in him, and call him all sorts of hard names; but then one is apt to
find faults in large people more unbearable than in little ones. Clumsy
people, if big, are so very clumsy; they tumble over the furniture, and
kick the pet dog, and if they do chance to tread on toes it hurts so
very much! and that is partly the case with him. But he has virtues,
and plenty of them; he is not afraid of work, and he really cares for
the poor; he is exceedingly honourable about money; he is methodical
and business-like; he is thorough in all he does, thinking no detail
beneath his notice; he is accurate about his facts and moderate in his
statements; he is most even in his temper (though personally I should
like him better if I could once see him in a rage), and he is patient
and painstaking; he is humble, though conceited, too; that is, with
the sort of conceit that one sometimes meets with in swimmers who know
that they do the stroke ‘quite perfectly’ but yet are somewhat afraid
of deep water; fearful, not of their breath or strength failing, but of
the cramp, or jelly-fish, or other unknown dangers of the deep.
But that he is a fine being we shall all agree, with a full, rich
nature; and if he could or would add to his many virtues that of
adaptability; if he would become a little more elastic in his fingers
as well as in his body; if he would take digitalis, in the shape of
hearty hand-shaking, to improve his circulation; if he would determine
every week to do some new thing, ‘just for a change’; if he would,
having been awakened by all his baptismal names, remind himself--just
while he was dressing--of the main object of his existence; if he would
not be above using an ear-trumpet, particularly on those occasions
when he leaves his papers and goes to ‘sup sorrow with the poor’--if
he would do some or all of these things we might yet see his strong
arm foremost among those who remove barriers to let in light; we might
yet hear his strong voice giving out with no uncertain sound the
charitable--the loving--answer to some of these soul-stirring questions.
For instance (and you will perhaps pardon me for carrying you into
Committee for a few minutes), here is the case of Williamson, a man of
forty, with his wife, three living children, and the recollections of
the funerals of two. He is a casual dock-labourer, working when he can
get work, and then only if his bad leg allows him. His wife asks for a
loan to enable her to stock more fully her street-hawking basket. The
father is described as a ‘quiet, steady man.’ The mother is a ‘decent
woman.’ The decision of the Committee is ‘ineligible,’ and Williamson
goes away a sadder and no wiser man.
And why is the case ineligible? Because the Committee think that
money will do the family no good. The people are below the stage when
money help can be useful. They have drifted till they are, in fact,
ineligible for what the Society, materialistic as the age which counts
money the greatest good, feels itself alone able to give, and by the
decision of the Committee they are allowed to drift still. And yet
not one of us could say that this family did not need help. On the
case-paper, in the very middle of the first page, stand two _helpable_
facts. Williamson is only casually employed by a great permanent
company. Williamson is in no club.
Charitable _effort_ needs organising even more than charitable
_relief_. Some people fear the devil more than they love God; or, in
other words, they fear to do harm more than they love to do good.
Seeing that money unwisely bestowed does great harm, they have hastened
to organise it, neglecting meanwhile to organise effort, which for the
creation of good is stronger than money for the creation of evil.
Williamson, with his rough, decent wife and his three unkempt children,
is, let us grant, ineligible for charitable relief, but not for
charitable effort. That might be directed to induce him to belong to
a club, to take intelligent interest in the actions of his country,
to realise, helped by Sir Walter Scott or Tourgénief, the thoughts
of other nations, the character of other centuries or classes. Let
effort be used to help him to accept the strength which union gives to
resistance, be it to personal temptation or to public wrong.
And could not charitable effort undertake that Mrs. Williamson’s
tiring day be less degradingly tiring? Could it not provide a cosy
parlour-club, or a chair more tempting than an upright Windsor, in
which darning and mending would be possible? And perhaps that dull task
would not be so wholly distasteful if enlivened by a sweet voice, who
would read ideas into the stitches, or sing patches into rhythmical
relations. Such effort would soon make a difference in the unkempt
appearance of the little Williamsons, and maybe evenings given up to
those who cannot ‘ask us again’ or Sunday-planned walks would not be
entirely wasted efforts, and if multiplied to any extent might have
a perceptible influence on our country’s conscience, though it might
perhaps reduce our country’s revenue from excise and customs.
