Charities. The relation of the state, the city, and the individual to modern philanthropic work

H>)y:iut)'.yMii'mmif»imnmiiwt

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/charitiesrelatioOOwarnrich

^.

[Notes supplementary to the Johns Hopkins University
Studies in Historical and Political Science.— No. 7.]

CHARITIES.

The Relation of the State, the City, and the Individual
TO Modern Philanthropic Work.

By a. G. WARNER, Ph. D.

The following are extracts from a series of six lectures on Municipal and
State Charities, delivered before the students of Social Science of the Johns
Hopkins University, by A. G. Warner, Ph. D., recently General Secretary
of the Charity Organization Society of Baltimore, and now Associate Pro-
fessor of Economic and Political Science in the University of Nebraska.
The lectures were given during November and December, 1888, and in con-
nection with them Saturday excursions were made to some of the charitable
institutions of the city. The six places visited were as follows : The City
Almshouse at Bay View ; the Department for the Insane, connected with
the same institution ; St. Mary's Industrial School for white boys, between
the ages of eight and twenty-one years ; St. Vincent's Infant Asylum for
children under eight years of age ; the Home for Incurables ; and the Little
Sisters of the Poor, a home for the aged of both sexes. Notes regarding
the different excursions were made by students especially designated for
the purpose, and these, together with accounts of future visits of the same
character may hereafter be published.

Charity and Science.

The political economists have had much to say of philanthrophy as a
failure. One might infer from their writings, though it is nowhere dis-
tinctly asserted, that altruism is something necessarily perverse and mis-
chievous. In a paper before the American Social Science Association on
*' Altruism Economically Considered," Mr. Smiley of Washington dwelt at
length on the bad objective results of philanthropic work. His task was
easy, and has already been better done, perhaps, by those who have arraigned
existing charitable methods at the bar of truer charity. Yet the long
struggle between the apostles of self-interest and and the apostles of self-
sacrifice has benefited both parties.

We need not be bothered by a consideration of the philosophical subtlety
which is supposed to prove that all human acts are necessarily inspired by
self-interest. It seems likely enough that in the last analysis this is true,
but in any practicable analysis it is not. As popularly understood self-
interest and self-sacrifice are very different motives, and to prove that they
have a common origin does not prove that they are identical. There have,
in fact, been very practical benefits resulting through the study of social
questions simultaneously from these two standpoints. In important in-
stances each has served as a starting point from which to run " correction
lines" useful in testing conclusions reached from the other.

During the first half of the present century the English philanthropists
and the English economists joined issue squarely on two great questions,

2 Charities. [82

and the victors in one case were vanquished in the other. The economists
won in the fight for the reform of the poor laws, the philanthropists won
in the fight for factory legislation. Of course no sharp line of distinction
can be drawn between the two classes thus labelled, but in the main it is
true that the apostles of self-interest were on one side and the apostles of
self-sacrifice on the other. The economists, from Smith down, had con-
demned the old system of poor relief in England. Chalmers, in his dual
capacity as political economist and pastor had not only attacked the system
but had shown by example, as well as precept, how to do away with it.
Senior was one of the most active members of the Poor Law Commission
during and following the revision of the wretched system. The good
results of revision greatly strengthened the laissez-faireists. Carlyle, in
reviewing the first four reports of the Commission, thus summarizes their
teachings : " Ours is a world requiring only to be well let alone. Scramble
along thou insane scramble of a world, . . . thou art all right, and shalt
scl-amble even so ; and whoever in the press is trodden down, has only to
lie there and be trampled broad : — such at bottom seems to be the chief
social principle, if principle it have, which the Poor Law Amendment Act
has the merit of courageously asserting, in opposition to many things."

In the second struggle, that for factory legislation, the two parties were
distinct, and distinctly antagonistic. Lord Ashley and the other champions
of the new movement were sneered at as "humanity-mongers." It was
alleged that "no thinking man agreed with them." Cobden, Bright,
Brougham, Gladstone, Hume, Eoebuck, and Graham were against them.
It was an issue involving the welfare of some 300,000 operatives and of
about 40,000 children. It was won in the name of humanity and not of
science. It would doubtless have been possible to have defeated the doc-
trinaires in their own domain of theory, but Ashley and the others found it
better to talk facts rather than theories, and to appeal to the sympathies of
the nation rather than to intellect.

