SETTLEMENTS.
Settlements of University Men in Great Towns--Twenty-one Years of
University Settlements--The Beginning of Toynbee Hall.
SETTLEMENTS OF UNIVERSITY MEN IN GREAT TOWNS.[1]
BY CANON BARNETT.
[1] A paper read at a meeting in the rooms of Mr. Sidney Ball at St.
John’s College, Oxford, November, 1883.
“Something must be done” is the comment which follows the tale of
how the poor live. Those who make the comment have, however, their
business--their pieces of ground to see, their oxen to prove, their
wives to consider, and so there is among them a general agreement
that the “Something” must be done by Law or by Societies. “What can
I do?” is a more healthy comment, and it is a sign of the times that
this question is being widely asked, and by none more eagerly than by
members of the Universities. Undergraduates and graduates, long before
the late outcry, had become conscious that social conditions were not
right, and that they themselves were called to do something. It is nine
years since four or five Oxford undergraduates chose to spend part of
their vacation in East London, working as Charity Organization Agents,
becoming members of clubs, and teaching in classes or schools. It is
long since a well-known Oxford man said, “The great work of our time is
to connect centres of learning with centres of industry”. Freshmen have
become fellows, since the Master of Balliol recommended his hearers, at
a small meeting in the College Hall, to “find their friends among the
poor”.
Thus slowly has men’s attention been drawn to consider the social
condition of our great towns. The revelations of recent pamphlets have
fallen on ears prepared to hear. The fact that the wealth _of_ England
means only wealth _in_ England, and that the mass of the people live
without knowledge, without hope, and often without health has come home
to open minds and consciences. If inquiry has shown that statements have
been exaggerated, and the blame badly directed, it is nevertheless
evident that the best is the privilege of the few, and that the
Gospel--God’s message to this age--does not reach the poor. A workman’s
wages cannot procure for him the knowledge which means fullness of life,
or the leisure in which he might “possess his soul”. Hardly by saving
can he lay up for old age, and only by charity can he get the care of a
skilled physician. If it be thus with the first-class workman, the case
of the casual labourer, whose strength of mind and body is consumed by
anxiety, must be almost intolerable. Statistics, which show the number
in receipt of poor relief, the families which occupy single rooms, the
death rate in poor quarters, make a “cry” which it needs no words to
express.
The thought of the condition of the people has made a strange stirring
in the calm life of the Universities, and many men feel themselves
driven by a new spirit, possessed by a master idea. They are eager in
their talk and in their inquiries, and they ask “What can we do to help
the poor?”
A College Mission naturally suggests itself as a form in which the idea
should take shape. It seems as if all the members of a college might
unite in helping the poor, by adopting a district in a great town,
finding for it a clergyman and associating themselves in his work.
A Mission, however, has necessarily its limitations.
The clergyman begins with a hall into which he gathers a congregation,
and which he uses as a centre for “Mission” work. He himself is the only
link between the college and the poor. He gives frequent reports of his
progress, and enlists such personal help as he can, always keeping it in
mind that the “district” is destined to become a “parish”. Many
districts thus created in East London now take their places among the
regular parishes, and the income of the clergyman is paid by the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the patronage of the living is probably
with the Bishop, and the old connexion has become simply a matter of
history. Apart from the doubt whether this multiplication of parochial
organizations, with its consequent division of interests, represents a
wise policy, it is obvious that a college mission does not wholly cover
the idea which possessed the college. The social spirit fulfils itself
in many ways, and no one form is adequate to its total expression.
The idea was that all members of the college should unite in good work.
A college mission excludes Nonconformists. “Can we do nothing,”
complained one, “as we cannot join in building a church?”
The idea was to bring to bear the life of the University on the life of
the poor. The tendency of a mission is to limit efforts within the
recognized parochial machinery. “Can I help,” I am often asked, “in
social work, which is not necessarily connected with your church or
creed?” A college mission may--as many missions have done--result in
bringing devoted workers to the service of the poor--where a good man
leads, good must follow--but it is not, I think, the form best fitted to
receive the spirit which is at present moving the Universities.
As a form more adequate, I would suggest a Settlement of University men
in the midst of some great industrial centre.
In East London large houses are often to be found; they were formerly
the residences of the wealthy, but are now let out in tenements or as
warehouses. Such a house, affording sufficient sleeping rooms and large
reception rooms, might be taken by a college, fitted with furniture, and
(it may be) associated with its name. As director or head, some graduate
might be appointed, a man of the right spirit, trusted by all parties;
qualified by character to guide men, and by education to teach. He would
be maintained by the college just as the clergyman of the mission
district. Around such a man graduates and undergraduates would gather.
Some working in London as curates, barristers, government clerks,
medical students, or business men would be glad to make their home in
the house for long periods. They would find there less distraction and
more interest than in a West-End lodging. Others engaged elsewhere would
come to spend some weeks or months of the vacation, taking up such work
as was possible, touching with their lives the lives of the poor, and
learning for themselves facts which would revolutionize their minds.
There would be, of course, a graduated scale of payment so as to suit
the means of the various settlers, but the scale would have to be so
fixed as to cover the expense of board and lodging.
Let it, however, be assumed that the details have been arranged, and
that, under a wise director, a party of University men have settled in
East London. The director--welcomed here, as University men are always
welcomed--will have opened relations with the neighbouring clergy, and
with the various charitable agencies; he will have found out the clubs
and centres of social life, and he will have got some knowledge of the
bodies engaged in local government. His large rooms will have been
offered for classes, directed by the University Extension or Popular
Concert Societies, and for meetings of instruction or entertainment. He
will have thus won the reputation of a man with something to give, who
is willing to be friendly with his neighbours. At once he will be able
to introduce the settlers to duties, which will mean introductions to
friendships. Those to whom it is given to know the high things of God,
he will introduce to the clergy, who will guide them to find friends
among those who, in trouble and sickness, will listen to a life-giving
message. Honour men have confessed that they have found a key to life in
teaching the Bible to children, and not once nor twice has it happened
that old truths have seemed to take new meaning when spoken by a man
brought fresh from Oxford to face the poor. Those with the passion for
righteousness the director will bring face to face with the victims of
sin. In the degraded quarters of the town, in the wards of the
workhouses, they will find those to whom the friendship of the pure is
strange, and who are to be saved only by the mercy which can be angry as
well as pitiful. As I write, I recall one who was brought to us by an
undergraduate out of a wretched court, overwhelmed by the look and words
of his young enthusiasm. I recall another who was taken from the police
court by a Cambridge man, put to an Industrial School, and is now
touchingly grateful, not to him, but to God for the service. Some, whose
spare time is in the day, will become visitors for the Charity
Organization Society, Managers of Industrial and Public Elementary
Schools, Members of the Committees which direct Sanitary, Shoe Black,
and other Societies, and in these positions form friendships, which to
officials, weary of the dull routine, will let in light, and to the
poor, fearful of law, will give strength. Others who can spare time only
in the evening will teach classes, join clubs, and assist in
Co-operative and Friendly Societies, and they will, perhaps, be
surprised to find that they know so much that is useful when they see
the interest their talk arouses. In one club, I know, whist ceases to be
attractive when the gentleman is not there to talk. There are friendly
societies worked by artisans, which owe their success to the inspiration
of University men, and there is one branch of the Charity Organization
Society which still keeps the mark impressed on it, when a man of
culture did the lowest work.
