102 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



vice that may not be such, are maintained in the hospitals and 

 infirmaries and magdalen asylums, and whose childi-en aie to be 

 found in the various institutions from the infants' and children's 

 homes till they are ripe for a repetition of the vices and career of 

 their parents. 



The social and economic problems in regard to the poor are neither 

 few nor simple of solution. What is to be done for the honest poor 

 who desire to better their condition 1 and what remedies can be 

 offered to repress the degrading process by which a poor man becomes 

 a pauper"? How, in fact, can the worthy poor be enabled to help 

 themselves, and how can the pauper and the tramp be exterminated 1 

 The task of maintaining the helpless is a very small one compared 

 with the tax to maintain the idle and the undeserving. The rate- 

 payer and the charitable have to suppox't not only themselves but 

 the poor and destitute of every kind, and it is important to them to 

 aid in any eff"ort towards the co-operation and efficiency of our 

 charities. 



Charity comes to be administered within a score or so of institu- 

 tions in cities like Toronto, and so far as indoor relief or assistance 

 is concerned there is not so great a necessity for any organized co- 

 operation. The waste and abuse and imposture is chiefly in regard 

 to outdoor relief, and it is all the more in those cities where no well 

 organized association of chai'ities exist. It is of this organization 

 of nlms-giving that I propose to treat principally in this paper. 



Within the last seven years 36 charity organizations have sprung 

 up in the United States, and it is on the expeiience of the woi-kings 

 of these institutions that I propose to direct your attention. I have 

 preferred relying upon the reports of chai'ities in those cities having 

 so many features in common with our own, and so have not gone 

 into the workings of any other foreign charities. The Monthly 

 Register, of Philadelphia, collects information from all quarters, and 

 is the official journal for a large number of charity organizations. 

 It is obvious that wherever a Poor Law system prevails there would 

 be fewer materials for our guidance in organizations than where no 

 legislation is required for their efiicient working. 



The principles upon which American charity organizations are 

 founded are very simple and very well understood. 



A charity organization does not mean one meie charitable society. 

 " It means," in the language of Mr. Kellogg, the organizing Secre- 



