welfare of destitute and neglected children by such means as shall be
best for them and for the community. Our _method_ of accomplishing
this object is:
1. By placing such children in carefully selected private families,
mostly in the country, paying a moderate rate of board where
necessary, and following up each case with such inquiry and
supervision as may secure to the child the conditions of physical and
moral well-being.
2. By utilizing existing institutions for children as temporary homes,
while permanent family places are being sought.
3. By putting, so far as possible, the support of a child upon its
relatives or parents, legitimate or otherwise, and by preventing the
needless separation of mothers and children.
4. By keeping an open office (39 South Seventeenth Street,
Philadelphia), where any citizen can receive free information about
public provision and private opportunities for homeless children.
5. By organizing, in the cities and counties of Pennsylvania,
auxiliary societies under the direction of capable and willing women,
who will not only help find good country homes for the poor children
of Philadelphia, but will also care for the destitute and pauper
children of their own localities.
Our experience and observation abundantly confirm the following
conclusions:
1. That there is no need of any more public institutions for the care
of destitute children, and that much of the money now devoted to
orphanages, etc., might be more usefully spent in securing homes for
such children in private families and paying their board.
2. That there is no serious difficulty in finding suitable private
homes, on the boarding-out plan, for all homeless children, excepting
such as require treatment in hospitals or training in idiot asylums.
3. That children brought up in institutions are not so well fitted for
their later life outside such institutions as those reared in
families. Congregated in large numbers, they run greater risks of
contagious disease; they lead an unnatural life of monotony or
stimulation; they must all be treated alike, with a minimum of
personal regard; they are often at the mercy of hired care-takers with
little parental feeling.
4. Child-caring institutions are nevertheless important as temporary
homes, or as receiving and forwarding houses for the children, while
permanent places are being found.
5. The law forbidding the detention of children in almshouses can best
be carried out by the co-operation of the Directors of the Poor, with
voluntary associations of discreet and benevolent women, who are
willing to find places for the children, look after their welfare, and
report to the Directors. It is for the interest of the tax-payers that
these children be taken out of the pauper class as soon as possible
and absorbed in the community.
6. In a county where such an association exists, and where the
Directors make fair allowance for the support of the children, there
is no excuse for detaining any child in the headquarters for paupers
and no need for creating an institution for pauper children.... A very
important and constantly increasing feature of our work seeks the
welfare of the child by promoting that of the mother. Almost every day
women bring their babies to the office with a pitiful tale of poverty,
misfortune, and alas! often of crime, asking sometimes to have their
little ones taken and provided for either to save themselves the
burden, or to conceal their own disgrace.
The Society has always felt and endeavored to perform its solemn duty
in such cases, which consists in keeping the child and mother
together, making each the guardian of the other, and preserving the
tie as the strongest incentive to a better life on the part of the
mother. The interests of the child demand this, unless its natural
protector should prove herself totally unfit for the simplest duties
of motherhood.
Many respectable families in the country are glad to receive the
services of an able-bodied, though inefficient woman, in return for
low wages, and the privilege of allowing a small child to run about
the house. In this way, these poor creatures are encouraged to regain
the path of honesty and virtue, and, as the child grows older, its
love and helpless demands form the strongest barrier which can
surround the mother’s life.
The work of placing these women at service has increased to such an
extent that the entire attention of one person might be given to this
department.
Besides the mother and her child the Society deals with a third member
of this caricature of family life, namely, the father. Here the strong
arm of the law is required to fix the responsibility, secure support
for the child, and, if possible, to punish the wrong-doer. The
services of our Solicitor are in constant requisition for this
retributive task....
The Children’s Aid Society of Pennsylvania has forty-four County
Committees, besides its Central Board in Philadelphia.
In Connecticut, County Homes have been opened (under Laws of 1883–4–5)
to receive temporarily children dependent upon the public, and
committees, composed almost exclusively of women, appointed to supervise
these Homes and find permanent homes in families for the children.
In Massachusetts, women are appointed as members of the Board of
Managers of the State schools for delinquent and dependent children, and
a very important work for women has been developed in caring for such
children outside the schools. In order not to injure the boy or girl by
longer retention in the school than is absolutely required for training,
each one is, at the earliest moment when his progress warrants the
trial, placed in a family to work; but that the trial may be as
favorable as possible, for each child so placed, a volunteer friend is
found by the Board in the neighborhood, who is to watch over and give
advice and assistance both to the child and its guardian. There are at
present (October, 1889) eighty-four of these women visitors, officially
appointed and recognized by the State as part of its system of caring
for dependent and delinquent children. Of these children, thus freed
from the weakening influence of a too long extended institution life,
there are now in Massachusetts 1063 boys and girls under this State
care.