The elder settlers will, perhaps, take up official positions. If they
could be qualified, they might be Vestry-men and Guardians, or they
might qualify themselves to become Schoolmasters. What University men
can do in local government is written on the face of parishes redeemed
from the demoralizing influence of out-relief, and cleansed by
well-administered law. Further reforms are already seen to be near, but
it has not entered into men’s imaginations to conceive the change for
good which might be wrought if men of culture would undertake the
education of the people. The younger settlers will always find
occupation day or night in playing with the boys, taking them in the
daytime to open spaces, or to visit London sights, amusing them in the
evening with games and songs. Unconsciously, they will set up a higher
standard of man’s life, and through friendship will commend to these
boys respect for manhood, honour for womanhood, reverence for God. Work
of such kind will be abundant, and, as it must result in the settlers
forming many acquaintances, the large rooms of the house will be much
used for receptions. Parties will be frequent, and whatever be the form
of entertainment provided, be it books or pictures, lectures or reading,
dancing or music, the guests will find that their pleasure lies in
intercourse. Social pleasure is unknown to those who have no large rooms
and no place for common meeting. The parties of the Settlement will thus
be attractive just in so far as they are useful. The more means of
intercourse they offer, the more will they be appreciated. The pleasure
which binds all together will give force to every method of good-doing,
be it the words of the preacher, spoken to the crowd, hushed, perhaps,
by the presence of death, or be it the laughter-making tale told during
the Saturday ramble in the country.
If something like this is to be the work of a College Settlement, “How
far,” it may be asked, “is it adequate to the hope of the college to do
something for the poor?” Obviously, it _affords an outlet for every form
of earnestness_. No man--call himself what he may--need be excluded from
the service of the poor on account of his views. No talent, be it called
spiritual or secular, need be lost on account of its unfitness to
existing machinery. If there be any virtue, if there be any good in man,
whatsoever is beautiful, whatsoever is pure in things will find a place
in the Settlement.
There is yet a fuller answer to the question. A Settlement enables men
to _live within sight of the poor_. Many a young man would be saved from
selfishness if he were allowed at once to translate feeling into action.
It is the facility for talk, and the ready suggestion that a money gift
is the best relief, which makes some dread lest, after this awakening of
interest, there may follow a deeper sleep. He who has, even for a month,
shared the life of the poor can never again rest in his old thoughts. If
with these obvious advantages, a Settlement seems to want that something
which association with religious forms gives to the mission, I can only
say that such association does not make work religious, if the workers
have not its spirit. If the director be such a man as I can imagine, and
if there be any truth in the saying that “Every one that loveth knoweth
God,” then it must be that the work of settlers, inspired and guided by
love, will be religious. The man in East London, who is the simplest
worker for God I know, has added members to many churches, and has no
sect or church of his own. The true religious teacher is he who makes
known God to man. God is manifest to every age by that which is the Best
of the age. The modern representatives of those who healed diseases,
taught the ignorant, and preached the Gospel to the poor, are those who
make common the Best which can be known or imagined. Christ the Son of
God is still the “Christ which is to be”--and even through our Best He
will be but darkly seen.
That such work as I have described would be useful in East London, I
myself have no doubt. The needs of East London are often urged, but they
are little understood. Its inhabitants are at one moment assumed to be
well paid workmen, who will get on if they are left to themselves; at
another, they are assumed to be outcasts, starving for the necessaries
of living. It is impossible but that misunderstanding should follow
ignorance, and at the present moment the West-End is ignorant of the
East-End. The want of that knowledge which comes only from the sight of
others’ daily life, and from sympathy with “the joys and sorrows in
widest commonalty spread,” is the source of the mistaken charity which
has done much to increase the hardness of the life of the poor.
The much-talked of East London is made up of miles of mean streets,
whose inhabitants are in no want of bread or even of better houses; here
and there are the courts now made familiar by descriptions. They are few
in number, and West-End visitors who have come to visit their
“neighbours” confess themselves--with a strange irony on their
motives--“disappointed that the people don’t look worse”.
The settlers will find themselves related to two distinct classes of
“the poor,” and it will be well if they keep in mind the fact that they
must serve both those who, like the artisans, need the necessaries for
_life_, and also those who, like casual labourers, need the necessaries
for _livelihood_. They will not of course come believing that their
Settlement will make the wicked good, the dull glad, and the poor rich,
but they may be assured that results will follow the sympathy born of
close neighbourhood. It will be something, if they are able to give to a
few the higher thoughts in which men’s minds can move, to suggest other
forms of recreation, and to open a view over the course of the river of
life as it flows to the Infinite Sea. It will be something if they
create among a few a distaste for dirt and disorder, if they make some
discontented with their degrading conditions, if they leaven public
opinion with the belief that the law which provides cleanliness, light
and order should be applied equally in all quarters of the town. It will
be something, if thus they give to the one class the ideal of life, and
stir up in the other those feelings of self-respect, without which
increased means of livelihood will be useless. It will be more if to
both classes they can show that selfishness or sin is the only really
bad thing, and that the best is not “too good for human nature’s daily
food”. Nothing that is divine is alien to man, and nothing which can be
learnt at the University is too good for East London.
