822 THE DEPENDENT GROUP 



measurements of children in reformatory schools show an enormous 

 ratio of dwarfed, underfed children. The reports of boards of health 

 in American cities contain evidence of the same conditions. 



A very common answer of some charity societies to this charge 

 is that they are able to give relief to all applicants. But, with these 

 facts before us, the answer is not decisive. People by the tens of 

 thousands are trying to exist and bring up children in homes which are 

 unfit for human habitation, and on food which is insufficient to meet 

 the minimum requirements of growth. They do this because they 

 either do not know where to apply for help, or because they know 

 that, unless actually ready to perish, they will be treated as able- 

 bodied and " not needing relief," or because they prefer to suffer 

 from hunger and cold and disease rather than ask alms. 



I do not claim that charity should attempt to relieve all distress. 

 No doubt the idleness and vices of men produce much misery which 

 philanthropy cannot reach. No doubt moral reformation and 

 schemes of thrift, insurance, education, and general sanitation will 

 in time remove many of the causes of this distress. But what I urge 

 is that we do not now realize the actual enormity of suffering from 

 poverty, that our methods of finding out are very inadequate, and 

 that our optimism is as cruel as it is unscientific. So long as many 

 influential charity workers are teaching rich and well-to-do people 

 that we are almost at our goal we shall never awaken the public to 

 put forth the necessary effort to cope with the overwhelming evils of 

 extreme need in our industrial centres. 1 



The present efforts of the permanent Census Bureau of the nation, 

 supported by the National Conference of Charities and Correction, 

 by the National Prison Association, and by all experts, to collect 

 continuous and reliable statistics relating to paupers and criminals, 

 should be supported by all citizens. It is to be hoped that funds will 

 be furnished to professors and students in university departments of 

 social science for investigations in this field. 



It might be thought that the elements of welfare in the higher 

 regions of intellectual, esthetic, and moral culture are too refined, 

 indefinite, and ethereal to be standardized. But all countries which 

 have compulsory school attendance, at least up to a certain age, 

 declare thereby that they have adopted a minimum standard of 

 education; and they compel competitive exploitation of youth 



1 One illustration of an attempt to fix a minimum standard may here be given: 

 "Dr. Frankei, of the United Hebrew Charities of New York, in a study of income 

 and expenditure of a family just above the line of dependency, shows the dis- 

 bursements for one month to have been about $32, the receipts from all sources 

 (including $5 from lodgers) during the same period were from $33 to $35." 

 Solomon C. Lowenstein in Jewish Charity, June, 1904, p. 210. See also, Charles 

 Booth, Life and Labor; Rountree, Poverty: a Study of Town Life; E. T. Devine, 

 Principles of Relief. Dr. Devine's book was not yet published when this paper 

 was written. 