Charitable effort, too, might make gutter-mud and street-fights
less attractive to John, Sarah, and Jane by providing them with
playgrounds as well as something--and perhaps young philanthropists
will add somebody--to play with. And could not charitable effort take
the children for a few weeks out of the one room to learn ideals of
cleanliness and to have some fun which is not naughty in the cottage
homes of our country villages?
And wisely directed effort might, too, aim at abolishing the system of
casual labour at the docks--a system which keeps thousands of half-fed
men hanging each morning about the dock gates because on one day in
ten all may be wanted--a system which degrades men by forcing them to
scramble for their work and almost enjoy the chance on which homes and
existence depend. Such a system is not to be justified on the plea of
profit or on the fear of strikes. But, granted that even my friend’s
great strength is powerless before Giant Dock Companies, yet is not
this an occasion when, if he could do nothing else, he might use
strong language, to which it is often noticed that neither animals nor
companies are wholly indifferent?
So much for Williamson. But Committee is not over yet, and here are the
papers of Mrs. Canty--56 years of age--a poor shrivelled old woman,
ugly and uninteresting in appearance, unable to work from a dreadful
complaint in her face, living with her two children, the only survivors
out of a goodly family of six. The children, a boy of 20 and a girl of
16, are earning 24_s._ between them, and the Committee decide that the
case is one ‘not requiring relief.’ Perhaps not--in money, but is cold,
hard money the only relief that the Charity Organisation Society has to
offer? Surely charitable effort could be organised for the benefit of
this family. Some one could be sent with time and tact who would help
the poor widow to other pleasures than those of regretful memories; for
we read she was ‘well-to-do in her husband’s lifetime.’ Some one who
would make bright half-hours for her and take her mind from dwelling on
her poor painful face, guiding her to draw strength from the thought of
other lives and hope out of greater interests.
Is not some one’s carriage at the Society’s disposal in which she may
be taken--she is too weak to walk and has not been out for two and a
half years--to catch a glimpse of the bright spring flowers and the
new-budding trees?
For the boy too. He may be in a good place and earn enough for
bare necessities; but he has not the means of getting books, the
opportunities for joining a gymnasium, nor the knowledge of the club,
where he could be re-created and form friendships. These may all be
within reach, and would certainly be for the relief of such a lad’s
hard and monotonous life; but the Charity Organisation Society,
declaring that he does ‘not require relief,’ lets him go without an
effort to give him what would influence his life far more radically
than the asked for half-a-crown a week.
And for the girl also. She may be training for good work, but she
must often be tired of the drudgery of her five years’ nursing done
without the help of a competent doctor--for the old lady ‘doctors of
herself’--and done, too, between the intervals allowed by her business
of widow-cap making. Does she require no relief which the Charity
Organisation Society can give--the relief which comes through books and
patience-preaching pictures, the relief which follows the introduction
to the singing class leading to the choir, or which comes through the
hand-grasp of the wiser friend when the road is unusually drear?
Relief through such agencies would often make later relief
unnecessary--relief which we _dare_ not withhold, and yet ache as we
silently give it to lock hospitals, reformatories, and penitentiaries.
Might not--may not charitable effort be organised to remove some of
the social conditions which stand as barriers to prevent, or anyhow
make it painfully difficult for these eight people to live the highest,
fullest, richest life?
And the hindering barriers to the rich man’s life. I have hardly said a
word about him, yet I am quite sorry for him, more sorry than for his
poor neighbour; but there is not so much need for anyone to look after
him, because he himself already does it. He had better be forgotten
for a bit, so that he may be helped to forget himself. ‘He that loseth
his life shall find it,’ and the good, if unsought, will come to him.