Many have been the schemes of reform I have known, but, out of eleven
years’ experience, I would say that none touches the root of the evil
which does not _bring helper and helped into friendly relations_. Vain
will be higher education, music, art, or even the Gospel, unless they
come clothed in the life of brother men--“it took the Life to make God
known”. Vain, too, will be sanitary legislation and model dwellings,
unless the outcast are by friendly hands brought in one by one to habits
of cleanliness and order, to thoughts of righteousness and peace. “What
will save East London?” asked one of our University visitors of his
master. “The destruction of West London” was the answer, and, in so far
as he meant the abolition of the influences which divide rich and poor,
the answer was right. Not until the habits of the rich are changed, and
they are again content to breathe the same air and walk the same streets
as the poor, will East London be “saved”. Meantime a Settlement of
University men will do a little to remove the inequalities of life, as
the settlers share their best with the poor and learn through feeling
how they live. It was by residence among the poor that Edward Denison
learned the lessons which have taken shape in the new philanthropy of
our days. It was by visiting in East London that Arnold Toynbee fed the
interest which in later years became such a force at Oxford. It was
around a University man, who chose to live as our neighbour, that a
group of East Londoners gathered, attracted by the hope of learning
something and held together after five years by the joy which learning
gives. Men like Mr. Goschen and Professor Huxley have lately spoken out
their belief that the intercourse of the highest with the lowest is the
only solution of the social problem.
Settlers may thus join the Settlement, looking back to the example of
others and to the opinions of the wise--looking forward to the grandest
future which has risen on the horizon of hope. It may not be theirs to
see the future realized, but it is theirs to cheer themselves with the
thought of the time when the disinherited sons of God shall be received
into their Father’s house, when the poor will know the Higher Life as it
is being revealed to those who watch by the never silent spirit, when
daily drudgery will be irradiated with eternal thought, when neither
wealth nor poverty will hinder men in their pursuit of the Perfect life,
because everything which is Best will be made in love common to all.
SAMUEL A. BARNETT.
This paper was reprinted in February, 1884, when the following words and
names were added.
The following members of the University have undertaken to receive the
names of any graduates or undergraduates who feel disposed to join a
“Settlement” shortly or at any future time:--
The Rev. the Master of University.
The Hon. and Rev. W. H. Fremantle, Balliol.
A. Robinson, Esq., New College.
A. H. D. Acland, Esq., Christ Church.
A. Sidgwick, Esq., C.C.C.
W. H. Forbes, Esq., Balliol.
A. L. Smith, Esq., Balliol.
T. H. Warren, Esq., Magdalen.
S. Ball, Esq., St. John’s.
C. E. Dawkins, Esq., Balliol.
B. King, Esq., Balliol.
M. E. Sadler, Esq., Trinity.
H. D. Leigh, Esq., New College.
G. C. Lang, Esq., Balliol.
_Names should be sent in as soon as possible._
OXFORD, Feb., 1884.
THE BEGINNINGS OF TOYNBEE HALL.[1]
BY MRS. S. A. BARNETT.
1903.
[1] From “Towards Social Reform”. By kind permission of Messrs. Fisher
Unwin.
“How did the idea of a University Settlement arise?” “What was the
beginning?” are questions so often asked by Americans, Frenchmen,
Belgians, or the younger generations of earnest English people, that it
seems worth while to reply in print, and to trundle one’s mind back to
those early days of effort and loneliness before so many bore the burden
and shared the anxiety. The fear is that in putting pen to paper on
matters which are so closely bound up with our own lives, the sin of
egotism will be committed, or that a special plant, which is still
growing, may be damaged, as even weeds are if their roots are looked at.
And yet in the tale which has to be told there is so much that is
gladdening and strengthening to those who are fighting apparently
forlorn causes that I venture to tell it in the belief that to some our
experiences will give hope.
In the year 1869, Mr. Edward Denison took up his abode in East London.
He did not stay long nor accomplish much, but as he breathed the air of
the people he absorbed something of their sufferings, saw things from
their standpoint, and, as his letters in his memoirs show, made frequent
suggestions for social remedies. He was the first settler, and was
followed by the late Mr. Edmund Hollond, to whom my husband and I owe
our life in Whitechapel. He was ever on the outlook for men and women
who cared for the people, and hearing that we wished to come Eastward,
wrote to Dr. Jackson, then Bishop of London, when the living of St.
Jude’s fell vacant in the autumn of 1872, and asked that it might be
offered to Mr. Barnett, who was at that time working as Curate at St.
Mary’s, Bryanston Square, with Mr. Fremantle, now the Dean of Ripon. I
have the Bishop’s letter, wise, kind and fatherly, the letter of a
general sending a young captain to a difficult outpost. “Do not hurry in
your decision,” he wrote, “it is the worst parish in my diocese,
inhabited mainly by a criminal population, and one which has I fear been
much corrupted by doles”.
How well I remember the day Mr. Barnett and I first came to see it!--a
sulky sort of drizzle filled the atmosphere; the streets, dirty and ill
kept, were crowded with vicious and bedraggled people, neglected
children, and overdriven cattle. The whole parish was a network of
courts and alleys, many houses being let out in furnished rooms at 8d. a
night--a bad system, which lent itself to every form of evil, to
thriftless habits, to untidiness, to loss of self-respect, to unruly
living, to vicious courses.
We did not “hurry in our decision,” but just before Christmas, 1872, Mr.
Barnett became vicar. A month later we were married, and took up our
life-work on 6 March, 1873, accompanied by our friend Edward Leonard,
who joined us, “to do what he could”; his “could” being ultimately the
establishment of the Whitechapel Committee of the Charity Organization
Society, and a change in the lives and ideals of a large number of young
people, whom he gathered round him to hear of the Christ he worshipped.
It would sound like exaggeration if I told my memories of those times.
The previous vicar had had a long and disabling illness, and all was out
of order. The church, unserved by either curate, choir, or officials,
was empty, dirty, unwarmed. Once the platform of popular preachers, Mr.
Hugh Allen, and Mr. (now Bishop) Thornton, it had had huge galleries
built to accommodate the crowds who came from all parts of London to
hear them--galleries which blocked the light, and made the subsequent
emptiness additionally oppressive. The schools were closed, the
schoolrooms all but devoid of furniture, the parish organization nil; no
Mothers’ meeting, no Sunday School, no communicants’ class, no library,
no guilds, no music, no classes, nothing alive. Around this barren empty
shell surged the people, here to-day, gone to-morrow. Thieves and worse,
receivers of stolen goods, hawkers, casual dock labourers, every sort of
unskilled low-class cadger congregated in the parish. There was an Irish
quarter and a Jews’ quarter, while whole streets were given over to the
hangers-on of a vicious population, people whose conduct was brutal,
whose ideal was idleness, whose habits were disgusting, and among whom
goodness was laughed at, the honest man and the right-living woman being
scorned as impracticable. Robberies, assaults, and fights in the street
were frequent; and to me, a born coward, it grew into a matter of
distress when we became sufficiently well known in the parish for our
presence to stop, or at least to moderate, a fight; for then it seemed a
duty to join the crowd, and not to follow one’s nervous instincts and
pass by on the other side. I recall one breakfast being disturbed by
three fights outside the Vicarage. We each went to one, and the third
was hindered by a hawker friend who had turned verger, and who fetched
the distant policeman, though he evidently remained doubtful as to the
value of interference.