The parallel experiences of victory and defeat have apparently made
both the parties wiser. The " New Political Economy " is said to be less
" dismal " than the old. On the other hand there is as yet no such word as
" philanthropies," and perhaps no science of self-sacrifice. But at least the
" New Charity " tries to make benevolence more constantly beneficent. To
some it seems that to speak of " scientific charity " is a perversion of terms
and another instance of the confused thinking that results from a tendency
to count our sciences before they are hatched. Yet the phrase is in common
use at the various Conferences of Charities, and something to which it can
be properly applied is very palpably coming into existence.

Charity and the Church.

Historical. The Bible commends him that " considereth " the poor. The
church of the Middle Ages was content to insist that people must give to

83] Charities. 3

the poor— preferably through the church. Christ had taught that riches
are dangerous to growth in spiritual life ; the mediseval church taught that
poverty is a virtue. Consideration of the effect of giving upon the poor
themselves was precluded by the wish of the giver to benefit himself. The
objective results were ignored. People gave less from love of neighbor than
as a sort of spiritual investment from which they expected celestial divi-
dends ; they were less anxious to help those to whom they gave than they
were to secure a proper balance on the books of the recording angel. " The
blind eleemosynary spirit of the Komish church," says Hallam, " was noto-
riously the cause and not the cure of vagabondage." The same writer
holds that public relief in England began before the monasteries were sup-
pressed, and that the church would, in any event, have been unable to pro-
vide for the destitution that her indiscriminate giving helped to cause.

At present. How sad is our heritage from these early errors is shown by
the fact that many churches and church members still refuse to see the
difference between the charity that gives lavishly and dismisses the sub-
ject, and the charity that " suffereth long and is kind." Pastors even yet
encourage their people to organize dole-giving societies, because they do
not know what else to have them undertake. Such work seems to have
good subjective results, and they say that it is better to relieve ninety and
nine imposters than to let one deserving applicant be turned away. Their
missions in the large cities are too often turned into a species of salvation
trap, baited with old clothes and cheap groceries. Suppose that while sav-
ing one soul in this way they have put ninety-nine farther from salvation ?
That is the question in theological arithmetic to which they ought to turn
their attention. We have a stock case in Baltimore of a woman who had
her baby baptized in seven churches, in order to interest as many groups of
benevolent but misguided women in her condition. One pastor told me in
a moment of confidence that the hardest work he had to do was to keep
the wealthy women of his congregation from giving unwisely. Another
church, after spending several thousand dollars in direct relief, published
a circular stating that they were doubtful whether more harm or good had
been done, and announcing that such work would be abandoned and a kin-
dergarten for poor children undertaken instead. Two principles must guide
the churches in our large cities in their relief work : First, in the modern
city no relief-giving church nor charitable society can properly live unto
itself alone ; there must be intercommunication, organization, or there will
be the "overlapping of relief" and competitive, demoralizing work. Second,
the best charities are educative charities. Direct relief is sometimes neces-
sary, but the churches need no urging in that direction. They need rather
to be reminded that " there is a way that seemeth right unto a man but the
end thereof are the ways of death ; " * or, as Johnson put it, " Hell is paved
with good intentions."

♦ Proverbs, 14 : 12.

Charities, [84

Causes of Poverty.

Poverty is not pauperism. When Edward Everett Hale began the pub-
lishing of Lend a Hand, he said that one of the objects of the magazine
should be to show the difference between these two. By adapting the
phrases of another we may make the distinction briefly by saying that
" poverty is a situation, pauperism a condition." The first is to be relieved,
the second prevented.

Yet in as much as poverty almost invariably precedes pauperism it is
more profitable to search for the causes of the former. Heredity acting
both upon institutions and individuals is one of the prime causes of both
poverty and pauperism. On the institutional side this fact is continually
brought out in lectures on history and political economy. As illustrating
therefore, the present influence of what George Eliot calls " the great, the
irreversible past," I will speak only of two very interesting studies of indi-
vidual heredity bearing especially upon the problems in hand.