When he, with ‘all he is and has,’ goes to reform his neighbour’s
conditions, he will find them wondrously interwoven with his own. He
will find, if he digs deep enough, that the foundations of both palace
and court are of the same material, and also that he both sees further
and breathes easier after having melted down his golden walls to frame
his neighbour’s pictures.
But the Charity Organisation Society could help him. It must help
both the rich and the poor. It must make of itself a bridge by which
the one set of condition-hindered people can cross to reach the other
condition-hindered people; and, as is sometimes the case in fairy
tales, the hindrance will in individual cases disappear in the very act
of crossing the bridge.
I do not mean that the mere meeting will in itself be a social reform,
but it will tend to it, and that in the best way. Which of us having
once been in a court disgraceful to our civilisation, and yet all that
forty or fifty families have to call ‘home,’ would lose a chance of
promoting a Sanitary Aid Committee or of getting the law enforced or
amended? Which of us, having once seen a Whitechapel alley at five
o’clock on an August afternoon, and realising all it means, besides
physical discomfort, could go and enjoy our afternoon tea, daintily
spread on the shady lawn, and not ask himself difficult questions
about his own responsibility--while one man has so much and another
so little? The answer would, maybe, have legal results. Which of us,
having sat by the sick-bed of the work-worn man (not having relieved
ourselves by giving him a shilling), can return and drink for our
pleasure the wine which might be his health? Which of us, having become
acquainted with the low ideas, the coarse thoughts, the unholy hopes of
(pardon the expression) the ‘outcast poor,’ can reject the privilege of
self-sacrifice for their help; can neglect, at the cost of any personal
trouble, a single effort which will aid their ‘growth in grace’?
Evil is wrought from ignorance as well as want of thought; and the rich
suffer from not knowing, as much as the poor from not being known. Both
classes want help. They cannot alone break down their barriers, and
alone they cannot live their best life. Our Society must help them--our
Society, guided by wise rules as to what not to do, can introduce,
as the children say, Mr. Too-Much to Miss Too-Little; it can be the
‘Helpful Society,’ helping the man stifled with too much; helping the
man starving with too little; helping the idler whose true nature is
literally ‘dying for something to do’; helping the worker who seeks the
grave gladly from fatigue; helping the lonely man to find his place
in the crowd, and the crowd-tired man to opportunities of solitude;
helping the owner of knowledge to outpour his treasures, and the
ignorant to receive the same; helping the merry-maker to make merry,
and the sorrowful to teach the lessons of pain; helping those who have
found the true meaning of life to ring out their news to those of us
who are still groping and restless for assurance; helping, in short,
all who will give effort to wise uses.
Practically the thirty-nine district offices might each be the centre
of all those forces which, under any name, are directed against the
evils and hardships of life. Their rooms might be the places in which
the members of charitable societies would hold their meetings. And,
instead of dreading association with the Charity Organisation Society,
all honest workers might hope to find in connection with it associates
the most helpful. One day the committee-room would be occupied by a
Relief Society, which would make its grants; another day would find
ladies gathered to consult on some Befriending Society. Each day the
office would have its charitable use, and people of all sorts would
meet, thinkers and workers; the clergy and the laymen; the man with the
new scheme and the well-worn worker in the old paths; the practical
reformer and the enthusiast. A kind of registry might be kept by
which those wanting to help might be introduced into empty posts of
helpfulness. It would no longer happen that a man should be kept years
at case-writing when he had within him a divine gift for managing boys.
Clergymen, members of societies, by advertising their vacant posts,
could then find among other societies able helpers.
Practically it seems a small thing to say, let the offices be more
generously used; let the secretaries make it their business to find
out the vacant posts of usefulness in clubs, night schools, &c. Such
a simple practical reform might have great issues. Frequent meetings
would result in action, weak local boards be strengthened, pressure
brought to bear on neglectful officials, vacancies in the ranks of
teachers and visitors filled, and a public opinion formed strong enough
to condemn both luxury and suffering--both over and under work. If such
a scope of action frightens those who are conscious of thin ranks and
limited resources, let them remember that it is the thought of wider
action which will tempt in recruits. Many who have no taste for ‘case
work’ and Committee forms will be glad co-operators when, in any way,
they can be brought face to face with the poor; when they can feel
that, by their organised effort, some steps are being made in social
reform.