We began our work very quietly and simply: opened the church (the first
congregation was made up of six or seven old women, all expecting doles
for coming), restarted the schools, established relief committees,
organized parish machinery, and tried to cauterise, if not to cure, the
deep cancer of dependence which was embedded in all our parishioners
alike, lowering the best among them and degrading the worst. At all
hours, and on all days, and with every possible pretext, the people came
and begged. To them we were nothing but the source from which to obtain
tickets, money, or food; and so confident were they that help would be
forthcoming that they would allow themselves to get into circumstances
of suffering or distress easily foreseen, and then send round and demand
assistance.
I can still recall my emotions when summoned to a sick woman in Castle
Alley, an alley long since pulled down, where the houses, three stories
high, were hardly six feet apart; the sanitary accommodation--pits in
the cellars; and the whole place only fit for the condemnation it got
directly Cross’s Act was passed. This alley, by the way, was in part
the cause of Cross’s Act, so great an impression did it make on Lord
Cross (then Mr. Cross) when Mr. Barnett induced him to come down and
see it.
In this stinking alley, in a tiny dirty room, all the windows broken and
stuffed up, lay the woman who had sent for me. There were no bedclothes;
she lay on a sacking covered with rags.
“I do not know you,” said I, “but I hear you want to see me.”
“No, ma’am!” replied a fat beer-sodden woman by the side of the bed,
producing a wee, new-born baby; “we don’t know yer, but ’ere’s the
babby, and in course she wants clothes, and the mother comforts like. So
we jist sent round to the church.”
This was a compliment to the organization which represented Christ, but
one which showed how sunken was the character which could not make even
the simplest provision for an event which must have been expected for
months, and which even the poorest among the respectable counts sacred.
The refusal of the demanded doles made the people very angry. Once the
Vicarage windows were broken, once we were stoned by an angry crowd, who
also hurled curses at us as we walked down a criminal-haunted street,
and howled out as a climax to their wrongs “And it’s us as pays ’em”.
But we lived all this down, and as the years went by reaped a harvest of
love and gratitude which is one of the gladdest possessions of our
lives, and is quite disproportionate to the service we have rendered.
But this is the end of the story, and I must go back to the beginning.
In a parish which occupies only a few acres, and was inhabited by 8,000
persons, we were confronted by some of the hardest problems of city
life. The housing of the people, the superfluity of unskilled labour,
the enforcement of resented education, the liberty of the criminal
classes to congregate and create a low public opinion, the
administration of the Poor Law, the amusement of the ignorant, the
hindrances to local government (in a neighbourhood devoid of the
leisured and cultured), the difficulty of uniting the unskilled men and
women, in trade unions, the necessity for stricter Factory Acts, the
joylessness of the masses, the hopefulness of the young--all represented
difficult problems, each waiting for a solution and made more
complicated by the apathy of the poor, who were content with an
unrighteous contentment and patient with an ungodly patience. These were
not the questions to be replied to by doles, nor could the problem be
solved by kind acts to individuals nor by the healing of the suffering,
which was but the symptom of the disease.
In those days these difficulties were being dealt with mainly by good
kind women, generally elderly; few men, with the exception of the clergy
and noted philanthropists, as Lord Shaftesbury, were interested in the
welfare of the poor, and economists rarely joined close experience with
their theories.
“If men, cultivated, young, thinking men, could only know of these
things they would be altered,” I used to say, with girlish faith in
human goodwill--a faith which years has not shaken; and in the spring of
1875 we went to Oxford, partly to tell about the poor, partly to enjoy
“eights week” with a group of young friends. Our party was planned by
Miss Toynbee, whom I had met when at school, and whose brother Arnold
was then an undergraduate at Pembroke. Our days were filled with the
hospitality with which Oxford still rejoices its guests; but in the
evenings we used to drop quietly down the river with two or three
earnest men, or sit long and late in our lodgings in the Turl, and
discuss the mighty problems of poverty and the people.
How vividly Canon Barnett and I can recall each and all of the first
group of “thinking men,” so ready to take up enthusiasms in their boyish
strength--Arnold Toynbee, Sidney Ball, W. H. Forbes, Arthur Hoare,
Leonard Montefiore, Alfred Milner, Philip Gell, John Falk, G. E.
Underhill, Ralph Whitehead, Lewis Nettleship! Some of these are still
here, and caring for our people, but others have passed behind the veil,
where perhaps earth’s sufferings are explicable.
We used to ask each undergraduate as he developed interest to come and
stay in Whitechapel, and see for himself. And they came, some to spend a
few weeks, some for the Long Vacation, while others, as they left the
University and began their life’s work, took lodgings in East London,
and felt all the fascination of its strong pulse of life, hearing, as
those who listen always may, the hushed, unceasing moans underlying the
cry which ever and anon makes itself heard by an unheeding public.
From that first visit to Oxford in the “eights week” of 1875, date many
visits to both the Universities. Rarely a term passed without our going
to Oxford, where the men who had been down to East London introduced us
to others who might do as they had done. Sometimes we stayed with Dr.
Jowett, the immortal Master of Balliol, sometimes we were the guests of
the undergraduates, who would get up meetings in their rooms, and
organize innumerable breakfasts, teas, river excursions, and other
opportunities for introducing the subject of the duty of the cultured to
the poor and degraded.
No organization was started, no committee, no society, no club formed.
We met men, told them of the needs of the out-of-sight poor; and many
came to see Whitechapel and stayed to help it. And so eight years went
by--our Oxford friends laughingly calling my husband the “unpaid
professor of social philosophy”.
In June, 1883, we were told by Mr. Moore Smith that some men at St.