Dugdale's study of the " Jukes " gives the records, so far as obtained of
the descendents of "Margaret, the mother of criminals." Twenty-seven
of her descendents were prosecuted by one attorney. More than 600 of
them are known to have been sentenced. The cost to the community of
1200 of this family is estimated at about a million and a quarter dollars.
Concerning their habits Dugdale gives the following striking summary:
" Fornication, either consanguineous or not, is the backbone of their habits,
flanked on one side by pauperism and on the other by crime. The second-
ary features are prostitution, with its complement of bastardy, and its re-
sultant neglected and miseducated childhood ; exhaustion, with its comple-
ment intemperance and its resultant unbalanced minds ; and disease, with
its complement extinction." Further on he restates his conclusions as
follows : " Hereditary pauperism rests chiefly upon disease in some form,
tends to terminate in extinction, and may be called the sociological aspect
of physical degeneration."

Kev. O. C. McCulloch, of Indianapolis, has collected the facts regarding
a large number of interrelated pauper families in Indianapolis, Indiana.
He gives the general name of the Tribe of Ishmael to this group, which
includes 1692 individuals, whose histories are recorded on more than seven
thousand pages of the records of the charity organization society of that
place. The members of the tribe are almost invariably unchaste, but not
intemperate. One hundred and twenty-one of those whose cases have been
investigated are prostitutes. They are nearly all diseased, and therefore
not only unwilling but unable to do hard work. The records of the city
hospital show that — taking out surgical cases, acute general diseases, and
cases outside the city — seventy-five per cent, of the cases treated are from
this class. The criminal record is very large — petty thieving chiefly. Their
record, substantially of this character, has been followed through six
generations. The chief moral which Mr. McCulloch draws from this

85]

Charities.

"study in social degradation" is that public out-door relief should be cut
ofF. This, together with indiscriminate giving on the part of individuals
and churches has sent the Tribe of Ishmael forth with the benediction, "be
fruitful and multiply."

The subject of the existing causes of poverty, as distinct from the antece-
dent causes, is too intricate for adequate treatment here ; and the synopsis
which follows is intended merely as a bird's-eye-view of a large and difficult
field where many observers and philosophers have labored, and where all
such can find find work till the dawn of the millenium.*

Character-
istics.

Habits
producing
and pro-
duced by
the above.

1. Undervitalization and indolence.

2. Specific disease.

3. Lubricity.

4. Lack of judgment.

5. Unhealthy appetites.

1. Shiftlessness.

2. Abuse of stimulants and narcotics.

3. Self-abuse and sexual excess.

4. Unhealthy diet.

5. Disregard of family ties.

1. Inadequate natural resources.

2. Bad climatic conditions. '

3. Defective sanitation, etc.

4. Evil associations and surroundings.

5. Defective legislation and defective judicial and punitive ma-

chinery.

6. Imperfect education.

Bad in-

7. dustrial

condition.

a. Variations in value of money.

b. Changes in trade.

c. Excessive or ill-managed taxation.

d. Emergencies unprovided for.

e. Undue power of class over class.
/. Immobility of labor.

8. Unwise philanthrophy.

♦See "Notes on the Statistical Determination of the Causes of Poverty,
oer, published by Am, Stat. Asso., Boston, 1889,

by Dr. War-

6 Charities, [86

The Machinery of Benevolence.

Dr. Lyman Abbott has said that if the Good Samaritan had been a
Yankee and lived at the present time, he would not have been content to
relieve the man by the wayside, but would have set to work to organize a
Society for the Belief of Sick and Wounded Travellers, with a President,
several Vice-Presidents, a Treasurer, and Secretaries and Corresponding
Secretaries in every part of Palestine. I prefer to ignore the irony of this
remark, and to consider it a high tribute to the good sense and general
adaptability of our old friend the Samaritan. Perhaps he would have
done even better to have organized a sort of Law and Order League to
capture the thieves and bring them to justice. Thirst is the same now as
in the time of Gideon. Yet when his soldiers drank they either lapped
from the hand or bowed themselves to the stream. The modern city cannot
adopt that primitive method but must have water-works. So with charity.