I do not for a moment mean to imply that I believe society will be
reformed if the Charity Organisation Society were to decide to adopt a
larger policy or a more embracing area of work. Even those of us who
most believe in it must acknowledge that it is but one among many
influencing forces; but it is possible to hope that all such influences
working together may make a community where conditions (as mountains
in landscapes) will only make variety in the level of humanity. A flat
country is dull. Mountains and valleys are much more beautiful; but
then the hills lend their beauty to the dales--their torrents fertilise
the low-lying lands, and the lofty mountain crag which first gains
the light, and is the last to lingeringly let it go, gives back its
reflected glory to gladden the shadowed valley.
A sameness of circumstances might not mean social reform (indeed,
personally, I doubt if anything but love for God will mean social
reform), but reform is necessary, and with that we all agree. ‘Effort
is bootless, toil is fruitless’; with that we do not agree--our very
presence here denies it. There only remains then that organised effort
should be directed towards reform, noticing, by the way, that, having
swept the room, we do not leave the broom about! If those who make
the effort will, not neglecting statistics, returns, and order, keep
their eye on the far-away issue, which is the life of man raised to its
perfect fulness, our children may, ‘with pulses stirred to generosity,’
rejoice to tell the tale of what the Charity Organisation Society did
for social reform.
HENRIETTA O. BARNETT.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XI.
_SENSATIONALISM IN SOCIAL REFORM._[1]
[1] Reprinted, by permission, from the _Nineteenth Century_ of February
1886.
Theudas and Jesus were alike moved by the suffering of the Jews.
Theudas, ‘boasting himself to be somebody, drew away much people’;
Jesus, who did not ‘strive nor cry,’ had only a few disciples, and died
deserted by these.
The present method of reform is by striving and crying. The voice of
those who see the evils of society is heard in the streets, and much
people is drawn to meetings and demonstrations. Many, moved by what
they hear, profess themselves to be ‘frantic,’ and the country seems
ready for a moral revolt.
What shall the end be? Will the evil cease because the bitter cry of
those who suffer is heard in the land? Will the ‘frantic’ striving of
many people relieve society from the slavery of selfishness and lead
to a moral reform, or will it be that after a few months some one like
Browning’s Cardinal will be found saying, ‘I have known four-and-twenty
leaders of revolt’?
This is a question to be considered, if possible, with calmness of
mind, without prejudice for or against sensationalism. It may be that
what seems sensational is but the bigger cry suited to a bigger world,
and therefore the only means of making known the facts which must
afterwards be weighed and considered. It may be that some must be made
frantic before any will act. It may be, on the other hand, that this
trumpeting of sorrow and sin is the vengeance of the crime of sense,
itself a sense to be worn with time; that men trumpet sorrows for mere
love of noise and size, and become frantic over tales of sin to wring
from each tale a new pleasure. Sensationalism in social reform is
either the outcome of self-indulgence or it is the divine voice making
itself heard in language which he that runs may read.
Not lightly at any rate are Midlothian speeches, ‘bitter cries,’ and
religious revivals to be passed over. They, by striving and crying, by
forcible statements and strong language, have caused public opinion
to stop its course of easy satisfaction, and to express itself in new
legislation. For the sake of the Bulgarians a Ministry was overturned;
because of the cry of the poor an Act of Parliament has been passed;
and the success of the Salvation Army has modified the services in
our churches. In face, though, of these results on legislation, and
of other results represented by various societies and leagues, the
question still is, Will the same causes result in raising character?
Professor Clifford, in one of his essays, speaks with religious fervour
on the importance of character in society:--
Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of
thought are common property fashioned and perfected from age to
age.... Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every
man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege and an awful
responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which
posterity will live!
Further, he goes on to point out that a bad method is bad, whatever
good results may follow, because it weakens the character of the doer
and so weakens society.