John’s College at Cambridge were wishful to do something for the poor,
but that they were not quite prepared to start an ordinary College
Mission. Mr. Barnett was asked to suggest some other possible and more
excellent way. The letter came as we were leaving for Oxford, and was
slipped with others in my husband’s pocket. Soon something went wrong
with the engine and delayed the train so long that the passengers were
allowed to get out. We seated ourselves on the railway bank, just then
glorified by masses of large ox-eyed daisies, and there he wrote a
letter suggesting that men might hire a house, where they could come for
short or long periods, and, living in an industrial quarter, learn to
“sup sorrow with the poor”. The letter pointed out that close personal
knowledge of individuals among the poor must precede wise legislation
for remedying their needs, and that as English local government was
based on the assumption of a leisured cultivated class, it was necessary
to provide it artificially in those regions where the line of leisure
was drawn just above sleeping hours, and where the education ended at
thirteen years of age and with the three R’s.
That letter founded Toynbee Hall. Insomnia had sapped my health for a
long time, and later, in the autumn of that year, we were sent to
Eaux Bonnes to try a water-cure. During that period the Cambridge
letter was expanded into a paper, which was read at a college meeting
at St. John’s College, Oxford, in November of the same year.
Mr. Arthur Sidgwick was present, and it is largely due to his
practical vigour that the idea of University Settlements in the
industrial working-class quarters of large towns fell not only on
sympathetic ears, but was guided until it came to fruition. The first
meeting of undergraduates met in the room of Mr. Cosmo Lang now (1908),
about to become Archbishop of York. Soon after the meeting a small but
earnest committee was formed; later on the committee grew in size and
importance, money was obtained on debenture bonds, and a Head sought who
would turn the idea into a fact. Here was the difficulty. Such men as
had been pictured in the paper which Mr. Knowles had published in the
“Nineteenth Century Review” of February, 1884, are not met with
every-day; and no inquiries seemed to discover the wanted man who would
be called upon to give all and expect nothing.
Mr. Barnett and I had spent eleven years of life and work in
Whitechapel. We were weary. My health stores were limited and often
exhausted, and family circumstances had given us larger means and
opportunities for travel. We were therefore desirous to turn our backs
on the strain, the pain, the passion and the poverty of East London, at
least for a year or two, and take repose after work which had aged and
weakened us. But no other man was to be found who would and could do the
work; and, if this child-thought was not to die, it looked as if we must
undertake to try and rear it.
We went to the Mediterranean to consider the matter, and solemnly, on a
Sunday morning, made our decision. How well I recall the scene as we sat
at the end of the quaint harbour-pier at Mentone, the blue waves dancing
at our feet, everything around scintillating with light and movement in
contrast to the dull and dulling squalor of the neighbourhood which had
been our home for eleven years, and which our new decision would make
our home for another indefinite spell of labour and effort. “God help
us,” we said to each other; and then we wired home to obtain the refusal
of the big Industrial School next to St. Jude’s Vicarage, which had
recently been vacated, and which we thought to be a good site for the
first Settlement, and returned to try and live up to the standard which
we had unwittingly set for ourselves in describing in the article the
unknown man who was wanted for Warden.
The rest of the story is soon told. The Committee did the work, bought
the land, engaged the architect (Mr. Elijah Hoole), raised the money,
and interested more and more men, who came for varying periods, either
to live, to visit, or to see what was being done.
------------------------------------
On 10 March, 1883, Arnold Toynbee had died. He had been our beloved and
faithful friend, ever since, as a lad of eighteen, his own mind then
being chiefly concerned with military interests and ideals, he had
heard, with the close interest of one treading untrodden paths, facts
about the toiling, ignorant multitude whose lives were stunted by
labour, clouded by poverty, and degraded by ignorance. He had frequently
been to see us at St. Jude’s, staying sometimes a few nights, oftener
tempting us to go a day or two with him into the country; and ever
wooing us with persistent hospitality to Oxford. Once in 1879 he had
taken rooms over the Charity Organization Office in Commercial Road,
hoping to spend part of the Long Vacation, learning of the people; but
his health, often weakly, could not stand the noise of the traffic, the
sullenness of the aspect, nor the pain which stands waiting at every
corner; and at the end of some two or three weeks he gave up the plan
and left East London, never to return except as our welcome guest. His
share of the movement was at Oxford, where with a subtle force of
personality he attracted original or earnest minds of all degrees, and
turned their thoughts or faces towards the East End and its problems.
Through him many men came to work with us, while others were stirred by
the meetings held in Oxford, or by the pamphlet called the “Bitter Cry,”
which, in spite of its exaggerations, aroused many to think of the poor;
or by the stimulating teaching of Professor T. H. Green, and by the
constant, kindly sympathy of the late Master of Balliol, who startled
some of his hearers, who had not plumbed the depths of his wide, wise
sympathy, by advising all young men, whatever their career, “to make
some of their friends among the poor”.
The 10th of March, 1884, was a Sunday, and on the afternoon of that day
Balliol Chapel was filled with a splendid body of men who had come
together from all parts of England in loving memory of Arnold Toynbee,
on the anniversary of his death. Dr. Jowett had asked my husband to
preach to them, and they listened, separating almost silently at the
chapel porch, filled, one could almost feel, by the aspiration to copy
him in caring much, if not doing much, for those who had fallen by the
way or were “vacant of our glorious gains”.
We had often chatted, those of us who were busy planning the new
Settlement, as to what to call it. We did not mean the name to be
descriptive; it should, we thought, be free from every possible savour
of a Mission, and yet it should in itself be suggestive of a noble aim.
As I sat on that Sunday afternoon in the chapel, one of the few women
among the crowd of strong-brained, clean-living men assembled in
reverent affection for one man, the thought flashed to me, “Let us call
the Settlement Toynbee Hall”. To Mr. Bolton King, the honorary secretary
of the committee, had come the same idea, and it, finding favour with
the committee, was so decided, and our new Settlement received its name
before a brick was laid or the plans concluded.
On the first day of July, 1884, the workmen began to pull down the old
Industrial School, and to adapt such of it as was possible for the new
uses; and on Christmas Eve, 1884, the first settlers, Mr. H. D. Leigh,
of Corpus, and Mr. C. H. Grinling, of Hertford, slept in Toynbee Hall,
quickly followed by thirteen residents, some of whom had been living in
the neighbourhood of Whitechapel, some for a considerable length of
time, either singly or in groups, one party inhabiting a small disused
public-house, others in model dwellings or in lodgings, none of them
being altogether suitable for their own good or the needs of those whom
they would serve. Those men had become settlers before the Settlement
scheme was conceived, and as such were conversant with the questions in
the air. It was an advantage also, that they were of different ages,
friends of more than one University generation, and linked together by a
common friendship to us.
