"SCIENTIFIC CHARITY:' 493 



read and write, that 49 others could read but not write, and that 

 only 339, or twenty-four per cent, were wholly illiterate. 



It will be seen from the foregoing examples that the field of 

 investigation upon which the charity organizationists have entered 

 is a large and important one. A good deal might be said in the 

 way of criticism, especially of the analysis of the causes of pov- 

 erty, but it is rather the purpose of this paper to describe than to 

 criticise. The facts it is aimed to accumulate are of a character 

 that could not be got by public officials without very great expense, 

 since they take account of the cases of many dependants whose 

 names never appear on the records of public poor-relief. 



Besides the statistics, which all the societies will work together 

 to accumulate, different societies have undertaken elaborate spe- 

 cial investigations into the heredity of pauperism and similar 

 topics. Oscar C. McCulloch, at the last National Conference, read 

 a paper entitled "The Children of Ishmael: a Study in Social 

 Degradation/' which was based upon such an investigation made 

 by the society in Indianapolis. It gave the hideous story of thirty 

 interrelated families, embracing two hundred and seventy persons, 

 nearly all of whom belong to the pauper and criminal classes, as 

 did their ancestors before them. The study resembles that which 

 Dugdale made of the Juke family, by which it was suggested ; 

 but it embraces a larger number of families formerly distinct. 



The workers in the new charity are active propagandists. 

 They insist continually upon the evils of indiscriminate giving. 

 They assail the public authorities with facts and figures, and the 

 churches with biblical quotations. They assure the latter that 

 bread indiscriminately given is cast not " upon the waters," but 

 into the bottomless pit — that it is " the bread by which men die." 

 They establish in each city an office to serve as a clearing-house 

 of charities, and so endeavor to prevent the overlapping of the 

 relief given by different agencies. Their general view of the situa- 

 tion enables them to devise new and needed forms of benevolence, 

 and to ascertain what additional legislation can be really helpful. 



It is very satisfactory when the conclusions of one set of think- 

 ers coincide with the conclusions of others who have approached 

 the same subject from a different standpoint. When, therefore, 

 the philanthropist, trying to think and work in accordance with 

 the principles of enlightened self-sacrifice, finds himself agreeing 

 in theory and practice with the economist whose guiding star has 

 been " enlightened self-interest/' there is reason to congratulate 

 them both. In speaking in this manner, we of course ignore the 

 philosophical subtlety by which it is said to be proved that all 

 our actions must necessarily have their origin in motives of self- 

 interest. Assuming the proof of this to be perfect, it is yet to be 

 said that the different forms in which self-interest manifests itself 



