aims? It is not my purpose either to defend or to attack. I have only to
state what is being done. Nothing can be attempted in this direction
that is not open to abuses of one kind or another. The relief of
distress encourages the idle; help of every kind is seized upon by the
fraud and the impostor; if we feed and clothe the children their parents
have more money for drink; the most we can do is to choose the line that
seems open to the fewest objections and to exercise the most unremitting
vigilance, care, and caution. The worst feature in the whole chapter of
modern charity is that love and forbearance the most unwearied, devotion
the most unselfish, seem too often only to pauperize the people, to
induce more impudent frauds. But not always; we must take the line of
the greatest, not the least, resistance,—that which is hardest for the
worker, and certainly most unpopular with the subjects,—and we must
judge of results from what follows. All modern philanthropic effort
must, in order to be successful, be based upon the people understanding
quite clearly that such effort cannot, by any ingenuity or any lies and
legends, be turned to the encouragement of those who will not work.
I begin with the parish. There is at the present moment no more active
clergy in the world than our own; there is no organization more complete
than that of a well-worked London parish. The young men who now take
Holy Orders know, at the outset, that they must lead lives of perpetual
activity. There are the services of the parish church, with outlying
mission churches; there are Sunday-schools, there are clubs, there are
mothers’ meetings, there are amusements for the people—concerts and
entertainments for the winter; there is the supervision of the visiting
ladies who go about the parish and learn the history of all the tenants
in all the courts. There is the choir to be looked after, there are the
sick to be cared for, there are always people in distress and in need of
help—people for whom the vestry officers and workhouse officers can do
nothing; the despairing young clergyman very soon finds out that the
more you give to people who want help, the more people there are who
clamor for help; he has to learn, you see, the great lesson that in
certain social levels, where not to work should mean not to eat, no one
will do a stroke of work if he can avoid it. Some of the clergy never do
learn this lesson; they go on, all their lives, giving, doling,
distributing, and pauperizing.
The organization of a London parish on the modern line is amazing in the
extent of the aims and the variety of the work done. I have before me
the annual report of a parish. From this document, which is like most of
the other parochial annuals, it would seem the resolved endeavor of the
clergy to make every kind of helpful and civilized work spring from the
church and rest upon the church. In this report there are notices of
seventy-five associations of various kinds; among them are gilds and
fraternities, schools and classes; there are institutions purely
religious and purely secular; with the Bible classes and the gilds we
find the penny bank, the sharing club, the sale of clothes, the library,
the maternity society, the mothers’ meetings, the cookery class, and the
blanket society. All these associations are conducted by the vicar and
his four curates, assisted by a voluntary staff of about twenty ladies.
It is evident that without unpaid and voluntary assistance the work
could not be even attempted. The remarkable point—the “note” of the
time—is that this voluntary assistance is like the widow’s cruse—it
never fails.
[Illustration: The East London Mission.]
If, on the other hand, it is asked how far the people respond to the
assumption that everything is done by the church, it is necessary to
reply that the church, as a rule, remains comparatively empty. We have
seen elsewhere that the percentage of attendance at the Sunday services
of the parish or the district church was, fourteen years ago, a little
over three. Occasionally, however, when the vicar is a man of
exceptional character, one who succeeds in winning the respect and the
affection of the people so that they will follow him even into his
church, the services are well attended, and in the evening crowded.
There is, for example, a church in a district—a very poor and humble
district near Shoreditch: the church was built through the exertions of
the present vicar, who has succeeded in making the people attend. The
history of the man partly explains the phenomenon. Fifteen years ago,
when he went there, the place, consisting of a dozen miserable streets,
was one of the vilest kind. Violence, robbery, drunkenness, murder, life
in the most uncleanly forms imaginable prevailed in this slice of a
large, crowded parish, which this man cut off to make a parish by
itself. He sat down in the midst of them all, and he began. Observe that
the first lesson he had to teach them was that he was not afraid of
them; he was neither afraid of their threats nor of their proffered
violence nor of their tongues; he went about among the women—the owners
of those tongues—and opened up conversation with them; he spoke them
friendly; they gave him the retort unfriendly; he replied readily and
boldly, carrying the laugh against his adversaries; the common bludgeon
of Billingsgate he met with the gentle rapier of “chaff,” insomuch that
the women were first infuriated, then silenced, and then reduced to
friendliness, and, in this more desirable frame of mind, so remain. He
put up a temporary church; beside the church he started schools; he
opened a club for lads and the younger men; he provided his club with
things that attracted them—rough games and gymnastics; more than this,
he gave them boxing-gloves and taught them how to fight according to the
strict rules of the prize-ring. You think that this is not the ideal
amusement for a clergyman—wait a bit. The rules of the prize-ring are
rigid rules; they demand a good deal of study; they make boxing a duello
conducted according to rules of honor and courtesy. Now, when a lad has
learned to handle the gloves according to the rules he becomes a
stickler for them. Like Mrs. Battle over a game of whist, he exacts the
rigor of the game. As for the old methods—the stones in the knotted
handkerchief, the club, the short iron rod, and the cowardly boot—he
will have no more of them. Moreover, fifteen minutes with a stout
adversary, two or three returns to earth, and a shake-hand at the end,
knock the devil out of a lad—the devil of restlessness and of
pugnacity—give him a standard of honor, and make the rough-and-tumble in
the street no longer worthy of consideration.