Classes of Dependents. There has been much eflfort in this country to find
the proper location of the various burdens incident to poor relief. Indi-
viduals, churches, benevolent organizations, the municipality or the town-
ship, the county and the State ought all to have their proper shares. ' The
first step in discussing the problem must be to enumerate the chief of the
classes for which provision must be made, (a) The insane in this country,
as given by the tenth census, numbered 91,997, but the enumeration was
admitted to be incomplete. They are divided into the chronic.and acute
insane, for which two classes, very diflferent treatment is needed, (b) The
idiotic, weak-minded and epileptic, constitute a class often but ill provided
for. They require, in the main, custodial homes where they can live in
decency, but with no possibility of propagating their kind, (c) The blind
may nearly always be made self-sustaining by proper education. When,
after patient trial, it is found that they cannot support themselves in the
regular trades to which they may be trained, homes should be provided for
them where, in return for all the work they may be able to do, they can be
supported. Blind beggars should be banished from our streets, because,
while they are the most pitiable class, they are often the most depraved
when allowed to live on indiscriminately given alms — " the bread by which
men die." (d) For deaf-mutes provision is comparatively easy, except, as
all institutions under public care have to be closely watched in their
administrative methods, (e) Dependent children are among the niost
difiicult classes to provide for properly. They may be divided into sub-
classes as foundlings, vagrants, children abused by parents and juvenile
delinquents. Each of these sub-classes requires different treatment, and in
none of them can large numbers of children be crowded into institutions
without great injury to the children. This sort of herding often weakens
the body, leaves the mind a blank, and the spiritual and moral nature
undeveloped. Whenever it is necessary that they be thus crowded together,
kindergarten and manual training should be introduced as soon as possible. <

87] Charities. 7

The excellent system of placing such children in private homes is suscepti-
ble of great abuses unless carefully managed. The Western States complain
that they have been flooded with vicious children by the New York Chil-
dren's Aid Society and kindred organizations. The fact of the matter is
simply that care must be taken, or "placing out" is bad for both the chil-
dren and the communities to which they go. (/) Cripples are usually at
present remanded to the almshouse, and perhaps nothing better can be
provided for them, except in cases where expert surgical treatment or
special education might make them self-sustaining, {g) The sick, curable
and incurable, need something different from almshouse care, and the cur-
able cases usually get it. {h) The aged having no relatives or friends to
support them must be provided for, either in institutions maintained by
private benevolence or in the almshouse, (i) Lastly, we must add the class
made up of the unemployed and hungry. The " work test " should be
rigidly employed in all relief given to this class, whether by individuals or
the public.

Where shall the Burdens Rest. It was at one time the custom to leave
almost the entire care of the poor to the local political units. The town,
precinct or county, made all the provision that was made in the matter.
But it was found that for some purposes the county is too large a unit, while
for others it is not large enough. We have seen that of the classes given
above, each requires special treatment. Obviously, if there are in a given
county only two or three indigent blind, the county cannot afford to provide
a specialist merely to instruct them. Therefore, by the old county manage-
ment, they were not instructed. The county almshouse became a sort of
catch-all for every species of indigence. The baby and the gray-beard, the
vicious and the good, the sick and the healthy, the insane, the idiotic and
the epileptic were all jumbled together ; and it was fortunate if even the
sexes were effectually separated. There was not, for a long time, and in
many States there is not yet, any adequate inspection of these almshouses,
except the desultory watchfulness of the people and the press. The most
hideous abuses came to light from time to time, and gradually there was
developed a tendency to transfer certain classes of dependents to the States.
The result has been the development of gigantic State institutions. Espe-
cially in providing for the insane these great caravansaries have grown to
the most unwieldy proportions. The result has been to develop new evils
in the place of the old ones. Chief among these may be named excessive
cost, a treatment too mechanical to be helpful, and at times bad adminis-
tration. New York State is changing back from State to county care for
the insane, though against the advice of most of her specialists. Wisconsin
prides herself on having developed a system of county care under Stale
supervision, at once cheap and commendable. Many classes of the chronic
insane are better off when they can have work of some kind, and it is found
that an almshouse can be more nearly self-sustaining when some of these
are placed there.

8 Charities. [88

The New York State Charities Aid Association thus summarizes its con-
clusions regarding the proper provision for various classes of dependents :
" The blind, deaf and dumb, idiots and insane, should go to State institu-
tions, under the care of specialists ; ' defective children ' to a proper hospital
or home, bad women to reformatories, feeble minded women and adult
idiots to custodial institutions ; tramps and vagrants to work-houses. The
poor-house should be a refuge and a home where the respectable poor, the
sick, the old, those who have broken down in the race of life may find
shelter and care."