This special work (of taking dependent children from poorhouses and
other public institutions and placing them in private families, thus
returning to a natural and happy life those who, but for such
transplanting, would have been doomed to grow up tainted with pauperism
and vice) owes its inception to the personal devotion and the labor of
years of individual women in certain counties of Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and New York. But for the proof of its wisdom and
practicability which they gave by their successful work, it would never
have assumed the position it now holds. These women have not only saved
the individual children whom they took from vile surroundings, amid the
contaminating companionship of the lowest of men and women, but they
have set an example which is spreading over the country and which will
change for the better the future of whole States.
The Women’s Prison Association of New York visits the prisons of New
York and Brooklyn, and within a few years the Women’s Christian
Temperance Union has organized a department of prison work, which will
be spoken of elsewhere in this book,[191] but until their attention was
thus called to the horrible evils of the county jails of this country,
its women, with the rarest exceptions, seemed absolutely ignorant of
this great national wickedness. In Massachusetts women are, and have
been for a few years, members of the Prison Board, and in Massachusetts,
Indiana, and New York, there are State prisons and reformatories for
women under the charge of women officers.
Women are peculiarly fitted for the work of inspecting public
institutions, and it would be much better if, in every community,
instead of starting so many private institutions of charity, they would
give their attention to the oversight of the public institutions,
already necessarily existing, and which, too often, by their
mismanagement, very much increase, not only the sufferings of the
miserable people already in them, but also the number of those who will
hereafter have to be supported as inmates.
II. Another class of sufferers needing tender care are the inmates of
private Homes for old people, convalescents, and incurables; and of
hospitals, reformatories, and asylums for children. Such institutions as
these are usually established and managed by women, excepting the
hospitals, which, though under the care of men, often have an associate
board of women to take the oversight of the daily comfort of the
patients.
The Homes for the aged in our cities are many of them established by
churches for their dependent members, and in almost all an entrance fee
is required. There are Homes for aged married couples in some of our
cities, and in many, also, a free Home for old men and women, maintained
by the Roman Catholic Little Sisters of the Poor, who receive inmates,
however, of every faith.
Of Homes for convalescents and incurables there are very few,
comparatively, though it would seem as if the hard lot of these two
classes of sufferers would appeal most strongly to tender-hearted women.
In no one community, however, have we adequate provision for them, and
they languish, unwelcome inmates of hospitals and poorhouses. There is a
small Home for Incurables in Boston, founded by a young Roman Catholic
Irishwoman, who earned her daily bread by hair-dressing, and who for
four years had given all her spare time and money to the care of one
dying girl after another, until she was enabled, by the help of friends
for whom she worked, to open the Channing Home, which from that time to
this (now long after her death) has been a refuge for poor consumptive
girls and crippled women.
Reformatories for women are, strangely enough, often established by men.
It would seem as if no work could be more appropriate to women, and as
if there were no field which they should more quickly have occupied
entirely to the exclusion of men; but although there are a number of
such institutions for both girls and women in different parts of the
country, to whose management good women have devoted themselves, there
is still room for many more, in which women (especially young women) who
are a danger to themselves and others, ought to be shut away from
temptation and the opportunity to tempt.
Women’s work in hospitals and in care for the sick is to be treated
elsewhere in this book.
The Homes for children, which abound in almost every part of the
country, have all had their growth in less than ninety years, the very
first one established being the Boston Female Asylum, opened in 1800,
and incorporated in 1803, established by women whose granddaughters and
great-granddaughters are now numbered among the managers.
There is a great deal of devoted, earnest work given both by the outside
Boards who control these Homes and by the officers who take the daily
care of the thousands of children in them; there is the wish to do real
good, and, especially among the Sisterhoods, whose whole lives are given
up to the work of ministering to these children, there is often absolute
self-sacrifice; but it is too frequently open to question whether the
real benefit done is equal to the benevolence which prompts the doing.
In these institutions the children are generally treated kindly, but the
managers, unfortunately, too often fail to see the bad effects of the
institution life both upon the child and upon society as a whole; and,
though they may suspect their existence, they usually feel helpless to
remedy these evils, scarcely having courage to enter on new ways of
caring for their charges.
One institution, which for thirty-one years had continued in the old
way, was closed under circumstances most creditable to the managers, and
the history of the Union Temporary Home of Philadelphia deserves a place
in this article as an example to the management of other similar
institutions.