Then the vicar built a “doss-house,” a place where men could sleep in
peace and cleanliness. And he lived among his people, spending every
evening of his life in club and doss-house and all day in the parish, so
that the people trusted him more and more; and not only did his club
overflow, but his church also began to fill—by this time it is no longer
a temporary thing of iron, but a lovely church, with painted windows and
carved work. In his services there is plenty of singing; he has
processions, which the people like, with banners and crosses, the choir
singing as they go. He also has incense, which I have never understood
to be other than a barbaric survival. Nor can I understand how any one
can endure the smell. Still, I suppose the people like it or he would
not have it, and, after all, for those who do like the smell it is
apparently harmless.
How many others have tried the same methods, but have failed! Why?
Because the one thing necessary for success in such work as this—nine
parts philanthropic and one part religious—is the magnetic power which
we call, in practical work, sympathy, and, in art or literature, genius.
The clergy, with or without this magnetic power, work day and night.
Never before has the Church of England possessed a clergy more devoted
to practical work. Never before, alas! has the Church possessed so few
scholars or so few preachers. Learning, save for a scholar here and
there, has deserted the Church of England. Eloquence has passed from her
pulpits to those of the Nonconformists. But the clergy work.
Unfortunately, the parishes are large; even a district church has often
ten thousand people or more, and those mostly poor, so that the struggle
would be, if it were not supplemented, almost hopeless.
It is supplemented in many ways. To begin with, in its civilizing work,
by the Board-school. The action of the London School Board is always
subjected to the fiercest light of hostile criticism, especially that of
the ratepayers, who have seen with disgust the rate mounting year by
year. There is, however, a consensus of agreement that the influence of
the schools has been to humanize the people in a manner actually visible
to all. The results are before us. The children of to-day are, it is
confessed even by opponents to the policy of the School Board, in every
respect better than those of twenty years ago, and this although,
despite laws and inspectors, there are still many children who escape
the meshes of the school net. The mothers understand that the teachers
demand certain things of them; that the children must present themselves
with hands and faces washed and with some attempt at neatness in their
dress; this gives rise to a certain shame at letting the children go
unwashed; perhaps, also, the thought of the school tyranny makes the
father remember on Saturday afternoon the responsibility of the
children, even to knocking off a pint or so.
As for the children themselves, they love the school and the teachers
and the lessons; this part of the day is their happiness. Whether in the
after life they will remember much of the scraps they learned—crumbs of
knowledge: the historical crumb, the geographical crumb—I know not, but
the important lessons of order and obedience are not readily forgotten;
they will remain; when these children grow up some of them will perhaps
join the company of disorder; but they will be rebels, not untaught
savages who know no law.
I have already spoken of the clubs for boys and girls. These clubs are
simply invaluable. They take the young people at a time when habits are
most easily formed, at a time of life when it is most desirable to give
them occupation and pursuits which will take them away from the dangers
of the streets.
For the better class of boys, those who should be taught the better
trades, especially those which require a knowledge of drawing,
designing, or machinery, there are the continuation schools, which are
carried on in the evening, and the Polytechnics. A Polytechnic is to the
young working lad what a public school or a college is to the upper
class. It not only teaches him a trade, that by which he is to live, but
it gives him discipline, obedience, responsibility, and the sense of
duty. It makes a man of him; it gives him honor and self-respect. There
are now lads in the London Polytechnics by thousands; many of them will
go out to the colonies; whether they emigrate or whether they stay at
home, they will become the very cream and flower of the working-people;
they will stand up wherever fate leads them as lifelong champions for
soberness and for industry. Not for them will be the wild dreams of
anarchy; not for them the follies of an impossible socialism; not for
them the derision of religion; not for them the hatred of the rich or
the jealousy of class. Not the least among the benefits and advantages
of the Polytechnic is the _esprit de corps_ promoted among them; they
are as proud of their “Poly” as any lad of Eton or any man of Balliol.