The guiding principle for sharing the burdens of poor relief between the
larger and smaller poor unions in Germany is thus formulated by the
" deutschen Vereine fiir Armenpflege und Wohlthatigkeit : " " Those sorts
of poor relief which require a costly plant or large permanent investment,
or institutions for technical purposes needing well-trained and skilful man-
agement, should be confided to the larger unions, while on the other hand,
those forms of poor relief can best be left to the smaller unions, which
require for the proper fulfilment of their purposes, a large measure of indi-
vidual interest, and a full consideration of surrounding circumstances."
Applying this principle to the concrete duties of poor relief they find that
it would give to the larger unions the care of the insane, of idiots, of the
sick in hospitals, of the deaf and dumb, of the blind, of certain catagories
of the invalid and feeble, of waifs and of children sentenced by the courts.
The larger unions should also provide work-houses and houses of correction.

State Boards of Charities. Banks and Insurance companies are usually
more carefully supervised by the States than charitable institutions. It has
been said of our charitable and punitive institutions that they are not the
outcome "of the wisdom of our generation, but rather the cumulative
accidents of popular negligence, indifference and incapacity." It can readily
be seen from the foregoing analysis of the classes of dependents and their
various needs, that some general supervisory and coordinating power is
necessary. This is not afforded in the legislatures, nor in legislative com-
mittees. The American idea, that the committee doeth all things well, is
not borne out by the experience of charitable institutions in this country.
The annual or semi-annual battle in the lobby for support, results not in
scientific charity but scientific log-rolling, and leads to the survival, not of
the fittest, but of the " smartest." Where the supervisory and regulative
power has been introduced, it has been through a State Board of Charities,
or of Charities and Corrections. Such boards have been established in
Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New
Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.

Some of the boards are made up of unsalaried members. Such have, as a
rule, no power except to investigate and give advice. These boards often
exert a most salutary and far reaching influence by virtue of their general
oversight and intelligent and candid recommendations. Other boards have
salaried officers and these are given a larger share of executive power.

89] Charities. '9

They exert a powerful influence for good when they can be kept free from the
blight of partisan politics. They should inspect frequently all the public insti-
tutions of the State, and in a way that would really bring all the practices
of the managers of the institutions to light. In Maryland the grand jury
dines periodically with the managers. This does not seem to be the final
possibility in the way of supervision. Private charitable institutions ought,
by the terms of their charters, to be subject to inspection, and otherwise
amenable to this board. The results of dishonesty, negligence or folly on
the part of the managers of these private institutions are too awful to be
ignored.

The Charities of Large Cities.

Public Charities. There are three ways in which our American cities
usually spend money for the poor : in out-door relief, in the support of pub-
lic institutions, and in the subsidizing of private institutions.

1. There are many facts and more theories that indicate that public out-
door relief as administered in this country is a source of useless expense to
the tax-payer, of additional debauchment to politics, and of ever increasing
degradation to ihe poor. The cases most in point and oftenest cited are
those of Brooklyn and Philadelphia. For a long series of years Brooklyn
had been spending large amounts for out-door relief. The methods of dis-
tribution varied from medium to horrible, but political influence was nearly
always present. At one time this sort of relief was given to all who would
make oath that they were paupers, and many of the citizens of New York
came over to avail themselves of such an opportunity. In 1877 the city
spent for out-door relief the sum of |141,000, in 1878 |57,000, and the years
that followed nothing. The result was that in the face of an increasing
population the number of in-door poor remained stationary, and the amount
of relief distributed by the Association for the Improvement of the Condi-
tion of the Poor decreased. There was, indeed, an increase in the number
of dependent children, but this resulted from changes in the law bearing on
that special point, and a like increase was observed in New York city, where
no corresponding change in relief methods took place.

During the seventies, Philadelphia spent from fifty-eight to seventy-eight
thousand dollars annually in out-door relief. On the first of January 1880
the whole supply was stopped. The Secretary of the Society for Organizing
Charity three years later writes of the results as follows : " At the time it
was abolished, we for a few weeks felt an increased pressure for relief upon
the private charities, but that was only temporary, and although the popu-
lation of the city has increased during the last three years, the number of
the in-door poor has decreased."

2. Charitable Institutions managed directly by municipal authorities are,
as a rule, of lower grade than state institutions of a similar kind. This
comes largely from the fact, that they are more immediately under the
control of ward politics. The following paragraph from the address of Hon.

10 Charities, [90

Seth Low, before the Buffalo Conference of Charities and Corrections, reveals
the fatal defect in such management.

