CHARITY AND THE SETTLEMENTS
285. =The Impulse to Charity.=--The first impulse that stirs a person
who sees another in want is immediately to relieve the want. This
impulse to charity makes public begging profitable. It is an impulse
creditable to the human heart, but its effects have not been approved
by reason, for indiscriminate charity provokes deception, and is
certain to result in chronic dependency. Wise methods of charity,
therefore, constitute a problem as truly as poverty itself. Experience
has proved so conclusively that the old methods of relief are
unsatisfactory, that it has become necessary to determine and
formulate true principles of relief for those who really desire to
exercise their philanthropy helpfully. How to help is the question.
286. =History of Relief.=--Some light is thrown on the subject from
the experience of the past. The whole notion of charity as a social
duty was foreign to ancient thought. Families and clans had their own
dependents, and benefit societies helped their own members. The Hebrew
prophets called for mercy and kindness, Jesus spoke his parable of the
good Samaritan, and the primitive Christians went so far as to
organize their charity, so that none of their members would fail of a
fair share. The church taught alms-giving as a deed of merit before
God, and all through its history the Catholic Church has done much for
its poor. In the Middle Ages it was a part of the feudal theory that
the lord would care for his serfs, but in reality they got most help
at the doors of a monastery. In modern times the church has shifted
its burden to the state. This was inevitable in countries where there
was no state church, and it was in accordance with the modern
principle that the state is organized society functioning for the
social welfare of all the people.
In America the colonies and then the States adopted the English custom
of relieving extreme need. At first it was possible for local
committees to take care of their poor by doles furnished sparingly in
their homes, and to place the chronic dependents in almshouses. The
former practice is known as outdoor relief, the latter as indoor
relief. Such relief was not administered scientifically, and did not
help to reduce the amount of poverty. The almshouses were the
dumping-ground of a community's undesirables, including idiots and
even insane, cripples and incurables, epileptics, old people, and
orphan children, constituting a social environment that was anything
but helpful to human development. After a time it became necessary for
the State to relieve the local authorities. The defectives and
dependents became too numerous for the local community to take care
of, and enlightened philanthropy was learning better methods. The
result has been the gradual extension of State care and the
segregation of the various classes of incompetents in various State
institutions, including hospitals for the insane, the epileptic, and
the morally deficient, sanitaria for those who suffer from alcoholic
and tuberculous diseases, and schools for the proper training of the
youth who have come under public oversight.
287. =Voluntary Charity.=--Public relief has been supplemented
extensively by voluntary charity. This has become increasingly
scientific. Indeed popular ideas have been largely transformed during
the last generation. In the small towns and villages where there was
little destitution, and where all knew one another's needs, there was
no special need of scientific investigation or charitable
organization, but in the large cities it became necessary. Thomas
Chalmers in Scotland and Edward Denison and Octavia Hill in England
demonstrated the conditions and the advantages of organized effort.
The first charity organization society was organized in 1869 in
London. Its fundamental principle was to help the poor to help
themselves rather than to give them alms. Its aim was to federate all
the charitable efforts of London, and while this has not proved
practicable, it has greatly increased efficiency and has helped to
bind together philanthropic effort all over England. The income of the
various charitable agencies of London alone was reported to be
$43,000,000 in 1906.
In the United States the first organization on the English model was
the charity organization society of Buffalo, founded in 1877; Boston
followed with a similar organization the next year. These were
followed by the organization of a National Conference of Charities and
Corrections, which holds annual meetings and publishes reports that
are a valuable storehouse of information. Many charitable agencies of
various kinds contribute to the work of relief, some of them really
helpful, others actually blocking the way of genuine progress, but all
showing the strength of the philanthropic motive in American cities.
The closer their alliance with the associated charities the more
effective are their measures of charity. Three stages have marked the
history of the charitable organization societies, as they have learned
from experience. The first has been called the repressive stage. The
fear of pauperizing recipients of charity made the societies too
strict in their alms-giving, so that hardships resulted that were
unnecessary, but such a course was the natural reaction against the
indiscriminate charity that had been in vogue. This stage was
succeeded by the discriminative, in which help is given
discriminatingly, as investigation shows a real need at the same time
that efforts are being put forth to make prolonged giving unnecessary.
Closely combined with this discrimination, which is in constant use,
is the third method of construction. By this constructive method the
worker tries to get at the cause of the particular case of poverty and
to alter the social conditions so that the cause shall no longer act.
Experience and experiment have produced numerous specific measures of
a constructive sort, like the establishment of playgrounds and public
parks, kindergartens and schools for specific purposes, social
settlements and school centres, municipal baths and gymnasiums,
tenement-house reforms and the prevention of disease.
