Charity worker

“ Though the foregoing six relief principles could easily be extended to twenty, yet a {163} bookful of such generalizations would be of no value to the almoner without a detailed knowledge of the neighborhood into which relief is to go, and an intimate acquaintance with the lives of the poor. It is evident, therefore, that a beginner in charity should not decide relief questions except in consultation with an experienced worker. ”

“ On the other hand, there is a large class of charity workers who concern themselves with the children only, and a strongly marked tendency of modern charity is to treat the children of the poor quite apart from and without any relation to their home life. ”

“ Work that is real work is better, of course, than any relief; but there should be a prejudice among charity workers against sham work, for which there is no demand in the market. Unless such work is educational, or is used to test the applicant's willingness to work, it is often better to give material relief. ”

“ By adequate relief charity workers do not mean that all apparent needs should be met. There are often resources that are hidden from the inexperienced eye, and by ignoring these we destroy them.
The fourth relief principle is that, instead of trying to give a little to very many, we should help adequately those that we help at all. ”

“ Owing to the financial situation within organized charity, the inquiries into efficiency in relief, and the criticism of almsgiving, charity workers have sought to alleviate distressing 236conditions by suggesting other means of reform than monetary help. In their own defense they have had to do this, but they have learned by experience that mere monetary relief may sometimes keep a family or an individual under their care in perpetuity. Not being able to secure funds to assist all cases indiscriminately, even had they wished, charity workers began to ask why relief was needed in each case. ”

“ These agents are often in communication with {165} many sources of relief, and can save us from duplicating relief to the same persons—from sending it, that is, where others are meeting the same need already. There are many reasons, therefore, for doing our charitable work in consultation with an experienced almoner, and friendly visiting, where it has failed, has usually failed through the visitor's unwarranted assumption that the giving of material relief was a simple and easy matter, about which charity workers made an unnecessary lot of trouble. ”

“ Moreover, public relief comes from what is regarded as a practically inexhaustible source, and people who once receive it are likely to regard it as a right, as a permanent pension, implying no obligation on their part. Even where it is well and honestly administered, as in Boston, the most experienced charity workers regard it as a source of demoralization both to the poor {152} and the charitable. No public agency can supply the devoted, friendly, and intensely personal relation so necessary in charity. ”

“ It is true they might no doubt have applied to the workhouse; but do we never read also of refusals to relieve, and coarse rejection of the destitute when they do apply for parish relief? And when relief is bestowed, is it not too often with the hard hand of necessity, not of brotherly love and charity? "Relief is flung to the poor by law, not given in love," was the remark once made of our system of public charity. And this seems the more remarkable, when we find no other country so prominent for its endless forms of charity. ”

“ Now the charitable development of the individual follows the development of the race; the individual outgrows slowly, if at all, the sentimental and patronizing view of poverty. To carry church members beyond this phase and make them effective workers, genuine powers of leadership are needed, and it is much easier to let them follow their own devices. We have seen in the last chapter that relief work, if well done, is the most difficult of all charitable work, but nine inexperienced workers out of every ten will think it the best and easiest means of helping the poor—the only means, in fact. ”

“ This is certain in regard to these people—that they are abundantly able to support themselves. If your organization has made any mistake, it has been that you felt at first too little confident of that, and assumed that they must be helped by donations in charity. Undoubtedly there was, for a while, much destitution, and your relief was most timely; but the generosity of the supply encouraged a feeling that they could live without labor, which has been one of the great difficulties to overcome. They certainly need help no longer. ”

“ But the history of many volunteers in charity is that, starting out with excellent intentions, they were tempted to give relief to the families they visited. First it was clothing for the children, then the rent, then groceries, then more clothing, and the family's needs, strange to say, seemed to increase, until, finding their suggestions unheeded, and {144} the people no better off, the volunteers deserted their post, and, still worse, carried away a false, distorted idea of what poor people are like. The poor, too, learn to distrust a charitable interest that is not continuous. ”

“ There is, however, a flaw to be found in the underlying principles of this welfare work as introduced in Transitory Management, and that is that it takes on more or less the aspect of a charity, and is so regarded both by the employés and by the employer. The employer, naturally, prides himself more or less upon doing something which is good, and the employé naturally resents more or less having something given to him as a sort of charity which he feels his by right. ”

“ I have no patience with professional charity, or with any sort of commercialized humanitarianism. The moment human helpfulness is systematized, organized, commercialized, and professionalized, the heart of it is extinguished, and it becomes a cold and clammy thing. ”

“ Conversation, newspapers, conferences, all bear witness how very generally it is now recognized that something ought to be done to improve our system of charitable relief, some co-operation secured between Poor-Law and charity, and some efficient means adopted to render alms less pauperizing than they have hitherto been. It is becoming clear to the public that there is a right and a wrong, a wise and an unwise charity. ”

“ These, like charities which provide work, tend to attract and keep in employment a low class of labourer or workman, who finds it pays him to use the institution as a convenience. It is best, therefore, to avoid the opening of a labour yard if possible. ”

“ Apart from the evils we have briefly referred to, there is a loss to the whole community in the lessened moral sense which State institutions create. The voluntary charities afford an opening for the encouragement and expression of the best of all human feelings,—sympathy between man and man. They give to the rich an opening for the display of consideration toward the poor which is fruitful in results. They create a feeling of widespread sympathy with those who suffer and impress on the population the duty of almsgiving to an extent which no other charity can do. ”