" In the city of Brooklyn there is an institution known as the Truant
Home. The superintendent and other officers in this institution are ap-
pointed by the vote of the Common Council, without nomination by the
Mayor. Among the officials to be appointed is the farmer; and at one
time when the appointment had been made the farmer turned out to be a
hatter. He had supposed himself entirely equal to the duties of drawing a
salary, and this he presumed would be the limit of what he had to do.
When he discovers that the duties of the farmer included taking care of a
cow and the raising of vegetables, he sent in his resignation without delay.
In this connection, it transpired that all the places in the gift of the Com-
mon Council were filled in the following way : The members of the board,
comprising the majority held a caucus, and by mutual agreement or by lot
parcelled out the places among the different members of the majority.
Consequently when this farmer resigned, the individual alderman to whom
the appointment was held to belong — I ask you to notice the word — selected
another friend, this time one not to be daunted by the idea of taking care
of a cow ; and upon his nomination this friend was immediately confirmed
by the board of aldermen. . . . Where the management of an institution
is lodged with a board of more than one member, if the board is harmo-
nious, the practice is that the patronage is shared in equal proportions,
turn and turn alike. If the board is not harmonious, the majority, take it
all and divide it among themselves. This, more than anything else accounts
for the frequency of inharmonious boards."

3. The practice of subsidizing private institutions is sometimes justifiable
but often leads to needless expense, to private "jobs" and sectarian jealous-
ies. New York city sends various classes of juvenile dependents to private
institutions, and pays two dollars a week for the board of each child. This
allowance is large enough so that the institution derives a profit from each
child committed to its care. There are many officials in the city who
commit children to these institutions but none who feel it their duty to
discharge them. The result is that New York is paying the board of 14,000
children; while under a better system Brooklyn, which is half as large,
maintains but 1,200.

Private Charities. Few people know what a net-work of charities has
been developed in our large cities. Something more than twenty years ago
a writer in the Nation could say with apparent truth that this country had
never been compelled to organize a system of charities, or to treat pauper-
ism as an institution. This is no longer true even in appearance, as the
Directories of Charities published in our leading cities give evidence.
Baltimore will be taken as typical because it is the one with which the
speaker is best acquainted, and because its charitable industries are suffi-
ciently " diversified " to enable us to infer all from this example.

The mailing-list of the Charity Organization Society gives the address of

91] Charities, 11

120 private charitable institutions or societies in Baltimore, exclusive of
those subsidiary to the churches. Many of these are of very minor import-
ance, but others are of wide influence, and powerful agents for good or evil.
Selecting twenty-five prominent and powerful institutions, we find that they
have an aggregate yearly revenue amounting to |196,280. This does not
include the interest upon the value of real estate or other property actually
in use for charitable purposes, and is exclusive of legacies received during
the year and designed for permanent investment. Voluntary subscriptions
and contributions make up 44 per cent, of this income, while 25 per cent, is
received as interest upon funds previously invested. . The next largest item
of income is of proportionately more importance in Baltimore than perhaps
in almost any other city in the country. It consists of the amount raised
by balls, fairs, theatrical performances, etc., and amounts to $23,714.69, or
about 13 per cent, of the gross income of the twenty-five societies. Of the
gross amount, 10 per cent, is earned; that is, the recipients of charity per-
form work valued at that amount ; while 5 per cent, is made up of subsidies
from the city treasury and 3 per cent, from the treasury of the State.

There are societies to relieve any need whatever of particular classes of
persons. The Hebrew Benevolent will do this for Israelites, the German
Society for Germans, the St. Andrew's Society for the Scotch, the denomi-
national societies for those of their faith, and for an undetermined number
of outsiders. On the other hand, there are societies that will relieve any
person whatever in some particular way. The Poor Association will give
coal and groceries to any applicant it considers worthy, without regard to
religion, race or color. The dispensaries will give medicine, the sewing
societies clothing, and so on. It will be noticed that the lines of activity
intersect. The classification by race overlaps that by religion, while the
classification by needs overlies them both, and several agencies for the same
sort of work are superimposed upon the others, while unlimited claims upon
individual benevolence supplement or duplicate the whole. Suppose the
case of a German Lutheran who is in need of one thing only, say fuel.
There are four organizations that he may properly apply to: (1) The
German Society ; (2) his church ; (3) the Poor Association ; (4) the police
station. If he is sick, the Indigent Sick Society may also aid ; if a soldier,
he may apply to the Confederate Kelief Society or the Grand Army of the
Kepublic ; if his children go to a Methodist Sunday School, help may be
had from that source ; if his wife is a Roman Catholic, she may apply to
the Society of St. Vincent de Paul ; and finally, if he is just out of jail, the
Prisoner's Aid Association may help. All this, of course, does not include
what may be obtained from private individuals.

