Civic Helpfulness 87 



especially prepared. In connection with his work, 

 one of the things that was especially pleasing was the 

 way in which he had gone in not only with the rest 

 of the Protestant clergy and the non-sectarian phil 

 anthropic workers of the district, but with the Cath 

 olic clergy, joining hands in the fight against the 

 seething evils of the slum. One of his Catholic al 

 lies, by the way, a certain Brother A , was doing 



an immense amount for the Italian children of his 

 parish. He had a large parochial school, originally 

 attended by the children of Irish parents. Gradu 

 ally the Irish had moved uptown, and had been 

 supplanted by the Italians. It was his life-work to 

 lift these little Italians over the first painful steps 

 on the road toward American citizenship. 



Again, let me call to mind an institution, not in 

 New York, but in Albany, where the sisters of a re 

 ligious organization devote their entire lives to help 

 ing girls who either have slipped, and would go 

 down to be trampled under foot in the blackest mire 

 if they were not helped, or who, by force of their 

 surroundings, would surely slip if the hand were not 

 held out to them in time. It is the kind of work the 

 doing of which is of infinite importance both from 

 the standpoint of the state and from the standpoint 

 of the individual ; yet it is a work which, to be suc 

 cessful, must emphatically be a labor of love. Most 

 men and women, even among those who appreciate 



