96 Civic Helpfulness 



There remain the host of philanthropic workers 

 who can not be classed in any of the above-men 

 tioned classes. They do most good when they are 

 in touch with some organization, although, in addi 

 tion, the strongest will keep some of their leisure 

 time for work on individual lines to meet the cases 

 where no organized relief will accomplish anything. 

 Philanthropy has undoubtedly been a good deal dis- 

 discredited both by the exceedingly noxious individ 

 uals who go into it with ostentation to make a repu 

 tation, and by the only less noxious persons who are 

 foolish and indiscriminate givers. Anything that 

 encourages pauperism, anything that relaxes the 

 manly fibre and lowers self-respect, is an unmixed 

 evil. The soup-kitchen style of philanthropy is as 

 thoroughly demoralizing as most forms of vice or 

 oppression, and it is of course particularly revolting 

 when some corporation or private individual under 

 takes it, not even in a spirit of foolish charity, but 

 for purposes of self-advertisement. In a time of 

 sudden and widespread disaster, caused by a flood, 

 a blizzard, an earthquake, or an epidemic, there 

 may be ample reason for the extension of charity on 

 the largest scale to every one who needs it. But 

 these conditions are wholly exceptional, and the 

 methods of relief employed to meet them must also 

 be treated as wholly exceptional. In charity the one 

 thing always to be remembered is that, while any 



