Social support

“ In their private capacities each and all of the family have been distinguished for their ready and liberal support of measures calculated to improve the moral, social, and religious condition of their fellow-townsmen, and an appeal for support to a deserving object has never been made to them in vain. ”

“ The good of caste, of race, of nation stood first, and that of the individual second. Social welfare was placed before the happiness of the individual. “For the family sacrifice the individual, for the community the family, for the country the community, for the soul all the world.” ”

“ The release of the individual from the cares and anxieties of a state of imperfect protection sets his faculties free to be employed in any new effort for improving his own state and that of others, while the same cause, by attaching him to social existence, and making him no longer see present or prospective enemies in his fellow creatures, fosters all those feelings of kindness and fellowship towards others, and interest in the general well-being of the community, which are such important parts of social improvement. ”

“ That alike for public welfare and private welfare sympathy is essential we have seen. We have seen that co-operation and the benefits which it brings to each and all, become high in proportion as the altruistic, that is the sympathetic, interests extend. The actions prompted by fellow-feeling are thus to be counted among those demanded by social conditions. They are actions which maintenance and further development of social organization tend ever to increase, and, therefore, actions with which there will be joined an increasing pleasure. ”

“ It is within our local communities that the real contribution to the welfare of our citizens is made. Those closest to the problem-the social workers in State and local governments, area agencies, and private and voluntary organizations-are usually the most qualified persons to decide what help is needed and the best way to provide it. ”

“ Can political independence ever become subordinate to social welfare? Are there any spiritual bonds that can hold more strongly than national ambitions and national pride? Such questions as these carry the student of society into a wider range of corporate life than the average man enters, but a range of life in which the welfare of every individual is involved.
315. The Significance of National Life.—The nation is a group of persons, families, and communities united for mutual protection and the promotion of the general welfare, and recognizing a sovereign power that controls them all. ”

“ I dare say that you have received a correct impression of our establishment from the article in the Tribune. We are laboring with cheerfulness and hope, in the midst of great obstacles, for the organization of society and the benefit of man. Whoever wishes to join us must be willing to make great sacrifices; to endure severe toil patiently; to live in comparative poverty; to suffer many deprivations for the sake of realizing justice and charity in the social state.
We are at present on a small scale, but we are making arrangements to enlarge our number and our branches of industry. ”

“ I promise to further social welfare; to promote the idea that prosperity consists essentially in persons and only incidentally in things; to be true to this faith in public and in private, in work and in play ”

“ At the same level of importance is the need to establish a viable unity of economic, cultural, and psychological significance, a framework, sanctioned by religious and political entities, for carrying out obligations significant to the community. These, and a number of additional elements, such as morality based on the pragmatics of health, inter-generational exchange of information and aid, social functions ensuring survival and continuity through cooperation and understanding with other families, are tightly connected. ”

“ In such a society individuals and communities at all levels will be schooled and experienced in self-discipline and prepared to follow conduct patterns that emphasize the principle: live and help others to live to the fullest and the utmost.
Beyond civilization lies the recognition and practice of the principle that the welfare of the whole takes precedence over the demands of any of its parts. At the same time, each part or segment of the social whole has specific rights that the directors of the whole are bound to recognize, respect, defend and implement. ”

“ No doubt, too, most of my occupation with myself—in sleep, food, exercise, study—is a necessary preparation for social service. All I am urging is that social service cannot stand alone. It requires a large individualistic background. ”

“ The obligations on the part of the community extend to the provision of employment, mental and physical health care, social security, fair wages, rest and recreation, and a host of other reasonable expectations on the part of the individual members of society. ”

“ Our Society must help them—our Society, guided by wise rules as to what not to do, can introduce, as the children say, Mr. Too-Much to Miss Too-Little; it can be the ‘Helpful Society,’ helping the man stifled with too much; helping the man starving with too little; helping the idler whose true nature is literally ‘dying for something to do’; helping the worker who seeks the grave gladly from fatigue; helping the lonely man to find his place in the crowd, and the crowd-tired man to opportunities of solitude ”

“ It is this: that the particulars of conduct in which the moral advancement of the human race is most obvious and indisputable are exactly and entirely those which we have seen to be incident to the direct relations of human fellowship, and that the qualities developed are entirely those which appertain to that relationship, having their root in benevolence and justice alone. On the one hand, charities, friendships, institutions of kindly helpfulness, and all generous, gentle amenities of social intercourse ”

“ Let them reflect how intimately the instinct of which I treat is connected with the social welfare of society. Let them bear in mind, that just in proportion to its social influence, is it important that we should know how to control and govern it; that, when we obtain such control, we may save ourselves—and, what we ought to prize much more highly, may save our companions and our offspring, from suffering or misery; that by such knowledge, the young may form virtuous connexions, instead of becoming profligates or ascetics ”

“ And men are beginning to see that, the more fixedly society is organised, the more indispensable will248 be the co-operation between all its parts, if the social organism is really to fulfil its purpose, the welfare of all; they see that the new forms both of State help and self-help, which are now being sought after with increasing consciousness of purpose, cannot be adjusted to actual needs unless woman is able to co-operate with man in every department and take part in the legislation which is to decide the welfare of herself and of her child. ”