And the latest arrival from the place, wherever he goes, is sure to find
friends and advisers and helpers among the old boys of his “Poly.”
The Helping Hand in education is of such great importance that one may
dwell a little upon the machinery by which a clever and persevering lad
may rise from the very lowest levels to any honor or distinction which
the country has to offer. It is chiefly the Technical Education Board, a
body which has been in existence for some ten years, which supplies the
ladders. This Board is empowered by the London County Council to assist
in supplying technical instruction to schools and institutions which are
not conducted for private profit. The Board spends the sum of £170,000 a
year in maintaining and developing classes for technical education. The
most important of these institutions are the Polytechnics above
mentioned. There are twelve of these in and about London, of which two
are in our quarter of East London. The number of students in
Polytechnics—all of them, it is needless to say, of the
working-class—amounts to 45,000. The cost of maintaining them is
£120,000, of which the Board of Technical Education contributes £30,000;
a large sum is given by the City Charities Commission, and the rest is
given by half a dozen rich City companies. It is evident we have here a
very serious attempt at providing technical education for lads who are
to become the skilled workmen of the future. Formerly they were
apprenticed to various trades; the system of apprenticeship has fallen
into disuse; but it is found highly necessary, if this country is to
hold her own against foreign competition, to train the lads in workshops
and laboratories where they may learn every branch of their own trade.
There are excellent and fully equipped laboratories at the People’s
Palace and one or two other Polytechnics. As for the trades taught, they
are far too numerous to set down. All those trades which are connected
with engineering, with metal work, with gold- and silver-smiths’ work,
with enameling, wood engraving, bookbinding, decorating and painting,
carpentry, furniture- and cabinet-making, and a hundred other trades are
taught in these colleges of industry. There are art schools also for the
teaching of design, decoration, and all the art requirements of the
trades.
For the encouragement of the lads who have left school and are willing
to carry on their work the continuation classes were formed. The
Technical Board has established a system of scholarships by which a
ladder is placed in readiness for any boy or girl who can climb it.
There are six hundred small scholarships given every year by examination
to boys and girls who have passed the sixth standard in the elementary
schools; they are in value £8 for the first year, and £12 for the second
year. After two years the second ladder is reached. The student who has
shown, so far, that he is able to climb the ladder and would now give
further proof of ability, must be under sixteen, and his parents must
not be in the receipt of more than £400 a year. He may then gain by open
competition a scholarship giving him free education at some recognized
college of higher education, together with about £30 a year in money.
After three years, if he is able to climb still higher,—the number of
competitors now narrows,—he has a grand chance before him; he may win a
scholarship giving him free education at any university he may choose,
with £60 a year, tenable for three years. There are at present many such
scholars in residence at Oxford, Cambridge, and other universities.
In addition to these, the Board gives scholarships for art, for science
and technology, for horticulture, for sanitary science, and for domestic
economy. Besides this industrial help, the Board provides lectures,
especially for clerks, on commercial subjects.
It will be understood that by means of these scholarships a boy may work
his way, at little or no cost to his friends, from the position of
craftsman to that of a graduate in honors of Oxford and Cambridge. Think
what this means! The boy is lifted straight from the life of manual
labor, very likely monotonous labor, which is the lot of most, in which
he can never attain to fortune, honor, or distinction, to the life of
intellectual work; his companions will be those who stand in the very
forefront of science, literature, and art. A fellowship at his college
will enable him to be called to the bar; he may then aspire, with
reasonable hopes of success, to the honors of Queen’s counsel, Judge,
Solicitor-General, Chief Justice, or even Lord Chancellor. He may go
into the Church, and look forward, if with learning he has acquired
administrative power and preaching power, and, let us add, manners, to
becoming a bishop; he may remain at the university, a lecturer and
teacher of his own subject; he may become a professor of science, or he
may become an expounder of history. He may become a physician or a
surgeon. He may become a journalist, a dramatist, a novelist, a poet.
Whatever line he enters upon, he has climbed, by means of these three
ladders, up into the higher ranks, with all that the word means. He has
become, if he chooses,—and he cannot help choosing,—a gentleman. The
poor lad who climbs up does not always, it is true, become a gentleman.