At the thirty-first annual meeting in January, 1887, the following
resolution was adopted:
_Resolved_, That in the judgment of this meeting it is advisable that
our building be closed at an early day; that all our property be
converted into an income-bearing fund; that under the direction of a
special executive committee chosen from the Council, or the Board of
Managers, or both, said income shall be applied, according to the
declared object of our constitution, in paying for the temporary board
and care of “children of the poor;” that the term “Home” be construed
to include any house or household in which such children are placed;
and that the machinery of the Children’s Aid Society be used for
obtaining, investigating, and supervising such boarding-homes; that
all the rights of parents be duly respected, and they still be held to
pay a share, wherever practicable; and that our Board of Managers, or
such committees as they may appoint, represent this corporation in
carrying out these arrangements, and in the performances of whatever
duties may be required to secure the execution of our trust and the
welfare of the children.
Some of the reasons for this action are given in the following extracts
from a paper submitted by the managers to the meeting:
In taking action which looks toward co-operation with another body, we
have been moved by considerations which affect profoundly three
interests: (1) Those of the parents and guardians of the children
admitted to the Home; (2) those of the public which is asked to give
it support; (3) most of all, those of the children.
I. Since the Home was started, thirty years ago, the population of
Philadelphia has increased from about 500,000 to nearly 1,000,000. In
such a vast and dense mass of human beings, personal relations between
giver and receiver have become more difficult, and the indiscriminate
charity which encourages pauperism has been a cause of growing
concern. A habit of dependence, which takes advantage of every
opportunity to live by public or private charity, is widespread; and
the growth of false, communistic views makes necessary more guarded
methods than those which may serve in smaller communities, with
simpler social conditions.
The history of our own institution, as the managers well know, shows a
constant pressure for the admission of children whose parents are able
to support them, but are naturally disposed to do this at the lowest
possible cost, and that we have also been furnishing easy facilities
for those who desire, for selfish reasons, to rid themselves of the
presence and care of their little ones. The charitable feature of the
institution, or the fact that a part of the expense is borne by our
contributors, is disguised by the fact that we are accustomed to
charge $1.25 to $1.50 a week for each child, so that the institution
is regarded by such parents simply _as a cheap boarding-house for
children_. We believe that many, who could themselves bear the entire
cost with no serious hardship, are tempted to magnify their own
disability by the fatal facilities afforded by a well-meant charity.
Some of this class are doubtless in need of help, but it should not
come in this delusive form. They may want friendly counsel and wise
direction in finding suitable homes; and they may sometimes be
assisted by kindly oversight of these homes and of their children. It
is in our power to secure for them these advantages, with added
pecuniary assistance where needed, by utilizing the methods of the
Children’s Aid Society, which is also a Bureau of Information.
* * * * *
III. The most important consideration relates to the children. No mere
saving of money would justify a change which threatened injury to the
least of these little ones. But a majority of the managers are
convinced, by observation and experience, that life in the average
institution is not so good for children as life in the average
household. None can realize that so fully as those who are best
acquainted with the inner workings and vicissitudes of child-caring
institutions. We have sought to guard our children from the worst
effects by providing a kindergarten for the younger ones, and by
sending the elder to the public schools; and they have enjoyed the
care and kindness of an exceptionally competent and faithful matron;
but the total result has compelled us to the same conclusion with many
tried workers in charity,—viz.: that the children can best be fitted
for the life they must live in the world by being placed in good
families.
The testimony of two gentlemen on our Board of Council, both
experienced as heads of great industrial enterprises, is that
institution boys are generally the least desirable apprentices. They
have been dulled in faculty by not having been daily exercised in the
use of themselves in small ways ... have had all particulars of life
arranged for them, and, as a consequence, they wait for some one else
to arrange every piece of work, and are never ready for emergencies or
able to “take hold.”
One great evil of institutions for children is quite overlooked—the
effect on the parents of relieving them of the care of their
children,—because the attention of the managers is almost exclusively
devoted to the care of the children while in the institution; they do
not think it part of their duty to study the family from which the child
was taken, or the influences which surrounded it before it came under
their charge; nor do they, with rare exceptions, follow the children’s
lives with any systematic care after they leave them. They thus know
nothing of the results of their own work, and may be doing great evil,
where they wish only to do good.
