"SCIENTIFIC CHARITY:' 489 



investigation of social questions, we nave lately come to hear of a 

 "new political economy/' and very lately of a "new charity." 

 The former is said to be less " dismal " and the latter more " sci- 

 entific " than their respective progenitors, and it is hoped that a 

 mutual exchange of the surest conclusions and the best methods 

 in each will result in the improvement of both. 



The title of this paper has been put in quotation-marks be- 

 cause it is believed by some that no such thing as "scientific 

 charity" exists, and, when these two words are joined, that either 

 the adjective or the substantive or both must lose all natural sig- 

 nificance. They say that those interested in science and those in- 

 terested in charity have an equal right to complain of the phrase, 

 and that its use is only another instance of the confused thinking 

 that results from a tendency to count our sciences before they are 

 hatched. But right or wrong the term exists, and will serve as 

 well as another to stand for a certain phase of recent charitable 

 work. It has come to be much used by the members of the 

 National Conference of Charities and Correction; and it seems, 

 unlikely that one more profanation of the word "science" cam 

 add much to the exasperation of those who contend for its more 

 restricted application. 



Social pathology is not an attractive study. The failure of the 

 unfit to survive forms the subject of the dreariest chapter in 

 social science. Indeed, it is so entirely dreary that it is seldom 

 written. Those calling themselves scientists have been very will- 

 ing to leave the care of defectives and incapables to the philan- 

 thropists, and equally willing to complain of the latter for alleged 

 bad management. Those interested in the new charity are en- 

 deavoring to devise such methods of work as will make benevo- 

 lence more certainly beneficent, and such methods of investigation 

 as will enable them to give at least an approximate answer to 

 Greville's question, " Whither will philanthropy lead us ? " Cerr 

 tainly in the past it has led to many quagmires, and much has 

 been and still more could be written on the subject of philanthropy 

 as a failure. 



"We can have as many paupers as we will pay for." The 

 truth of this somewhat frequently quoted statement one might 

 possibly reach by a study of his own inner consciousness. Such 

 a study would show, probably, the truth of Emerson's assertion 

 that " men are as lazy as they dare to be," and thence, by deduct- 

 ive reasoning, we might prove the correctness of the conclusion 

 indicated. But the new political economy is inclined to ask that 

 a priori reasoning should be re-enforced by reasoning from ob- 

 served facts. Now, fortunately, the truth we are trying to estab- 

 lish is capable of demonstration by experiment. The apparatus 

 needed is very simple, and consists merely of a pocketful of five- 



VOL. XXXV. — 31* 



