CHARITY ORGANIZATION". 



135 



Union Theological Seminary of New York 

 have included some of the literature of chari- 

 ties in their courses of reading. A digest of 

 practical suggestions for treatment of various 

 forms of distress and misfortune has recently 

 been prepared by the central committee of the 

 New York society and sent to every charity 

 organization society in the United States and 

 Great Britain for suggestion and amendment, 

 in the hope thus to supply the English-speak- 

 ing world with u a code that shall be at least 

 the basis of a benign, intelligent, and helpful 

 system of charitable therapeutics." A body 

 of legal suggestions has been prepared by law- 

 yers of ability and published in a hand-book 

 for friendly visitors. The district conferences 

 are also a valuable means of practical educa- 

 tion. 



The mere existence of charity organization 

 is an education of the public in true philan- 

 thropy. Charity without alms was a surprise. 

 The proof that it could exist was a powerful 

 means of educating public opinion and tends 

 to reconcile class with class. 

 . The constructive work of charity organiza- 

 tion is chiefly in education of the poor. There 

 is nothing in the system to encourage in the 

 poor a distaste to earning a living. It con- 

 tinually builds up a sense of the honorable na- 

 ture of labor and of the dishonor of accepting 

 unnecessary alms. Association with the friend- 

 ly visitor raises the standard of ideas of com- 

 fort and dignity, and gives new courage, hope, 

 and strength of character, while the visitor 

 also imparts direct instruction in thrift, neat- 

 Mess, and the care of children. Technical edu- 

 cation is given by some societies. Two have 

 kitchen -gardens, two have cooking-schools. 

 five have sewing-schools. Other educational 

 methods are a night-school for boys in Buffalo 

 and a girls' club and reading-room in New 

 Brunswick, N. J. The various provident 

 schemes are an education in self-denial, fru- 

 gality, and forethought. 



Provident Schemes. Indianapolis has a Dime 

 Savings and Loan Association, with 166 de- 

 positors holding 456 shares of $25 each. Xew- 

 bnrg and Castloton (Staten Island), X. Y., and 

 Newport, R. I., have savings societies, the lat- 

 ter admirably successful and peculiarly needed 

 from the anomalous nature of social conditions 

 there. Five cities have coal savings societies, 

 and Philadelphia has a well-managed loan re- 

 lief. The office is in the building of a manu- 

 facturer, and all appearance of charity is thus 

 removed. Security is insisted upon, and a 

 special feature is that, when possible, it is the 

 personal guarantee of a friend in the borrow- 

 er's own circle, who thus has a personal inter- 

 est in his sobriety and industry. All legal 

 forms are carefully insisted upon and regular 

 payments enforced. The educational value of 

 this system has been found very great. Xew 

 York has just inaugurated with good promise a 

 system of stamps for penny savincs. 



Friendly Visitors. As a collation of the fig- 



ures of the various societies shows that the 

 ratio of cases lifted from dependence to self- 

 support is in direct proportion to the number 

 of friendly visitors employed, the supreme im- 

 portance of this branch of the work becomes 

 evident. The total number reported last year 

 from 34 societies, representing 65 per cent, of 

 the whole number, and 88 per cent, of the 

 population in their fields of work, was 3,560, 

 or about one for 2,292 of the estimated pau- 

 pers in these fields. Of the actual cases treat- 

 ed, this number of visitors is as 1 to 164 fami- 

 lies. To provide uniformly at the rate of 1 to 5 

 families, the rate actually existing in Boston, 

 103,750 would be needed, or 1 volunteer work- 

 er out of every 16 families of the 52 cities un- 

 der consideration. New York has 180 volun- 

 teer visitors. Among the friendly visitors of 

 Boston are 40 college- students. 



Legislation. Besides the regular business of 

 investigation, registration, visiting, exposure of 

 frauds, direction of charitable effort, promotion 

 of co-operation, and education, much effort 

 has been given to both preventive and con- 

 structive work in the way of procuring a bet- 

 ter legislation. The first, and in many respects 

 the most important law procured by chanty 

 organization was that secured in Xew Haven 

 in 1880, regulating the sale and use of intoxi- 

 cating liquors, which is still the best in force 

 in the country. In 1883, through its efforts, 

 Massachusetts passed a law for bringing chil- 

 dren of worthless parents before the courts 

 and giving them into proper guardianship. In 

 1886, charity organization in various cities me- 

 morialized Congress in favor of postal savings- 

 banks. The memorial was unfavorably report- 

 ed, but the effort is laid aside temporarily only. 

 In 1887, Boston, after three years of continuous 

 effort, succeeded in getting a law prohibiting 

 begging and peddling by children. In 1886, 

 the Committee on Mendicancy of New York 

 procured amendments to the State penal code 

 to include stale beer dives in the category of 

 disorderly houses. It also, in 1887, secured 

 legislation which passed both Houses unani- 

 mously, defining more clearly who are va- 

 grants, lengthening the terms of commitment 

 with a view to a more reformatory discipline, 

 and making more futile the pretexts by which 

 professional beggars legalize their traffic ; but 

 Gov. Hill withheld his signature. It also at- 

 tempted, in connection with charity organiza- 

 tion in other cities and with the S'tate Chari- 

 ties Aid Association, to procure postal savings- 

 banks, but without success. They secured a 

 bill for municipal lodging-houses, but it has 

 remained a dead letter, the Board of Esti- 

 mate and Appropriation persistently refusing 

 the $23,000 asked for by the city. In October, 

 1888, a special committee of charity organiza- 

 tion was appointed to take it up. In 1886 the 

 Charity Organization Society of Xew Haven 

 procured a local ordinance suppressing low 

 variety theatres. In 1887 a bill was secured 

 in Pennsylvania providing a system of way- 