The present Dean of Ripon had for many years lent his house at No. 3,
Ship Street, for our use, and so had enabled us to spend some
consecutive weeks of each summer at Oxford; and during those years we
had learnt to know the flower of the University, counting, as boy
friends, some men who have since become world-widely known; some who
have done the finest work and “scorned to blot it with a name”; and
others who, as civil servants, lawyers, doctors, country gentlemen,
business men, have in the more humdrum walks of life carried into
practice the same spirit of thoughtful sympathy which first brought them
to inquire concerning those less endowed and deprived of life’s joys, or
those who, handicapped by birth, training, and environment, had fallen
by the way.
As to what Toynbee Hall has done and now is doing, it is difficult for
any one, and impossible for me, to speak. Perhaps I cannot be expected
to see the wood for the trees. Those who have cared to come and see for
themselves what is being done, to stay in the house and join in its
work, know that Toynbee Hall, Whitechapel, is a place where twenty
University men live in order to work for, to teach, to learn of the
poor. Since 1884 the succession of residents has never failed. Men of
varied opinions and many views, both political and religious, have lived
harmoniously together, some staying as long as fifteen years, others
remaining shorter periods. All have left behind them marks of their
residence; sometimes in the policy of the local Boards, of which they
have become members; or in relation to the Student Residences; or the
Antiquarian, Natural History, or Travelling Clubs which individuals
among them have founded; or by busying themselves with classes, debates,
conferences, discussions. Their activities have been unceasing and
manifold, but looking over many years and many men it seems to my
inferior womanly mind that the best work has been done by those men who
have cared most deeply for individuals among the poor. Out of such deep
care has grown intimate knowledge of their lives and industrial
position, and from knowledge has come improvement in laws, conditions,
or administration. It is such care that has awakened in the people the
desire to seek what is best. It is the care of those, who, loving God,
have taught others to know Him. It is the care of those who, pursuing
knowledge and rejoicing in learning, have spread it among the ignorant
more effectively than books, classes or lectures could have done. It is
the care for the degraded which alone rouses them to care for
themselves. It is the care for the sickly, the weak, the oppressed, the
rich, the powerful, the happy, the teacher and taught, the employed and
the employer, which enables introduction to be made and interpretation
of each other to be offered and accepted. From this seed of deep
individual care has grown a large crop of friendship, and many flowers
of graceful acts.
It is the duty of Toynbee Hall, situated as it is at the gate of East
London, to play the part of a skilful host and introduce the East to the
West; but all the guests must be intimate friends, or there will be
social blunders. To quote some words out of a report, Toynbee Hall is
“an association of persons, with different opinions and different
tastes; its unity is that of variety; its methods are spiritual rather
than material; it aims at permeation rather than conversion; and its
trust is in friends linked to friends rather than in organization”....
It was a crowded meeting of the Universities Settlements Association
that was held in Balliol Hall in March, 1892, it being known that Dr.
Jowett, who had recently been dangerously ill, would take the chair. He
spoke falteringly (for he was still weakly), and once there came an
awful pause that paled the hearers who loved him, in fear for his
well-being. He told something of his own connexion with the movement; of
how he had twice stayed with us in Whitechapel, and had seen men’s
efforts to lift this dead weight of ignorance and pain. He referred to
Arnold Toynbee, one of the “purest-minded of men,” and one who “troubled
himself greatly over the unequal position of mankind”. He told of the
force of friendship which was to him sacred, and “some of which should
be offered to the poor”. He dwelt on his own hopes for Toynbee Hall, and
of its uses to Oxford, as well as to Whitechapel; and he spoke also of
us and our work, but those words were conceived by his friendship for
and his faith in us, and hardly represented the facts. They left out of
sight what the Master of Balliol could only imperfectly know--the
countless acts of kindness, the silent gifts of patient service, and the
unobtrusive lives of many men; their reverence before weakness and
poverty, their patience with misunderstanding, their faith in the power
of the best, their tenderness to children and their boldness against
vice. These are the foundations on which Toynbee Hall has been built,
and on which it aims to raise the ideals of human life, and strengthen
faith in God.
HENRIETTA O. BARNETT.
TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENTS.[1]
BY CANON BARNETT.
June, 1905.
[1] From “The University Review”. By permission of the Editor.
Twenty-five years ago many social reformers were set on bringing about a
co-operation between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the
industrial classes. Arnold Toynbee thought he could study at Oxford
during term time and lecture in great cities during the vacation.
Professor Stuart thought that University teaching might be extended
among working people by means of centres locally established. There were
others to whom it seemed that no way could be so effective as the way of
residence, and they advocated a plan by which members of the University
should during some years live their lives among the poor.
Present social reformers have, however, other business on hand. They
think that something practical is of first importance, some alteration
in the land laws, which would make good houses more possible--some
modification of the relation between labour and capital, which would
spread the national wealth over a larger number of people. They see
something which Parliament or the municipal bodies could do, which seems
to be very good, and they are not disposed to spend time on
democratizing the old Universities or on humanizing the working-man.
The present generation of reformers claim to be practical, but one who
belongs to the past generation and is not without sympathy with the
present, may also claim that much depends on the methods by which good
objects are secured. There is truth in the saying that means are more
important than ends. Many present evils are due to the means--the force,
the flattery, the haste--by which good men of old time achieved their
ends. “God forgive all good men” was the prayer of Charles Kingsley.
Reformers may to-day pass laws which would exalt the poor and bring down
the rich, but if in the passing of such laws bitterness, anger, and
uncharitableness were increased, and if, as the result, the exalted poor
proved incapable of using or of enjoying their power--another giant
behaving like a giant--where would be the world’s gain? The important
thing surely is not that the poor shall be exalted, but that rich and
poor shall equally feel the joy of their being and, living together in
peace and goodwill, make a society to be a blessing to all nations.
Co-operation between the Universities and working men, between
knowledge and industry, might--it seemed to the reformers of old
days--make a force which would secure a reform not to be reformed, a
repentance not to be repented of, a sort of progress whose means would
justify its end.
The Universities have the knowledge of human things. Their professors
and teachers have, in some measure, the secret of living, they know that
life consists not in possessions, and that society has other bonds than
force or selfishness, and they offer in their homes the best example of
simple and refined living. They have studied the art of expression, and
can put into words the thoughts of many hearts. They look with the eye
of science over the fields of history, they appreciate tradition at its
proper value, and are familiar with the mistakes which, in old times,
broke up great hopes. Their minds are trained to leap from point to
point in thought. They have followed the struggles of humanity towards
its ideals, they know something of what is in man, and something of what
he can possibly achieve.
