46 CHARLES RICHMOND HENDERSON 



administration is that which reduces the material relief, and 

 increases the capacity for self support; which tends to re- 

 store sound social relations, and hft the decaying parasite 

 into independence and manliness. This view of outdoor relief 

 is exacting, and calls for a high order of abihty and a large 

 number of friendly visitors. 



Surveying the actual practice in American cities, we dis- 

 cover that every one of these principles is constantly and fla- 

 grantly violated. The inquiry for causes is pronounced heart- 

 less. The friendly visitor is declared to be a cruel and imper- 

 tinent meddler, who would substitute good advice for food and 

 warmth. The attempt to bring order and bookkeeping into 

 the chaos of almsgiving is condemned as red tape and pre- 

 sumption. Fortunate is the really thorough charity worker 

 if he escapes the epithet of anarchist or communist because 

 he discovers that individual and voluntary efforts are impotent 

 in the presence of colossal misery, and because he invokes 

 the cooperation of the entire community and the supreme 

 power of the government. 



There are reasons for the slow rate of approximation of 

 social practice to scientific demands. The pubhc finds the 

 consideration of defects disagreeable and painful. It is pleas- 

 ant to think of education, art, industry, and literature; but 

 criminals are odious and idiots repulsive in common thought. 

 Our natural repugnance for defectives tends to awaken 

 contempt. Genius is demanded to discover the essentials 

 of divine personahty in obscure intelligence and distorted 

 nature. Comparatively few persons visit jails, prisons, and 

 poorhouses, and most of these who do look about the abodes 

 of misery with morbid curiosity alone, for they have no train- 

 ing in observation and no criteria of judgment. They simply 

 disturb the discipHne. It requires previous preparation and 

 skillful guidance to derive benefit from examinations of this 

 kind. Entrance is only too easily secured, in the case of public 

 institutions in America; for an aimless ramble of sightseers, 

 without knowledge or serious purpose, is positively harmful. 

 Our system of outdoor rehef, both pubhc and private, 

 unlike the German municipal system,which provides as visitors 

 a large corps of capable men who serve without salary, erects 



