visitor reports that "a library has been established in the room of Mrs. ——, where the boys of the tenement house meet every Saturday afternoon to receive or exchange their books, discuss with the visitor the books they have read, listen to stories as they are read or narrated, and to play games. This little gathering seems to have improved the moral and social atmosphere of the entire tenement house."
The woman who has charge of the library first became known to this same visitor over four years ago, {198} when she was struggling upon the verge of starvation, and almost giving up in despair from the effort to support herself and her two children. Through the efforts of the visitor she is now comfortable and practically self-supporting. She has been made librarian for the tenement house by the visitor, and is proud of the distinction. The following are the exact words of the visitor: "She welcomes the children into her room, made scrupulously clean and attractive; and as she sits at her work and listens to their games and readings, in which she frequently participates, her depressed spirits rise, and she seems to gain courage, and to feel that there is after all something bright in her life."—Sixteenth Report of Cincinnati Associated Charities, p. 13.