If these national Universities, with their wealth of knowledge, felt
at the same time the pressure of those problems which mean suffering
to the workmen, they would be watch-towers from which watchmen would
discern the signs of the times, those movements on the horizon now
as small as a man’s hand but soon to cover the sky. If by sympathy
they felt the unrest, which all over the world is giving cause for
disquietude to those in authority, they would give a form to the wants,
and show to those who cry, and those who listen, the meaning of the
unrest. If they were in touch with the industrial classes, they would
adapt their teaching to the needs and understandings of men, struggling
to secure their position in a changing industrial system, and better
acquainted with facts than with theories about facts. A democratized
University would be constrained to give forth the principles which
underlie social progress, to show the nation what is alterable and
unalterable in the structure of society--what there is for pride or
for shame in its past history, what is the expenditure which makes or
destroys wealth--it would be driven to help to solve the mystery of the
unemployed, why there should be so much unemployment when there must
be so great a demand for employment if people are to be fitly clothed
and fed and housed. It would, at any rate, guide the nation to remedies
which would not be worse than the disease.
“How,” it was once asked of an Oxford professor, “can the University be
adapted to take its place in modern progress.” His answer was “By
establishing in its neighbourhood a great industrial centre.” The
presence, that is to say, of workmen would bring the Universities to
face the realities of the day, raise their policy to something more
important than that of compulsory Greek, and direct their teaching to
other needs than those felt by the limited class, whose children become
undergraduates or listeners to an “extension lecturer”. A committee of
the University dons has been described as a meeting where each member is
only a critic, where nothing simple or practical has a chance of
adoption, and only a paradox gets attention. If labour were heard
knocking at its doors, and demanding that the national knowledge, of
which the Universities are the trustees, should be put at its service,
the same committee would cease criticizing and begin to be practical.
Knowledge without industry is often selfishness.
If Oxford and Cambridge need what workmen can give, the workmen have
no less need of the Universities. Workmen have the strength of
character which comes of daily contact with necessity, the discipline
of labour, sympathy with the sorrow and sufferings of neighbours with
whose infirmities they themselves are touched. The working classes
have on their side the force of sacrifice and the power of numbers.
They have the future in their hands. If they had their share of the
knowledge stored in the National Universities they would know better
at what to aim, what to do, and how to do it. They, as it is, are
often blind and unreasoning. Blind to the things which really satisfy
human nature while they eagerly follow after their husks, unable to
pursue a chain of thought while they readily act on some gaudy dogma,
inclined to think food the chief good, selfishness the one motive of
action, and force the only remedy. The speeches of candidates for
workmen’s constituencies--their promises--their jokes--their appeals are
the measure of the industrial mind. How would a Parliament of workmen
deal with those elements which make so large a part of the nation’s
strength--its traditions--its literature--its natural scenery--its art?
What sort of education would it foster? Would it recognize that the
imagination is the joy of life and a commercial asset, that unity
depends on variety, that respect and not only toleration is due to
honest opponents? How would it understand the people of India or deal
reverently with the intricate motives, the fears and hopes of other
nations? How would workmen themselves fulfil their place in the future
if well-fed, well-clothed, and well-housed, they had no other
recreation than the spectacle of a football match? Industry without
knowledge is often brutality.
Workmen have the energy, the honesty, the fellow feeling, the habit of
sacrifice which are probably the best part of the national inheritance,
but as a class they have not knowledge of human things, the delicate
sense which sees what is in man--the judgment which knows the value of
evidence--the feeling which would guide them to distinguish idols from
ideals and set them on making a Society in which every human being shall
enjoy the fullness of his being. They have not insight nor far-sight and
their frequent attitude is that of suspicion. If sometimes I am asked
what I desire for East London I think of all the goodness, the
struggles, the suffering I have seen--the sorrows of the poor and the
many fruitless remedies--and I say “more education,” “higher education”.
People cannot really be raised by gifts or food or houses. A healthy
body may be used for low as for high objects. People must raise
themselves--that which raises a man like that which defiles a man comes
from within a man. People therefore must have the education which will
reveal to them the powers within themselves and within other men, their
capacities for thinking and feeling, for admiration, hope and love. They
must be made something more than instruments of production, they must be
made capable of enjoying the highest things. They need therefore
something more than technical teaching, it is not enough for England to
be the workshop of the world, it must export thoughts and hopes as well
as machines. The Tower of London would be a better defence for the
nation if it were a centre of teaching, than as a barracks for soldiers.
The working class movement which is so full of promise for the nation
seems to me likely to fail unless it be inspired by the human knowledge
which the Universities represent. Working-men without such knowledge
will--to say nothing else--be always suspicious as to one another and as
to the objects which they seek.
The old Universities and industry must, if this analysis be near the
truth, co-operate for social reform. There are many ways to bring
them together. The University extension movement might be worked by
the hands of the great labour organizations--legislation might adapt
the constitution of the Universities to the coming days of labour
ascendancy--workmen might be brought up to graduate in colleges, and
they might, as an experiment, be allowed to use existing colleges
during vacations.
But the subject of this paper is the “way of Settlements”. Members of
the Universities, it is claimed, may for a few years settle in
industrial centres, and in natural intercourse come into contact with
their neighbours. There is nothing like contact for giving or getting
understanding. There is no lecture and no book so effective as life.
Culture spreads by contact. University men who are known as neighbours,
who are met in the streets, in the clubs, and on committees, who can be
visited in their own rooms, amid their own books and pictures, commend
what the University stands for as it cannot otherwise be commended. On
the other hand workmen who are casually and frequently met, whose idle
words become familiar, whose homes are known, reveal the workman mind as
it is not revealed by clever essayists or by orators of their own class.
The friendship of one man of knowledge and one man of industry may go
but a small way to bring together the Universities and the working
classes, but it is such friendship which prepares the way for the
understanding which underlies co-operation. If misunderstanding is war,
understanding is peace. The men who settle may either take rooms by
themselves, or they may associate themselves in a Settlement. There is
something to be said for each plan. The advantage of Settlement is that
a body of University men living together keep up the distinctive
characteristics of their training, they better resist the tendency to
put on the universal drab, and they bring a variety into their
neighbourhood. They are helped, too, by the companionship of their
fellows, to take larger views of what is wanted, their enthusiasm for
progress is kept alive and at the same time well pruned by friendly and
severe criticism.