“ The sick, the aged, and the orphan would be the only objects of charity. In this view of the case, the primary effort in relieving the poor should be to furnish them the means of earning their own support, and to supply them with those moral influences which are most effectual in securing virtue and industry. ”

“ In these circumstances the standard of well-being falls below the standard of wage; the wage is in excess of the energy and intelligence necessary to its economic use, and in these cases ultimately pauperism often ensues. The family is demoralized. Thus, with a view to the prevention of distress in good times, when there is the less poverty there is the more need of charity, rightly understood; for charity would strive to promote the right use of wage, as the best means of preventing distress and preserving the economic well-being of the family. ”

“ To supply every needy family with a friend may seem an impossible ideal, but if all who are undoing each other's work to-day by doing it twice over, and if all who now waste their time in unnecessary charities, were seriously to put themselves in training, and confine their work to the thorough treatment of a few families, the problem of how to help the poor would be solved. ”

“ Not only the sick, the maimed, and the accidentally necessitous were fed and clothed,—the same indiscriminating charity was extended to those far less worthy of the sympathy of their fellow-creatures. ”

“ If I might be so bold as to make a single recommendation, in reference to this unhappy population under their present calamitous circumstances, it would be that of the most immediate promotion of honest industry; that at the earliest moment labor be made to walk hand in hand, and step by step with charity, and, wherever it is possible, to precede the charity that gives without return ”

“ Although there are hospitals, homes, and public charities in every city, still there are not only numerous beggars, but blind, maimed, and distressed persons—real objects of charity—seeking aid from the more fortunate members of society. ”

“ The support of the poor has now become a social rather than a personal obligation. It has been converted from a pious duty into a State practice. The religious element, in spite of the influence of the Church, has much diminished. Charity still covers some of our sins, but not the multitude it was wont to envelop. Souls are no longer saved by a distribution of loaves and blankets, or weekly doles to the poor. The element of personal service, which was once thought essential, has also faded into comparative insignificance. Charity may be done by deputy, by a stroke of the pen. ”

“ The poor should be given work, and justly paid for it, instead of being supported by charity. The charity that had fostered indolence in its mistaken efforts to do good, should be employed to train poverty to skillful labor and economy in living. ”

“ The poor man is often able to do the very best charitable work, acting, with a full knowledge of the circumstances, with quick sympathy, and entire unselfishness. On the other hand, when considerations of public welfare, or conditions outside his personal experience complicate the situation, his charity is sometimes reckless and harmful. ”

“ There are more orphan children being cared for in the private homes of people who love them than in the institutions. There are more old people being sheltered by friends than you can find in the old people's homes. There is more aid by loans from family to family than by the loan societies. That is, human society on a humane basis looks out for itself. It is a grave question how far we ought to countenance the commercialization of the natural instinct of charity.
Professional charity is not only cold but it hurts more than it helps. ”

“ Our plans must not ignore the family resources for self-help. The best charity work develops these resources. If outside help is needed, it should be made conditional upon renewed efforts at work or in school, upon willingness to receive training, upon cleanliness, or upon some other development within the family that will aid in their uplifting. All this is suggested, not with a view to making the conditions of relief difficult, but with a view to using relief as a lever ”

“ Also trained workers make the most useful poor-law guardians, trustees of charities, secretaries of charitable societies and district visitors. All clergy and ministers and all medical men who have to be engaged in the administration of medical relief should learn the art of charity. Poor-law guardians are usually elected on political or general grounds, and have no special knowledge of good methods of charity ”

“ Ought not charitable people to manage in some way to remedy these two opposite evils?—to do more for those who should have more, and to do nothing for those who should have nothing, saving money by discriminating, and thus having enough to give adequate relief in all cases. ”

“ But, as concerns interstate emigration, and the migration from country to city, charity should not be so helpless. It is within our power to refuse, by charitable aid, to settle the man who cannot settle himself in a community where he does not belong. It is often doing other workers a wrong to establish him and find work for him where he has no claim. ”

“ Such "social work" creates a strained relation--the recipient of bounty feels that he has been belittled in the taking, and it is a question whether the giver should not also feel that he has been belittled in the giving. Charity never led to a settled state of affairs. The charitable system that does not aim to make itself unnecessary is not performing service. ”

“ As to the present day, we have to consider practical suggestions in regard to such subjects as charity and economic thought, charity organization, friendly visiting and almonership, co-operation with the poor-law, charity and thrift, parochial management, hospitals and medical relief, exceptional distress and the “unemployed,” the utilization of endowments and their supervision, and their adaptation to new needs and emergencies. ”

“ It is easy to see that one of the root difficulties in the charitable relationship lies in the fact that the only families who apply for aid to the charitable agencies are those who have come to grief on the industrial side ”

“ Many earnest workers in charity feel that social conditions could be wonderfully improved if, to every family in distress, could {13} be sent a volunteer visitor, who would seek out and, with patience and sympathy, strive to remove the causes of need. Such a visitor must have the courage and self-control to confine his work to a few families, for it is impossible to know many well, to understand all their temptations and difficulties, and so help them effectively. ”