288. =Friendly Visiting.=--The functions of charity organization
societies have been described as the co-ordination and co-operation of
local societies rather than direct relief from the central
organization, thorough investigation of all cases, with temporary
relief where necessary, the establishment of friendly relations
between the poor and the well-to-do, the finding of work for those who
need it, and the accumulation of knowledge on poverty conditions. The
actual contact of charitable societies with the people has been mainly
through friendly visitors who voluntarily engage to call on the needy,
and who meet at regular intervals to discuss concrete cases as well as
general methods. These visitors have the advantage of bringing their
spontaneous sympathy to bear upon the specific instances that come to
their personal attention, whereas the officials of the charity
organization society inevitably become more callous to suffering and
tend to look upon each family as a case to be pigeonholed or
scientifically treated, but the conviction is growing, nevertheless,
that the situation can be effectively handled only by men and women
who are genuinely experts, trained in the social settlements or in the
schools of philanthropy. Whether a voluntary church worker or a
charity expert, it is the business of the visitor to make thorough
investigation of conditions, not merely inquiring of landlord or
neighbors, or taking the hurried testimony of the family, but
patiently searching for information from those who have known the case
over a long period, preferably through the charity organization
society. Actual relief may be required temporarily and must be
adequate to the occasion, but the problem of the visitor is to devise
a method of self-help, and to furnish the courage necessary to
undertake and carry it through. It is important to consider in this
connection the character and ancestry of the family, its environment
and the social ideals and expectations of its members, if the steps
taken are to be effective. The two principles that underlie the whole
practice of relief are, first, to restore the individual or family to
a normal place in society from which it has fallen, or to raise it to
a normal standard of living which it has never before reached;
secondly, to make all charity discriminative and co-operative, that it
may accomplish the end sought without pauperizing the recipient.
289. =Public and Private Agencies.=--Institutions and agencies of
relief are of two kinds, public and private. It is one of the
functions of every social group to promote the welfare of its members.
It is to be expected, therefore, that the church and the trade-union
will help their own poor, but it is just as proper to expect that the
whole community, and even the whole state, will take care of its own
needy. The distinction between public and private agencies is not one
of fundamental sociological principle, but one of convenience and
efficiency of administration. Where the state has extended its
activities, as in Germany, relief by such a method as the Elberfeld
system is practicable; where public opinion, as in the United States,
is not favorable to remanding as much as possible to the government,
it is thought best that private agencies should supplement State aid,
and in most cases make it unnecessary.
290. =Arguments for and Against Private Agencies of Relief.=--Some
argue that private agencies should do it all. In spite of the large
resources at the command of the state and the frequent necessity of
legislation to handle the problem, they claim that public aid
humiliates and degrades the recipient, while private assistance may
put him on his feet without destroying his self-respect; and that
public charity is too often unfeeling and tends to become a routine
affair, while private aid can deal better with specific cases, show
real interest and try experiments in the improvement of methods. There
are those who would have all charity given back to the church. They
believe the responsibility would stimulate the church's own life,
extend its influence among the unchurched, show that it had an
interest in the bodies as well as the souls of the people, and bring
about co-operation between churches in the districts of town or city.
It is of the genius of true religion to be helpful, and the church
could soon learn wise methods. In answer to this argument the reply is
that at present the indiscriminate charity of the church is doing
real harm; that the church does not like to co-operate with other
agencies; that it does not have adequate resources to deal with the
problem or legal authority to restrain mendicants or segregate the
various classes of dependents; and that all persons in the community
ought to share in the responsibility of poor relief, and not all are
in the church. They recognize the valuable aid of such organizations
as the Hebrew Charities and the work of the St. Vincent de Paul
Society of the Catholics, but they believe that such as these at best
can be only auxiliary to the state.
An illustration of the usefulness of private associations appears in a
group of seven boys of foreign parentage in New York City, who
organized themselves in 1903 into a quick-aid-to-the-hungry committee.
They were only thirteen years old and poor. They lived on the East
Side, and pennies and nickels did not make a full treasury. But they
knew the need and had an instinct for helping the right people. In
seven years these boys helped in more than two hundred and fifty
emergency cases; their pennies grew to dollars as they earned more;
their charity developed their self-respect; they held weekly meetings
for debate, and several of them made their way through college. Funds
were supplied, also, from friends outside, who were glad to aid such a
worthy enterprise. The great need among private agencies is fuller
co-operation with one another and with public boards and institutions.
Then duplication of effort, misunderstandings, and wastefulness are
avoided, and the hope of a decline in conditions of poverty increases.