But whether men live in lodgings or in Settlements, there is one
necessary condition besides that of social interest if they are to be
successful in uniting knowledge and industry in social reform. They must
live their own life. There must be no affectation of asceticism, and no
consciousness of superiority. They must show forth the taste, the mind
and the faith that is in them. They have not come as “missioners,” they
have come to settle, that is, to learn as much as to teach, to receive
as much as to give.
Settlements which have been started during the last twenty years have
not always fulfilled this condition. Many have become centres of
missionary effort. They have often been powerful for good, and their
works done by active and devoted men or women have so disturbed the
water, that many unknown sick folk have been healed. They, however, are
primarily missions. A Settlement in the original idea was not a mission,
but a means by which University men and workmen might by natural
intercourse get to understand one another, and co-operate in social
reform.
There are many instances of such understanding and co-operation.
Twenty years ago primary education was much as it had been left by Mr.
Lowe. Some University men living in a Settlement soon became conscious
of the loss involved in the system, they talked with neighbours who by
themselves were unconscious of the loss till inspired, and inspiring
they formed an Education Reform League. There were committees, meetings,
and public addresses. The league was a small affair, and seems to be
little among the forces of the time. But every one of its proposals have
been carried out. Some of its members in high official positions have
wielded with effect the principles which were elaborated in the forge at
which they and working men sweated together. Others of its members on
local authorities or as citizens have never forgotten the inner meaning
of education as they learnt it from their University friends.
Another instance may be offered. The relief of the poor is a subject on
which the employing and the employed classes naturally incline to take
different views. They suspect one another’s remedies. The working men
hate both the charity of the rich and the strict administration of the
economist, while they themselves talk a somewhat impracticable
socialism. University men who assist in such relief, are naturally
suspected as members of the employing class. A few men, however, who as
residents had become known in other relations, and were recognized as
human, induced some workmen to take part in administering relief.
Together they faced actual problems, together they made mistakes,
together they felt sympathy with sorrow, and saw the break-down of their
carefully designed action. The process went on for years, the personnel
of the body of fellow-workers has changed, but there has been a gradual
approach from the different points of view. The University men have more
acutely realized some of the causes of distress, the need of preserving
and holding up self-respect, the pressure of the industrial system, and
the claim of sufferers from this system to some compensation. They have
learnt through their hearts. The workmen, on the other hand, have
realized the failure of mere relief to do permanent good, the importance
of thought in every case, and the kindness of severity. The result of
this co-operation may be traced in the fact that workmen, economists and
socialists have been found advocating the same principle of relief, and
now more lately in the establishment of Mr. Long’s committee which is
carrying those principles into effect. Far be it from me to claim that
this committee is the direct outcome of the association of University
and working-men, or to assert that this committee has discovered the
secret of poverty, but it is certain that this committee represents the
approach of two different views of relief, and that among some of its
active members are workmen and University men who as neighbours in
frequent intercourse learnt to respect and trust one another.
There is one other instance which is also of interest. Local Government
is the corner-stone in the English Constitution. The people in their own
neighbourhoods learn what self-government means, as their own Councils
and Boards make them happy or unhappy. The government in industrial
neighbourhoods is often bad, sometimes because the members are
self-seekers, more often because they are ignorant or vainglorious. How
can it be otherwise? If the industrial neighbourhood is self-contained,
as for example in East London, it has few inhabitants with the necessary
leisure for study or for frequent attendance at the meetings. If it is
part of a larger government--as in county boroughs--it is unknown to the
majority of the community. The consequence is that the neighbourhoods
wanting most light and most water and most space have the least, and
that bodies whose chief concern should be health and education waste
their time and their rates arranging their contracts so as to support
local labour. In a word, industrial neighbourhoods suffer for want of a
voice to express their needs and for the want of the knowledge which can
distinguish man from man, recognize the relative importance of spending
and saving, and encourage mutual self-respect.
University men may and in some measure have met this want. They, by
residence, have learnt the wants, and their voice has helped to bring
about the more equal treatment which industrial districts are now
receiving. They have often, for instance, been instrumental in getting
the Libraries’ Act adopted. They have as members of local bodies learnt
much and taught something. They have always won the respect of their
fellow-members, and if not always successful in preventing the
neighbourly kindnesses which seem to them to be “jobs,” or in forwarding
expenditure which seems to them the best economy, they have kept up the
lights along the course of public honour.
There are other examples in which results cannot be so easily traced.
There have been friendships formed at clubs which have for ever changed
the respective points of view affecting both taste and opinion. There
have been new ideas born in discussion classes, which, beginning in
special talk about some one subject, have ended in fireside confidences
over the deepest subjects of life and faith. There have been common
pleasures, travels, and visits in which every one has felt new interest,
seeing things with other eyes, and learning that the best and most
lasting amusement comes from mind activity. The University man who has a
friend among the poor henceforth sees the whole class differently
through that medium, and so it is with the workman who has a University
man as his friend. The glory of a Settlement is not that it has spread
opinions, or increased temperance, or relieved distress, but that it has
promoted peace and goodwill.
But enough has been said to illustrate the point that by the way of
residence the forces of knowledge and industry are brought into
co-operation. The way, if long, is practicable. More men might live
among the poor. The effort to do so involves the sacrifice of much which
habits of luxury have marked as necessary. It involves the daring to be
peculiar, which is often especially hard for the man who in the public
school has learnt to support himself on school tradition.
Nothing has been said as to the effect of Settlements on Oxford and
Cambridge. There does not seem to be much change in the attitude of
these Universities to social reform, and they are not apparently moved
by any impulse which comes from workmen. But judgment in this matter
must be cautious as changes may be going on unnoticed. It is certain, at
any rate, that the individual members who have lived among the poor are
changed. If a greater number would live in the same way that experience
could not fail ultimately to influence University life.
Social reform will soon be the all-absorbing interest as the modern
realization of the claims of human nature and the growing power of the
people, will not tolerate many of the present conditions of industrial
life. The well-being of the future depends on the methods by which
reform proceeds. Reforms in the past have often been disappointing. They
have been made in the name of the rights of one class, and have ended in
the assertion of rights over another class. They have been made by force
and produced reaction. They have been done for the people not by the
people, and have never been assimilated. The method by which knowledge
and industry may co-operate has yet to be tried, and one way in which to
bring about such co-operation is the way of University Settlements.
SAMUEL A. BARNETT.