“ Coöperation and solidarity of effort are needed on the part of the multitude of workers engaged in social work for the community—official and non-official; and in bringing this about the physician of the early future will, I am confident, take a leading part. ”

“ Use of wealth individual.—It is necessary to realize that the social organization is maintained solely for the sake of individuals. All study of welfare and illfare is a study of individual human beings. The mutual relations of these human beings in society are means to individual life, growth and enjoyment. Even the total power of a generation in society is dependent upon how the individual wants of individual members of that society are met. ”

“ Since, then, the welfare of the body social depends mainly on the relative smallness of Classes D and E, the selfish and the noxious, it follows that an important, if not the chief, duty to society, for all who really and reasoningly desire the well-being and progress of the community, is so to regulate their conduct as to cause these classes to become relatively smaller and smaller. ”

“ Human Welfare and the Social Question.—This is the first of a series of articles on the psychology of industry. I. Individual welfare in general. In one sense, "everyone is the forger of his own welfare." If we understand wherein another's welfare consists, we cannot give him the qualities necessary for the appreciation of it. On the other hand, no one is complete master of his welfare. We are the sport of circumstances, of our abilities, experience, and education. But though the happiness of an individual life cannot be determined, its general conditions can be fixed. ”

“ Sanctioned by law, by the custom of long tradition, by economic and social valuations, the home calls for personal devotion of will and purpose from every individual for the welfare of the group of which he is a privileged member. ”

“ The question whether voluntary charity is mischievous or not is one thing; the question whether legislation which forces one man to aid another is right and wise, as well as economically beneficial, is quite another question. ”

“ It is only through participation in social life that the highest individual development is possible, and it is true that “he who loseth his life” for the good of the group “shall find it.” There is, then, no opposition [3] between that view of education which declares that the welfare of society is of paramount importance, and that which demands individual well-being. ”

“ To this we reply again, in an earnest fixed resolution to promote, in the first place, the best social and domestic interests of the people, to improve their condition, to stock their minds with, useful and appropriate knowledge, to see that they shall be taught what a sense of decent comfort means, that they shall not rest satisfied with a wad of straw for a bed, and a meal of potatoes for food, and that they shall, besides, come to understand the importance of their own position as members of civil society. ”

“ So long as they are co-operating, their ends are identified with those of others; there is at least a temporary feeling that the interests of others are their own interests. Not only does all strengthening of social ties, and all healthy growth of society, give to each individual a stronger personal interest in practically consulting the welfare of others ”

“ These visitors have the advantage of bringing their spontaneous sympathy to bear upon the specific instances that come to their personal attention, whereas the officials of the charity organization society inevitably become more callous to suffering and tend to look upon each family as a case to be pigeonholed or scientifically treated, but the conviction is growing, nevertheless, that the situation can be effectively handled only by men and women who are genuinely experts, trained in the social settlements or in the schools of philanthropy. ”

“ In the first place, leaving individuals to the operation of the common motives, we may labor at the social institutions, to adjust them to the rule, that, each seeking his own, after the common apprehension of present interests, may do so consistently with acting the part of a good citizen—contributing something to the general welfare ”

“ The common welfare urgently demands a return to him from whom we should never have gone astray; to him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life,—and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole. ”

“ But whereas in earlier years our social welfare program was taken cynically as synonymous with hopelessness and failure, today it is looked on by a con­siderable segment of our people as the promise of a new life. ”

“ It is necessary, then, to analyze this aim of social efficiency in terms of our society. The equality of opportunity which we profess to offer is to be thought of in terms of possible service which may be rendered.
In any community the contribution to the general welfare which may be made by any one of its members is conditioned by the interests which the individual has in the general good. The unsocial individual, the one who seldom responds to the needs of the group, is out of sympathy with social problems, and contributes little to social welfare. ”

“ Under advancement by the State we understand the duty of the whole community to step in with its means wherever the welfare of the individual does not suffice to obtain him a life worthy of a human being. ”

“ Community Responsibility Finally social workers have come to the conclusion, many of them, that in most cases these are not private problems at all but socio-economic ones for which the social system, through government, is responsible. ”

“ The cause of Social Service arouses that moral enthusiasm which cannot be bought and cannot be resisted, and which carries in itself the pledge of victory. The terrible magnitude and urgency of the evils with which we have to cope cannot be overstated. ”

“ But as social knowledge ripens, as acquaintance with the means of securing the general well-being increases, so we may hope that the difficulties attending the reformation of evil habits will lessen; and p. 27although we may not hope to see established a condition of houses, of streets, of towns, of food and drink, of labour, and of all those conditions which would render human life and surroundings ideally perfect, yet continuous efforts must be made to realise for the community such moral and physical surroundings as shall conduce to their welfare in the highest possible degree. ”

“ By some such plans relief could be afforded to all who belong to what may be called the lowest class; for the assistance of those who could be helped by tools, emigration, or money, the great Friendly Societies, the Society for Relief of Distress, and the Charity Organisation Society might act in conjunction. These societies are unsectarian, are already organised, and may be developed in power and tenderness to any extent by the addition of members and visitors. ”