If (he says) I steal money from any person, there may be no harm
done by the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss,
or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help
doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest.
What hurts society is not that it should lose its property, but that
it should become a den of thieves; for then it must cease to be
society. This is why we ought not to do evil that good may come; for
at any rate this great evil has come, that we have done evil and are
made wicked thereby.
In judging, therefore, of methods of reform it is not enough to show
that laws have been passed and leagues formed; it must also be shown
that the character of all concerned is raised. Jesus drew few people
after Him and died alone, but He so raised the character of man that
His death inaugurated a permanent reformation of society. It is as the
character of men is raised that all reforms become permanent.
Oppressed nationalities depend for effectual help on the widely spread
growth of sympathy with freedom; the poor will have starvation wages
till the rich learn what justice requires; and religion will fail to
be a power till men are honest enough to ask themselves in what they
do really believe. Methods of reform are valuable just in so far as
they tend to increase sympathy, justice, honesty, reverence, and all
the virtues of high character. The answer, therefore, as to the end of
this striving and crying of modern philanthropy is to be found in the
effects which such methods have on character.
On the side of sensationalism it is urged (1) that laws and
institutions are great educators. By the many laws against theft
thieving has come to be regarded as the great crime, and by societies
like that for the prevention of cruelty to animals kindness has
come to be a common virtue. If, therefore, it is argued, by some
rough awakening of the public conscience, laws have been passed and
institutions started, something is done to develop the higher part of
character. ‘Principles,’ it has been said, ‘are no more than moral
habits,’ and if agitation leads to laws which enforce moral habits,
sensationalism may thus have the credit of forming principles which
make character.
It is further urged (2) that, if association be the watchword of the
future and the educational force of the new age, it is by noisy means
that associations must be formed, because the trumpet note which is to
draw men together from parties and classes between whom great gulfs are
fixed must be one loud enough to strike the senses.
Lastly, it is said (3) that many whose imagination has been made dull
by the modern systems of education could never know the truth unless
it were shown to them under the strongest light. They have been so
rarely taught in school to take pleasure in knowledge or to stretch
their minds, they have so little accustomed themselves to think over
what is absent or to trace effects to causes, that it is more often by
ignorance than by selfishness that they are cruel. They have been so
eager in managing their inheritance of wealth that they have failed
to use their other inheritance--the power of putting questions. Such
people, it is argued, hearing of atrocities, learning the cost at
which wealth is made, and seeing the brutal side of vice, get such
development of character that they question habits, customs, conditions
which they before accepted, and become more just and generous.
On the other hand, against this use of sensationalism, keeping still in
view the effects on character, it is urged (1) that actions caused by
the excitement of the emotions before they can be supported by reason
are followed by apathy. The people who became ‘frantic’ at the tale
of the Bulgarian atrocities have since heard almost with equanimity
of suffering as terrible. The many who wrote and spoke of the bitter
lot of the poor hardly give the few pounds a year required to keep
alive the Sanitary Aid Society which was started to deal with what was
allowed to lie nearest the root of the bitterness--the ill-administered
laws of health. The leaders of the Salvation Army, pursued by this fear
of apathy, have continually to seek new forms of excitement, just as
politicians have to seek new cries.
Such examples seem to show that the wave which is raised by the
emotions must fall back unless it is followed by the rising tide of
reason, and that the effect on character of neglecting the reason is to
make it unfeeling and apathetic. According to Rossetti’s allegory, they
who are stirred by the sight of vice become, like those who look on the
Gorgon’s head, hardened to stone.
Let not thine eyes know
Any forbidden thing itself, although
It once should save as well as kill; but be
Its shadow upon life enough for thee.
The emotions, certainly, cannot be strained without loss. Of the
greatest English actress it is told that she paid in old age the price
of early strain on her feelings ‘by weariness, vacuity, and deadness of
spirit.’
It is urged further on the same side, (2) that the advertisement
which is said to be necessary to promote association promotes only
organisation, or that if it does promote association it fills it also
with the party spirit, which is a corrupting influence.