There are limits, however, to the ability of private agencies to
control the situation. There are cases where the organized community
or state must take a hand. There are lazy persons who will not support
themselves or their families; there are certain persons who are
chronically ill or dependent; there are various types of defectives
and delinquents. All these need the authority of the public agencies.
Then there are constructive activities that require the assistance and
sanction of government, like parks and playgrounds, industrial
schools, employment bureaus, the establishment and administration of
state institutions, and the enforcement of health, sanitary, and
building laws. Of course there is often inefficiency in government
management. The local almshouse needs reforming, and the overseers of
the poor should be trained experts. The organization and
superintendence of state institutions is not ideal, and building
arrangements need improvement, but there is a steady gain in the
efficiency of boards of trustees and local managers. There is a
willingness to learn from experience and a disposition to raise the
standards in all departments of administration.
291. =The Social Settlement.=--However efficient an official board may
be in the discharge of its duties, it cannot expect to call out from
the beneficiary so enthusiastic a response as can a real friend. The
best friends of the poor are their neighbors. It is well known that a
group of families in a tenement house will help one of their number
that is in specific difficulty, and that the poor give more generously
to help their own kind than do those who are more well-to-do. It was a
conviction of these principles of friendliness and neighborliness that
led to the first social settlements. Because a person lives in an
undesirable part of the city he is not necessarily a subject for
charity, and the settlement is in no sense to be thought of as a
charitable agency. It is a home established among the less-favored
part of the population by educated, refined, sympathetic people who
want to be neighborly and to bring courage and cheer and helpfulness
to the struggling masses. The original residents of Hull House in
Chicago believed that class alienation could be overcome best by the
establishment of intimate social relationships, and they were willing
to sacrifice their natural social advantages for the larger good.
Settlements are not exclusively of the city, but the stress of life is
sternest in the cities, and most of the experiments have been made
there. They are oases in the desert of the buildings and pavements of
brick, with their grime and monotony, and if the people of the desert
will camp for an hour and drink of the spring, those who have planted
the oasis will be well pleased. To attract them the settlement workers
have organized clubs and classes for united study and activity in
matters that naturally interest the people of the neighborhood; they
have music and dancing and amateur theatricals, and often they supply
domestic or industrial training in a small way for the young people
who frequent the settlement. The residents aim to give the people what
they want; they do not impose anything upon them. They try to satisfy
economic and social wants. They try to stimulate the people of the
neighborhood to desire the best things that they can get. They
co-operate with the police and other departments of the city
government, with the library, and with the school. They assist in
procuring work for those who want it; they encourage the people to be
thrifty and temperate; they help them to get baths and gymnastic
facilities, playgrounds, and social centres. They frequently carry on
investigations that are of great value and assist charitable agencies
in their inquiries and beneficence. They call frequently upon the
people in their homes and encourage them to ask for counsel and help
if they are in trouble.
The settlement idea grew out of a growing interest in the common
people. It was stimulated by Maurice's establishment at London of a
working man's college, with recent Cambridge graduates as teachers,
and by university extension work in Cambridge; it was suggested
further by the location of Edward Denison in the East End of London in
1867. In 1885 Canon Barnett, of St. Jude's Church, London, founded
Toynbee Hall under Oxford auspices. The first settlement in the United
States was established in New York in 1887, and soon became known as
the University Settlement. Hull House in Chicago was started two years
later; the first settlement in Boston was founded under the auspices
of the Andover Theological Seminary. Most settlements avoid church
connections, because of the danger of misunderstandings among people
of widely differing faiths.
The settlement has existed long enough to become a true social
institution. It has remained true to its original principle of
neighborliness, but it has increased its activities as occasion
demanded. It has been a useful object-lesson to churches and city
governments; some of its methods have been imitated, and in some of
the cities its efforts have become unnecessary in certain directions
because the city government itself has adopted its plans. The
settlement has its critics and its devoted supporters; it is one of
the voluntary experiments that shows the spirit of its promoters and
that helps along social progress, and it must be estimated among the
assets of a community. Here and there in the country among certain
groups, as lumbermen, miners, or construction workers, or even in a
settled town, many of the methods of the settlement are likely to find
acceptance, and the settlement idea of neighborliness is fundamental
to all happy and successful social life.
READING REFERENCES
DEVINE: _Principles of Relief_, pages 10-28, 171-181.
WARNER: _American Charities_, pages 301-393.
CONYNGTON: _How to Help_, pages 56-219.
HENDERSON: _Modern Methods of Charity_, pages 380-511.
HENDERSON: _Social Settlements._
ADDAMS: _Twenty Years at Hull House_, pages 89-153.