Charity Organization. Among all the foregoing charities there is not an
ofiice where it is strictly in order for any person whatever to apply for any
form of relief whatever. The charity organization society tries to supply
this need, to furnish a clue to the labyrinth, to bring any real need at once
to the proper source of relief. It investigates all cases thoroughly, as much

12 Charities, [92

for the sake of the receiver as of the giver. It is a charity clearing house
where the accounts of the various societies are audited, and the over-lap-
ping of relief prevented. It is a bureau of information, where those who
desire to be truly helpful, can secure the information necessary to guide
their conduct. The society itself if located in a large city should not give
direct relief of any sort, since nothing so hampers the work of an agent of
such a society as to have a relief fund at his command. It cripples his
ingenuity, decreases his acquaintance with persons and societies able to
help, and makes these persons and societies more likely to unload dis-
couraging cases upon him than to relieve cases that he commends to their
attention.

The conclusion of the whole matter may possibly be thus stated : Poverty
and pauperism are evils to be assailed in their causes. To accomplish this
the public charities must be wisely organized under the general supervision
of the state ; and the private charities ought also to organize and co-ordi-
nate their work under the guidance of a charity organization society,
maintained by them for their mutual good.

NOTES SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
STUDIES IN HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE.

The publication of a series of Notes was begun in January, 1889. The following have
thus far been issued :

I. Municipal Government in England. By Dr. Albert Shaw, of Minneapolis.

a. Social Work in Australia and London. By Mr. Wm. Grey, of London.

3. Encouragement of Higher Education. By Professor Herbert B.Adams.

4. The Problem of City Government. By Hon. Seth Low, of Brooklyn.

5. The Libraries of Baltimore. By Mr. P. R. Uhler, of the Peabody Institute.

6. "Work among the "Workingwomen in Baltimore. By Professor H. B. Adams.

7. Charities : Tlie Relation of the State, the City, and the Individual to Modern Philan-

thropic Work. By A. G. Warner, Ph. D.

These Notes are sent without charge to regular subscribers to the Studies. They are
sold at five cents each; twenty-five copies will be furnished for $1.00.

A detailed prospectus of the ^^ Studies^' will be sent on application. The
following numbers are now ready :

I. Arnold Toynbee. By F. C. Montague, Fellow of Oriel College. With an Account

of the Work of Toynbee Hall in East London, by Philip Lyttelton Gell, M. A.,

Chairman of the Council. Also an Account of the Neighborhood Guild in New

York, by Charles B. Stover. A. B. 50 cents.
II-III. The Establishment of Municipal Government in San Francisco. By

Bernard Moses, Ph. D., Professor of History and Politics in the University of

California. 50 cents.
IV. Municipal History of New Orleans. By Judge William W. Howe.

25 cents.
V-VI. English Culture in Virginia: The Jefferson-Gilmer Letters. By Professor

William P. Trent, of the University of the South. $1.00.
VII- VIII-IX. The River Towns of Connecticut : A Study of Wethersfield, Hartford,

and Windsor. By Charles M. Andrews, Fellow in History, J. H. U. $1.00.
X-XI-XII. Federal Government in Canada. By John George Bourinot, LL. D.,

Clerk of the Canadian House of Commons.
Twelve numbers are issued yearly. The cost of subscription is $3.00 payable in advance.

Address all orders to the Publication Agency, Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity, Baltimore, Md.

No. 7, July, 1889.

JOHN MURPHY A CO., PRINTERS, BALTIMORE.

RETURN TO the circulation desk of any
University of California Library
or to the
NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
BIdg. 400, Richmond Field Station
University of California
Richmond, CA 94804-4698

ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS

• 2-month loans may be renewed by calling
(510)642-6753

• 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing
books to NRLF

• Renewals and recharges may be made 4
days prior to due date.

DUE AS STAMPED BELOW

J.

mt4^m

I

-

JUN 0 T 2003

—

JUL 0 8 2004

—

—

~

12,000(11/95)

1

—

FORM NO. DD6
50M 5-03

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
Berkeley, California 94720-6000

GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY

BOQOStiMBdD