Sometimes there remain still clinging to him certain rusticities;
sometimes ancestral traits, such as a thirst for strong drink, seize
him. As a rule, however, the lad who has climbed remains, he and his
children after him, in the rank, so dear to the British soul, of
undoubted gentility. If the sins of the father are visited upon the
children, then, surely the achievements and the virtues of the father
shall bring their rewards to the children—yea, even unto the third and
fourth generation.
[Illustration: The New Model Dwellings.]
After the parish work and the work of education I had placed that of
housing, but this has already been sufficiently considered.
The care of the sick comes next upon my list. There is a continual cry
ascending to the regions of the rich concerning the insufficiency of
hospital endowments. There is certainly no city better provided with
hospitals than London, nor any city where more money is annually
subscribed for their maintenance, nor any where the medical staff are
paid so little and do so much. In East London there is the magnificent
foundation of the London Hospital, which receives 11,500 in-patients
every year, has an endowment of £20,000 a year, and an additional
income, from voluntary subscriptions, of £40,000 a year. The story of
the Children’s Hospital and its beginnings in the hamlet of Ratcliffe
has been already told. And there are, in addition, “homes” of all kinds,
crêches for infants, nursing societies, and dispensaries. One mentions
these in passing, but a catalogue of endowments is not necessary.
Among the organizations for help must not be forgotten the fraternities
for mutual assistance, such as the Odd Fellows, the Foresters, and the
Hearts of Oak. These associations do not belong exclusively to East
London, but they have extensive branches here, and are, I believe, well
managed and on sound principles. They offer assistance in times of
misfortune, medical aid in sickness, and care of the widows and
fatherless. In this place they can only be mentioned.
For the women, a very large society is that called the
M.A.B.Y.S.—_i.e._, the “Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young
Servants.” It began by befriending young servants from the
workhouse—girls generally friendless and very forlorn—and has now
extended its work to include all young servants. Every lady in the
society undertakes the care of one or more servants, whom she visits or
invites to her own house on the Sunday “out.” These friendships are
often lifelong, and produce the best possible results.
The position of the workhouse girl is sometimes very pitiful. One such
girl recently came to my knowledge. In this case the girl had been
picked up as a baby in the streets; she had no family, no name, no
friends, no birthday even. When she found a friend in the M.A.B.Y.S. she
asked permission to take her friend’s birthday for her own, and to call
her friend’s cook her aunt, so that she might feel that she too could
enjoy, if only in imagination, what all the rest of the world
possesses—a birthday and a family.
There are six or seven free libraries in East London. Who was the
benefactor to humanity who first invented or discovered the free
library? Who was the philanthropist who first advocated the free
library? I do not know. But when one realizes what the free library
means one is carried away by admiration and gratitude. By means of the
free library we actually give to every person, however poor,—we _give_
him, as a free gift,—the whole of the literature of the world. If he
were a millionaire he could not acquire a greater gift that the poorest
lad enjoys who lives near a good free library. He can take books home
with him; he can study any subject he likes, if he is a student; or he
may read for his own pleasure only, and for amusement. More than this,
since none but good and worthy literature should be admitted to the free
library the readers cannot use its treasures without forming, purifying,
and elevating their taste. Now, taste in literature leads naturally, it
is believed by some, to corresponding preferences as regards the major
and the minor virtues and their opposites. For my own part, I regard the
librarian of a free library as a guardian of morals, a censor, a
teacher; those who receive books of him receive the continual
admonitions of the wisest and the best of men. A course of Shakspere is
in itself an education; a course of Scott may be said to teach history;
and a course of the best fiction in our language teaches what is meant
by the grand old name of gentleman. I look for the time when the demand
for books by the mass of the public will be in itself a selection of the
best and finest; when it will be impossible to reproach the people, as
is done to-day, with buying the ephemeral trash that is offered at a
penny, and neglecting the scholars and the poets and the wise ones of
ancient days. The free library is doing for the working-people what the
circulating library cannot do for its readers who go in broadcloth and
in silk. In the time to come, in the immediate future, it will perhaps
be the latter who read the rubbish and the former who will create the
demand for the nobler and the higher work.
Mention has already been made of the Sunday afternoon lecture. Other
attempts have been made to brighten the Sunday afternoon, always in
winter a difficult time to get through. There are organ recitals at the
People’s Palace, social meetings, with talk and sometimes lantern views,
and short addresses.
Perhaps the work that is done in East London for the waifs and strays is
the most remarkable, as it is certainly the most interesting.
[Illustration: Dr. Barnardo’s Home, Stepney Causeway.]