In Dorchester, Mass., there is a small “Industrial School for Girls,”
which seems to be especially distinguished from most other Homes of the
kind, by the thorough and systematic manner in which the children who
have left the school are watched over. Besides the standing committee on
“placing out,” which is required to report to the managers once in three
months concerning the girls under its charge (those who, having been
fitted in the school for household work, have been put into places to
earn their living), a “Committee on Friendly Guardianship” has been
created, whose duties are thus described in the report of the school for
the year 1887: “To keep a list of all girls leaving the school, who,
through the expiration of the papers placing them under our care, are no
longer formally wards of the school; to keep up a knowledge of these
girls and to report concerning their welfare twice a year, such report
to be added to the secretary’s records. The term Friendly Guardianship
is used to distinguish this oversight, which does not carry with it any
formal authority, from the usual school guardianship of girls who are
placed under our care for a period beyond that passed at school, and
which is recognized as authoritative by the girls themselves and by
their relatives, if they have any.”
In the report for 1888, it is stated that there are thirty-four girls
under direct school guardianship, thirty-five under the charge of the
Friendly Guardianship Committee, and an account is given of the present
condition of fifty-eight earlier school graduates. The following
reflection, found in the report, applies equally to other institutions
of the same character:
“The expense of caring for a child at the Industrial School is large as
compared with the cost of boarding in a private family, and this expense
can only be justified by keeping up a high standard in the school, and
by adding a large amount of personal work outside and beyond the school
for the girls who have gone out from it.”
Another Boston society (in whose establishment and management women have
always had a large part) is also distinguished for the continued
oversight of its charges after they have quitted the institutions it has
established. The Boston Children’s Aid Society maintains three distinct
farm schools for boys, in each of which a small number of boys (it is
the intention never to have more than thirty in any one school) are
under the care of a farmer and his wife, who teach them to work, while
they receive a common school education from a teacher in the house. The
majority of the boys, when received, are either under arrest, or are
threatened with arrest, and they are committed to the care of the
society for reformation. After such a term of training, as seems needed
in each case, the boys are generally sent to work in the country, and a
paid agent (a lady) has the oversight of them, writing to them and
visiting them. For the boys who have returned to Boston, a club has been
formed “to afford opportunities for studying the careers of the boys,
noting their progress, learning the plans of such as had plans, and
stimulating those who had none to form them, and in general arousing the
boys to a livelier sense of their duties and opportunities.”
The Boston Children’s Aid Society has also a certain number of girls
under its care, either at work or boarded in private families. The aim
of the society is to put the children in its charge into private
families as soon as they are fitted for such a life, and it had in 1888
more children outside its farm schools than in them to take care of.
We have so far been speaking of people living in institutions, living,
that is, under unnatural conditions, uprooted, as it were, from their
own place in life, and set in artificial surroundings. There are a third
and fourth class still to consider.
III. The third class are those who neither support themselves entirely
in self-respecting independence, nor are subject to the discipline of an
institution, those who are constantly being tempted to depend upon
others, to think their circumstances too hard for them, to regard as
unattainable the heights of self-support which the mass of mankind
reach,—the weak, the inefficient, the unwise, the self-indulgent,—in a
word, those who are unequal to the demands of life. They need all the
“help” they can get, but not of the kind which is usually given to them,
not that which enervates them, which encourages all their weaknesses,
which makes the dependent more dependent, the inefficient more
inefficient, the self-indulgent more self-indulgent. They need _real
help_, help to stand upon their own feet, help to respect themselves,
help to play their part in life with energy and intelligence, help to be
men and women, strong, self-dependent, ready to help others.
The “relief” which is poured out indiscriminately simply serves to check
their efforts at self-support, and to turn all their energies to the
pursuit of more “relief.” It is not that they are different from other
people; no human being will put forth greater exertion to sustain
himself in the way he likes than is required for that purpose. No man
will devote more time or more labor than is necessary to maintain
himself and his family at his own standard. If his standard is so low
that what comes to him in “relief” is enough for him, why should he
spend time and strength in getting more? But if his standard is so low,
then the help he needs is that which will raise his standard, but not
his standard of physical life only; far more important is it to raise
his moral standard,—to raise his character, so that degrading
surroundings cannot be endured, so that they cannot exist.
By the different kinds of “help” offered to those in want, they may be
trampled down into the mire and left, body and soul degraded, a curse to
themselves and others, or they may be lifted into the healthy,
self-respecting life of the men and women who do the work of the world,
of the mass of the people, who lead hard lives of struggle and
self-sacrifice, but whose intellects are strengthened, whose characters
are strengthened, whose souls are strengthened, by the daily and hourly
trials they meet and overcome.